She Said Divorce — No Trust — Do This

So what I want to talk about today is rebuilding trust in marriage collapse. And really, this is, this is the probably the most fundamental, uh, lesson that, that you can have, because trust is the core building block and it's a single point of failure within the marriage. So when trust disappears, almost everything becomes impossible. She doesn't trust your changes, she doesn't trust your promises, she doesn't trust your words. So even if in the event that you're making genuine, authentic transformation, even in the event that you truly see where you've gone wrong and you have a genuine desire to fix it, unless trust can be rebuilt, it's going to be for nothing because she simply is not going to believe it. And a core principle to take away is perception is reality. What she perceives reality to be is reality. If she believes that you're untrustworthy, then for all intents and purposes, you are. Because that's how you're going to get treated. So after literally thousands of phone calls and thousands of coaching sessions, one of the big objections that I get is, how can I show her that I'm trustworthy? How can I rebuild trust if she won't talk to me or I don't have any opportunity really to talk to her? Well, the first philosophy here is don't count the opportunities, man. Count— count— make every opportunity count. So the opportunities that you have available to you are the opportunities that you have available to you. That, that's, that's all there is to it. So if you only— whoops, give me 1 second here. I lost the screen. Let me pull it back. There we go. If you only have 1 opportunity, then you only have 1 opportunity and you have to make that count. You can't say, well, I only have one opportunity, so make every opportunity count. And the truth of the matter is the vast majority of people that are watching this video right now, participating in this call, you're going to have far more opportunities than you think you do. So you have children, you have assets together. Like, even if the situation continues to deteriorate in a very hostile way, you're going to have opportunities because you have to. If you have children with your wife, then you're going to have opportunity, even if it's just picking up the children and dropping them off. This is an opportunity. So let's cover this. So we've covered this before, but we'll do it again because we've got a lot of new people here. So what we need to look at is, um, the Hope Tolerance graph here. So what this means is when her, when her hope is very high of you changing, or even if you're untrustworthy at this point, or she perceives you as untrustworthy, in the beginning of the relationship, she has very, very high hopes of you becoming trustworthy or the relationship changing. So when her hope is 100% of transformation, her tolerance of your behavior is also 100%. But as her hope of transformation, of, of trustworthiness starts to diminish, so does her tolerance of your behavior. So when her when she has 50% hope now, it's a 50/50, it's 50/50 that he's going to change, her tolerance is now much, much lower, right? Because we got a false positive up here. We, we were trained by her, and this is her error, but nevertheless it's what it is. We were trained by her that our behavior is acceptable. So less than trustworthy behavior was tolerated because there was hope that that behavior would become trustworthy at a later date. And as men, we learned that we can get away with this. So now when her hope is diminished and her tolerance is diminishing as well, we think we're still up here and we're confused until ultimately we reach a point where her hope reaches such a low level that she's really willing to tolerate nothing at this point. She has no grace left. She has no tolerance left. Now, as you can see, this takes time to go through this process. It takes time to train her that you're not going to change. And if that wasn't the case, she'd leave you day one, or she never would have married you in the first place, is the truth. But it took from— to go from 100% tolerance of your situation to zero, this might be 15 years, brothers. This might be 20 years to where she gets to this point. So to expect that it's just going to go straight up like this is a very unrealistic thing. The truth of the matter is it's going to start to— the graph is going to start to go like this, and we've got to start to realize that that is how it's going to happen. So how do we do this? This is actually very easy. So it's so easy that it's— that the danger here is that you you're going to dismiss this as too easy or that this is not the way forward. But I'm telling you, you've got two choices here. You can accept this as the path to recovery and you probably will recover, or you can dismiss it and that's that. There's not going to be much hope. So the path is ownership, accountability, and responsibility. It's as simple as that. So here's a key philosophy that we need to adopt here, is that the ground responds to seed not need. Now again, a lot of times I'll talk to men in one-to-one calls or consultations and they'll say, I need this to happen, or I need her to come back, or I need her to change her mind, or I need this, or I need that. Well, here's, here's the truth. The farmer cannot sit in the field and go to the ground, I need you to produce a crop, my family's starving, I need you to produce 'Produce a crop, we're all hungry. Please produce a crop.' It doesn't— the