Let's Think About It Podcast

The Role of Men's Leadership in Evolving Marriages

• Morice Mabry

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Welcome Paul Bauer! 🎙️✨ This episode dives into the dynamics of attraction and masculinity in relationships, emphasizing the need for men to lead decisively and maintain their presence to prevent stagnation. 💪❤️ Paul Bauer shares personal insights and strategies for men to reclaim their confidence and navigate relationship challenges effectively. 🧠💡

  • 🔍 Examination of traditional partnership paradigms and their impact on attraction.
  • 🧠 Insights on the psychology of women and hypergamy in relationships.
  • 🏋️‍♂️ Discussion on maintaining physical fitness and decisiveness as keys to attraction.
  • 📅 Introduction of the 12-week Male Action Plan for self-improvement.
  • 🗣️ Strategies for effective communication that resonate with female emotional contexts.
  • ⚡ Importance of maintaining masculine presence and vitality in long-term relationships.
  • 🌟 Encouragement for men to take accountability and lead in their relationships.

Tune in to this empowering conversation! 🎧🔥

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the let's Think About it podcast, where we embark on a journey of thoughtfulness and personal growth. I'm your host, Coach Mo, and I'm here to guide you through thought-promoting discussions that will inspire you to unlock your full potential. In each episode, we'll explore a wide range of topics, from self-discovery and mindfulness to goal-setting and achieving success. Together, we'll challenge conventional thinking and dive deep into the realms of possibility. Whether you're looking to find clarity in your personal or professional life, or seeking strategies to overcome obstacles, this podcast is your go-to source for insightful conversations and practical advice. So find a comfortable spot, chill and let's embark on this journey of self-improvement together. Remember, the power of transformation lies within you, and together we'll uncover the tools and insights you need to make it happen. So let's dive in. Welcome to another episode of the let's Think About it podcast. I'm your host, Coach Mo, and I'm here with another amazing guest, and his name is Paul Bauer. Paul, my man, what's good?

Speaker 2:

Coach Mo, thank you so much for having me man. I appreciate the invite.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, absolutely. One of the first things I do with my guests is I ask them where they're checking in from. What part of the country or the world are you calling in from?

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, no one's heard of it. No one's. I live in the middle of nowhere. I like to refer to it as the cow pasture, but I live out in a small town about an hour outside of Grand Junction, colorado, which is on the Western slope of Colorado, close to Utah. So whenever I say I live in Colorado, people are like oh, denver, right, five hours from Denver.

Speaker 1:

Born and raised in that region.

Speaker 2:

No, I was actually born and raised in another small town closer to Denver. It was called Conifer. It's in the mountains, and I grew up there playing Indiana Jones in the woods. A little bit of a ladies' man back in my high school days, but I was always one of those guys that was sniper dating. I was always going after one girl at a time. One girl that's nice to me. I go all in on that one. I thought every girl I was dating was going to be my wife and then I was running so hard for that white picket fence. I ended up joining the Navy when I was 18 and got married two years in after that and was married to her for 14 years and then that ended. That ended. We had two kids together, but the last half of that marriage was awful. It was absolutely awful, and that's how I ended up where I'm at now. That's what I was going to ask yeah, because we.

Speaker 1:

I just threw out your name, but no one really knows what you do, so take this moment to share with the audience what exactly it is that you do.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so, yeah. So, going back to that, yeah, I was always that guy that was just really wanting a family. I was, you know, pushing really hard for that white picket fence and I ended up getting married and we rushed into that man. We we over. I overlooked all the red flags. You know, we only knew each other for about two months or so in person before we eloped and things were pretty good for, I'd say, the first half, about seven years in, and that's typically when people's marriages start getting rocky. That's why they call it the seven-year itch.

Speaker 2:

Right, that happened to me and it was miserable man. She was complaining all the time and nothing I did was good enough. It got to the point where I just didn't want to come home from work. Nothing I did was good enough. It got to the point where I just didn't want to come home from work. So I'd work extra hours, I'd work like 17 hour days, just so I could avoid coming home and have to listen to her complain about what I'm not doing right. And then there was times where I didn't even want to sleep in the same room as her, so I'd go grab a cot and go sleep in my office, like that sort of thing, and it's frustrating because I thought that's how life was supposed to be.

Speaker 2:

I thought my dad was basically my dad and my mom are still together. They're basically miserable. They're at the point in their life where they're just staying together out of spite, you know. So I thought that was normal to me. I was like, oh yeah, this is you get married, you make vows, you don't quit on each other. It doesn't matter how you know married, you make vows, you don't quit on each other, even doesn't matter how you know terrible it is. And so I was never going to get give up on that marriage. And she ended up filing. I started getting broadsided by divorce papers back in 2014.

