Order of Man - VANESSA BENNETT ｜ The Myths of Masculinity and Motherhood

00:00:00.000 In 1992, John Gray released Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus.

00:00:05.060 It was important work then.

00:00:07.420 It is just as, maybe if not more so, important today.

00:00:11.420 Why do we as men struggle to understand what women are thinking and saying?

00:00:15.680 And why do women struggle just as much in understanding us?

00:00:19.600 My guest today, Vanessa Bennett, author of The Motherhood Myth and Psychotherapist,

00:00:23.720 sheds light on some of the reasons, including an inside look at what women are thinking and why.

00:00:30.000 Today, we talk about the misunderstandings between men and women,

00:00:33.320 why women aren't interested in being with you as one of their children,

00:00:38.200 why women are looking for leadership and respect from men,

00:00:42.060 what is healthy womanhood and manhood,

00:00:44.720 why safety is a key factor in attractiveness for women,

00:00:48.820 and what it really means when a woman says, quote,

00:00:51.800 I want a man who is vulnerable.

00:00:54.740 You're a man of action.

00:00:56.180 You live life to the fullest.

00:00:57.360 Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path.

00:01:00.660 When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time.

00:01:05.120 You are not easily deterred or defeated.

00:01:07.400 Rugged.

00:01:08.200 Resilient.

00:01:09.160 Strong.

00:01:10.120 This is your life.

00:01:11.260 This is who you are.

00:01:12.660 This is who you will become.

00:01:14.400 At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,

00:01:17.420 you can call yourself a man.

00:01:19.340 Gentlemen, welcome to the Order of Man podcast.

00:01:28.820 I am Ryan Michler.

00:01:30.140 I'm the host and the founder of this show and this movement to reclaim and restore masculinity.

00:01:35.260 Now, we've done over 1,500 podcasts at this point,

00:01:40.820 and I believe as of today, we're close to 560 or 70 interviews, and this is a unique one.

00:01:48.500 This one's different because we brought Vanessa Bennett on.

00:01:51.700 She is a licensed psychotherapist.

00:01:53.900 She is pretty incredible when it comes to what it means to be a woman,

00:01:59.260 what it means to be a man,

00:02:00.340 why there's so much confusion and frustration between the sexes,

00:02:05.400 and I'm very excited for something a little different than we've done in the past.

00:02:09.720 So tune in with an open mind, and I think we'll learn a lot from this one.

00:02:13.960 Now, before I get into the podcast and to keep it on the path of manliness,

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00:03:07.620 Now, with that said and out of the way, let me introduce you to my guest.

00:03:11.540 Her name is Vanessa Bennett.

00:03:13.560 As I said earlier, she's a licensed psychotherapist.

00:03:16.380 She's an author, and she's also a facilitator

00:03:20.100 whose work centers around helping men and women reconnect with not only their deepest sense of who they are,

00:03:27.260 but also reconnect to each other.

00:03:29.720 She draws from Jungian work.

00:03:32.240 Many of you have heard it as shadow work,

00:03:34.520 and she really wants to support men and women in breaking their subconscious

00:03:40.340 and even generational patterns to reclaim their own authority.

00:03:45.260 I call it sovereignty.

00:03:46.180 She's also the co-author with her partner, John Kim,

00:03:50.040 who is a former guest of this podcast of the relationship book,

00:03:53.300 It's Not Me, It's You.

00:03:54.520 She co-hosts the podcast, Cheaper Than Therapy,

00:03:57.460 and she's also the author of her latest book, The Motherhood Myth.

00:04:01.680 This one's going to be big for those of you who are listening who have wives

00:04:05.520 and are just becoming mothers and fathers in your case.

00:04:10.120 But she leads workshops, retreats.

00:04:12.160 She does therapy, coaching, teaching, and really through her writing and her presence online,

00:04:18.220 she advocates for more ways to be better in relationships,

00:04:22.400 honor both men and women,

00:04:23.980 and maybe once again, or for the first time,

00:04:28.060 really become and truly become acquainted with who you truly are.

00:04:34.160 Vanessa, thanks for joining me on the podcast today.

00:04:36.760 Thank you, Ryan, for having me.

00:04:38.100 I've been looking forward to this conversation because, you know,

00:04:42.300 you and I have had some email exchanges,

00:04:43.840 but I think there's, I think that men really do have a desire to serve the women in their lives.

00:04:50.260 And I think oftentimes our brashness, our toughness, our demeanor is maybe misinterpreted by women.

00:04:59.700 Generally, I'm speaking in broad generalities,

00:05:01.440 and I think it creates problems between men and women.

00:05:04.560 And conversely, I think that women generally want to serve the men in their lives in their way.

00:05:10.140 And it is misinterpreted and misconstrued by us as men.

00:05:14.220 So I think this will be a powerful discussion in how we can start having the conversations about

00:05:20.120 what women mean when they say certain things,

00:05:23.120 what men mean, how they show up, how they could show up better, et cetera.

00:05:28.140 Yeah, agreed.

00:05:28.980 I mean, I think as somebody who works with couples a lot,

00:05:31.140 my number one priority in that work is to help people understand each other, right?

00:05:36.300 And so I think that's kind of what you're seeing and what I'm seeing is like,

00:05:39.940 we're both kind of saying the same thing, but it's being misinterpreted a lot of times.

00:05:45.560 Why do you think that is generally?

00:05:47.040 Is it because we speak a different language, so to speak?

00:05:51.440 Or is it because there is conflict that's very difficult to resolve between what women think

00:05:59.500 they should be doing and what men think they should be doing and what the sexes think the

00:06:04.060 others should be doing?

00:06:05.920 I think it's all of the above.

00:06:08.100 I mean, I think I see it so often where, you know, by the time, unfortunately, by the time

00:06:12.260 couples come to me, there's already many layers of conflict and resentment to kind of work through

00:06:17.680 first and foremost before anybody can be heard.

00:06:19.900 Um, but I think also like socially, unfortunately, we've got ourselves into like these corners

00:06:25.760 where society has got us thinking like, okay, I have to fit into this blueprint and you need

00:06:31.360 to fit into this blueprint.

00:06:32.220 And if I don't fit into that blueprint, something's wrong with me.

00:06:35.020 And so we're all kind of walking around robotic, trying to like tick off boxes and be a good

00:06:39.420 woman and be a good man.

00:06:40.600 Right.

00:06:40.860 And many times when we're like in those roles, we're missing the human, the very real human

00:06:45.320 that's across from us.

00:06:46.280 I, it's interesting that you bring it up and I, and I partially agree with that, but

00:06:52.800 I also know that the roles, so to speak, if that's the term we're going to use have served

00:06:57.780 us for thousands and thousands of years as a species.

00:07:00.760 I was actually doing a little research before you and I jumped on the podcast.

00:07:04.480 And what I found is that there's a lot of studies that suggest that women are unhappier than

00:07:11.320 they've been over the past several decades, even though access to opportunity and financial

00:07:18.460 prosperity and options to be in the workforce or options to be at home.

00:07:23.000 It's interesting that women's happiness is down.

00:07:25.380 And from what I saw and what I could see is that men's happiness has either plateaued or

00:07:29.920 even in some studies has shown that it's increased, which is kind of an interesting, have you seen

00:07:35.040 these studies and, and do you agree with that?

00:07:37.600 I've seen the one you talked about with women for sure.

00:07:39.660 And I, and I've seen it in the research and I've seen it in my own practice.

00:07:42.840 Um, I would say that what I've seen in my own practice is, uh, um, a blend, I suppose with

00:07:48.520 men plateauing for sure.

00:07:49.880 I've seen that, um, and when I've seen them get happier, I think is when they've done some of this

00:07:56.260 interpersonal and kind of looking inside the self kind of work.

00:08:00.720 That's when I've seen them kind of increase in happiness.

00:08:02.860 And I've seen them decrease when they don't in, in my, in my practice, at least.

00:08:08.560 I mean, I can understand that I've, I've heard, I'm not familiar with it, but young, I'm not,

00:08:13.560 I'm not deeply familiar with it.

00:08:15.060 I should say is young's work on shadow work.

00:08:17.640 And I think that's a big movement amongst men currently.

00:08:20.860 And that might just be because I'm in the world of men's self-development that I see it

00:08:24.600 more and more, but I would agree with that.

00:08:27.380 And I think there's a way that it's presented if it's, if it's constructively, that isn't

00:08:32.680 as feminine as I think we've seen in the past in therapy.

00:08:38.120 And it seems to be really difficult for men to resonate with.

00:08:42.120 Um, I don't know what you think about that.

00:08:43.680 Tell me when you say feminine, tell me more about what you mean when you say it's been

00:08:47.700 feminine in the, in the therapy space.

00:08:50.420 Well, okay.

00:08:51.100 So I think, and I'm just speaking in broad generality, so we can get more specific or examples, but

00:08:56.440 it seems to me from where I sit that women connect very well, uh, relationally.

00:09:03.020 And if you were to look at it in the physical realm, it would be face to face, knee to knee,

00:09:07.720 looking at each other, conversing about, you know, men often mock, for example, women gossiping,

00:09:12.620 but that's a powerful exercise for women to bond and connect in a community.

00:09:16.480 So that makes sense to me.

00:09:18.400 Whereas men are more, they'll still form relationships, but we're more linear.

00:09:23.200 And so we'll stand shoulder to shoulder facing out, uh, to a common objective or against a

00:09:30.820 common enemy.

00:09:31.460 And so it seems that it's been difficult for men to consider talking about our issues as

00:09:40.220 opposed to working on them actively and actively addressing them.

00:09:44.680 Yeah.

00:09:45.100 I hear what you're saying.

00:09:45.880 And, and I agree.

00:09:46.680 I mean, I think the healthy masculine is usually unified by some sort of shared purpose, right?

00:09:53.960 Um, purpose is huge within the healthy masculine, whereas like the healthy feminine to your point

00:09:58.420 is more connected connectivity, right?

00:10:00.860 And, and again, interrelatedness to use that word.

00:10:03.440 Um, I, I don't know though, that they're so stark.

00:10:06.760 Like what I have found is that oftentimes they will have an overlap or some kind of interconnectedness.

00:10:12.780 So when I'm working with individual women or individual men, actually, if I'm working with

00:10:17.180 couples too, what I often find is if we can evoke the healthy feminine in, let's say the,

00:10:23.500 the, the woman, right.

00:10:24.540 If we're talking like heteronormatively here in the woman in the dynamic, um, oftentimes it

00:10:29.600 will be through interconnectivity.

00:10:31.040 Like we said, the, the, the masculine, let's say it'll be through this idea of purpose, but

00:10:36.280 then what I'm able to do is tap into the masculine and the feminine within the other as well.

00:10:41.340 And so allow the woman in the dynamic to also embrace and understand her purpose and see

00:10:48.300 how much passion that gives her.

00:10:50.120 And then also allow the, the masculine to embrace the interconnectivity and the relational

00:10:55.820 aspect, and then see how much kind of happiness and drive that gives him.

00:10:59.220 So I guess what I mean, roles, I mean, sometimes we kind of cut our nose off despite our face

00:11:04.180 when we say, well, this is it, it's only this.

00:11:06.820 And so, so long as I'm focusing on this, I'll be happy.