ground does not respond to need. The ground only responds to the seed that you put in it. That is it. If you want a crop, if the farmer wants a crop, he has to put seed into the ground. And what I'm sharing with you today as we move forward is the seed that you need to plant. And as with everything else, seed takes time to grow. So One of the biggest barriers to success is unrealistic expectations in timeframes, which is why this is very important. When we see this is a 15-year downward spiral, does it have to be 15 years going back up? No, it doesn't, but it's not gonna be 15 minutes either, depending on where we are. So let's get into this. So the core problem that we're addressing here is trust is gone in the marriage. She does not believe your words anymore. She doesn't believe your promises. She does not believe your intentions. And she does not believe that any changes you make are permanent. So the objection that generally comes up here is, well, how am I supposed to turn this around, Cody, if she's not going to— like, I can see— and you genuinely probably can see what's gone wrong. You genuinely probably can see what needs to happen. But then the objection from the man watching this is, well, how am I supposed to show her that if she won't believe my words? How am I supposed to How am I supposed to get through to her if she doesn't believe my promises? She doesn't believe my intentions. I've made these changes, Cody, and she said— she even tells me that she sees them, but she disregards them. Well, there is a solution to this, but the issue is it's no longer what you say. The issue is that you— the issue is whether your words mean anything or not, and right now they don't, and they don't because You've trained her. And again, hold fire on this because you're going to see that this is far more insidious, insidious, and less obvious than you think it is. It's not that you're dishonest or you rely or you just say stuff that isn't true. It's far more subtle than that. It's a death. It's death by a thousand cuts. It's not one big wound. I mean, it can be, it could be an affair or something like that. That's just destroyed trust. But generally speaking, it's a thousand, thousand, thousand little issues. And you're going to see that here as we go through. So What happens after the trust is lost? Okay, so again, that brings us to the— this, this point in the relationship where she's basically flipped over to— there's no real— she has no real hope at this point. I'll change means nothing. I'm trying means nothing. I understand what's happened now means absolutely nothing to her. Things are going to be different— none of that means anything to her anymore. So what the loss of trust means is that every word you speak is a suspect. So this is where we talk about confirmation bias, right? She has a confirmation bias of how you're going to behave and what you say actually means. So even real change, genuine change, even real understanding of how you've shown up in the relationship that's negative, that's caused damage, even when you show up with genuine intentions, that gets filtered through past failure. Or in other words, her confirmation bias kicks in, her negative confirmation bias. So understand here, she's not being unfair to you. She's simply protecting herself from future disappointment. You've disappointed her 1,000 times. You've let her down 1,000 times. You've hurt her 1,000 times. And essentially why she now has left the marriage is because she said, I cannot be hurt again. I cannot go through this again. I cannot experience this again. So again, hold fire here on this. This is fixable, but this requires skill, and we're going to go through that. So a lot of guys at this point when they first enter this program will start to realize they want to know what the grand gestures are. What can I do to rebuild trust? Tell me how I rebuild trust. Tell me, Cody Butler Butler, what do I do? Do I take her on a vacation? Do I get down on my knees and prostrate myself? Do I confess everything and beg? No, none of this stuff. Grand gestures will not work at this point. They simply will not, because grand gestures do not rebuild trust. They don't. Emotional speeches, acknowledgments of wrongdoing, they do not rebuild trust. Big apologies do not rebuild trust. And intention— intensity of behavior and intensity of intention does not equal credibility. Trust is ultimately rebuilt through evidence, repeated evidence. So a good example here is a lot of guys, when they first start understanding this stuff, they see the error of their ways and they go, I understand exactly what I've done right, right, wrong now, and I go to my wife and I apologize. And she just threw it back in my face, or she got angry. It's like, okay, well, that's like saying, hey, I've borrowed $100,000 from you. I've gone and said, can I please borrow $100,000? I need it for a bridging loan for a finance deal or whatever, and it's a lie. I actually got a tip on a horse at the racetrack that I believe is a surefire winner, and I put the money on a horse and I've lost $100,000 of your money on a horse. Now, if I go back to you and I say, John, I'm sorry, man, I screwed up. I've really screwed up. I took that— I lied to you about that money and I put it on a horse. I just— the horse just couldn't lose, but it did. Now the money's gone and I realized I never should have done that. And that was a mistake. And I am so sorry, John. I'm so sorry. What do you think that