Zac Small 0:00

You are the foundation of your family, you are the firm footing. They build their lives on. You carry a glorious burden and you never dream of laying it down. You carry it with joy and gratitude. You show up, even when you don't feel like it. You lead, serve, love and protect. You are a father. This is the dead word podcast where men are forged into elite husbands and fathers by learning what it takes to become harder to kill, easier to love, and be equipped to lead. Get ready to start building the only legacy that truly matters, your family.

Curt Storring 1:19

Welcome to the Dad.Work podcast. This is Curt Storring, your host and the founder of Dad.Work. I'm back for another solo episode today doing some q&a from you guys. A couple of weeks ago, I asked you to send me your questions, I got a whole bunch of them. And I put them in a document and I'm just working my way through as I can. It's been a few weeks since I did the last one. So I'm gonna just drop this one in. Today, I'm going to be answering a few questions. Here's a smattering of what you can expect questions like, should I be talking to my wife about all the problems I'm having? How to Navigate reconciliation in the face of potential divorce? Is the personal improvement culture, valuing the self to highlight what does that mean? What to do if you feel like you've lost all connection with your wife, and how to deal with effeminate fathers at the playground, guys, you got to listen to understand what I'm talking about here. But there's some good stuff, I think I'm trying to pick these ones. And I'm trying to give answers that can be applicable to multiple situations here. Based on what I'm seeing with my life. Based on what I'm seeing with my coaching clients, guys, I get a lot of messages I talked to a lot of guys, I do a lot of this work every single day. And so not only am I drawing on my personal experience, which if you haven't been here for long, is basically that I used to be a terrible husband and father almost lost it all figured it out by the grace of God turned it around. And now I do the same for other men. So like I have seen this in my life, but I'm also getting the sense of what this looks like in other men's lives. So it's not just my story anymore. It's my story. It's me seeing what's working with what I know with other men's lives. And so there's all these different aspects now that I'm getting to see, and Coach men through and see what works and what doesn't work. So I'm hopeful that these Q and A's are like a mini coaching session for you if you have some of these questions yourself. And I think if you just listen to these are a little bit holistic as well, insofar as you're going to learn things that you might not have come across otherwise. And I found along the way that little tiny things would just come up here and there. And they would open up this new thought process, or I would just be able to apply them and man, it worked so well. And it opened up the freedom in my relationship to try something else. So I'm hopeful that you guys listen to this. And that's what's going to happen to you to remember guys, if you want to go a little bit deeper on all this work if you want to know exactly what I would do over 10 days to have a way better marriage and raise better kids and lead your family. Sign up for the 10 day elite dad challenge dad dot work slash challenge. This is like the best stuff, the most succinct, quick stuff you can implement in your life today to rebuild that trust to rebuild that intimacy in your family and lead them to success Dad.Work slash challenge that is it for the intro. Let's dive into the actual questions from you guys for this listener q&a. Here we go. All right, dads, welcome

to another episode of The dad work podcast q&a style. I asked you guys a little while ago to provide a bunch of questions that you would like to have me answered. And we're gonna go into and we had a couple of questions in one of the last episodes a few weeks ago. And we're gonna dive into some more so we're just gonna get into it. I'm gonna start with a question that says, just want to thank you for all your content, your masterclass on family leadership has been very insightful. I'm slowly putting together these things into practice. The question I do have, I guess would be that a lot of the time my wife will ask me what's wrong? And I don't feel like talking about it. Should I be talking to her about the problems I'm having? I usually say that, yes, something's wrong, but I don't want to talk about it. Sometimes you'll probably bet and I get a little upset too. It might be about an upcoming bill or a bad day at work. I try my best not to bring a bad mood home, but I'm unsuccessful sometimes. That is the question. So a couple of things that go on into this. Number one is, all men, in my belief should have a group of other men that they can bring their issues and problems and struggles to so that they don't burden their wife. Now, that does not mean you never talk to your wife, but when Just dive into that a little bit before we go into communicating with your wife, I have experienced in my life the most success, the best, day to day sort of mood, and ability to do hard things. When I am part of a group of men, this has been a men's group, this has been a mastermind, this has been coaching, this has been mentorship, this is bissman, local fellowship and brotherhood and friendship. But I, since I joined a men's group for the first time a number of years ago, have never been a lone wolf. Every time a group ends or somebody moves or something like that, I'm always looking to open that back up and join something else. Because I often explain it like this. You are probably the rock in your life, to the rock to your wife, you're the rock to your kids, you probably the rock to you. I don't know employees or colleagues or you know, whoever you've got in your life who looks