Speaker 2:

And changed my world, man, I ended up back on the dating circuit after 15 years without any practice. Dating turns out. You actually have to practice dating in order to be good at it, and I had no practice. I was 50 pounds overweight and I just floundered around the dating circuit the modern dating circuit, where you have dating apps. Now, we didn't have dating apps when I was in high school, so now I have to learn this whole new landscape I was just flailing about. So now I have to learn this whole new landscape. Just, I was just flailing about.

Speaker 2:

Next thing, I know 11 months later, a girl's nice to me and I go all in on this girl and end up in a relationship with her for four and a half years, but two years. Luckily, this time it didn't last as long. So two years into that relationship I lost the weight already, but I'd fallen back on my old habits All the old habits I had back when I was married and got complacent. I stopped trying. I thought I reached the finish line and she basically mentally checked out from that relationship about two years in and started looking around at her orbiters. And she ended up cheating on me a couple of years later and started acting so bad and pushing me away that I finally broke up with her and found myself back on the dating circuit.

Speaker 2:

It was in 2019. And this time I was in good shape. You know I uh, I'd lost all the weight, so it was easy getting dates this time, but I couldn't keep women around longer than two or eight and I was like what am I doing wrong? What am I doing wrong? The the two biggest relationships I've had in my life failed and I'm like repelling. What am I doing?

Speaker 2:

I decided to take a deep dive into psychology of women and the intersexual dynamics and how that works the psychology of attraction and I just I've read every book out there, man, and some of them I've read multiple times and I ended up in a men's group in 2020 when I was out dating and spinning plates and applying this knowledge that I was learning, and ended up in a men's group on Facebook called the 3% man group, which is a group of guys who were studying another coach in the space. His name is Corey Wayne. He has a book called how to be a 3% man, so we were all studying his book and we're all swapping notes. Okay, this worked for 3% man. So we were all studying his book and we're all swapping notes. Okay, this worked for me. Man, this, this woman responded this way and we started all getting really good with women.

Speaker 2:

And out of that group, I started my podcast, the Come On man podcast, which started in 2020. And it's grown since then. I have about 24,000 followers now and I do three episodes a week. And during the podcast, I started working with other guys in the business guys like I don't know if you've heard of them Rolo Tomasi, guys like Richard Cooper and stuff like that. They're pretty well known in the red pill space and I ended up becoming a coach myself and I started working with men and really what I find extremely fulfilling is helping guys who are in marriages turn that dynamic around, because I wish I knew this information back when I was married, because everything would have been different. Everything would have been different. What is that information, man?

Speaker 1:

What is it?

Speaker 2:

It's a secret, it's a proprietary? No, it's well, that's the thing, see, here's the thing. So I recently released a new book. It's called the essential skills of a masculine presence psychology paradigm, and the reason why I wrote this book was because a lot of us have certain paradigms when it comes to marriage and relationships, and I certainly did too, and most of us I'd venture, most of the people listening probably have some of these paradigms I'm going to talk about, because the things I'm going to say are going to be polarizing. Some people are not going to what I have to say, but we have been raised with these paradigms of having an equal partnership.

Speaker 2:

My wife is my partner. You probably have you referred to your wife as your partner. Yes, yes, it's pretty common, right? Here's the thing. Here's the problem that a lot of guys don't realize.

Speaker 2:

But women traditionally want to be with a man that sets the tone and leads the relationship. It's being ultimately in his masculine energy, right? He's a decider, he's assertive, he's a go-getter, and she naturally wants to relax into her feminine energy and follow his lead. Like most women, if they were really honest with themselves, they just want to join a man's lifestyle. That's why women typically marry up right. They don't typically marry guys that make less than them. They usually marry guys that make more than them. It's not about the money, it's about the status and how they perceive this man, and we call that hypergamy.

Speaker 2:

And so what I found was that I was always looking for my partner. I was always looking for my best friend, and the problem with guys who are looking for their partner or they treat their wife like an equal partner, is they stop being deciders in their relationship. They stop setting the tone and leading and they want they can't make a decision without asking the wife, right? Oh, let me just run it by my partner. She's my equal partner. I just want to make sure I get her buy-in on this, right. The problem with that is now you're not the decider anymore. Now she is. It's still not an equal partnership. Now she's the decider and she could shoot things down if she doesn't like it, and most of the time, women don't like things that guys want to do, and but the thing is that women naturally turn. They don't like being the deciders, right? Ask your wife what does she want to eat for dinner? Half the time? Oh, man, yeah. Ask your wife. Oh, I deal. She want to eat for dinner Half the time. Oh man, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Ask your wife. I deal with the indecisiveness all the time. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Hey, honey, let's go out tonight. I don't know what to wear. They don't. They are naturally terrible at decision making and God bless them. God bless them, but they don't like that. So you put that on her. Now what happens is women start resenting you for it. They don't want that position. They don't want to be in the driver's seat. Now you're making them be in the driver's seat because you're trying to treat them with the equal partnership.