apology does for the relationship? It does absolutely nothing. John's gonna go, seriously, you lied to me to get money. I trusted you. I gave you that money based on trust. You've lost it, and now you're coming back and you think telling me you realize your mistakes and that you did wrong and an apology makes this right? Get out of my life. You're a disgusting human being, is what's gonna happen. But if I go back to John and I say, John, I've made a terrible mistake. I was dishonest. I lied to you. I got the money under false pretenses. I bet it on a horse, the money's gone, and I truly am sorry, and I'm going to make this right. I'm going to make you whole. Here's $1,000, and I'm going to pay you every penny I get. Every penny that comes into my bank account is going to you until every penny is paid back with interest. The relationship stands a chance, but that relationship is built one small brick at a time. It's rebuilt one payment at a time. It's built one promise kept at a time. There's no grand gesture that's going to fix that situation. It's every small task that I complete. It's every standard repeated. I'm going to pay you this money back every day. I'm going to make a payment to you every week. I'm going to make a payment to you. This is where you're at with your wife. We want to go and say, I recognize that I've made a mistake and I'm, I'm not going to do that anymore. It doesn't matter. So again, the problem here is that you're— what you, you've trained your wife that your words mean nothing anymore. You've trained her that your commitments have become negotiable, and I'm going to share with you why that is here in a minute. Your follow-through became inconsistent. Your language created great escape routes. She learned that your words are not binding. And now she waits for the pattern to return, even though you— even though you know that you've changed, even though you know that you recognize what's happened. She is simply waiting for this pattern to return. So here's the escape language that destroyed trust: I need to, I should. I need to eat more salads. I'm not going to. I should do better with my health. I should do better with going to my— into the gym. I'm not going to. These are simply acknowledgments of facts. They're not commitments. I'll try to do better. Hopefully things will change soon. I'm working on it. When things settle down. I didn't mean to. These, these words, these phrases are absolutely non-committal, and they give you a path out of whatever it is you're saying you need to do. I need to drink less coffee. I need to engage in less social media. Okay, well, that's great. What's your commitment? So the impact on this is it sounds weak, it sounds temporary, it's definitely non-binding, and it gives you a way out. So if you say, I need to go to the gym more, Cody Butler Butler, okay, and then I talk to you next week, I say, how many times did you go to the gym? And you say, I didn't actually go to the gym yet. So you made no commitment. You haven't, you haven't actually truly broken your word. You've given— and this is where identity comes in, right? Because if you see yourself as an honest, integral person, you haven't done anything wrong because you said, I need to go to the gym, not I am going to go to the gym and I commit to go every day. That would be a break of integrity. So let me give you an example. I was working with a client recently and he said, I need, I need to be more present with my family. Well, we all know that, John. We all know that. But what do you commit to? Are you— what does being more present even mean? And if we, you know, go a little bit further, being more present means that I need to leave work at work. Okay, well, let's define that. What do you mean by that? That I will not deal with emails after 7 o'clock in the evening. Okay, now we're getting somewhere. So presence can now be defined for the purposes of this. As I will not do anything work-related, specifically emails, after 7 PM in the evening. How many days a week do you commit to this, John? 7 days a week, Cody Butler. Okay, I will not deal— I will not check my email after 7 PM. I commit to this. This is commitment language. It's a binary, it's a pass/fail. Now we've identified clearly what presence looks like, what, what failure is and what a passing grade is. So when I talk to John the following week and I say, how did you do, John, with the presence, being present with your family? He goes, I'm doing really well, man. I kept it 90%. 90%. I'm like, hang on a second, John. Hang on a second. You committed to 100%. You said that you will not check your emails after 7 PM. That was your commitment, and you're telling me that you failed in that, yet you've given yourself, I'm doing really well, passing grade. You've, you failed miserably on your commitment. You follow— you failed to follow through. You've made a commitment to me that— and your family. You've broken that, destroying trust. And now you're looking at yourself saying you've done really well. You've destroyed trust. You've failed to follow through. You've been fundamentally dishonest on the commitment that you make. And instead of saying, I'm sorry, I screwed up, I own that, and I will get back on the horse and do it again this week and report back next week. John has given himself, I'm doing really well, when he's failing. And this is what happens when we use this language. I should, I'll try, hopefully soon, I'm working on it, I need to. Versus going into