up to you, you are the rock because you're the man, the leader. But what happens when that rock is overburdened? And here's the thing, dads, I know from sitting in circles with enough dads sitting in groups of men, we're all overburdened. And that's the glory of being a father is that we can handle it, we can take it, we take it for our wife and kids so that they don't have to we take it because we can and we're built for it. But sometimes, let's say, you know, you've got a 200% capacity of stress. And you're not dropping it because you're a father, and you're tough and you're Savage, you're meant to do this leadership. But man, is it weighing you down. Your steps are staggering. Things are not good. Well, what happens if you have a group of other men who they might be overburdened, but they might not be at 200%? Well, maybe one friend takes, you know, 25% of your burden, another friend takes 25% Your burden and so on, suddenly, you have other rocks, who lean up against you, and allow you to continue moving and bearing that burden, because you don't have to do it alone. So it spreads the burden amongst other men in such a way that nobody is ever overwhelmed, you can always handle what you've got. So that is my number one tip if you do not have a brotherhood of other men around you, and you absolutely must find a place to do that. Ideally, you've got local fellowship and brotherhood through church or a men's group or something like that. Or you find something online, this has been surprisingly effective for me, I've joined a number of masterminds and groups that are online, we even run our dad work brotherhood online. And it's just been phenomenal. If you guys want me to give you some tips on where to find those, I know a couple of great men's groups. If you want to join us inside the Brotherhood, you can always apply to do that at Dad.Work slash apply. But whatever it is, you must have a group of men so that you don't dump everything on your wife. Now, let's get into the actual communication because there's like an unfinished piece of work that I'm seeing in this question. If you're bringing home the mood, and I understand you're not trying to do that, and you're unsuccessful that sometimes, but if you bring it home, you got a responsibility now, do you just put your wife in the dark? And be like, yeah, something is wrong, but I'm not going to talk to you about it. Like, what is she going to think then think about this from her perspective. What does your wife think? When you don't communicate with her? She doesn't know what's going on. It's impossible to feel connected to someone who is not communicating to you. And in a marriage, you should be communicating, kind of like your deepest, darkest stuff. And you don't have to burden her you don't have to burden her with every little thing. You're thinking every feeling that comes up. Oh, babe, I need to talk to you. No, you don't gossip. Like your girlfriends. That's not going to work in a marriage. But if you can't tell your wife Hey, babe, I'm actually feeling stressed. As you can see, it's not a secret. She's not like, Oh, I wonder if he's okay, or what's weird, just want to talk to me. She's like, okay, he's obviously overburdened. He's kind of being an asshole. And he's not willing to talk to me about it. Like, wow, thanks a lot, I can't do anything to help, I don't understand. So there's like, she's going to make up a story in her head about what's going on. And that's probably not going to be the story. That's true. She's going to be like, Wow, he doesn't care about us. He doesn't care about me. He doesn't want to, like, be connected. He's too busy doing X, Y, and Zed, and she's gonna make up stories. And so in this case, baby, you can see, like, I am so stressed right now. And like, it's gonna be okay. But right now, in the moment, I'm just dealing with a lot, you know, we've got this tax bill coming up, I'm working a little bit extra here. I'm going to need your support here. If you could give me a little bit of grace, just because I know it's going to be hard. And look, I'm bringing this to my men. You don't have to worry about this. You can trust me on this. And here's the thing. If you say that last line, you can trust me on this, you better be a trustworthy man of integrity. How do you do that? By showing up and doing the right thing every day just because it's the right thing not to get anything. And it's about not missing the basics. If you're not that man, I highly suggest you become that man because that helps you to be able to have conversations like this. That's not impossible. But she's probably not going to believe you fully. If you're not that guy. If you don't show up all the time. If you kind of try and take the easy path. You don't take things head on. You're not trustworthy in terms of like saying you're gonna go to the gym and you go You fall into the snooze button trust trap I talked about and you hit the snooze button instead of waking up when you said you would, she's not going to trust you. But if you are doing the right things to move forward, and even if you fail at doing those things, if you are constantly in forward motion and you're falling forward, she will be able to be like, okay, look, this is scary for me if it maybe if it is, but at least I know my husband, I can trust him. So I don't know how things are going to work out. But at least I don't have to feel worried. Because as soon as she starts feeling worried she's going to feel unsafe, when she's feeling unsafe in a relationship, our wives and kids almost always are optimizing for feeling of safety and security with us. And if we cannot give them that because we're not talking to them, we're not sharing what's actually going on. And they have to make things up on their own. And they don't trust us. They're going to obviously close off, and the intimacy and that relationship will always go away. Because why would you open