Speaker 2:

So what we found in the red pill space and the red pill space started with pickup forums back in the early 2000s, late 90s Guys were getting together, swapping notes about what worked with women, what didn't, basically in the dating scene you know the pickup artistry scene and um, and things were like guys were swapping these notes and going out and trying this stuff out and going man, this works. If we do this sort of thing with women, it works. Why does this work? So other guys came in, guys like Rolo Tomasi. He came in and started applying evolutionary psychology to explain why some of this stuff works, why women do what they do. It's funny because women say they want certain things, they even think that they want certain things, but they respond to something completely different and it's confusing as hell for us guys. We're like what you said you wanted X, y and Z. I gave you X, y and Z. Why are you upset? Because that's not what they wanted, that's not what they respond to. So we've learned over time that, like, basically what women respond to is leadership. They respond to masculine strength.

Speaker 2:

And so other guys started getting together who were married and they were having marriage problems. They found this red pill stuff and they're like, okay, I wonder if we can apply this to our marriages. And so they started applying certain concepts in their marriages, like what we like to refer to it as dread game. It's. It sounds terrible, but basically one of the things that guys have found in their marriages is that women start losing attraction over time because they get you locked down, they you put a ring on it, now you let yourself go and she's oh no girls out trying to get him. So they have no more competition anxiety. So they start relaxing and now they stop doing the things that they were doing in the beginning, like they're not having sex as much because I don't need to, he's not going anywhere, I don't need to anymore, right? So guys in the married red pill started going. What if I started going back to the gym? What if I started getting in shape again? What if, when I'm at the restaurant and the waitress comes up to me and starts giving me the eye, I don't dissuade it, I play along with it. I'm not doing anything I shouldn't be doing. I'm just a naturally attractive guy.

Speaker 2:

The funny thing is that women notice when other women are checking you out more than you notice this sort of thing. So if she really notices this, all of a sudden she's like holy crap, holy crap, I might lose this guy. Other women are checking him out, and so what a lot of guys start doing is they will, uh, they'll go. Oh, no, honey, oh, I would never leave you, I'd never leave you. And, uh, that sort of relieves her, uh, competition anxiety.

Speaker 2:

But we've learned in the red pill space don't do that, just go. She's oh, that girl was checking you out, be like yeah, why wouldn't she, you know? And then she starts oh, that girl was checking you out, be like but yeah, why wouldn't she, you know? And then she starts thinking oh man, all right, if other girls like him, he must be a catch, I must have something here, right? We call this pre-selection. Women like women like guys who other women like, and so guys can start using some of this psychology to their advantage to boost their attraction in their relationship. You'll never get this from a marriage therapist. You'll never get that from a marriage therapist.

Speaker 1:

What you're describing sounds like me man. Naturally, because I go to the gym, I'm always trying to keep my game up there, right. And when you talk about decisions, I like that aspect of what you said because I do feel we are a partnership. But when there comes time for an executive decision that needs to be made, I always zoom in and make those decisions and even when I feel that my wife is indecisive about certain things, I make the decision and I totally respect my wife and I think she's good. When it comes to my daughter and things like that, I lean on her. But I think what makes our relationship thrive so much is what you was describing right. She's always trying to raise her game up with how she looks in dresses. I do the same on my end and I consider us like a power couple and we just try to thrive together. In that sense, I always tell her I don't want to be that guy that gets older looking busted. Yeah, you got to help me stay on my game.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I bet you she loves you for it. I bet you she loves that you focus on yourself, you put that work in, that you invest in yourself, that you are always trying to improve, because that's sexy, that's attractive behavior to women. And a lot of guys stop doing that. They get married, they put a ring on it. I don't have to try anymore, I already got her. And then that's when relationships start to erode. Another thing that happens too in marriage dynamics. We call it the beta tization process, which is something I learned. There's a really great book out there called practical female psychology and they break it down. It's basically a five-step process.

