At least at work problems get solved.
But at home? Not so much.
“Relating was confusing and distressing, so I avoided it,” Seth, founder and CEO, told me.
“Work became my mistress.”
“I had become successful because I thought that was what it was all about. But then my relationship suffered and none of that mattered.”
“It was scary as shit.”
A lot of men I talk to find themselves feeling ‘never good enough’ at home, sometimes with a chorus of women — wife and daughter — throwing phrases like ‘toxic masculinity’ around.
It’s a mess, but it’s not solved by placing blame on women, feminism, #metoo — or anyone, for that matter.
What if you were at the top of the game with your wife, instead?
But how?
Throw out the rulebook and play an infinite game in your relationship.
“Play infinite games with infinite people” says famed investor Naval Ravikant.
And, “create infinite unlearning” says Chris Yeh, founder of Blitzscaling.
What we are asking for from relationships today is different than at any other time in human history.
We want to be passionate lovers, parents, workout buddies, spiritual devotees, friends, and household managers — while working full-time and caring for elders to boot.
These things require stellar communication abilities, self-awareness, and emotional agility, at the very least.
And… You guessed it:
We were not equipped with any of those skills.
In fact, men are explicitly taught to denigrate emotional and relational skills.
We were sold the finite game model:
The fairytale, happily-ever-after.
‘Happy wife, happy life.’
We were taught that having boundaries is ‘mean’, and being a martyr is the highest good.
What was modelled to us was transactional relating: If I do x, she’ll give me sex.
And zero-sum relating.
We’ve been equipped with unconscious narratives about roles, priorities, boundaries, and sex — without the awareness or permission to re-examine them.
It’s time to change the game.
‘Power-with’ or the idea that we can collaborate as partners, is something I teach again and again and again in my work with men and couples.
“But if I reveal myself to her, what I need and want from her, and how much her touch means to me — that gives her a lot of power over me,” one man protested.
But if you’re already avoiding being home because relating is stressful and confusing, she already has power over you.
Also, thinking of your relationship in terms of who has more power over the other is a sure way to kill mutual respect and trust and all the things that keep couples attracted over time (unless you’re doing it in a consensually kinky way).
So, what do you do?
Step 1: Teach each other your operating manuals. What turns you on? What turns you off? What makes you feel loved?
If you, like Seth, realize:
“Without my family I’m just a dude alone in a big house.”
Then you understand that love is the most important thing.
Step 2: Reach out and get a mentor who can show you the blindspots in your relational narrative — and teach you a new one.
So that you grow together with your wife — and play, pleasure, and passion grow too.
Once Seth learned the new game, he understood what his wife really needed from him.
“It was like a whole other gear in a car that I didn’t know existed.” he said.
When my clients grok this other gear, they send me happy text messages full of eggplant emojis that say “guess what we did!”
In sum: it might be time to stop giving all your love to our cold silicon overlords and return to carbon-based yum.
Don’t give up, it’s not rocket science.
If you’re looking for more ways to ignite the passion in your relationship:
Get my free guide to be irresistible to your woman: 4 Keys to Passionate Relationships.
It’s time to fix your ‘upper limit’ so you can actually receive the pleasure and connection you’re longing for.
Create high-quality relationships across the board in your life (with your partner, kids, parents, boss, and friends) and show up as a powerful presence that women love (no more worries about being seen as ‘creepy’).
Dr. Jessica
xo
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