yourself up? And intimacy requires vulnerability? Why would you open yourself up to a man who's hiding things from you, because that's what it feels like. She's trying to keep herself safe. So in order to do that, she will close for heart to you. And I mean, physical intimacy, I mean, emotional intimacy, I mean, all of that. Pay. So unless you're willing to go all in and be, you know, authentic, or vulnerable, even with what's going on, you're never going to have that deep relationship. And like I said before, don't go crying about everything. Make sure you have a group of men who can be burdened with the real things that you're burdened with. But if they're things affecting how you show up, yeah, of course, you communicate that, of course, and ask for grace, and tell her what you are doing to fix it. So she doesn't have to worry. And just let her know you've got it, and then figure out how you have to, you don't have to give her all the details. But hey, I've got this and I'm figuring it out, you don't have to worry, if I seem a little bit checked out right now it's because I am, because this is stressing me out. But it's okay, we're just gonna get through this, it's a season, I'm going to be here for you. And then guess what you can do that you can communicate that and it's actually easier to compartmentalize that and drop it for the time being, and show up because no matter what is on your plate, if you bring that back home, and you don't show up as a lead man, husband, father, to your wife, and kids, you're not showing up, you're not doing your job, you must be able to show up even when things are hard. That's why you need discipline. That's why we need to be waking up early, having a strong morning routine with exercise and discipline, so that we can do hard things like handling our emotions. Well, if you are not an emotional master, man, you need more discipline, you just need more discipline, you need to open that up, you need to work on that. Part of being an elite father and husband is emotional mastery. That doesn't mean stoicism so you never feel your emotions, it means that you are not ruled by them. And when they are hard, you can navigate that and still give everyone else what they need. So I think that answers that question. Moving on with no delay, we're gonna hop in the next one. It says My wife wants to get divorced, and I don't how do I navigate encouraging reconciliation with her men? First of all, I'm sorry, this sucks. I don't think we should ever get divorced. The Bible talks about, I think, one issue and adultery that may be grounds for divorce, although I have seen that reconciled so many times that I don't believe that's ever a good option. And it also talks about an unbelieving partner leaving a believing partner. So if you're Christian, that applies to you. If not, you know, that's just my views. Anyway, I think you can always fight for reconciliation that starts with you. You cannot though control her. The only thing you can do in this situation is by controlling yourself and how you show up and how you navigate the relationship moving forward, you must work on yourself to be that elite man, husband, father, that would make her sibling to leave you and you might have caused pain, you might need to take responsibility and ownership for that and tell her Hey, I understand that we're here because I didn't show up for you. Okay, her leaving. And her sin is not your responsibility that is on her 100%. And we often make it more difficult for our wives to stay with us because we're not emotionally present. We're not emotionally controlled, we're not there for them, we don't show up. We're not man of integrity, we're not trustworthy. So these are all things that you can do. There are a lot of things you can do to build yourself up to be the foundation that you will want to build the house of her life on top of. So these are things like doing what you say you're going to do, being a trustworthy man of integrity, serving without wanting anything in return. Doing it just because that's what a good man husband father does. Okay? These are things like emotional availability and mastery, communication skills, all of these things. Now, if she ever justified, I don't think so. And that doesn't mean that you're not still somewhat responsible for this, because you chose her, you made the commitment and you haven't been showing up likely. Now, if that's just her, make sure you're setting boundaries. Because if you legitimately have done nothing, but actually be a good husband, and she's just looking elsewhere, because she's got her own problems and sin, then you make sure you set boundaries. And that could mean that you're not going to let her treat you a certain way. And if she chooses to leave after that, at least you know that you will not have any regret. You're not like oh, well I kind of you know, abandoned myself and my morals and my values just to try and keep her happy. Don't ever do that. No matter what the case is. If she's leaving if you think you're trying to leave no dude. Like you actually put the work in and you set the boundaries and she will make her decision. But oftentimes I've talked about this in a podcast where recently with the Bailey's, they are marriage counselors a couple episodes ago, you'll find that unless someone is confronted with their own responsibility for problems, they're not going to change. If you set boundaries, and finally, your wife has to go, oh, I guess I also have some responsibility here. Rather than if you just always take it yourself, I'm sorry. She's like, See, I knew was your problem, I knew there was nothing about me, it's all your fault all the time. And we don't give them the gift of being like, actually, you know what, I'm not willing to be treated this way, stop, I'm not gonna let you do that. As soon as you do that, and you stand firm in that, knowing that you're doing the right thing and make