Speaker 2:

But what women tend to do when you lock a guy into a long-term relationship is they start testing him a little bit. Right. We call them I don't know if we can, we cuss on your show or do we keep the language clean here we call them frame checks. There we go, we'll keep it clean. Women do what we call frame checks, right, and they basically just see if they can get you off your center emotionally. Right? Maybe they'll question a decision you made, maybe maybe they'll make fun of something like they don't like the shirt you're wearing, so they'll poke a little jab at you and make fun of it or something, right, a lot of guys who have no emotional control and no sense of self. They'll get hurt by that and then they'll emotionally react. When they do that, they fail her test, you fail a test. But if a guy doesn't take that stuff seriously, playfully throws it back at her and we call it a green amplifier or even acts indifferent to it, but whatever just doesn't get emotionally rattled by whatever she's doing.

Speaker 2:

Women respect that and women can't love a man they don't respect, right? So it's all about maintaining that level of respect. Most guys start failing that. So as the guy starts failing this more and more, she's losing a little more respect. So then she goes okay, what's the? What's going on? I, something's not working in this relationship. I need you to be more vulnerable with me. I need you to open up, tell me about whatever.

Speaker 2:

And so then guys, they don't understand what women mean by being vulnerable. So they start crying to their girl, they start telling her all their problems and stuff, right? They? Basically, when you're doing that, women don't care about guys' problems. Most of the time, women just don't. They think they care, I think they want to care, but they just aren't evolutionarily wired to really care about our problems. They want us to have our stuff together. They want us to be able to sort out our own stuff. But they also want us to be their rock emotionally so they can do that to us. But if we do that to them, they start looking at us like it's weakness, right.

Speaker 2:

That's why a lot of guys, if they're too emotionally open with their girl and they don't add any solutions behind it, women are like I don't know this guy, he's just acting like. He's acting like a woman. I don't, we don't need two women. He's crying all the time, all that kind of stuff. So women will take that and now they'll use it against a guy.

Speaker 2:

And basically now this guy is in a no-win situation. She's browbeating him all the time, she's nagging him all the time. Nothing's good enough. That's what happened to my relationship. Nothing's ever good enough. And I need you to do more chores around the house. And she stops having sex with them. And so if you want more sex, maybe do the dishes more. You can't do enough dishes to get enough to get sex, because it's not really about the dishes. So that's what happens, and guys become this unattractive character in the relationship. They've been emasculated so much in their relationship that now she's not sexually attracted to him anymore. So what happens then is women. That's typically when women step out and cheat because they're not getting their emotional cup filled, because this guy is a loser now, and or they file for divorce and go find a new boyfriend or something like that.

Speaker 2:

But that's typically how relationships go and how attractions eroded over time. So the key to that is to not let that happen in the first place. Be able to handle those tests from the beginning. Be able to handle whenever she wants you to be vulnerable with her, it's okay. I like to say this to guys it's okay to be intimate, right. It's okay to tell her things are going in your life. Don't bottle things up. But typically you want to put positive spins on everything like works not going right. That's fine, that's normal, that's human. But I got a plan for this, don't worry, I got it handled. That typically works out better. And then it's good for men to have a good men's group that they can go to, where they can talk to guys about their problems or have a therapist or a coach or something like that. So that's typically what we recommend.

Speaker 1:

So that's typically what we recommend. So how is it validated that most women are like this when it comes to relationships?

Speaker 2:

You can just see it in our society we have a 50% divorce rate, and that really started back in the 60s and we've had this since World War II. There's a really great book called no More Mr Nice Guy. But Dr Robert Glover estimates that since World War II we've had generation after generation of nice guys where guys are basically raised almost completely by women, and that's because men are no longer around in the household. So much. We went from an agrarian society to more of an industrial society when boys would be raised by their dads and be around grandpa and their uncles all the time working on the farm. Now grandpa and dad and all their uncles are working out of the factory for 17 hour days and mom now mom's working too, right. So who's taking care of the kids? It's usually female babysitters or they're at school all day, and teachers are 90% women, and so boys are raised to be a little bit more vulnerable, a little bit more emotional, and so then they don't know how to emotionally regulate too much anymore. And it's just.

Speaker 2:

There's another really great book on that called the Boy Crisis by Warren Miller. He breaks down all sorts of studies that show that men have become a little bit too vulnerable and too soft and it's just. Even though women say that's what they want, that's just not what they respond to and so it's just. It comes across as unattractive behavior. So one of the key maxims in the red pill space is to men need to. If you want to have success with women, you have to be attractive, not be unattractive. That means be attractive is your physical appearance. Go to the gym, work on your style a little bit, whatever style that is, and don't be unattractive as your behavior, your demeanor, how do you act, how do you show up in the relationship? And so what we are finding is that women respond better when guys act a little bit more masculine, a little bit more stoic.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so you would consider yourself a relationship coach right now, right, yes, okay, okay. So what about on the flip side of it? The guy is doing, he's in the gym, he's working out, keeping himself attractive, and things like that, but the woman let herself go, and things like that. Do you work with women as well, or is just specifically men that you work with?