00:11:09.080 And it's like, yeah, but there's this whole other realm here that we're possibly missing

00:11:13.480 by just keeping ourselves in this one box and saying, you know, Oh, for men, it's purpose

00:11:17.180 and for women, it's relationship.

00:11:18.360 It's like, well, yes.

00:11:19.940 And right.

00:11:20.640 I'm always asking yes.

00:11:21.680 And like, what else are we missing?

00:11:23.340 You know?

00:11:25.260 Yeah.

00:11:25.640 I imagine again, I'm, I'm overgeneralizing.

00:11:27.900 I know, but this will help us get some context, I think.

00:11:30.280 But I imagine the role that most men believe they, I should say prioritize.

00:11:36.480 I don't even think it's believe.

00:11:37.940 I think we're biologically hardwared for certain roles, but we are, we prioritize being protectors

00:11:44.220 and providers.

00:11:45.340 And I think women, I haven't thought about this as deeply as men, because this is the work

00:11:50.180 I do, but I would say generally women prioritize, um, nurturing and support, I would say.

00:11:59.560 And so it seems like these roles have served a really strong purpose, but I do see that

00:12:05.220 there's a need for other opportunities.

00:12:07.260 Men don't want to just be the workhorses, even though we can be.

00:12:10.800 And we, and that's the, and I believe that that's the priority.

00:12:13.720 You know, if everything else falls apart, the last thing to go is me being able to protect

00:12:19.080 and provide for my family.

00:12:20.400 And a lot of other stuff can go, I'll make those sacrifices before that goes.

00:12:24.660 And I think the same would probably be true of a woman.

00:12:27.660 I think generally women do want to nurture their children, raise their children, support

00:12:32.900 their husbands, turn their houses into a home.

00:12:35.220 But I can see that there is some area for other development above and beyond what they're

00:12:40.760 prioritized roles generally are.

00:12:43.740 Yeah.

00:12:43.860 And I mean, I think going back to what you were saying about Jung and shadow work, the

00:12:47.700 whole essence of shadow work, right, is to look into our shadow and see what elements

00:12:52.960 of our soul, right, of, of the self capital S has been kind of cut off and relegated to the

00:12:59.200 darkness, to the basement through our interaction or our engagement with society, with our parents,

00:13:05.440 with like the people who make the rules, right?

00:13:07.400 Like, what are you allowed to enjoy?

00:13:09.500 What are you not allowed to enjoy?

00:13:11.200 How are you allowed to show up?

00:13:12.380 How are you not allowed to show up?

00:13:13.840 And so in essence, what shadow work is, is turning a flashlight on, kind of bringing it

00:13:18.580 out, looking at it and saying, oh, that's interesting.

00:13:21.280 I don't need to be ashamed of this.

00:13:23.620 I'm allowed to bring it out and look at it.

00:13:25.900 And if I do that and stop pretending it's not there or, or kind of work through the shame

00:13:30.000 I have, then it becomes integrated into who I am.

00:13:33.500 And it stops like calling the shots because what I have found and what Jung spoke about

00:13:38.220 extensively in his world around shadow is that when things are in the basement, they

00:13:42.540 have way more control over us than they do when we actually bring them out and start to

00:13:47.220 confront the shame, which I'm sure you do the same work with the men that you work with,

00:13:51.200 right?

00:13:51.500 Shame is like, it's the shackles.

00:13:53.160 I think for all of us, men are women around our ankles so often.

00:13:56.260 Yeah, I mean, absolutely.

00:13:59.620 I think it is important when you start giving it a face and you start acknowledging where

00:14:05.620 the way that we talk about it often is our biological, not, sorry, not our biological

00:14:12.020 program, our social programming.

00:14:14.480 So my parents, for example, may have said certain things about, you know, money doesn't grow on

00:14:19.700 trees is an example.

00:14:20.860 And while I understand it doesn't grow on trees, the sentiment is that money isn't abundant.

00:14:28.440 And so therefore, if I adopted that in my life and I'm operating my life by that subconscious

00:14:35.340 programming, I'm not really going to find a way to develop and build any measurable amount

00:14:40.780 of wealth in my life because I think, I think about it in a scarce mindset because my mom said

00:14:46.260 something to me when I was three years old.

00:14:48.580 That's right.

00:14:49.140 And that is a wild, wild thing to me.

00:14:51.540 But when you think about it, you can ask yourself, you know, where did this thought come from?

00:14:56.320 Where did this idea come from?

00:14:57.460 Does it serve me?

00:14:58.320 Does it help me?

00:14:59.040 And I think that's something more men and women need to do.

00:15:01.780 I agree.

00:15:02.460 Yeah.

00:15:02.640 And I think that was actually the premise of so much of the research I did because I'm

00:15:06.920 a little bit of an information nerd.

00:15:08.320 Like, I want to know why.

00:15:09.520 I'm always so curious about, I mean, obviously I'm a therapist, right?

00:15:12.420 I'm fascinated by why we tick.

00:15:13.980 But just in general, I was like, where did all of these, I call them myths, come from,

00:15:18.660 right?

00:15:18.920 That women should act this way.

00:15:20.420 Men should act this way.

00:15:21.380 If they're not, then they're not a woman or they're not a man.

00:15:23.380 And why are so many people coming to me feeling unhappy or feeling restrained?

00:15:28.400 And so I just started like poking, right?

00:15:30.160 Poking around and doing a ton of research into the why.

00:15:32.620 And so I agree with you.

00:15:34.000 It's like, when we start to look at where things came from, we do get to have a little

00:15:39.440 bit more consciousness in the way that we relate to it, where we say, okay, that's a

00:15:43.600 belief that was given to me, but do I have to carry it on?

00:15:46.760 And I think the relationship with money is a huge one that a lot of us actually engage

00:15:51.720 with day to day, you know?

00:15:53.620 Yeah.

00:15:54.380 So, okay.

00:15:55.100 So let's do this.

00:15:56.340 Let's talk about some of these myths.

00:15:58.160 And I'd like to cover a few for men and a few for women, some of the most common myths

00:16:02.400 that we experience.

00:16:03.800 And I think even covering it for women is going to be important.

00:16:07.080 And I haven't had very many women on the podcast.

00:16:09.680 So this is why I am really excited about this because we as men need to see it from a woman's

00:16:15.100 perspective.

00:16:15.560 It doesn't make it right, inherently right, but we do need to see it so that we can better

00:16:21.100 lead the people that we're trying to lead and have the connections that we're trying

00:16:24.060 to connect.

00:16:24.880 So what would you say are some of the myths that are, would you say perpetuated by society

00:16:30.660 and tradition?

00:16:31.420 Is that what you would say?

00:16:33.340 Yeah, I think a lot of them are.

00:16:35.460 So, you know, this book was written first and foremost because I was having these huge

00:16:39.920 aha moments as I became a mother, right?

00:16:42.100 As I transitioned into motherhood.

00:16:44.880 And my partner, John, who you know, we were struggling a lot.

00:16:47.880 And I was like, what is going on here, right?

00:16:49.800 And so I point to a lot of kind of smaller myths throughout the book, but really the overarching

00:16:55.720 myth of motherhood that I talk about.

00:16:58.340 So the book is broken up into three sections, motherhood, sex, and relationships.

00:17:01.900 And really, I say the overarching myth for all of them is that if motherhood is not inherently

00:17:07.620 something that fills you up to the brim, like I am completely filled up by this and nothing

00:17:13.840 else, just like sex, just like relationships, number one.

00:17:16.980 And if you're not good at them, just good at them.

00:17:19.740 Like, I'm just not great at mothering.

00:17:21.120 I'm just not great at being in a relationship.

00:17:22.820 I'm just not great at, you know, the kind of romantic relationship stuff.

00:17:27.380 There's something wrong with you.

00:17:28.520 So what I found, especially as a woman was there, I was getting so many messages around

00:17:33.900 motherhood, like this should be easy.

00:17:36.220 This should be something that just fulfills you to the brim, right?

00:17:39.200 You should just get this.

00:17:40.340 You should want this.

00:17:41.640 And as I started being like, yeah, but I don't know if that's true for me.

00:17:46.120 All of the shame started coming up because I was getting these messages from everywhere.

00:17:49.740 And so these were kind of the myths that I started poking, uh, in the research I was

00:17:53.820 doing.

00:17:55.680 But how do you separate the myth?

00:17:58.520 Uh, and, and I've, and I've seen women go that go through that women in my life who

00:18:02.880 have very maternal instincts.

00:18:05.100 They're, they're, they're great mothers and they still struggle.

00:18:08.460 So that makes sense.

00:18:09.320 Just like, just like a man, I, I have great paternal instincts and yet I still struggle and

00:18:16.840 I still do things that aren't in the best interest of my kids or don't formulate a deeper

00:18:20.840 connection or I mess up.

00:18:22.260 We all, we all do that.

00:18:23.220 We all do.

00:18:23.860 But how do you separate the myth of that?

00:18:26.300 Because I, I, I agree with that with the pendulum swinging so far the other way.

00:18:31.640 And it seems like the narrative and culture is becoming more and more, which is why we're

00:18:36.760 having declining marriage rates, declining birth rates is that just to put it bluntly, women

00:18:42.080 don't need no man.

00:18:42.940 And that's a common narrative that I don't think is healthy for women or for men or for

00:18:48.900 society.

00:18:50.440 Yeah, I agree with you and that it's not healthy.

00:18:52.700 I actually talk about one of the chapters in my book, I go into kind of the different

00:18:57.000 waves of feminism and kind of, again, understanding, like, how did we get here and looking at

00:19:01.780 like the feminism of, I would say like my mom's generation, right?

00:19:04.640 So I'm an elder, an elder millennial, as they like to call us.

00:19:08.440 Very fancy.

00:19:09.200 We're so wise, the elder millennials.

00:19:12.440 So like our mothers and our grandmothers, right?

00:19:14.320 They're, they're kind of wave of, of feminism and how so much of what they were taught.

00:19:19.140 And thus we were taught as, as girls growing into women was that in order to be respected,

00:19:23.280 you have to be more like a man, right?

00:19:25.800 And I talk about how detrimental that has actually been to women of my generation, right?

00:19:32.100 So many of us grew up in households where we had strong female presences that were leading

00:19:39.840 and that were mothering and that were grandparenting, you know, all these things.

00:19:44.100 And, and we were hearing this, um, I don't know, this chatter in the background, whether

00:19:48.940 it was verbal or nonverbal about the men in our lives.

00:19:51.680 So our fathers, our grandparents, our uncles about men are useless.

00:19:56.600 Men can't be trusted.

00:19:58.480 Men are going to hurt you, right?

00:20:00.340 Men are going to walk out and leave all of these kinds of insidious little things that

00:20:04.800 many women, my age heard growing up.

00:20:07.300 Now, listen, they were based in personal hurt and personal experience, right?

00:20:11.000 But the problem is, is that it turned into this, like you said, a swing of the pendulum

00:20:16.220 where now you have a generation of women who have come into womanhood, right?

00:20:21.100 Adulthood.

00:20:21.820 And we were raised with that lens and it's really hard for us to question it when we're

00:20:27.600 looking at our mothers and our grandmothers and their very real hurt.

00:20:30.340 And so I think exactly what you said, pendulum, I actually use the pendulum theory in the book

00:20:34.780 a lot is showing how we do this thing as people.