sure it's the right thing, obviously. But as soon as you start doing that, there's nothing that she can say that's going to make that more true that she is not actually to blame for part of this as well. And being confronted with her own responsibility is very difficult. And hard. Think about that you think someone else's problem, you get to like sail free into the sunset, because it's not yours, because you can always blame someone, and they'll take it. As soon as someone's like, actually, here's a mirror, you've got some responsibility, it's gonna be hard. So she might not take this that well. But make sure you set boundaries, and make sure you're going all in on you. And make sure you know where your boundaries and preferences and values lie so that you don't abandon yourself and regret it later. I hope you guys can reconcile. If you're in this, I always aim for reconciliation. I've seen it so many times. Unfortunately, sometimes it doesn't work out. But the amount of times I've seen men drastically transform them by taking ownership and responsibility becoming trustworthy. Yeah, it's so good to see what can happen. So have hope, and then put in the work. Alright, I got a question here that says I have followed along with personal improvement culture over the last decade, which has been a good journey overall. But I'm realizing that I've fallen into the trap of becoming highly individualistic, regarding my inner self to highly I am self referenced and unsubmitted in most of my decision making and leadership, and I am tired of it. I am a follower of Christ. So thankfully, I have one who is greater than I can submit my life to. It's just hard when I have spent so much time becoming highly competent, and living the life in a self directed way. I'm noticing more and more that we can, that we are really living in the age of the self and the therapeutic, which is just as pervasive in spiritual church culture as it is in a secular, okay, I think the answer is in here, and it just comes to the point of actually dying to yourself, that's what you're called to do. I mean, we are dead to this world, we're dead to sin and alive in Christ. And if you can do that for real, then your problems are going to go away. Now, obviously, that's much easier said than done. But I think in this case, you have forgotten as you written here, that, you know, you're supposed to be submitted, if you want to be a good family leader, if you want your wife to submit to you if you want, you know, to lead Well, as a Christian father and husband, you must be submitted to Christ. And that is a non negotiable, I have fallen into this trap. And look, I'm a new Christian. So I'm not going to speak on like, you know, any authority on this. But my own life and journey has had me take control of everything. And this comes from me not being able to trust people. When I was growing up, I always had to rely on myself, I you know, it was proven time and time again, that if I trusted someone, then they weren't going to do as good as me. So I just decided, you know, I'm gonna do everything I can to control everything I want to every outcome. And I'm not going to do anything until I know exactly that it's going to work out. And thankfully, there's action bias to that. So I never stood around wondering about it. But I made sure my fingers on everything. And that was good to a degree because here's what happens with that. You can never fall too far, because you've already got a safety net of like, I really need to make sure this works. I want to control everything. But you also never get as high as you could go. Because there's limits. You're always making sure you're following a template or a play or you're doing it alone, you're being a lone wolf. So I sat in like this middle ground for a long time, and especially with this new spiritual walk, I'm like, okay, you know, I say I trust God. So what does it look like? Well, for me, it was not lead a not letting him have any say in my plans. And what a ridiculous thing, right? Like, he's the God of the university's creator beat every step perfect plans. And I'm like, Okay, God, you can take your plans, though, because like, mine are pretty good. And I know my plans, and I trust my plan. So if you could just let me have mine and he's like, okay, then have yours. And this is the interesting thing that I've noticed. He's like, Look, you really want to control this, I'm gonna let you like good for you. You could feel okay and mediocrity, and you're gonna miss out on all my blessings. And it almost felt to me like I put myself in a box. And in every square inch, like I can visualize this in my head, I'm in a box. And every square inch is like a little, you know, invisible cube. And I had touched and looked and seen and looked behind every single one of those one inch cubes, so that I knew everything and there was no room for shadows or mystery. There was no room for God. And so I realized and I'm still realizing this recently, and through my journey right now, that when I trust when I let go when I am in the word when I'm actually submitted, when I know that I cannot do it myself and he has brought me through some turmoil recently that has proven to me that man, I can do nothing. What does work Reading do for me nothing? What does thinking that I can control life do nothing. And I just had to leave it to him, man, it's so much better because he can do things that are impossible for men. And so why wouldn't you leave? Not only like a little bit of that box open to him, but why don't you just be like, bro, I'm gonna let God take all this. Why would I do anything like, yeah, you've got to do the work, you've got to be driving, you've got to be putting in, you know the effort that goes along with that. But surrender to trust him. And this is something that my mentor has been telling me to pray, said, pray every morning, Lord, give me the strength to surrender to you fully, and