Speaker 2:

specifically men.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I'll tell you. I'll tell you why. So what happens is here's a problem with traditional, traditional marriage counseling. Okay, what typically happens is you have both cup, you have the couple right. The man and the woman go see the counselor and what each person does is they go to the counselor, they're hoping that the counselor teams up with them to make the other person change. So the husband goes there and he's my wife's getting fat. You need to tell her to stop being fat, whatever. And then she's. You need to tell my, tell, tell my husband that he needs to listen more and be more, have a better emotional intelligence, whatever. It's. Neither person's really trying to work on themselves.

Speaker 2:

I specifically work with men because what we've, what we find, is that when men, what usually what happens is that when their wife starts letting herself go, he's letting himself go to nine times out of 10. And what? When guys start working on themselves, start working on their attractiveness again, start setting the tone and leading again, women are often mirrors of their husbands. They start seeing that he's stepping up and they're like, oh, I don't know what's going on here, I don't know. So that women start getting a lot of anxiety about it and that anxiety is very motivating. So they're like, oh, you're going to the gym all the time, I'd love to go to the gym too. They also want to make sure that you're not getting hit on by all the gym chicks there. But whatever gets her to go to the gym. And then it's also women tend to grow through praise a lot.

Speaker 2:

So if when a woman says, oh, do these jeans make my ass look big? Right, a lot of guys don't know what to say to that, right Cause if you say but typically if a guy goes, oh, no, honey, you're not. Your ass isn't looking bigger, she's, you're lying to me. And so then they get mad. So then you go yeah, it's getting a little big. And then I can't believe you're so insensitive that you would say that, right. So a good way that I learned that to handle that is you know what? I don't care. Those jeans actually would look better on the floor, right? What would look really hot to me is you running naked on a treadmill, so that sort of thing. Like women, they could take a playful joke like that. But as long as it's in a way where you're still giving them credit for looking, you're making them feel like, they feel sexy, then they're more apt to start doing a little bit more in that direction.

Speaker 1:

Let me ask you this then yeah, you got a guy who's coming to you and he really wants to make his relationship work and he feels detached from his wife, things like that and you're working directly with this individual and he has poor habits of self-care for himself. He let himself go since he's got married. How do you help them shift that behavior to get in the gym, be more motivated? How do you help inspire them to create more motivation for themselves? What's that technique that you use?

Speaker 2:

So what I have guys do that want to work with me is I put them through a 12 week program and I have them run through what we call the map, the the male action plan, and that comes from that. I learned that plan from a guy named Athol Kay. He wrote a book called the married man's sex life primer, and basically what that is. It teaches men to take accountability for themselves and their lives, make themselves their own mental point of origin and start working on themselves, not to try to get their wife to do anything, but to fix themselves. It's all about them fixing themselves, right? So if they've gotten to a place where they've got poor physical habits, they're eating like crap, they're drinking too much, like all that kind of stuff they have no sense of accountability for themselves. So it's okay, we need to get you back there, because that's why your relationships where it's at. So I have that conversation with them. What I usually do is the first.

Speaker 2:

Our first session is we do what's called a I'd like to call it a relationship autopsy and I'm like okay, well, when you first got together with your wife, what made her attracted to you? What were you doing back then that made her drawn to you and what these guys start realizing is, by going ghost of Christmas past with them on it, they realized, oh, I actually gave a shit about myself. I used to work out, I was cocky and funny, like she liked that I had this bravado and I had all this confidence. I'm like so then we talk about okay, what are you doing now? So then we bridge that gap, like how'd you let yourself get to this place? So it's really a lot of Socratic questioning getting them to come to the realization on their own of I let myself go Right. And so then it's okay, what are you going to do about it?

Speaker 2:

And then it's, then it's a matter of each week we get together and we work on different areas. What they start doing that first week is start learning how to start taking control back and their relationships start being more decisive. And I'm like okay, I want you this week to lead each day. Find something small that you can lead with in each day. Make a decision about something, and it can be as small, it could be as simple as you see the trash cans overflowing.

Speaker 2:

You don't wait for your wife to say, hey, take out the trash, you just go and take care of it. Or maybe this week you make the dinner plans this week, say, hey, honey, we're going to go get steak tonight. Grab your shoes, you know. Don't leave it up to her to plan all this stuff out, because I guarantee, the reason why you've gotten to this place is because you've gotten into the passenger seat of your own life and now she's driving and she resents you for it. So that's really where a lot of these guys are coming to me from. Do you have the guys?