00:20:38.000 And it goes back as long as we have research, right?

00:20:40.720 Where we go bing, bing, bing.

00:20:42.260 And we kind of bounce back and forth in the pendulum.

00:20:45.100 Um, the Heigelian, Heigelian, I always like screw up his name.

00:20:48.860 It's a German name.

00:20:50.520 Theory of pendulum says that essentially on the kind of push or drive towards bettering ourselves

00:20:57.340 as human beings, right?

00:20:58.600 Evolution as human beings, the pendulum swings back and forth.

00:21:01.940 But as it does that, the center is never exactly the center.

00:21:05.640 It's almost like each time we swing, we get a little further into like what we're kind

00:21:09.720 of evolving, right?

00:21:10.860 To be.

00:21:11.200 Um, and so I believe that, I believe that to be true.

00:21:14.660 Jungian psychology too.

00:21:15.780 I hold as a depth psychotherapist, I hold the collective as much as I hold the individual.

00:21:20.940 And I really like to see how everything that's happening right now socially, I believe is

00:21:26.220 in service of us starting to find our way into middle.

00:21:29.540 Like we have swung so far, right?

00:21:32.100 In order to figure out how do we get back to the center.

00:21:35.500 That's right.

00:21:35.960 That's right.

00:21:36.320 Exactly.

00:21:36.920 Yep.

00:21:37.840 Well, you even see it with men and I've seen it prop up over the past.

00:21:41.520 I've been doing this work now for 10 years and I can tell you unequivocally that it is

00:21:46.580 more and more so that men are not only rejecting some of these ideologies, but blatantly fighting

00:21:55.160 against them.

00:21:55.860 And it's, it's almost as if men have created this, this version for men of third wave feminism

00:22:06.600 and that's the problem.

00:22:08.560 And so now you have two extremes fighting against each other.

00:22:12.760 Women are the enemy.

00:22:13.480 Men are the enemy.

00:22:14.740 That's right.

00:22:15.420 Like nobody's the enemy.

00:22:17.020 Let's figure out how to come closer together.

00:22:19.460 How do men serve women effectively?

00:22:21.180 How do women serve men effectively?

00:22:22.600 And how do we make society better?

00:22:24.460 And women aren't the enemy are to your point.

00:22:28.020 There's a lot of hurt men who say horrible things about women because they've experienced

00:22:33.120 it, but we have to be careful of applying an isolated experience broadly or to an entire

00:22:39.180 group.

00:22:40.040 Yeah, I agree.

00:22:41.420 I agree.

00:22:42.120 I also think too, it's like if we're talking about the kind of evolution, right?

00:22:46.280 The evolution of our species, which we've just continued to watch over time.

00:22:50.080 Um, what I think is interesting is this idea of like not needing each other.

00:22:53.880 And, and I think where I'm seeing that come from is that yes, in the last, let's say, well,

00:22:59.640 let's see in the States, women couldn't have a bank account until 1978, right?

00:23:03.220 So let's just say since 1978, women have been able to be financially independent, right?

00:23:08.900 So at a bare minimum to survive, women don't need inherently need a man to survive anymore,

00:23:17.280 right?

00:23:17.480 Like we used to, right?

00:23:18.940 Sure.

00:23:19.900 I think when I hear women talk about, I don't need men anymore.

00:23:23.460 In my experience, it's usually coming from that lens.

00:23:26.960 And so what I've heard so often in the couple's work I've done is a woman saying to a man,

00:23:31.280 I don't need you.

00:23:33.580 I want you.

00:23:35.080 And to me, that feels much more powerful.

00:23:37.860 If I'm choosing you to be here and I'm choosing to be here, not because I need you to survive,

00:23:43.320 but because I actually am choosing to be here inherently in both directions, that actually

00:23:48.260 changes the way we relate to one another.

00:23:50.820 Because if you know that somebody is choosing you, not because they have to, you're going to

00:23:55.260 show up differently.

00:23:55.960 You're going to act differently.

00:23:57.120 You're going to relate differently, right?

00:23:58.840 And I think that's happening actually on both sides.

00:24:00.880 When we say, I don't need you for survival.

00:24:02.580 I'm actually choosing this.

00:24:04.040 We get to go, oh shit.

00:24:06.040 All right.

00:24:06.460 Well, how do I show up differently knowing that the person's not here because they're shackled

00:24:10.300 to me, you know?

00:24:11.560 Yeah.

00:24:12.520 I think that does pose a little bit, a little bit, not a little, quite a bit of a problem

00:24:17.160 in that it's so easy for both sides to be financially abundant.

00:24:22.660 It's so easy in the era of hookup culture to get your physical needs met without having

00:24:29.020 to be in a committed relationship that, and those are just two small examples.

00:24:33.600 There's other examples where it makes it so much easier to not be fully committed into

00:24:40.320 relationships.

00:24:40.900 And I think both sides have a fear that if the slightest thing goes wrong or we get into

00:24:46.940 an argument or we're going through a rough patch, we'll just chalk it up, quit, throw

00:24:51.580 in the towel because it's so much easier to get whatever it is that you were providing

00:24:56.240 somewhere else.

00:24:57.060 And I think that's horrible because I think John actually talked about it, repairing ruptures

00:25:04.080 when we did our last podcast, repairing ruptures.

00:25:06.420 And he suggested that couples who are able to repair those ruptures are couples who are

00:25:13.080 stronger than those who had never gone through any of those hardships at all.

00:25:16.900 A hundred percent, a hundred percent.

00:25:18.340 And I agree with you.

00:25:19.060 I think that that's the extreme.

00:25:20.860 I think that what we're seeing is that pendulum swing, right?

00:25:23.220 Which is the people going, well, if I don't need this person to survive, then screw them.

00:25:27.600 You know, I don't, I'm just going to go off and I'm going to get on Tinder and I'm going

00:25:30.560 to get my needs met other ways.

00:25:32.840 I do think though, that if we, if we pull back and we look at it again, like let's hold

00:25:37.440 it as a collective, it's like, well, partly I think we're learning that that doesn't work.

00:25:42.600 And I think that the people who are coming back to me and saying, so I did that thing.

00:25:46.340 I ended my marriage.

00:25:47.500 I blew up my relationship.

00:25:48.560 I went out there at the grass is in fact, not greener, right?

00:25:51.800 But I don't know that they would have known that had they not had that embodied experience

00:25:57.400 of, oh shit, what I should have done maybe is learned how to have proper rupture and repair,

00:26:03.580 learned how to work through, you know, disagreements, all of these things that I think you're right.

00:26:07.640 I think we've actually, not even just in romantic relationships, I see it even like friendships

00:26:11.520 and familial relationships we've thrown by the wayside, right?

00:26:14.880 It's like, I always talk about this idea of how one of the things I hate about pop psychology

00:26:19.420 and kind of social media psychology is like what I call like this positive psychology

00:26:25.280 kind of trend where it's like, you know, good vibes only.

00:26:27.920 Like if this person is bringing me down in any way, I cut them out of my life, you know?

00:26:32.680 And I think that's horribly misguided.

00:26:35.960 And I think we're, we're actually creating more isolation in doing that.

00:26:41.800 Yeah.

00:26:42.280 It's the equivalent in the physical realm of the body positive movement.

00:26:45.560 It's not a good thing to be severely obese.

00:26:49.000 I mean, sure, you can believe in your worth and you can be happy with who you are and you

00:26:53.320 can develop your personality, but let's not pretend that being severely obese is a positive

00:26:58.760 thing.

00:26:59.200 It's certainly not.

00:27:00.120 And it's going to lead to a lot of devastation in a person's life.

00:27:03.060 Yeah.

00:27:03.740 Yeah.

00:27:04.100 And I think, I think going back, it's like, we have to almost swing the pendulum so far

00:27:08.280 that we're able to creep back from the edge, you know?

00:27:11.500 Um, and I, and I will say to this idea, what I have seen in relationships and the ones that

00:27:16.940 I have witnessed kind of, um, evolve and unfold on the other side of a potential, like, okay,

00:27:22.420 we've hit our edge and this is kind of make or break.

00:27:25.040 Right.

00:27:25.220 And I would even say, John, and I would include John and I in this, when we've done the work

00:27:30.100 to get to the other side of, okay, we don't need each other, right.

00:27:34.400 For survival necessarily, but we're choosing each other.

00:27:37.940 What does that look like and how does that impact the way we show up?

00:27:41.200 I think on the other side of that, our connection has actually gotten so much deeper and so much

00:27:47.040 stronger because we are actually committed to the choosing, not committed to the air quote

00:27:53.620 needing, which I think kind of leads us into this very dangerous codependent way of being

00:27:59.680 in relationships, which is like, oh my God, world, the world is scary.

00:28:03.480 I'm inherently less valuable if I'm not in a relationship.

00:28:06.700 So I got to lock something down and I got to keep it at all costs.

00:28:10.080 I don't think that actually adds to people's fulfillment in their relationships.

00:28:13.940 If that's kind of the belief that got you there or the belief that's keeping you there.

00:28:17.360 I think that you have to have a certain amount of choosing, right.

00:28:20.380 Going into it.

00:28:21.100 And, and that takes work.

00:28:22.440 You've got to deprogram some of that fear before you can get there.

00:28:26.840 Gentlemen, I mentioned this briefly in the podcast and the conversation, but I just want

00:28:31.260 to take a break from what we're talking about because brotherhood with other men, it isn't

00:28:37.680 just a one.

00:28:38.600 It's a, it's a lifeline.

00:28:40.160 It's something you need.

00:28:41.640 Too many men are just, they're white knuckling it their way through life.

00:28:48.020 They're carrying silent burdens that nobody else sees.

00:28:51.360 And alone, that weight could crush you.

00:28:53.700 It literally could crush you.

00:28:55.320 But in brotherhood, you're going to find men who stand shoulder to shoulder with you.

00:28:59.560 Uh, they're going to refuse to let you drift into isolation and do it all on your own.

00:29:05.040 And they're also going to call you out when you're falling short and encourage you, root

00:29:09.640 for you, cheer you on and hold you up to remind you of the strength that maybe you've forgotten

00:29:15.480 that you have.

00:29:17.160 And being alone and being with other men is the difference between stumbling in the dark

00:29:22.680 or maybe having a fire at your back, lighting, lighting the way and giving you the ammunition

00:29:31.080 you need to propel yourself forward.

00:29:32.920 Guys, you've heard it.

00:29:33.740 Iron sharpens iron, but it also sparks, um, true brotherhood lights.

00:29:39.060 It ignites, it, it creates something deep inside a man, you to drive, to rise, to fight,

00:29:45.720 to build, um, it demands that you don't be mediocre.

00:29:51.400 Uh, it demands that you forge resilience and it demands that you prove yourself capable of

00:29:58.040 overcoming struggle and triumph, uh, in a world that tries to dull men into silence and comfort

00:30:05.320 and mediocrity, our brotherhood inside the iron council, it wakes you up.

00:30:10.680 It doesn't let you settle and make sure you become who you were always, always meant to

00:30:16.160 be.