trust in your provision. And this is difficult, but through prayer and reading your Bible, look, here's a tip. If you are a Christian listening to this, you have to be reading your Bible every day. I don't care what sort of life you have wake up earlier specifically to read your Bible. My grandfather, who I meet every couple of weeks, he told me once, he said, like, I've talked to guys who don't read their Bible and ask them a question. Do you ever miss a meal? And I'm talking about like, you know, not intermittent fasting normal people who ever miss a meal? No, of course not and be hungry. He goes, Well, why are you missing a day with your Bible? Because that's spiritual food. And I've just taken that in the back of my head. And you know, I'm on a year long Bible and a year plan right now, and I've not missed a day all year. And why would I want you, I get so much out of that. So if you're this type of person who's doing this work is not submitted, like, Did you gotta get into word more you got to understand who Christ is and who God is going to understand how to actually follow his precepts and what those precepts are. And it requires you being in the word and praying. And I'm going to encourage you especially to pray on bended knee and actually be in a body position of submission. Okay, so I want to also encourage you out there anybody who's in like this, the self improvement culture, this trusting in the self, don't trust in yourself, I did that for years, I went all the way in that in the new agey sort of thing, where you are just, you know, your truth and all that kind of stuff. But here's the thing, you know what the opposite of love is, it's not hate the opposite of love itself. Because here's what love is. Love is selfless. Love is sacrificially serving others, at the expense of your preferences. It's dying to self. It's patient. It's kind. It's all those things that Paul talks about in Corinthians, I think it's first Corinthians with you know, love is kind love is all of this, but at the very base of it, it is for other people, it is sacrificing you for other people, and we're called to die to ourselves. Okay? So when you're in this self worshipping culture, which today is more and more about, you're playing right into the enemy's hands. Like there's no doubt in my mind that he's using distraction and individuality and follow yourself and follow your truth. And here's the thing to what I noticed about a lot of this, like, therapeutic self help stuff is it's it's all about like love and light. There's no responsibility, and wrath on the other side of that though, which is what I think is necessary, as, you know, the the other side of all of this, which God is a perfect example of he's, he's mercy. And he's justice, he's wrath. And he's love. He's all of these things. And what we're seeing is this presentation of the, you know, the self, as love and light and find yourself and go deeper and find your inner child and your perfect Divine Self, all this kind of stuff is crap. It looks like the real thing. It looks close to the Love and Light of God. But it's not because it misses the one thing. You cannot worship yourself, because anything that you worship that is not designed to worship will crumble. I have never met anybody in that space who's legitimately genuinely full and content and happy and not looking for more. Okay, so this is now beyond the initial question. If you are looking for self, you will always come up short. You can never be perfect. You can never save yourself from everything, there will always be something that you cannot do. And that is why you need a savior. That is why you need Jesus. I didn't understand this for a long time, I had to be confronted with the fact that he was actually the most masculine man ever to live. I always thought it was effeminate and all this kind of stuff. But I'm just going to drop that here. Okay, so if you guys want to talk about that, if you don't like if you're offended by that, whatever, unsubscribe, I don't care. But if you are interested about anything else we're doing, and you're wondering how I could be talking about this. If you're wondering like, what it means. Why I did this, why I came to it, you know if you have any questions, if you're intellectually honest enough to be like, Oh, maybe I should look into this because I've never actually looked into it before. Send me a message send me a DM on Instagram dad worked out curve. So I'm gonna leave it there. I've got a lot of thoughts about this sort of self worshipping culture, it's all wrong. It's all going to end in death. And when you have a father or when you are a father to children, and you have a wife who relies on you, you cannot be about yourself at all. Don't find your glory, your identity in yourself, find it in Christ, and that's where the power comes from. All right, let's move on. What do you do? You've tried all your things and other recommendations on how to keep your marriage active, equal and healthy. But you still just feel like you've lost all connection with your wife. Like there's no cheating, no fighting, nothing wrong, per se, just all connection, desire and passion is gone. So there's a couple things that come to mind on this. Number one is, it's either you, or it's her. Okay? And if you are all in if you are vulnerable and open, and you're doing what I said before, which is being a trustworthy man of integrity, you're sharing, you're communicating, you're being authentic, you're serving her selflessly, you're doing all these things. And you're like, Hey, babe, I just, I love you. And I'm trying this out. I know, things are not great, but I'm here for you. If you're doing that, and there's nothing that's connecting you guys. There's not a lot you can do to push her into that now, as men, I strongly believe that we can be leaders, even inside of a marriage insofar as we can bring her back from lack of connection. Now, this