Speaker 1:

do any type of motivation relationship assessments no I don't do that.

Speaker 2:

We do that all in session. Yeah, we all do that all in session. But I'll tell you what, what. What I found. It's it's a. It's a fascinating pattern, though. So by by week two, what we're doing on week two is we're we're handling the frame checks, we're handling the tests that women throw at us, and what I found is, after week two, these guys aren't in dead bedrooms anymore. They're because what happens is they are given permission to not take their wife's you know complaints and whatever so seriously and they sort of play it up and they start teasing her again and their wives are like what is going on here? And so their wives are like they. These guys all of a sudden are teasing them again and not reacting emotionally and getting pissed off or whatever. They're just playfully teasing guys all of a sudden are teasing them again and not reacting emotionally and getting pissed off or whatever. They're just playfully teasing and all of a sudden, their wives are like I like this.

Speaker 2:

I like this I don't know what's going on. I had a client a couple of weeks ago. He was the kind of guy who, whenever his wife would complain about something, he would do what we call deering, defend, explain, excuse, rationalize where, when she's complaining about something that you're doing, the first gut reaction for most guys is to explain themselves. They're like, oh, I'm doing that because of this and they start getting mad. They're trying to defend their actions and the thing, the thing about it is women like I said at the beginning, that women's hypergamous nature. They have to see you as a, as better than them in some way. Right, they have to see you as a higher status than them in some way. It could be money, it could be just how you're leading the relationship. Whatever, they have to see you above them in some way. If you're defending yourself, she's complaining. You're defending yourself, you're explaining yourself, you're putting yourself at a one down position. You're making her the judge of what you're doing and stuff, and that actually causes her to look at you like it's weak. So what I tell these guys is don't defend yourself, just play it off. Don't take whatever she says seriously, just jokingly throw it back at her. And yeah, like every time I have guys do this, they're like dude, that is so much fun.

Speaker 2:

And then, like one guy was telling me the other day, man, my wife, she was questioning me because I was going out late at night to go get a. He was going to get a five gallon jug of water refilled and he was wearing his work clothes and he dresses pretty nice. He's got a button up shirt and slacks on and stuff. He's looking pretty nice. And he's like oh, I got, I'm going to run out and get some water. He's like where are you going this time of night dressed like that? And he goes oh, oh, there's this gal at the store named Primo. She's going to give me everything I want for $5. And he gives her a wink and she goes what? She goes what Get out of here? So he leaves.

Speaker 2:

He comes back, he's got the water and she goes oh, how was your girlfriend? And he goes oh, it was everything wanted I told you. And so his wife, she's joking with him and she slaps his arm and stuff. She's whatever. Then she starts getting all flirty with him that night and then they ended up having some wild, crazy monkey sex that night. And he's dude, this is nuts. She hasn't done this in in in two years now and I'm like that. A lot of this is just being playful with her again. But most guys are on the defensive and trying to walk on eggshells and trying to make her happy and it's you know. You got to get rid of the happy wife, happy life sort of paradigm.

Speaker 1:

I'm getting curious now what about when guys come to you and they complain that their wives say they don't communicate enough? What's your spin on that? Are you helping them communicate, or what's a different strategy or approach you have them take?

Speaker 2:

I do help men communicate. But a lot of people, a lot of people will argue that communication is the key to a healthy relationship, and I argue with that. I say no. Communication is the key to conflict resolution. It's not the key to a healthy relationship. Key to a healthy relationship is attraction, and if your wife isn't attracted to you anymore, no communication in the world is going to make her attracted to you. You can talk until you're blue in the face, you can understand where she's coming from until you're blue in the face, but that's not going to do anything to get her buzzing again about you. But it is very helpful. It is really helpful, especially because guys have most people have no idea how to communicate. They think they do, but really what it turns into is guys yelling and they're yelling at their wife and she's not understanding because she's not listening to him, because all she's listening to is tone and how she feels about what he's saying, because women communicate from emotion, right. So women don't typically use a lot of logic and rationalizations when they're talking. They're speaking purely from how they feel and then all they're doing is listening to the tone coming out of your mouth and they're watching your body language and they're not listening to your words. So if you're yelling and you're flailing your arms and you're pissed off or whatever, all she does is tone right, like I don't like your tone, and then she completely is is non-existent, basically Right.

Speaker 2:

So what I teach guys is the Luca method. I call it Luca model. I learned that from a colleague in my space. In my space, his name is Paul Benjamin. It stands for listen, understand, clarity, action. And so a rule of thumb I tell guys is never dear. So that never defend, explain, excuse, rationalize. Never dear, always Luca it.