00:30:16.640 And if you're interested in that and you're interested in improving your relationships,

00:30:20.680 improving your connections, improving your fitness, improving your bank account, improving

00:30:24.080 your career, improving who you are as a man, including your fulfillment, then join us inside

00:30:28.640 our brotherhood, the iron council head to order of man.com slash iron council.

00:30:34.340 Get signed up immediately because we're going to take this last quarter by the horns and we're

00:30:39.200 going to move into Q1 of next year with some momentum, motivation, inspiration, and, uh,

00:30:46.940 systems.

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00:30:48.800 Order of man.com slash iron council.

00:30:51.060 That's order of man.com slash iron council.

00:30:54.040 Let me get back to it with Vanessa.

00:30:57.120 Yeah, I'm in a great relationship and we've both had discussions about this where we're both

00:31:02.140 well aware that if we were to not be in a relationship, both of us would be okay.

00:31:07.160 We'd be fine.

00:31:08.160 We'd be in other relationships throughout our lives.

00:31:11.000 We'd go on and raise our, our kids.

00:31:13.120 Everything would be fine.

00:31:15.060 We don't want that.

00:31:16.160 We're not advocating for that for each other, but we know we would.

00:31:19.560 And that I think brings a sense for me anyways, I can't speak for her, but for me, it brings

00:31:25.240 a sense of calmness and clarity in my life.

00:31:29.660 I don't feel as anxious.

00:31:31.060 I don't feel like you said, I have to do all the right things and say all the right things

00:31:35.980 and heaven forbid, you know, we get into a little disagreement about something and then

00:31:41.200 it's going to blow up the relationship.

00:31:42.620 And to her credit, she feels very much the same way.

00:31:45.640 It would be difficult if she didn't, because then the fear of her leaving over things somebody

00:31:52.460 shouldn't leave over would be present.

00:31:54.400 And therefore a guy would be more inclined to walk on eggshells, say all the right things,

00:31:59.140 do all the right things.

00:31:59.920 And the roles reverse would be the same thing.

00:32:02.340 That's exactly right.

00:32:03.100 And I think what you're speaking to is the ability within a romantic relationship for

00:32:06.620 us to actually start to heal some of those attachment wounds and kind of bring ourselves

00:32:10.940 into a more secure base.

00:32:12.840 Right.

00:32:13.280 And I think that similarly, John and I have done it in the same way, which is like, I

00:32:17.680 heard something actually, I started with a new therapist myself recently, you know, post

00:32:22.480 fires, post the chaos of this last year.

00:32:24.700 And one of the things she said to me, which I was like, I feel like I knew that as a therapist,

00:32:29.100 but for some reason, her saying it to my face, I was like, oh, right.

00:32:32.320 It's different.

00:32:33.120 I know.

00:32:33.600 She said, you know, in order to truly show up authentically in a relationship, you have

00:32:39.640 to have kind of faced the reality that it could end.

00:32:43.140 Like you have to really be with that.

00:32:45.460 You have to like know that it's a possibility.

00:32:48.500 Right.

00:32:48.960 And almost be a little okay with it ending to your point.

00:32:53.080 It's not like that's what we want, but it's like, if it does end, I know I'll be okay.

00:32:57.440 When you really reckon with that, then you can show up authentically in a relationship.

00:33:01.880 And until then, like you're, like you said, it's eggshells.

00:33:04.640 There's a lot of faking.

00:33:06.280 There's a lot of people pleasing and all of these kind of, you know, like I say, more

00:33:09.620 codependent ways of relating that show up.

00:33:12.840 Yeah.

00:33:13.220 I wish I was going to say, I wish more men knew this women too.

00:33:17.540 Again, I say men just because that's who I work with exclusively, but I wish more men understood,

00:33:22.580 you know, I think about for relationships, for example, you know, let's say they're in

00:33:26.640 a, uh, a long-term relationship and it's on the rocks or it's ending, they're going through

00:33:31.540 a separation or divorce.

00:33:32.880 And I'm talking with these guys, letting them know that, Hey, it's going to be okay.

00:33:36.780 Whatever happens.

00:33:37.440 If you guys reconcile, if you don't, it's going to be okay.

00:33:40.460 And it's really hard.

00:33:41.560 And obviously we've all been through breakups and divorces and separations to acknowledge

00:33:46.200 that in the moment.

00:33:46.980 But if you rewind 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, you've had heartbreak before and you can't

00:33:53.440 even remember it right now.

00:33:54.940 So what, why, why don't you believe that you're actually going to be okay if this one ends?

00:34:00.480 It's obviously the emotion and the struggle and the fear of loss and the challenge that

00:34:06.040 comes with it.

00:34:06.620 But yeah, everybody will be fine.

00:34:08.200 That's, that's the conclusion I've come to.

00:34:09.980 We're all going to be okay.

00:34:11.640 I think that's exactly right.

00:34:13.180 And I think that's a lot of the work that I do with clients is helping them heal that

00:34:16.300 exact wound that you're speaking to, which is really that the fear of abandonment.

00:34:19.320 Right.

00:34:19.660 And we place so much of that healing power on this other person, this person that's outside

00:34:25.820 of us, this external entity that you're basically saying you have all of the power over whether

00:34:31.240 or not I'm okay.

00:34:32.440 Right.

00:34:32.880 And so much of the work that I work with people on run this codependency recovery aspect is absolutely

00:34:37.980 not no one person outside of yourself holds that much power that comes from within.

00:34:43.100 Right.

00:34:43.440 And when I'm able to say, again, I can, I'll be okay.

00:34:46.600 And I know that I can relate to another person from such a more secure, grounded whole way.

00:34:54.520 Then if I'm looking at you going, I have to cling on to you because if you go away, I will

00:34:58.820 die.

00:34:59.900 Yeah.

00:35:00.780 Right.

00:35:01.120 Well, and also, also people I think are just less bothered with little trivial things that

00:35:06.500 used to be a problem.

00:35:07.860 That's right.

00:35:08.280 It's like, you know, maybe, maybe she does a weird, I don't know, maybe she makes a weird

00:35:14.000 noise when she eats or something.

00:35:15.660 And it's, it's like, you know, that's who cares.

00:35:19.280 She's good in every other department.

00:35:20.860 That's pretty good.

00:35:22.300 Or maybe she doesn't like something that you do.

00:35:25.120 And instead of being self defensive and upset and bothered that she brings it up, just try

00:35:30.400 to accommodate if it's reasonable, you know, and it's, it's just a much more casual, peaceful

00:35:36.060 way to live your life.

00:35:38.280 I do want to go back to something that you said when you were talking about this relationship

00:35:43.180 as a necessity versus a desire, a need versus a want.

00:35:46.620 What, the way I'm going to frame it doesn't really sound, sound right, but so I hope you

00:35:52.960 understand what I mean, but what, what would a guy want from a woman in order for it to

00:35:58.460 be a want type relationship and vice versa?

00:36:00.680 What would a woman want from a man in order for her to be desirous of it, not needed out

00:36:05.540 of necessity?

00:36:07.580 Okay.

00:36:08.060 So what is a relationship essentially look like that's established in desire and want, not

00:36:13.100 in need on both sides?

00:36:15.820 Yeah.

00:36:16.220 And even when you work with your, your clients, um, what is it that men are looking for outside

00:36:23.240 of, cause obviously the financial provision isn't nearly as prevalent for men looking

00:36:27.540 for that in women, which is not really a priority for most men when they make their decision

00:36:33.680 who to be with.

00:36:34.920 So what are they looking for?

00:36:36.340 And then what are women looking for outside of the financial provision?

00:36:39.440 Because it's more common that they can do it themselves now.

00:36:42.680 Yeah.

00:36:42.960 Yeah.

00:36:43.660 Yeah.

00:36:44.060 I think if we strip away those two elements that really were such driving factors, let's

00:36:49.380 say even just one generation before us.

00:36:51.480 Right.

00:36:52.380 Um, I think right now what I'm seeing on both sides is this idea of partnership.

00:36:58.620 Um, and I think especially for women, this is what I hear so often, which is I, I want

00:37:04.640 a partner in every essence of the word, right?

00:37:07.380 I don't want a dominator and I don't want somebody to dominate.

00:37:10.520 I want somebody who actually stands shoulder to shoulder with me.

00:37:14.340 Um, I want somebody who respects me and who I respect as a human being, as an individual,

00:37:19.380 which means I don't want to change them.

00:37:21.880 They don't want to change me.

00:37:23.640 Right.

00:37:24.540 Um, I want somebody who I, you know, this sounds trivial, but it's not, you know, this

00:37:29.440 it's like, you, you want to spend your life with somebody who you genuinely enjoy and get

00:37:32.940 along with.

00:37:33.920 So actually choosing somebody who you really enjoy spending time with is super important.

00:37:39.400 Um, so I hear that a lot, obviously.

00:37:42.160 Um, and then this idea of emotional intelligence EQ, right.

00:37:46.100 Has come up more and more and more, which actually harkens back to what you were talking

00:37:49.520 about with John, which is this ability to have rupture and repair, you know, um, kind

00:37:54.840 of a little bit of a birdwalk here, but I read something once that said millennials are

00:37:58.940 the first generation to apologize to their children.

00:38:02.520 A lot of our parents, yeah, did not really have the capacity.

00:38:06.620 Again, we're speaking generally, right.

00:38:08.840 But did not have the capacity to look inward, own their shit and apologize for their shit

00:38:14.780 in a lot of ways.

00:38:15.480 Right.

00:38:15.800 Many of us grew up in households where we walked on eggshells, things got brushed under

00:38:20.020 the rug.

00:38:20.600 There was like yelling and explosion.

00:38:22.160 And then there was nothing like there was very extreme ways or no ways at all of dealing

00:38:26.100 with conflict.

00:38:27.380 So in order to actually now be an adult that was raised that way, that has EQ, you have

00:38:32.220 to do some work on yourself, right?

00:38:33.900 Because we didn't learn it growing up, most of us.

00:38:35.780 So there's this real desire for EQ for both men and women to say, I want that other person

00:38:40.920 to be able to not be defensive, to be able to see themselves clearly, right.

00:38:44.780 And take responsibility and to collaborate with me on what that evolution and that growth

00:38:49.960 feels like, or looks like.

00:38:51.500 So those are just some of the things that I hear really often on both sides of the, of

00:38:55.540 the spectrum.

00:38:56.740 Yeah.

00:38:57.500 Well, so, okay.

00:38:58.140 I wanted to ask about dominance.

00:38:59.560 You use that word, uh, and compare that to leadership because in my experience, I believe

00:39:05.860 that the majority of women want a man who can lead not only themselves, but also lead

00:39:11.760 them as the woman, um, and be the leader of the household.

00:39:15.260 Would you agree with that?

00:39:16.500 That might just be my own little window that I'm seeing it through, but that seems to be

00:39:20.440 pretty common for me.

00:39:21.400 I would say some, and I, and I guess that this is where I usually do the yes and thing

00:39:26.720 again.

00:39:27.000 I mean, I think even in the women that I have heard put words to it, similarly to what you're

00:39:32.740 saying, there's an energy behind what leadership looks like, right.

00:39:37.140 And they want a man that they can rely on.

00:39:40.740 And that feels like a strong, sturdy base, um, but can also lead from connection to self

00:39:48.080 that can also lead from a place of empathy and compassion that can also lead from a place,

00:39:54.260 right.