might take confrontation, it might take conflict. And in so many ways, you need to be able to rock the boat in marriage. But you just need to make sure you know how to swim. I can remember I heard that. But it's something that stuck in my mind for so long. That yeah, rock the boat, because sometimes that confrontation will snap someone out of the habits that they have kept to keep themselves feeling safe. And I have seen so many men and women, I mean, I work mostly with men, obviously. So I see this from a lot of their wives. They've checked out years ago because of how the husband showed up so poorly. Now, is that right? Even if the husband shows it poorly? No, of course not. She's called to be, you know, a good and faithful wife. But it's reality. So many women are checking out because the men are not leading. They're being childish. They're not connecting with their wives or offering them nothing. And so the wife will check out it's not right, but that's what's happening. And so sometimes, it takes snapping her out of it by having a very real conferencing conversation, by doing everything by going above and beyond by being loving, and open, and service oriented and

fun, and your mood is elevated. And then it's like babe, we're not connected. I don't want to live my life as roommates what is going on here? We have to make a change. And either she's going to, you know, be snapped back into reality and go like, Oh, okay, you actually are showing up? Oh, man, I can't believe this. Because I don't trust him. I can't, I'm able to trust you for so long. Why would I trust this? Sometimes I've seen the opposite, where she's like, Oh, wow, this is scary and confronting, you know, I'm out. And here's the thing, you have to do you if you want the relationship that you want, you must stand up for yourself and set your boundaries and go after what you want, which is a successful marriage. If she is checked out and unwilling to do the work, man, that's gonna hurt. And that is the consequence of being where you're at, it may well hurt because she may well make the wrong choice. But what is better, going for broke and knowing that the only way to succeed is to risk blowing it all up, but you putting your all in so that you know at the end of your life, there is zero to regret, or is it better to go along to get along to just you know, deny who you are what you want. And just while I hope you know, if I can just keep her happy, I won't lose her, like broke, don't be the one to initiate breaking up with your wife ever. That's terrible. But put her in a position where she has to be more than just like a passive observer, force the decision. And you can do that with love, you can do that with compassion, you can do it with patience, and over the years. But at some point, you have to be like, Look, this is what I expect in a marriage from you. And here's where I want to go, are you gonna come and then you continue to have that conversation until she makes her choice. And if you are showing up as the lead man, husband, father, obviously she's gonna want to stay. Otherwise, she's might have some other issues to deal with that, you know, you cannot save her from unfortunately. And you just got to put the work in on you. And again, it's all about the personal responsibility and accountability and the ownership and doing the best that you can do and then bringing others around you to try and get the most out of them to get the potential out of them because that's what a good leader does. All right. This is the last one I'm going to cover today. My dilemma is my fiancee, we have been together for 10 years and about a month ago, she told me to leave. We're separated. It's killing me inside. I know what I need to do to be a better spouse. But then I found your podcast and it's pretty much the same steps you did with your relationship. But problem is my fiancee told me to leave and I do not live with her anymore. There are children involved. We have a four year old girl together and two boys raises my own. So my question How do I implement the steps I need to do without living in the same house. She has grown resentment toward me pretty much the same way you described your relationship show me she needed space and time to see if she wants it. She says she still loves and is still in love with me. I love with all my being. I just don't know what to do. Do I wait do I cut my losses? I don't want anyone else and I don't want to picture with anyone else because I know I lost her. She's such a beautiful person inside note. I know if anyone was to get there. Alright, a couple things here. Sorry to hear that man. That sucks. If you guys are in the same situation that is not a fun place to be and again, same thread through all these questions you have to show up and be your best self regardless of whether she's around. What would you do to make yourself into the best possible man if you are courting her. If you were looking to be with her for the first time, who would you be? What would you do? What are those things that would have you showing up as an elite man, husband and father, do those things and just make that your life, whether you're at work, whether you're at the grocery store, whether you're texting her, whether you're talking to her about how to get back together, whether you're whatever, go out and be you to the best of your abilities, and change the things about you that are causing these relational issues. Find out, get very honest with yourself, what your weaknesses are, journal about them, talk to people about them, take courses, do whatever you need to do, to get better at the things that are causing you to not have intimacy in your relationships, and then continue to pursue, let her know that you're interested in doing this to pursue her because you want to make it work. That's all you can do, she is obviously going to make her choice. And you can't force her to do that. But