Speaker 2:

Basically, if your wife's coming to you with a problem or whatever, just listen to her. Just don't explain yourself. Just listen to her, try to understand where she's coming from, try to understand her feelings about it. If you don't quite understand, that's where the clarity comes in. So you ask her questions and just say so, let me get this straight. I did X, y and Z, and that pissed you off because, uh, is that right? Do I understand that? Okay, go on and just try to let her get it all off her chest, right? That's all she wants. She just wants you to understand her. She doesn't even want you to solve the problem half the time, right. So that's where the A comes in.

Speaker 2:

A is action. So you got to understand where she's coming from. And if you even have to solve the problem, right. So if you that's a good thing, for guys naturally just want to solve a problem, most women don't want problems solved, they just want to vent.

Speaker 2:

So your action in that case is to ask her do you want me to solve this or do you want me to just listen? And most of the time she's going to say, oh, I just want you to listen. Okay, cool, that's your action. Okay, cool, just get it off your chest, don't leave anything out. Oh no, please tell me more. Yeah, that bitch Susan at work. Yeah, I know, I told you she's crazy, whatever, just whatever.

Speaker 2:

But the funny thing is that when guys stop defending themselves and they just listen, or they if there is an action that needs to be taken like maybe sometimes your wife has a valid point, sometimes she's bitching at you because you're messing up, right. So your action to take is to go okay, I'm going to take some accountability here and I'm going to take this action to fix this. Does that work for you? Okay, great, now she's actually going to feel better because she's going to feel like her feelings are validated. She's going to feel heard and understood. And my coach, corey Wayne, says when a woman feels heard and understood, that's when the legs open. So once guys can learn that to stop defending themselves and just listen half the time, their life gets infinitely easier.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that makes sense because most guys got ego. When a woman or your wife or spouse comes out complaining about something, right, and you have this strong ego, the natural take on that is to defend yourself and protect the ego, right. Take on that is to defend yourself and protect the ego, right. And so you're explaining and now she feels that you're not listening to her and so now you generate this, what I call this catabolic energy in the conversation and it's about your back and forth. Back and forth. What you're saying is, if you can just come to the conversation to seek understanding and be very curious of what's being said, that promotes listening, effective listening, empathic listening, and women are more receptive to that. I experienced that with my wife all the time she comes to me that. I experienced that with my wife all the time she comes to me. Whatever's happened at work or whatever I stop what I'm doing, I pause and I just listen. Yeah, I listen and I learned how to multitask. I could keep my eye on the game and still listen.

Speaker 2:

But as long as you, as long as you hear enough that you can repeat it back to her, she's going to be okay with that, exactly, exactly, exactly.

Speaker 1:

But it's the clarifying of what's been said, acknowledging, validating their feelings and things like that. But then I personally don't put the pressure on me to solve her problems for her. I listen and then I ask her what are your next steps? What are you going to do? What do you want me to do? And then let her tell me like okay, I can do that. And she said I need you to help me make a decision. Oh, I can do that. And but I put that weight back on her and I've learned that because I've been married 16 years. Early on it was like, oh, she's coming at me. I got to defend myself, I got to be right in this situation and it only made things worse. But, like you said, as I matured in my relationship with my wife, listening is the key. Yeah, 1000%.

Speaker 2:

You know what I tell my, my clients and the women? If women are listening to this, they're going to hate this. But, like you said, we have an ego, right. So I give the clients permission to have an ego about it and I say you're the king, you're the king. King doesn't have to explain himself to his subjects, you understand. So you don't have to defend, explain, excuse, rationalize. You're the king. Now, that sounds toxic as hell when you say it out loud like that, right, but if they have that mental model that I now don't have to explain myself because I'm the king, now they're, they have permission to just go. I don't have to explain myself, I'm just going to listen to her complaints and then we're going to do what I'm going to do anyway, exactly so, if you show up and voice that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's going to be careful.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, she's not going to like that. I don't have to listen to you.

Speaker 1:

I'm the king in this relationship.

Speaker 2:

What's not about I don't have to listen to you. It's I don't have to explain myself to you.

