Stuck
Jim is a software engineer at a tech company. He is married to Annie. He works hard in a high-stress job, his boss often drilling him about products and performance. At home, Annie confronts him daily with accusations of him not being present or showing up. The expectations are high, and the pressure is mounting.
Driving home one night, Jim had a mild panic attack. The thought of another night of hard discussions with his wife after the day he had, weighed heavy on him.
How did his life get to this point?
Three years earlier they laid on the beach planning how they would work as a team to create their dreams. Memories of the sun setting while feeling the warm offshore breeze brought joy to Jim. Immediately the joy turned into despair. How did such a beautiful dream turn into a nightmare?
Jim loves Annie. He pursued her, unlike any other woman. She was different and had a love for life that Jim craved. He didn’t give up. He kept flirting with her and asking her out until she finally gave in.
Annie fell in love with Jim’s commitment to have a life that was more than what they saw others doing. Jim wanted to make a difference in the world. That was the key that unlocked Annie’s heart.
Tonight, Jim felt that key was thrown away and her heart was locked up tight.
The love they had seemed to be replaced with fights, and this regression tore Jim’s exhausted heart apart. He listened to Annie’s growing frustration. He expressed his. He even did what he said he would never do; he read self-help books that Annie suggested.
Still, the drive home was escalating Jim’s angst. Walking into his condo, he knew it meant walking into a night of arguments. He was trapped between what he wanted and the relationship he had. The outlook for their future appeared dire.
A Shift
According to a 2014 millennial health survey, 42% percent of men between the age of 18 and 32, believe therapy is an essential part of wellness. Relationship-oriented services, such as counseling, therapy, and relationship coaching, is now a $14 billion sector of the economy.
Men realize that if the purpose of their lives and their relationships are to bring joy, they need to develop skills they never were taught. Improving emotional skills is no different than improving your golf game. You get lessons, so you don’t keep making the same mistakes.
Demands
As expected, Jim was greeted with disappointment when he walked in the door. Annie’s first words were, “You are late.” It was an arrow to his heart that he could no longer duck. Even though he knew it was coming, it surprised Jim how much it hurt.
Exhausted and amped up from work, Jim’s knee-jerk response was his retort, “I told you I might be late. I had to finish my project before leaving. I need to get this project back on track. You don’t understand how important this is.”
Like a tennis pro returning a serve, Annie responded before Jim could catch his breath, “You could have called.”
Jim responds without thought, “I told you I might be late.”
The argument escalates with aggressive questions and accusations. Whatever he says, is countered by Annie’s attack. It is grueling, draining, and utterly exhausting.
Annie drives her case home with a demand for Jim to see a therapist.
Resist
Jim knew that Annie was building to something, and there was the blow. Seeing a therapist was the last thing that Jim wanted. He just wanted to rewind and go back to the beach with the sunset full of hopes and dreams.
The assignment of therapy felt like punishment for failing at all he was trying to do. How could he expect to talk to a therapist when speaking to his wife was a failure? The fear of sitting in a therapist’s office shifted Jim’s anger back to panic.
He looked at Annie frozen in her convictions, returning her icy stare with speechless tension. His body was motionless, but his mind was reeling. He wondered what would happen when therapy failed? What would become of them?
Men Are Different
A man’s emotionality, vulnerability, and sensitivity, are different than a woman’s. As men, we have next to no training on how to feel and express as a man.
We hear encouragement to be vulnerable, sensitive, or emotional in ways that mimic a female version. Some part of us resists, because expressing emotions in the same way that women do just doesn’t feel natural. Women and men are just different, and that is the reality.
Leap
After a few hours of ‘heated discussions,’ Jim goes to bed in the guest bedroom. Head spinning, Jim lies down to fall asleep only able to think he and his marriage is doomed. All his hard work, love and dreams were not enough to keep them together.
That night Jim’s sleep was haunted with the dreams of the past and the nightmares of the future. He woke with an emotional hangover that rivaled any drinking binge hangover he had ever had.
Getting ready for work was tough. He had no energy or desire to go to work. The only solace was that it was an escape from more demands from Annie.
On his drive to work, Jim reflected on the past love he felt for Annie. He recalls promising her he would never leave, no matter what. He vowed to do whatever it took to succeed in their marriage. Annie didn’t need to bring that promise up, it was front and center in Jim’s consciousness.
Passing a billboard of a mother holding a baby, Jim started to cry. The unexpected photo was an arrow of love to his broken heart. Immediately he remembered their conversations about having a baby. That excitement had been replaced by emotional exhaustion, but it was still in there somewhere. This couldn’t be it.
He had to step up. He had nothing to lose. His marriage was about to disintegrate into ashes.
In Trouble
Let’s be honest – as men, we don’t do things for ourselves. Left to ourselves, we probably won’t go to the doctor to get that mole checked out, and we most likely won’t see someone to help us with learning to connect unless our partner pushes us.
We are often motivated by someone else, or if the pain gets severe. Often a man’s wife will tell him to open up and share his feelings. He can open up and express his anger, but that’s about it.
Often when asked why he is seeking help, his response is that his wife sent him. She might have suggested it because she is concerned, or because she’s ready to end the marriage. Either way, his experience may be quite different than hers. He may think things are fine. He may truly believe they are much better than what his wife describes.
When asked about his connection and intimacy, he will admit it has deteriorated. He will also feel that working on his emotional connection skills is really a service for his wife.