guys, this is why it is so important to have a marriage based on Christian principles. Because this is happening, because you were living together having because he had a kid together outside of marriage, there's no actual commitment. And unfortunately, you can't be surprised when this kind of thing happens. If there's no commitment, okay? If you're living together, if you're sort of not in the right order of things, it's not going to work out. Sometimes it does praise God, but it's not going to work out. And then if she tells you to leave, in a marriage, for example, she tells you to leave. You know, for me, I can't imagine leaving my own house. And I can't imagine being the kind of guy who would do things to make my wife want to say that, obviously. But I don't want to leave, this is my house. And we can work this out. We might need counseling or whatever, but I'm not leaving. So I think about this is just like man, unfortunately, things are happening here. Because there were some choices that you got to live with. Like this might not work out the way you want it to, because of how you went about doing it. And this is what I think we all need to do, whether you're in this situation, or you're in a marriage or anything like that, if things are not working out the way you want them to. Oftentimes, almost always, it's a result of our actions beforehand. And so we have to get better at accepting our lumps these days. Nobody wants to have the punishment or the consequence for their action, we want the quick fix, we want to sweep it under the rug, we want to cancel people we want to get an abortion. So we don't have to do any of these things like taking responsibility. But bro, we made the choice. You gotta lay in that now you reap what you sow. It's a true principle. And so if this is what you have been sowing, this is what you will be reaping and in that, I hope that you can reconcile. I hope that you guys can find a way to get married, and to live together and to work on this and make this a beautiful, and game a beautiful story that inspires other people. But if you're not willing to go there, if you're not willing to show up selflessly, and sacrificial and honestly, if you're not willing to, you know, at least look at traditional or Christian marriage, then, you know, it's sort of a coin flip, I think. So anyway, did if, if you can focus on yourself, that's going to be your best bet by honestly, I encourage you to look into, you know, what makes marriage work. And it's those things that I just said. Alright, I lied, I'm going to do one more. It's, it's not even a question. It's just like an interesting observation. But I think I get the question behind it. It says masculine father dealing with a feminine father's at the playground. Look, dude, first of all, not your job. You know, it's not your responsibility. But here's the thing. First of all, go listen the podcast a couple weeks ago with Ben Barker and become the neighborhood Alpha dad, and you'll just inspire all the other dads around you. But honestly, like the actual answer to this is just that is you have to inspire the men around you. The number of men inside of our brotherhood, who tells me that they have had an opportunity to lead a man in their life is enormous. Almost all the guys who have been in here for a few months, are like, hey, yeah, I had my employee come in and he was having a problem. And I was able to talk him through this and lead him in the right direction. And so you're putting your work first and you showing up unapologetically as an amazing man, husband and father. That will look different in today's society, people will notice that and then you can go out of your way to compassionately reach out and help these men who have never seen this before. who've never heard this before who may be lost in the culture saying that hey, it's actually just better dads if you're a mom, it's actually better if you kind of like let the kids lead it's actually better if you have a dad bod and you are just you know eating soy all the time and eating seed oils and and just like on your phone all the time that's fine watch the Marvel movies to your okay you can be like that dead like that's some guys have never heard any different okay, I'm also not a fan of those things. If you've listened this podcast, you know that I have a hard time. I'm very judgmental with these things. I need to repent of that obviously. But guys, the best way to get other men to be less offensive to To you, is to lead them out of their misery because maybe they've never seen it. And maybe there's never been a man to invest in them. Maybe their dads didn't do this, maybe they didn't have a dad who grew up around them, maybe they didn't have a grandfather or an uncle or a mentor. So I think we have responsibility to be, like brutally honest with who we are, even at, like events that we go to, rather than falling into the small talk and go on, going along to get along. And just saying the things that you're expected to say, just speak truth. Like, Hey, man, how are you doing? I know that you said you just had your kid. But tell me about what it's been like to be a new dad? How are you finding your relationship and go into these places that people don't go into rather than be like, Oh, guess you're going to sleep again. You know, like, there's these stupid things that people say, to look cool in order to live up to the mediocre standard of society, stop living up to mediocre standards, excellence in all things. And if that makes you stand out, if people are uncomfortable with you, because you don't accept mediocrity, good, because they will then have to check themselves. Either they'll notice it and have to choose to stay in mediocrity, and then that's on them. They can stop blaming people. They won't, obviously, but they can do that if they're intellectually honest. Or they get confronted and go, What was different about that guy?