00:39:54.400 So there's, I think that's where the thing around dominance comes from because inherently

00:39:59.020 in leadership is not dominance.

00:40:00.520 You don't have to dominate your children, for example, to lead them.

00:40:03.540 Right.

00:40:04.000 And I think that's the slippery slope that I find often is like women.

00:40:07.100 Yes.

00:40:07.460 What you're saying, women do want somebody, a man energetically to be a leader, but so

00:40:13.520 often they've experienced like a, like a conflation between leader and dominator.

00:40:18.320 And, and that's what I find people are coming to me saying, I don't want that, you know?

00:40:23.640 Yeah.

00:40:24.120 And I mean, that's, that's fair because I look at it and when I hear the word dominance, I

00:40:29.760 think that that likely comes at the expense of somebody else.

00:40:34.080 So if I'm dominant as the man in the relationship, it's going to be at the expense of her or

00:40:39.380 my children.

00:40:40.460 If I'm leading, it's, it's going to be on behalf of her or my children.

00:40:45.780 I'm sure.

00:40:46.980 Right.

00:40:47.380 In some, in some cases, not always.

00:40:49.280 Right.

00:40:49.620 There are things that I need to decide on my own, um, and make decisions on my own with

00:40:54.980 her in mind.

00:40:56.600 Sure.

00:40:57.140 With, with, with consideration of her needs and wants and desires.

00:41:01.440 That's right.

00:41:02.280 Yeah.

00:41:02.500 So I, I, I think I'm glad you brought that up in the, in the concept of reliability really

00:41:07.080 stood out with me when you said that, because this is what I hope men hear in some of these

00:41:12.280 conversations that we're taking away with what you're sharing is that, you know, everybody

00:41:16.360 says like, oh, you got to be a good leader.

00:41:17.960 Well, what does, what does that actually mean?

00:41:19.400 And what is she actually looking for?

00:41:21.640 So when you say reliability, that to me really stands out because that is what more of us as

00:41:28.340 men should do.

00:41:29.060 When we say we're going to do something, we do it.

00:41:31.000 But even the trivial things, because if you say a bunch of things and you don't follow

00:41:34.840 through, man, that will under, and I've had this where I've done this personally, and

00:41:39.040 that will undermine a relationship faster than just about anything else.

00:41:42.720 I agree.

00:41:43.160 I agree.

00:41:43.700 It's like, you have to be someone of your word, right?

00:41:45.660 If, if you don't have, I mean, words are great, but actions are everything.

00:41:50.340 And so I think the more often, to your point, even just starting with the small things and

00:41:55.380 asking yourself, am I a person of my word?

00:41:57.640 Am I a man of my word?

00:41:58.740 Right.

00:41:59.740 Am I putting intention behind my words?

00:42:02.600 Which I think oftentimes will say the words without any intention.

00:42:05.520 And that can kind of lead us down the path of that, not putting like our money where our

00:42:08.880 mouth is, you know, am I, am I grounded in who I am?

00:42:11.760 And am I speaking truth from that grounded place?

00:42:13.880 Because if I'm not, I'll probably get myself into trouble down the road.

00:42:16.440 And yeah, and I don't even think it's, it's malicious when we, we say, we'll do things.

00:42:24.140 I don't think the majority of people I don't think are being malicious.

00:42:27.220 I think they're just being a little bit flippant and casual with their words.

00:42:31.120 Yeah.

00:42:31.580 Or, or people pleasing, honestly, like I think even in that, you know, a lot of the work I

00:42:36.980 do in codependency recovery is kind of giving these, like, it's funny.

00:42:40.560 I got, I got labeled the cold water in the face therapist once by a group member.

00:42:44.480 And it's kind of stuck where, where, you know, I'll say to people like, listen, I'm not saying

00:42:49.460 to your point, it's not malicious.

00:42:50.980 So often it's unconscious or it's like survival strategy.

00:42:53.920 So we're not really aware of it, but people pleasing is manipulative.

00:42:57.680 There, there is an essence of manipulation in not being true to your word and being grounded

00:43:03.760 in what you say, right.

00:43:04.880 And doing it because you want to want to make somebody else feel some sort of way, or want

00:43:09.780 to make sure that the boat doesn't get rocked or want to make sure that this person stays,

00:43:13.180 right.

00:43:15.520 And people always kind of cringe at that, like, oh, I'm not a dishonest person.

00:43:18.820 And I'm like, right.

00:43:20.020 And the way that you're acting is inherently dishonest.

00:43:23.400 And that's something we've got to be able to like hear and face about ourselves if we're

00:43:27.680 really going to change it.

00:43:29.240 Yeah.

00:43:30.080 Yeah.

00:43:30.260 I can see that.

00:43:31.380 You know, the other thing you talked about is the concept of respect.

00:43:35.580 And I think, I think the most important thing, maybe not the most important, one of the most

00:43:42.340 important things that we can do when it comes to respect is having a backbone.

00:43:46.800 And this goes, this is antithetical to the people pleasing.

00:43:50.920 You know, if, if, if for example, she says something to me that I don't agree with, it's

00:43:56.520 not my job to agree with and affirm her belief.

00:43:59.740 It's my job to say, I don't agree with that.

00:44:01.800 Here's why now I can do that respectfully, but I think that women probably can appreciate

00:44:09.220 a man who has a backbone, even to her, because she would probably pick up that if he does

00:44:16.000 towards her, then he will towards other people.

00:44:18.600 That's right.

00:44:19.020 That's right.

00:44:19.480 You just hit that nail on the head.

00:44:20.600 And I think, yeah, I mean, even going back to that word dominance, like I said earlier,

00:44:24.000 it's, I don't want to be dominated, but I also don't want somebody who I can dominate.

00:44:27.560 It goes both ways.

00:44:28.580 And that's that there's respect inherently baked into that, right?

00:44:32.240 If you're somebody who stands in their solid sense of self, knows who you are and can say

00:44:37.720 to somebody, you're allowed to have your feelings and your opinion.

00:44:41.300 I'm not going to change necessarily to agree with you, but I'm also not going to try to

00:44:44.980 change you to agree with me, right?

00:44:48.320 It goes both ways.

00:44:49.120 Like that's respecting the other as an individual and as a human being and their sovereignty.

00:44:53.500 And that really creates a level of respect, I think is so missing.

00:44:57.720 Actually, I see so often missing in relationships.

00:45:02.060 Are there some, some common misunderstandings that men in relationships with women have?

00:45:09.320 I mean, there's probably an infinite number of misunderstandings, but are there some common

00:45:13.200 themes where women are trying to communicate one thing and men are misinterpreting it, picking

00:45:21.060 it up differently and how can we as men do a better job translating her communication

00:45:29.280 for lack of a better term?

00:45:31.520 That's a big, that's a big question, Ryan.

00:45:33.620 Is there like, is there an app or something that I can run it through and then she says

00:45:37.440 it and then it goes through the app and then it says what she really means so that I can

00:45:41.280 understand it?

00:45:42.440 Yeah.

00:45:42.620 You know, there's these new Google translate ear pods actually are not Google, they're

00:45:45.660 Apple.

00:45:45.940 There you go.

00:45:46.100 John, John just brought it home, right?

00:45:47.740 The people here are speaking Spanish and I can hear them in English.

00:45:50.060 Let's just do the man women thing in there.

00:45:53.640 You know, I, to your point, I mean, I think there's many that happen.

00:45:57.220 I see all the time in, in the therapy world, but let me see if I can think of some common

00:46:01.420 themes.

00:46:01.860 So some of the common themes that I see, I think are around respect and sovereignty again

00:46:07.740 as like, and it goes both ways actually, right?

00:46:10.020 Each person wants to be seen and valued for who they are without a feeling that you're trying

00:46:14.360 to change me or that you think there's something about me that's like not good enough or

00:46:19.140 not worthy, right?

00:46:20.220 So I think every human being wants that.

00:46:22.760 They want to be seen for who they are and respected for who they are.

00:46:25.980 And that's a tricky one that comes up a lot.

00:46:28.760 I think the other one is a sense.

00:46:30.560 Yeah.

00:46:30.640 Before you move on, can you put a pin in the next one?

00:46:33.220 Yeah.

00:46:33.460 Because when you say wants to be seen and heard, how, I know we don't have time to go

00:46:40.240 into depth into all of this, but how does a man see and hear her?

00:46:45.340 Because the common thing is she wants to explain how her day went, maybe a relationship with

00:46:51.460 her girlfriend, or maybe how the kids were behaving that day, or maybe her boss was kind

00:46:57.020 of a jerk that day.

00:46:58.000 And the man hears, let me solve your problems.

00:47:00.980 And it's laughable at this point because everybody knows she just wants to explain.

00:47:06.500 And yet it's still really difficult.

00:47:08.480 So how does a man quote unquote, see and hear his woman without filling that need, his own

00:47:17.540 need or his own desire to solve the problems?

00:47:20.300 Yeah.

00:47:20.460 I mean, our need to be needed in some way, which shows up on the other side of it too.

00:47:24.900 Right.

00:47:26.240 So I think, again, this, this actually goes both ways.

00:47:29.240 Cause I, I work with a lot of women who do the same thing, which is like our kind of

00:47:32.580 our codependent desire to make the problem go away.

00:47:37.880 So essentially what this looks like is, and you've heard this before, right?

00:47:41.300 It's like, I say to people all the time, when somebody comes to you and they want to

00:47:44.180 talk about something, first and foremost, zip it, just completely zip it.

00:47:48.740 Don't give your feedback.

00:47:49.740 Don't give your advice before you look at them.

00:47:52.120 And you ask, do you want advice and feedback or do you just want to be heard?

00:47:56.280 Right.

00:47:56.920 Allow the other person, the, the kind of respect and the honor that you are asking them what

00:48:02.460 they need from you in this moment.

00:48:04.520 Cause sometimes I will say to John, no, I actually want your advice.

00:48:07.640 Like I'm, I'm looking for different approaches, right?

00:48:10.340 It's not that I never want you to help me fix it.

00:48:12.860 It's just that I don't always want you to fix it.

00:48:15.560 Right.

00:48:15.960 And so if you get in the habit of asking somebody also, that feels really nice to be the receiver

00:48:21.000 of somebody going, no, what is it that you need from me in this moment?

00:48:24.320 And then I'll do my best to kind of provide where I can.

00:48:27.320 Right.

00:48:27.780 So I think that it seems silly, but it's still a really hard practice to do, which is just

00:48:33.380 like, I look at you in this relationship and I know inherently you've got this.

00:48:39.820 I trust in your innate ability.

00:48:41.740 I do this with my kid, right?

00:48:43.080 Even in her struggles, I need her to know that I look at her as somebody who is strong and

00:48:49.500 capable because that's how she's then going to see herself.

00:48:52.700 If I'm always swooping in to fix it for her, eventually that's going to impact the way she

00:48:57.320 sees herself.

00:48:58.340 She's going to believe that number one, she's not strong and capable.

00:49:01.060 And number two, I don't see her as strong and capable.

00:49:04.060 And I think this also impacts our adult relationships too.

00:49:08.220 Yeah.

00:49:08.680 I've got a really close friend, Kip Sorensen, and he talks about this a lot.