Speaker 2:

So, you definitely have to listen to her. So the mental model, instead of a partnership, what we teach guys is, instead of having an equal partnership, it's more like and I'm a Navy guy, I'm a former Navy guy, I like to teach guys it's more like a commanding officer, executive officer relationship. Your wife is the executive officer of the household, but you're the commanding officer. You're ultimately in charge of the mission of the relationship, the mission of the family. You're overall in charge, but your executive officer is smart. Your executive officer probably has some good ideas. There's no reason not to take your executive officer's ideas under advisement, and so that's the kind of dynamic that we like to teach guys. And then the executive officer yeah, they're not overall in charge, but they're there to support the captain. They're there to support the commanding officer. It's more of a supporting role, but you respect her. You have respect for her. She has good ideas. A good way to explain this to guys is the dinner debate, right? She never knows where she wants to eat thing. So I tell guys don't ask her. Don't ask her where you want to eat, pick a restaurant. And most guys are like I don't care where I eat. Perfect, if you don't care, then it doesn't matter what place you pick. So just think of two restaurants you like to eat at and pick a place, and then instead of asking her hey honey, where do you want to eat tonight? Because that's being passive, you're taking the lead by going. You know what? We're going to Chili's tonight. Grab your shoes. And the funny thing is I, when I learned that and I started applying that when I was out dating and now in my relationship I've been with my girl for almost five years now, but we I started doing that to her. I've never had any complaints, like any girl I ever dated her never complaints. In fact, 99.9% of the time they're like okay, yeah, sounds good, cause they just don't want to make the decision because she's your executive officer. If she's, I don't like that, I don't want to go to that place. You, okay, do you have a better suggestion? If they do, cool, no reason not to go with her idea. Yeah, that sounds good Cause you don't care anyway, right, oh, cool, yeah, no, actually that sounds better, let's go do that. But if she's, I don't know, I just don't like that place. She doesn't have a better suggestion Go, okay, yeah, sounds good, because they just want guys to make the decision and set the tone and lead, and it's fascinating when guys do that and when you give them that analogy, they're like that's crazy.

Speaker 2:

I get to eat wherever I want, whenever I want. Yeah, as long as it's not the same place every time. I think your wife will get pissed off if you go to Taco Bell every night but switch things up a little bit and have some fun with it. But yeah, you get to go wherever you want. And my girl's gotten to the place now where she knows I'll do that. She knows I'll pick the place. So if she really wants something, she'll suggest it. She'll say hey, I was thinking of this tonight, cool.

Speaker 1:

Let's do it so, as we close out today, how can the guys find you?

Speaker 2:

Okay. So what I'd like to invite people to do is check out my book, because this really goes through all the paradigms people have about relationships that aren't necessarily helpful and it has them sort of change their thinking about some of this stuff, right? So it's called the Essential Skills of a Masculine Presence Psychology Paradigm. You can find that on Amazon or on Audible. You can find my website, FixDeadBedroomscom. It's my blog. I have daily articles there. You can find me on all my socials there. You can find my podcast there, and if you're having problems in your relationship and you want to talk about it, book a free call with me. There's a link at the top of the page there where you can book a call with me and we can sit down and if I can help you out, I'll show you what that looks like. If I can't, I'll at least point you in the right direction.

Speaker 1:

Great. Any lasting thoughts before we jump out of here?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'll just say this A lot of guys, their relationships are on the rocks and they just think that's how things are supposed to be like that. Married with children, they're supposed to be miserable. It's not supposed to be that way, it's not normal. And if that's you and your relationships really gone downhill, your wife's not touching you anymore and you're just like, ah, it is what it is. You can turn things around right now.

Speaker 2:

A lot of guys don't realize this, but their wives are unhappy. If their wives are complaining all the time and bitching at them and they're not sleeping with them anymore, they're almost always planning their exit strategy. There's women file for 80% of divorces now and most guys, when they get hit with those divorce papers, are completely blindsided by it. And there's a huge cost of divorce for a lot of people hundreds of thousands of dollars in some cases. Just with the alimony, the child support, the lawyer's fees, having to refurnish your whole apartment because she took all your stuff, having to split up half your 401k. It can all be avoided, all right. So just think about that, think about where you are and think about the consequences of inaction and then book a call with me. Go to FixedDeadBedroomscom.

Speaker 1:

There it is, my man, paul. Thank you, sir. I appreciate your time today and the nuggets, the insights on relationships.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, man, anytime you want, this is fun.

Speaker 1:

All right, take care. Thank you for joining me in this episode of let's Think About it. Your time and attention are greatly appreciated. If you found value in today's discussion, I encourage you to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. Remember, the journey of self-improvement is ongoing and I'm here to support you every step of the way. Connect with me on social media for updates and insights. Connect with me on social media for updates and insights. You can find me on Instagram and Facebook at Coach Mo Coaching, or LinkedIn at Maurice Mabry, or visit my website at mauricemabrycom for exclusive content. Until next time, keep reflecting, keep growing and, most importantly, keep believing in yourself. Remember, the most effective way to do it is to do it Together. We're making incredible strides toward a better and more empowered you. So thank you, and I'll see you in our next episode.