Discovery
When he gets to work, Jim is met with an email from his old college friend. Andy invited Jim to join him at a men’s training he was planning to attend. Jim found himself smirking as he thought, “Sure, the last thing I need now is a men’s training.”
Through the morning he kept finding his mind drift back to Andy’s invite. His sarcasm slowly shifted into curiosity. Men’s Training?
Coming back from lunch, the first thing Jim did was to click on the link for the training. His skepticism started to give way to intrigue. In fact, it really struck a chord with Jim. He was shocked by the similar experiences he was reading.
The idea that the problem is not men, women or even our relationships, but the models we were given, was the first hope Jim felt in weeks.
Maybe, there is a way out of my relationship malaise.
Not wanting to get too hopeful, he didn’t tell Annie he was going to a men’s training. He told her that he was going to visit Andy on the weekend she was planning to go skiing with her friends.
He certainly felt apprehension as he embarked on the drive to the training. But mixed with Jim’s fear of what was going to happen was hope. Who knows, maybe something magical would happen.
The day started with every man checking in with what he felt. Jim realized that he wasn’t alone in his struggles. Other men were also spinning out in their relationships. He began to relax.
When it was his turn to speak, he felt something take over his body. All his rehearsed words were replaced by words he didn’t remember saying. Once done, Jim felt as if he spoke his truth for the first time. The heavy pack he wore into the workshop just got lighter.
The two days flew by. He found himself connecting to men he normally wouldn’t connect to. Every conversation was deep and meaningful. Men cared about him. He cared about them. It felt so good to feel once again. Jim felt alive.
For the first time in a long time, he felt joy in the anticipation of driving home. Jim wanted to speak to Annie, but he needed to wait another day before Annie came home. That Sunday night, with all of his newfound energy, Jim did all the chores Annie wanted done, and more. The condo never looked so clean. He felt pride in his home; he felt pride in his marriage.
In Trouble
Let’s be honest – as men, we don’t do things for ourselves. Left to ourselves, we probably won’t go to the doctor to get that mole checked out, and we most likely won’t see someone to help us with learning to connect unless our partner pushes us.
We are often motivated by someone else, or if the pain gets severe. Often a man’s wife will tell him to open up and share his feelings. He can open up and express his anger, but that’s about it.
Often when asked why he is seeking help, his response is that his wife sent him. She might have suggested it because she is concerned, or because she’s ready to end the marriage. Either way, his experience may be quite different than hers. He may think things are fine. He may truly believe they are much better than what his wife describes.
When asked about his connection and intimacy, he will admit it has deteriorated. He will also feel that working on his emotional connection skills is really a service for his wife.
Connection
On Monday, Annie arrived home to a bouquet of flowers and a note telling her how much Jim loved her and missed her. Annie’s first response was shock. What was this? Was Jim drinking? As she looked around the condo and read more of the note explaining what Jim did on his weekend, Annie began to settle into Jim’s reality.
The resentment Annie felt had melted away. Her heart was once again open.
They both knew there was much more work to be done, but now they had connection. There was now a way to work towards what they wanted. Jim told her how it took being in a room with similar men to become vulnerable. Once he was able to truly open up, he began to feel. Once the numbness became caring, he saw a path back to what they had that night on the beach.
Not You
Baby boys are more expressive than baby girls. By the age of two, boys learn to cap their emotional experience and expression.
Since the Industrial Revolution when men left home for work, women stepped up to raise the girls and boys alone. As a semi-single parent, mothers, along with our teachers, did the best they could. Boys lost the male role model of masculine emotional expression.
For 200 years we continued to lose that masculine connection which was our training as a man for how to feel and express. We work hard to master what the women in our lives taught us. Even if we get good at their way of doing emotions, it doesn’t work for them or for us.
Reward
Jim now jokes about how he was running into a brick wall trying to break through, when all he needed to do was to walk around it. Spending time with other men that were challenged in their own ways gave him the skills, courage and hope to transform his marriage.
He was surprised to see how natural it was to default to connection. Sure, he would lose it at times, but now he had ways to get it back. That was his miracle.
Hope
We stumbled on a simple, yet powerful way to right our emotional ship.
Men modeling, guiding and supporting other men to be their own best emotional self can set you right. Be it our free groups, trainings or coaching, when a man gets another man to guide him, his instinctual Masculine Emotional Intelligence returns.
A Man’s Couple’s Training
After 20 years of working with men and couples, my heart continues to go out to men who love their partners, but can’t seem to connect in a way that she understands and appreciates.
It hurts to witness the love a man has, but because of his training he is unable to communicate effectively to his partner.
On one level it’s simple. It’s appreciating how vulnerability is the key that unlocks the kingdom.
The work is in developing our skills of vulnerability that are true for us and enable others to open up. Every man has the potential to feel the joys of being deeply connected.
Join Us
We have taught this work to hundreds of people throughout North America. Before I got into this, if you had told me there was a way to succeed and thrive in a relationship where women are truly thrilled, I would not have believed you.
I still have moments of not believing the results that I see, or the stories of the impact this change has made.
We would be honored to have you join us. If I can change, you can. From our struggles, we can shorten other men’s learning curve. These trainings and coaching programs are life-changing.
You, your partner and your kids are worth the investment. Join us at our weekend for men: www.freetowin.co/ca.