00:49:12.540 He says that when you look at other people, whether it's your wife or your children, as

00:49:17.040 if they're inherently broken or something's wrong with them or something needs to be fixed,

00:49:22.180 that creates all sorts of problems.

00:49:23.900 And the energy that you now have towards that person is completely different.

00:49:27.900 And of course, their energy towards you is going to be hindered as well.

00:49:31.500 That's right.

00:49:31.820 Because they feel it.

00:49:32.600 Right.

00:49:32.840 And so if I feel and know that you look at me as inherently broken, a lot of times what

00:49:37.100 I see happen is I will show up inherently broken.

00:49:40.840 It's like, I will embody what you're putting on me.

00:49:43.560 So if you believe I'm an idiot, okay, I guess I'm an idiot.

00:49:46.360 And I'll just act that way.

00:49:48.000 Right.

00:49:48.460 Well, you do so deliberately or is that subconscious?

00:49:51.400 No, it's subconscious.

00:49:52.240 This is that whole like over function or under function or dance that I see happen so often.

00:49:56.800 The under function or in a relationship so often is acting that way because they see

00:50:02.400 themselves reflected back at themselves as somebody who can't get their shit together

00:50:07.160 as somebody who, again, like is stupid or is worthless.

00:50:10.380 And so there becomes this almost like a reinforcement loop where it's like, oh, okay, well, this person

00:50:15.880 who is supposedly I love them, they love me thinks that I'm worthless.

00:50:19.900 I must be worthless.

00:50:20.740 And so I'll act as such.

00:50:22.040 And a lot of times it's, it's an unconscious kind of, um, behavior that we've really got

00:50:26.880 to pick apart in order to start working through it.

00:50:29.840 What, what can a man do to be supportive in that?

00:50:32.500 Because it, let's say his wife is, is exhibiting some of these skills and it might not even have

00:50:37.940 anything to do with him.

00:50:38.740 Maybe she's always believed that because her parents were abusive to her or something.

00:50:42.200 Right.

00:50:43.080 So how does a man help her work through that, that she is valuable, that she isn't broken.

00:50:48.860 Same thing with kids.

00:50:49.620 How do you help them develop the confidence they need to solve their own problems?

00:50:55.500 I mean, listen, as a therapist, I'm going to say it starts with you.

00:50:59.220 It always does.

00:51:00.520 Right.

00:51:01.000 So what does that look like?

00:51:02.340 Right.

00:51:02.600 What it looks like is for you to go inward and start to develop a bit of a skill to notice

00:51:08.120 how I get anxious when this person starts to struggle.

00:51:14.700 And so my anxiety around their struggle is what creates the action, which is me swooping

00:51:20.460 in to fix it, which is me brushing them aside, which is me going, Oh, and rolling my eyes

00:51:25.780 again, you know, whatever my response is.

00:51:27.720 And so what I need to do very, very beginning of that kind of process is to start to notice

00:51:33.540 my anxiety around it and start to soothe that anxiety so that the action is not coming out

00:51:40.180 of the anxiety.

00:51:41.180 The action is coming from a place again of groundedness of like, no, I see you and I, I'm

00:51:47.080 going to take a deep breath because it's hard, but I trust that you can handle this.

00:51:51.040 And I will be over here managing my discomfort around your discomfort, but at the same time,

00:51:56.720 I'm not going to act on it.

00:51:57.820 I'm going to let you figure it out.

00:52:01.220 That's, that's actually really good because I've known I've done this personally and I

00:52:05.980 still do this and it's something that I need to work on where if somebody is dealing with

00:52:11.680 something, well, it must be me.

00:52:14.740 I must have said something.

00:52:16.300 I must have done this.

00:52:17.440 I must not have done that.

00:52:18.580 I must have, whatever, fill in the blank and it's actually very selfish because the

00:52:23.260 majority of the time it has, unless you actually did something, it really probably doesn't

00:52:28.820 have to do with you.

00:52:30.060 And then I've noticed that the other person is then not only anxious about whatever they

00:52:34.980 were anxious about, now they're anxious about making sure you're okay because now they

00:52:39.940 have to babysit you.

00:52:41.180 And this is one thing I know that women hate is having a adult husband, child, another,

00:52:50.040 they've got three kids.

00:52:51.240 Now they've got four.

00:52:52.060 That's the joke.

00:52:52.640 Right.

00:52:53.080 And yeah, obviously a woman would hate that.

00:52:56.360 I would hate that.

00:52:57.440 Yeah.

00:52:57.740 And I talk about this in the book, actually.

00:52:59.560 This is one of the elements that I talk about, which is like how suddenly they become another

00:53:04.700 child.

00:53:05.200 And it's an energy thing.

00:53:06.540 Right.

00:53:06.980 Number one, it happens when usually when the first child enters a dynamic and there becomes

00:53:11.640 this like what I call almost like an energy competition where suddenly, you know, it was

00:53:17.420 just me and you and I was your everything.

00:53:20.080 And now suddenly there's this being that is now your everything.

00:53:22.880 And so now I'm kind of vying for that attention.

00:53:26.520 I see that happen very often.

00:53:27.940 And when that first kid enters right into a double, it becomes a triple.

00:53:31.280 And so what happens is like the woman's over here going, I have to actually keep this being

00:53:36.740 alive.

00:53:37.580 I don't need to keep you alive.

00:53:39.080 You're a grown up.

00:53:39.960 Right.

00:53:40.680 And so they're torn and they're looking at their partner going, are you kidding right

00:53:45.300 now?

00:53:45.540 Like, do you not see how much energy and attention this little being requires?

00:53:49.980 But again, a lot of that comes from if I'm on the other side of that, my ability to know

00:53:55.040 that I'm OK and that I've got the inner resources to be OK.

00:53:58.760 I don't need to extract it from this person outside of myself.

00:54:02.960 And so, yeah, it can cause a lot of issues down the road when we don't know, like, I'm

00:54:08.780 good.

00:54:09.200 I'm going to go inward.

00:54:10.460 I'm going to soothe my own anxiety.

00:54:12.120 I don't need to fix or make anybody else act any way other than how they are for me to

00:54:17.880 be OK.

00:54:19.440 Yeah, it's funny when I know you're asking this rhetorically when you say, can't you

00:54:24.180 see that I'm doing this other thing to keep this human being alive?

00:54:26.740 No, we can't because we're not doing it.

00:54:30.480 So we literally were like, what's the men are like this?

00:54:33.740 What?

00:54:34.000 And I I'm like this.

00:54:35.220 What's the problem?

00:54:36.120 I'm good.

00:54:36.760 Why aren't you good?

00:54:38.180 And it's hard to see that through.

00:54:41.380 And again, I think that comes down to the some of the biological programming, right?

00:54:45.580 When you look at a mother and how she responds to a baby crying versus how a man responds to

00:54:52.480 a baby, it's different.

00:54:53.380 But that's biological.

00:54:55.400 And so it's really difficult for us to see that.

00:54:58.020 But I have found and this is why I advocate for men having other men that they can spend

00:55:02.700 time with.

00:55:03.260 So if she's doing something and she needs some time or some space or needs to be with

00:55:08.320 her, then you should have friends that you can call and hang out with and go work out

00:55:11.840 with.

00:55:12.600 Yeah.

00:55:12.720 And it's also why I advocate for having a hobby that doesn't involve her all the time.

00:55:16.540 That's right.

00:55:16.820 Go train jujitsu, go for a run, go hunting, go shoot, go, go paint, go take pictures.

00:55:23.120 I don't care.

00:55:23.480 Do something that doesn't require her to be involved in it because you both need the space.

00:55:28.680 I agree.

00:55:29.500 And you both need to be your own solid sense of self again, right?

00:55:32.120 In order for a relationship to work, you both have to be a solid sense of self outside

00:55:37.680 of the dynamic, right?

00:55:39.060 Otherwise, you kind of merge and blend and then that's not sustainable, at least not

00:55:44.600 in a healthy way, you know, especially once children come into the dynamic because inherently

00:55:49.880 she's busy now.

00:55:51.200 She's got, you know, and it's not that she won't have time for you, but she will have

00:55:55.520 more time and more space for you if she feels like she's giving it to you from a desire,

00:55:59.600 not from a, I have to take care of this child because he needs it or he's going to power

00:56:05.440 throw a tantrum, right?

00:56:06.960 I see that happen all the time in my couple's work, you know?

00:56:11.380 Yeah.

00:56:12.040 Yeah.

00:56:13.060 No, I bet.

00:56:13.940 Well, you were going to say one other thing.

00:56:15.480 I told you to put a pin in it, but you were going to, do you remember what that was when

00:56:18.580 it comes to what we as men, um, uh, misinterpret?

00:56:23.560 Shockingly I do, which is very surprising these days.

00:56:26.020 I don't remember things usually.

00:56:28.200 Um, I remember the word safety was going to be a big one that I brought up, which is the

00:56:33.420 feeling of being safe.

00:56:34.940 Um, this one is reflected back to me and the couples I work with a lot, uh, where, and

00:56:40.980 I don't think that they're in silos.

00:56:42.400 Like I do think there's a connective tissue through all of these ways that people show

00:56:45.700 up and say, this is what my need is.

00:56:47.580 Um, and I'll, and I'll say why I believe that in a second, but inherently I think, uh, especially

00:56:52.700 once children come into the picture, but not always just that there is a desire or a need.

00:56:57.680 And I think you're right.

00:56:58.940 I think this is actually biological, right?

00:57:00.780 So as the woman, I am now in kind of nesting and caretaking mode, right?

00:57:06.140 So way back when we would have had a village to kind of gather around the woman who had

00:57:11.240 just given birth and now is just you and me, unfortunately, right?

00:57:14.800 So unfortunately this actually does fall a lot on the partner in the relationship.

00:57:18.920 Um, but it's like, I need to be able to focus on this and put all of my energy and all of

00:57:25.280 my love and my time into this.

00:57:27.260 And I need to know that I'm safe to do that.

00:57:29.780 So I need to know that I can let my guard down.

00:57:32.360 I need to know that you'll maybe take care of the homestead, right?

00:57:36.180 Like you're going to, you've got it.

00:57:37.560 I know that you've got it, but also emotionally, like I need to know that you're good.

00:57:42.260 I need to know that I can put all my energy here and that that's not going to somehow

00:57:46.080 cause some kind of strain or issue or rift with you.

00:57:49.420 Um, and so I hear the idea of safety reflected back a lot.

00:57:53.260 And again, it translates across a lot of kind of realms, but it's a word that I hear frequently.

00:57:58.380 Hmm.

00:57:58.780 That's interesting.

00:58:00.220 Yeah, I can see that emotional safety, physical safety, not having to worry about babysitting

00:58:05.020 somebody else's emotions so that they can focus on the thing.

00:58:08.220 It also just makes you more attractive.

00:58:10.260 So I mean, a thousand percent, a thousand percent.

00:58:13.020 I said that when we moved here, actually the month leading up to our move to Costa Rica,

00:58:16.740 I said to John, my book was just about to go into, you know, the PR mode and his is,

00:58:21.960 you know, we're both authors, but his is on the downswing.

00:58:24.160 So his book had already come out.

00:58:25.380 And I said, listen, we need to talk about this.

00:58:27.820 When I land, we're going to be in very different places.