Why was he so confident? I kind of would like to run around with my kids too. I kind of would like to have a marriage where I sweep my wife off her feet, even though we've been married together for 10 years. And you know, we're in a public place and laugh and joke and play. I kind of want that to why don't I have that. And every once in a while, look, unfortunately, so many men are lost in today's society. But every once in a while, there will be a man who just needs to see another courageous man. So my invitation for you guys listening, if you have been doing this work, if you've been building yourself into an elite man, husband, father, go and show him, go and show it and expect it from the men around you. And then teach them how to do what you've done. Be the change, so to speak, show other people what's possible, show other people what an amazing life is, and then just inspire. So don't attack them. I mean, it's funny to joke about this kind of stuff, obviously, I think it's hilarious. But at the end of the day, these are human beings who are suffering. So how can we go out there and help them? I think that's the attitude we all need to have throughout this journey in this depraved degenerate age. Anyway, this was definitely the last question. And I appreciate you guys sending these Q and A's. And if you want to send me another question, answering the podcast, just go send me a DM on Instagram dad dot work, I've got another list of probably 20 More questions we'll get through. So I will have a few more of these as we go over the weeks interspersed with our regular episodes, which are always interview based. And guys, if you have been listening for a while I thank you so much. I talked to men now. We're applying to the Brotherhood. And they're like, Yeah, I've been listening you for like a year now. And I'm like, Dude, that's incredible. So thank you, if you have been listening, it really helps. This is a business for me now. It supports my family. And I'm just trying to do this because I know how it feels to think that you are the worst part of your family. And to almost take that to his logical conclusion, which is to remove myself forever from my family in the worst possible way. So if you are anywhere near that, if you are just feeling like you're kind of mediocre, you're kind of average and you are sick with average. I've been there too. I've been all up and down the scale. And so I'm just thankful for you being here. I'm thankful for you doing the work because selfishly, I want my kids to live in the world that you guys are building with your kids. I don't want my kids to go out into a culture where every single person is degenerate. I want to have an army of guys who listen to dad work or in our programs who do the stuff that we do so that they build up their kids and we can start turning society around. So you are part of the solution. I appreciate that. I thank you for your support. If you guys have two seconds to leave a review, I would really appreciate that on Apple or Spotify. Otherwise, you can apply to join the Brotherhood Dad.Work slash apply. Or if you want to learn a little bit more about what we do you can take our 10 Day Challenge Dad.Work slash challenge either of those are going to be great for you obviously the coaching through the Brotherhood is going to make things you know rocket fuel, but take action. Whatever you do, thank you guys for listening and go and love your wife and kids and put their burdens on your back and show up guys. This is how we change culture in side of the family starting with the Father working outwards to the marriage and the kids. Let's go appreciate you guys peace. Thank you for listening to the dad work podcast. That's it for this episode. But if you would like to stay in touch between the weekly episodes Why don't you go over to Instagram and follow me there because I draw up a number of things throughout the week that are related to what we talked about on this podcast but usually go a little bit deeper provide some tips you can find me on Instagram at dad work dot Kurt that's da di W O RK dot c u r t and please if you have been getting something out of this podcast if it has touched you if it has improved your marriage, your parenting or your life. Would you please leave a quick review on Apple or Spotify leave a rating. If you have a few extra seconds, leave a quick review. That's the best way that we can get this work in the hands of more fathers. And I truly believe that we change the world, one father at a time, because each father that parents better that loves better raises children who do the same. And in just a couple of generations, I feel like we could be living in a world much better than the one we live in today. Your review will help along that path. And I thank you so much for being here to listen until next week. We'll see you then.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai