I found it an interesting synchronicity that tddaygame put out this tweet the other day:
It reminded me of a situation going on with my friend right now.
One that many a man, myself included, has gone through.
And if handled incorrectly… can mean absolute destruction for your life.
What is this critical mistake?
Well, let’s paint the picture first.
My friend is in a relationship with a great girl. They’ve been together for years, have strong shared values, and their lives are deeply intertwined… to the extent that marriage was firmly in the short-term horizon. Indeed, it was an ongoing joke about “when” not if.
Until recently, that is.You see, my friend and a coworker developed a flirtation at work.
Nothing too serious. No lines crossed. Mostly a fantasy rather than anything real.
And yet, it’s become a very real problem.
Because my friend has started “detaching” from the relationship and imagining himself with this other girl, and all that she entails.
He knows that it’s a fantasy. This girl is in a long-term relationship herself — a brief affair would be the only thing on the table.
But the entire dalliance has caused my friend to doubt his own relationship, because there are many things in it that are not making him happy.
Which I totally get.
My friend has become passive over the last couple of years — fallen out of shape, no real long-term vision, and has allowed himself to become abused at work.
And in tandem with this, he’s lost his dominant position in the relationship. His girlfriend makes 4x as much as him, and while he’s charming and teases her… on a deeper level, she calls the shots in the relationship.
Which my friend is just starting to realize is not making him happy… and is not the way he wants to live his life.
An amazing thing, if you ask me… and a long time coming.
The only problem is the mechanism in which he’s realized it, and the conclusions he’s drawing from it.
Like many hen-pecked men who have lost their agency, he’s only waking up to his emasculation due to the flirtation of another woman. And so he is thinking his problem lies in his woman rather than himself.
Now, I am not saying that his girlfriend has been treating him in a way you want (though objectively, given the dynamics, she is quite good to him).
She is not making him feel like a man. And this other woman is.
But the reason for this is because his girlfriend knows he’s not really a man… whereas the other woman has no idea, and is only projecting her fantasy of a man onto him.
You might think I am being harsh to this guy, but he’s a close friend of mine and I love him. I told him all of this to his face — and I am sharing it with you, because some of you need to hear it.
Be careful of projecting your own feelings of self-deficiency onto your woman.
Do not blame her for how she treats you unless you have controlled as much of your own bullshit as possible.
Because your woman is a mirror to who you really are. And you cannot blame the mirror for the reflection it sends back to you.
My friend’s girlfriend is not giving him the validation he wants because he doesn’t deserve it.
(Read: The Women You Deserve)
He has not shown up as a man. And escaping into another woman is not going to solve what created his current relationship problems.
I know, because I spent the first couple of years with my wife in the same sort of situation.
I was filled with bullshit. Lazy, entitled, untrustworthy.
My wife let me know through a gradual diminishing in her treatment towards me that I was not living up to my potential.
And so I worked to address those issues. Not only or even because I cared about saving the marriage. I knew I did not want to be in that relationship for the rest of my life under any circumstances.
But I knew I had to control every variable I could if I was going to a) change her behavior and b) if I couldn’t, leave the relationship in a position to not repeat the same dynamics.
It took a couple of years of deep, inner work… and working with an expert relationship coach so I would have objectivity and clarity.
Until finally earlier this past year I burned off the “deadwood” as Jordan Peterson would say… which gave me the authority to do the same to my wife.
It took us to the brink of divorce.
But guess what?
Out of the ashes of our old relationship emerged a new one… one that was much stronger, much more polarized, and much more real.
The point is this:
When your woman is giving you shit, don’t try to run away from the relationship. Lean in.
See if what she is saying has truth. See if how she is treating you is DESERVED.
Take on MORE tension.It may be that your woman is the one out of line — the broken one. And it may be that you cannot fix her.
But your responsibility as a growth-oriented individual is to absorb as many lessons from her as possible.
Women are either a testing ground for men, or an escape.
But guess what: you can’t escape from yourself.
Most people today spend their lives distracting themselves, running away. They have the audacity to wonder why they are miserable.
No my friends, you only have two choices:
Ignorance, arrogance, and avoiding the work. Your prize is short-term numbing followed by gradually increasing pain and isolation for the rest of your life.
Truth, humility, and doing the work. Your reward is short-term pain, followed by a life of love and abundance that continues to get better.
Those who choose the latter can apply here: www.patstedman.com/application
– Pat