00:58:30.920 Like I'm ratcheting up, you've ratcheted down.

00:58:34.160 So I need to be able to, I mean, my book is a baby in essence, right?

00:58:38.980 Like I need to be able to put my focus there and put my energy on like raising this thing

00:58:44.100 up.

00:58:45.040 I can't worry about you.

00:58:46.920 Like you need to be good.

00:58:48.600 Right.

00:58:49.060 And we had a really serious conversation about that and God bless him.

00:58:52.000 He took it to heart and he was like, you're right.

00:58:53.900 And he, when we landed, he got a really good coach and he made sure he was kind of doing

00:58:57.940 his work.

00:58:59.180 And he was really supportive.

00:59:00.560 Like in that moment, it was like, he was doing more of the childcare.

00:59:03.940 He was doing more of the housework.

00:59:05.320 Cause he's like, you have to focus on raising this baby up and I need to be the support system

00:59:10.180 in that.

00:59:10.540 Right.

00:59:10.720 And it was so beautiful and holy shit.

00:59:13.240 So attractive, Ryan, I have to say.

00:59:15.360 I bet.

00:59:16.060 Yeah, I bet.

00:59:17.000 Well, okay.

00:59:17.360 So I've got another thought that came to mind and I really want to have this discussion about

00:59:22.160 these misunderstandings.

00:59:23.800 We often hear that women say, you know, I want a man who's in touch with his feelings.

00:59:28.400 I wish he could be more vulnerable with me.

00:59:30.280 And then it seems like sometimes that happens and then she's less attracted to the guy because

00:59:37.360 he's trying to do the thing that she asked.

00:59:39.500 So something's happening.

00:59:41.240 Either she's, she's saying, she's saying the wrong words or not explaining it correctly

00:59:47.480 or, and, or he is not interpreting them correctly or he's delivering it poorly.

00:59:53.840 Yes.

00:59:54.440 Uh, I think it's both.

00:59:57.160 So I don't know if you've ever read bell hooks, the will to change, but bell hooks said an

01:00:03.360 unbelievable, I highly suggest that.

01:00:05.600 And I have a lot of men read it, but it really talks about the breakdown of, um, like what

01:00:11.880 living in a dominator system does to men, not to women.

01:00:15.000 It's like, almost like women aside, it's like, how does this actually impact men?

01:00:18.280 And she, I mean, I'll paraphrase cause the quote is kind of long, but it is a beautiful

01:00:21.780 quote, essentially what she talks about was her aha understanding around exactly what

01:00:25.500 you're saying when she was in her twenties, she was in a relationship, you know, she's

01:00:29.380 heterosexual, she's in a relationship with a man and she realizes she's been asking for

01:00:33.340 exactly what you're saying, which is, I want a man that's in touch with his emotions.

01:00:36.640 But then what she realizes is that when he comes to her with his emotions, she has this

01:00:40.480 like, Oh, response.

01:00:42.320 Yes.

01:00:42.740 Cringe.

01:00:43.300 Yeah.

01:00:43.660 Right.

01:00:44.080 Right.

01:00:44.740 And so what we start to understand and the way that she breaks it down is first of all,

01:00:49.420 we could just be really black and white about this and say, you can't have a both ways.

01:00:52.920 Right.

01:00:53.240 We know that, but I think so much of this actually for women is our inner dominators.

01:01:00.840 It's like, we also live in society.

01:01:03.500 It's not just men that are the dominators, right?

01:01:05.280 Like we live in a dominator system.

01:01:06.960 The systems that we live in teach us that there's one up one down, right?

01:01:10.700 We humans are above earth and animals.

01:01:13.060 Men are above women.

01:01:14.520 Some races are above other races.

01:01:16.240 Like we're just kind of steeped in this like dominator kind of approach to living.

01:01:20.640 That is also integrated internally into women as well.

01:01:23.880 And so women are also taught to believe in some way that our emotionality is ick.

01:01:30.780 We're also taught to believe that it's shameful.

01:01:33.680 We're also taught to believe that we're too much or too emotional.

01:01:37.980 Yes, there are more spaces in our society for us to explore that, but we still have a lot

01:01:43.160 of that inner shame and inner ick because we're all kind of taught the same shit at some level.

01:01:48.340 So what happens is, is when my man then shows up in that way, I always say in therapy, I

01:01:54.200 cannot see and accept in somebody else what I cannot see and accept in myself.

01:02:00.160 So if I'm ashamed of being too much, when somebody comes to me and they're a little too much,

01:02:06.100 it's going to really activate me and feel really gross.

01:02:08.720 If I don't have a healthy relationship with anger, when somebody else is angry,

01:02:13.580 I'm not going to be able to tolerate it and I'm going to shut it down.

01:02:16.760 So we can only meet people so far as we've gone.

01:02:20.120 And since so much of this is unconscious, it's really hard for us to even see it or name it

01:02:25.220 because it's, it's like so deep, you know?

01:02:29.120 So, okay, well that makes sense.

01:02:31.360 But then how do you, how does a man navigate those waters?

01:02:35.200 You know, she may, what you're saying is she might have some work to do on herself so

01:02:39.360 that she doesn't feel shame around expressing emotion.

01:02:42.620 That's, that's something she needs to address.

01:02:44.720 How does a man navigate that?

01:02:46.460 Because I think there, if we're talking about myths and misconceptions, I think there's a

01:02:51.120 misconception that men are just heartless and we're cold and we don't really care.

01:02:55.520 We're not romantic or any of these things.

01:02:57.260 And we are, you know, I, the thought that comes to mind is, you know, men are not generally

01:03:03.380 romantic, but I don't, I don't believe that to be true at all.

01:03:06.840 I imagine, you know, a young man marrying his beautiful bride, wanting to have sons and

01:03:14.480 daughters and go to ballet dances and give her flowers when she's done with ballet and

01:03:18.920 go play baseball in the yard with a picket fence.

01:03:22.920 That's a romantic version of, that's a romantic vision.

01:03:26.220 I agree.

01:03:26.920 We are.

01:03:27.860 I agree.

01:03:29.080 So how do we navigate being able to communicate the way we're feeling without it being an

01:03:36.480 ick or a cringe moment for the people that we love?

01:03:41.140 Ooh, this is such a rich conversation and I could go in so many directions.

01:03:44.320 I mean, first I will say, yes, I know most, a lot of men are more actually romantic, even

01:03:48.860 than the women that I know.

01:03:50.040 I mean, in my dynamic, for sure, I think John's more of the romantic, um, I think in

01:03:56.120 our society, what I have come to understand is that one of the deepest, mostly kind of

01:04:01.820 unconscious fears that men have is by, is being shamed by their woman.

01:04:07.740 And so it, it leads in kind of, it leads the charge on a lot of the ways that men show up

01:04:12.820 in their relationships, which is like protecting themselves from this, um, perceived or potential

01:04:17.500 shame.

01:04:18.680 So they, they can be very guarded because of that fear.

01:04:22.180 Now, again, mostly unconscious.

01:04:23.840 Right.

01:04:24.200 And I think when women feed into that and we shame men for their inherent romanticism, for

01:04:29.500 their inherent human beingness, which is to feel emotions and be emotive.

01:04:34.780 Right.

01:04:35.180 Like as a being, um, what we do is we kind of get that feedback loop.

01:04:40.580 Like the man goes, see in their own mind, they go, see, this is why I can't show my emotions

01:04:44.660 because I'm going to feel weak and I'm going to be shamed for it.

01:04:47.600 Right.

01:04:48.440 And so oftentimes what I'll do is I'll talk to clients about this idea of preemptive communication.

01:04:55.380 So let's say you're in a coaching program or you're working with a therapist and you're

01:05:00.320 kind of getting to the root of some of this, you might go to your partner and you might

01:05:04.160 say, Hey, listen, something that I've realized, right.

01:05:07.180 Is that I've been really cut off from this aspect of myself that is highly feeling right.

01:05:13.540 Like I want to be able to tap into that.

01:05:15.720 And that's both sides of the pendulum.

01:05:17.440 That's like sadness, grief, anger, but that's also joy and playfulness.

01:05:21.800 Right.

01:05:22.240 Because there it's all the range of human emotion.

01:05:24.600 When we numb one, we numb the other, by the way.

01:05:27.480 So I want to be able to tap into this.

01:05:30.040 Right.

01:05:30.260 But what I'm realizing is I have a lot of like embarrassment and shame around coming to you

01:05:35.660 with my emotions because I'm worried about how you're going to perceive them.

01:05:38.700 What are your thoughts on that?

01:05:41.220 Preemptive communication says, Hey, I'm working on this thing and I'd like you to be my partner

01:05:45.360 in my work on this thing.

01:05:48.800 Can you talk about it with me?

01:05:50.180 Can you see me in this work?

01:05:51.540 Can you support me in the development of this part of myself?

01:05:54.480 Right.

01:05:54.840 That creates partnership that creates it's us against this thing that we're both kind

01:05:59.420 of trying to work on.

01:06:00.900 And then it also invites her in to realize like, what is my perspective on when my man

01:06:05.300 comes to me and shows emotion?

01:06:06.480 How do I show up in a shaming way?

01:06:08.100 Oh shit.

01:06:09.120 I should probably look at that and take stock.

01:06:11.200 So regardless of what we're talking about, preemptive communication, when you are realizing

01:06:15.540 there's something you want to work on about yourself can be so powerful in a romantic

01:06:20.380 relationship.

01:06:21.260 Huge.

01:06:23.060 Yeah.

01:06:23.420 That's, that's a powerful concept.

01:06:25.140 I would, I would say, and tell me if you agree or disagree with this, that there's, I would

01:06:29.300 give one word of caution.

01:06:30.460 And, and it's because I've seen men do this and then they have no follow through.

01:06:36.800 So, so they'll say to their wife, Hey, I'm going to work on this thing.

01:06:40.500 I know I haven't been showing up this way and I'd like to do this.

01:06:43.160 And will you help me and be my partner on it?

01:06:44.760 And then he doesn't do anything and it would have been better for you just to keep your

01:06:49.860 mouth shut than to say, you're going to do this thing and not do it.

01:06:53.960 Cause that goes back to the integrity conversation we were having earlier.

01:06:56.800 That's right.

01:06:57.580 That's right.

01:06:58.080 And, and that's, I mean, that's so spot on.

01:07:00.440 And I see that happen also a lot and it has to come from within, right?

01:07:05.040 Like I'm not changing because you told me you want me to change.

01:07:09.280 Inherently that change has to come from an internal desire of no, there's actually this part

01:07:14.040 of myself that I really want to work on.

01:07:16.100 I want to face, I want to confront, I want to, you know, accept about myself.

01:07:20.180 I want to do this integration work.

01:07:22.020 You have to be committed to that work for yourself.

01:07:24.880 It's a great to have when you have a partner that can mirror it back to you and that can

01:07:28.660 see you in that a lot of people don't have that and they're still doing the work.

01:07:32.140 So you've got to, you've got to be able to do it on your own to your point.

01:07:35.380 Otherwise you're not a man of their word.

01:07:37.360 And then you erode safety, which again, leads into this whole spiral that we talked about.

01:07:41.400 So what, what would you say the converse is where men might misunderstand what women are

01:07:48.740 after looking for?

01:07:50.080 What have you found that women misunderstand in men?

01:07:54.460 I mean, so much, so much.

01:07:56.300 I think we're misunderstanding each other in so many ways.

01:07:58.280 And, you know, one of the things when you and I were emailing back and forth and we were

01:08:03.720 like, this is going to be an interesting conversation.

01:08:05.420 Like we disagree on some stuff.

01:08:06.820 One of the things that I was talking to my best girlfriend, who I do a lot of work with

01:08:10.080 kind of out there with, with clients and, you know, leading women's groups and all these

01:08:13.880 things.

01:08:14.340 One of the things that her and I get a lot of flack for is actually the way that we hold

01:08:19.620 women accountable in the work that we do.

01:08:24.080 First and foremost, the base of all my work is in codependency recovery.

01:08:27.380 I believe we are all codependent to some varying degree.

01:08:30.940 I think it's the way that society has taught us that love should look and feel like at

01:08:35.780 the core tenant of healing, not even society, maybe just individual experiences, right?

01:08:40.360 Your mom and dad weren't present or you didn't get what you need.

01:08:43.580 I mean, there's a lot, right?

01:08:44.700 It's the hammer in the coffin, right?

01:08:46.360 For, for most of us is then we see a generation after generation after generation, and then it

01:08:50.100 becomes deeply ingrained.

01:08:51.100 Right.

01:08:52.000 But I would say even in our culture of media, it's like, it's the way that we see we lose

01:08:55.920 ourselves in each other.

01:08:56.920 I'm not a complete self without you being, you know, it's all of these ways.

01:09:00.760 The Disney endings.

01:09:02.220 That's exactly it.

01:09:03.720 Got it.

01:09:04.300 And so what I believe is that any kind of healing in a relationship is going to start

01:09:09.520 with you owning your hundred percent, period.

01:09:14.340 So in any dynamic, in any situation, there's always something you can own, right?

01:09:20.400 Now that doesn't mean owning more than is yours.

01:09:22.900 I'm not saying you take on somebody else's shit, but I'm saying we all have to get better

01:09:27.360 at looking in the mirror, separating this belief of I've done something bad means I am

01:09:33.240 bad.

01:09:34.980 Because so long as those two beliefs are coupled, we're never going to be able to look at ourselves

01:09:38.640 and actually own our stuff.

01:09:40.840 So we've got to really be able to say, what's my part in this?

01:09:44.160 And I do believe that women are some of the biggest upholders of some of these dominator

01:09:50.680 systems, but also some of the really unhealthy ways that this man versus woman fight battle

01:09:55.780 that we've got going on right now are continuing to go.

01:09:59.080 Um, and so, you know, whether it's the victim mentality, whether it's the, like, again, screw

01:10:04.120 men, I don't need them.

01:10:04.900 They're useless mentality.

01:10:05.940 Like, and again, I'm not saying that it doesn't come from somewhere.

01:10:09.760 We can work on the wounding, but we've got to own that part.

01:10:14.660 Otherwise this is never going to get healed.

01:10:16.460 It can't just be pointing the finger at somebody else.

01:10:18.500 Right.

01:10:19.020 It just can't.

01:10:19.880 Yeah.

01:10:21.260 Yeah.

01:10:21.620 I agree.

01:10:22.040 I mean, and on our side, we're, we're doing the same thing with men.

01:10:25.540 It's, you know, yeah, sure.

01:10:27.340 Some women may have acted like that.

01:10:30.360 A woman may have treated you like that and there's nothing you can do about it.

01:10:34.860 So go to work on yourself, pick better partners, be a better partner and live a better life.

01:10:40.820 That's right.

01:10:41.620 Be the person, right?

01:10:42.580 What's that saying?

01:10:43.280 It's like, be the person you wish to see in the world, be the partner that you wish to

01:10:47.300 also invite into your world, right?

01:10:49.460 Stop pointing the finger and saying they need to get better at being a partner.

01:10:52.340 Well, how are you improving yourself?

01:10:54.180 What does that look like?

01:10:55.060 Right.

01:10:55.260 What is, what is your ability to stand on your own two feet?

01:10:58.100 Look and feel like, um, I think when we relate from that place, we become less concerned with

01:11:03.860 changing somebody else and we become more like, Oh, this either works for me or it doesn't.

01:11:11.060 I either chose this partnership out of a place of integrity or I didn't.

01:11:16.000 And then that's the thing that I have to then like drill down into.

01:11:19.900 So, and I feel, I feel generally like it's, it's just an equation.

01:11:24.800 If you change the input, the output's going to be different.

01:11:27.640 So if I, if I show up differently, she is going to show up differently, positive or negatively,

01:11:33.580 like she's going to be different.

01:11:35.620 And I found that when we do our work as men, then she's going to respond to that.

01:11:42.880 Of course she is.

01:11:43.640 Just like he would respond if a woman were to change the way she shows up in the relationship.

01:11:48.200 You're changing the system, right?

01:11:49.980 I mean, this is, we have a, within psychology, it's called systems theory.

01:11:53.400 And really what it talks about is that every systems, whether you're talking about the

01:11:56.600 relational dynamic, whether you're talking about the family unit, we're basically living

01:12:00.260 organisms.

01:12:01.120 And so when one part of the organism changes, what happens is the rest of the organism tries

01:12:06.320 to get that one back in line into what is their homeostasis, which may or may not be

01:12:11.220 healthy homeostasis, but it's what's normal for them, right?

01:12:14.600 And so that's what makes it so hard when you do this work is because you're going to get

01:12:18.120 pushback from the people around you that are like, Hey, I didn't sign on to you changing

01:12:23.060 the system, get back in line, right?

01:12:25.440 But that's information for you.

01:12:27.780 So what you said about somebody will respond either positively or negatively, I say all the

01:12:31.820 time, again, we can't change other people.

01:12:34.620 So do your work and allow the other person to give you information and then do with that

01:12:40.480 information what you will, right?

01:12:42.300 But that shouldn't be the reason why you do or don't do the work.

01:12:45.900 I've actually found that to be true quite often with the work that we do, where we have

01:12:51.380 organizations and we have communities where we get together as men and talk about these

01:12:56.020 things and improve our lives.

01:12:57.100 And I've had women who at best are skeptical of what we're doing and at worst are very antithetical,

01:13:04.600 very hostile to what we're doing.

01:13:06.740 And they really resist initially and they take little jabs and they mock and they're

01:13:12.760 like, go do your little man club thing.

01:13:15.060 They say things like that.

01:13:16.100 And then over time, and that, that to me seems to be the biggest differentiator is over time.

01:13:21.960 And it's funny because their wives eventually become on board because there's a new system

01:13:28.960 now and it's working better and they see it, but it takes time.

01:13:32.060 And so their wives will often say, Hey, what would your iron council guys say about that?

01:13:37.360 Or, Hey, don't you have a meeting tonight at six?

01:13:40.340 You need to be there on that meeting.

01:13:41.900 What are you doing?

01:13:43.000 And they will start to support the growth in their men, but it takes time because everything

01:13:47.220 else is a threat.

01:13:47.960 But it's scary, right?

01:13:49.700 I mean, I think for any of us, like growth and evolution, especially of the other partner

01:13:53.460 can be really scary because we don't know how that's going to impact us positive or negative.

01:13:58.880 And once we start to see positive change, then we can like be a little safer feeling.

01:14:03.600 We can let our guard down and we can lean into it a little bit more.

01:14:06.900 Yeah.

01:14:07.940 Well, Vanessa, this has been great.

01:14:09.300 I want to be respectful of your time.

01:14:11.020 You've got your book, The Motherhood Myth, and this has been really good.

01:14:15.440 I'm glad that we did this.

01:14:16.340 I've been looking forward to it and wondered how it would go, but I think we're very much

01:14:19.800 aligned with what we talked about today.

01:14:22.480 So, um, will you please let everybody know how to follow you, connect with you, learn

01:14:26.700 more about your book and grow as men, women, and couples?

01:14:30.920 Yeah.

01:14:31.160 Thank you, Ryan.

01:14:31.800 I appreciate you having me on.

01:14:33.220 And I think you're right.

01:14:34.240 I mean, there's way more overlap than there is the opposite.

01:14:38.100 And I think that right there is kind of the crux of so many of these conversations, right?

01:14:41.860 It's like, we're more alike than we are not.

01:14:43.440 Um, and so, yeah, this book, I say, even though it's through the lens of motherhood,

01:14:47.960 I've had actually a lot of men.

01:14:49.520 I was actually putting together a post recently, reach out to me and say, I just want to let

01:14:52.440 you know, I read this book and it's been profoundly helpful in my relationship.

01:14:55.480 So I appreciate you writing it.

01:14:57.100 So that was my hope for it, right?

01:14:58.620 Is that to your point, it would be a couple's coming together, not just about women and mothers.

01:15:02.920 Um, so the book's out wide motherhood myth.

01:15:04.960 You can find me on my website, vanessabennett.com or mostly Instagram, vanessasbennett.

01:15:10.260 Great.

01:15:10.720 We'll sync it all up.

01:15:11.540 I appreciate you and, uh, really looking forward to getting this information out to the guys.

01:15:15.480 Awesome.

01:15:15.980 Thank you, Ryan.

01:15:16.540 I appreciate you.

01:15:18.800 Gentlemen, there you go.

01:15:19.540 My conversation with Vanessa Bennett.

01:15:21.360 I hope you enjoyed it a lot different than we've done in the past, but very, very insightful,

01:15:25.540 not only for me, but I know it's going to be insightful for you.

01:15:29.260 And, uh, sometimes I, I know we're stubborn.

01:15:31.640 We can dig in our heels and we can say, well, you know, I don't want to hear from a woman

01:15:34.460 or whatever, but the reality is you're married to a woman.

01:15:38.540 You might have a daughter who either is a young girl or will be a woman.

01:15:44.120 So I think it's safe to say that maybe we ought to consider what they have to say.

01:15:49.280 And I know it's important to you because you want to serve the women of your life.

01:15:52.020 At least that's what we're trying to do.

01:15:53.220 Cause we are as men protectors, providers, and presiders.

01:15:56.660 If you have any questions, reach out to me.

01:15:58.220 Otherwise connect with Vanessa Bennett on the gram.

01:16:01.600 That's where she's most active and check out her book,

01:16:03.900 the motherhood myth.

01:16:05.900 And then also check out our brotherhood,

01:16:08.060 the iron council at order of man.com slash iron council.

01:16:11.060 One last thing, guys, take a screenshot, share it up on Facebook, Insta, YouTube, X,

01:16:16.960 Tik TOK, wherever you're doing your social media stuff.

01:16:20.500 We have a responsibility to share this with other men.

01:16:23.060 And if you have something to share, you have something of value,

01:16:25.700 share it with other people, be a resource, be an asset, not a liability.

01:16:29.280 All right, guys, we'll be back tomorrow for our ask me anything until then go out

01:16:34.320 there, take action and become the man you are meant to be.

01:16:40.700 Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast.

01:16:43.560 You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to

01:16:47.120 be.

01:16:47.540 We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.

01:16:51.540 Yeah.

01:16:52.560 You're ready to join the order of man.

Order of Man - September 30, 2025

VANESSA BENNETT ｜ The Myths of Masculinity and Motherhood

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