power language, right? Power language— now we're getting into the meat and potatoes of this— is what rebuilds trust. I will or I will not. I will not check my email after 7 PM. I will not. That is a commitment. This now produces accountability and ownership. I will try not to check my email produces no accountability. A man that says, I will try not to check my email, I cannot hold him accountable as his coach, as his accountability partner. When he says, I will not check my email, now I've got a commitment. It's binary. Did you do it or did you not do it? I did not do it. Then you failed. What's your next move? Take responsibility, get back on the horse. I have done this. It is done by Friday at 3 PM. I need to send a bunch of emails this week. Okay, we all need to send a bunch of emails this week. What's new with— well, tell me something I don't know. I will, I will send all of the emails that I must send by Friday at 3 PM. This produces ownership, this produces accountability, and this produces a point that we can measure as pass or failure. I can talk to you at 3:01 PM on Friday and say, did you follow through? Did you take accountability? Can I trust you, John? Can I trust you? This is my responsibility. This is the standard. So here's what's going to happen, right, for most people. They're going to go, okay, Cody, I will send the emails by 3 PM on Friday. Awesome. 3:01, did you do it, John? No, I did not. I didn't do it, Cody, but you got to understand, this came up and that came up, and I'm definitely going to do it. It'll be done by— no, that is, that is escape language. That is not taking ownership. That is not taking responsibility. It is— that's not, I did not do it, that's on me. I did not do it. I said I would do it. I did not do it. That's on me, right? Awesome. You've taken responsibility for the failure. Let's go back to step 1. What is your I will statement? I will do it by 4 PM today. Okay, we have to create binary checkpoints here, or else how else can you be held accountable? I need to watch— I need to have engaged in less social media, Cody Butler. What does that mean? How do I hold you accountable to that? That's escape language because that means you get to decide if you've succeeded or not. So the impact of power language is it simply removes all ambiguity from your language. It removes the escape routes, creates measurable evidence, and it makes your words testable. This also rebuilds credibility slowly. And it's not that you have to be perfect. I know a lot of guys are gonna— well, so you said I have— no, you don't have to be perfect. You have to make commitments. You have to measure those commitments in a binary measure, pass or fail. You did it or you did not. And if you did not, you have to own that, and then you have to reset and start again. None of us are perfect, and we're going to drop the ball here, but we have to recognize that when we've dropped the ball, we have to recognize that when we violated trust, when we're using escape language, and we have to change that. So I said at the beginning, don't count the opportunities, make the opportunities count. I will have the kids at the drop-off point at 3 PM on Friday. 3:01 is not acceptable. You have failed. When you say, I will have the kids at the drop-off point at 3 PM, and you have them at 3:01, guess what? But guess what that man most likely is going to do? 3:01, what's the big deal? She's just being a bitch. What's the big deal? Is you said you were going to do something and you didn't. You've trained her that your words mean nothing. Again, have the kids there at 2:50. You said that you would take the trash out. Can you take the trash out? Yep. No problem, you didn't do it. What was the big deal, man? It's going to get taken out. You said you'd do it and you didn't. That's the big deal. It's not— the game is not lost in big gestures and small gestures, or big gestures either way. The game is lost in a thousand cuts. You said you'd take the trash out and you didn't. You said you'd pick your socks up off the floor and you didn't. You know, I know a lot of people are gonna go, well, This is so petty, Cody Butler. This is— it's not, trust me. This is where the game is won and lost. It's brick by brick by brick. So trust starts with self-trust. You cannot ask her to trust you before you trust yourself. Can you trust yourself when you say you're going to stop drinking? Can you trust yourself when you say you're going to stop watching porn? Can you say you trust yourself when you are going to say, I'll go to the gym 5 days, I'm going to go to the gym 5 days a week? Can you actually trust yourself to do that? I'm going to stop drinking coffee, I'm going to get— I'm going to abandon social media, I'm not going to get on social media. Can you really trust yourself when you say that? And I'm going to say, just from my human nature and my own experience and the experience of working with thousands of men, the answer is no for the vast majority of people. You can't, if we're being honest, even trust yourself to follow through on the things that you say you're going to follow through on. So when you can't trust yourself, how do you expect her to trust you? This is not authentic leadership. You're asking her to do something you're not capable of doing yourself, which is trust in you. When, when this starts to become real and you start to trust yourself, the power is immense because you know that when you say something, it's done. There was a study done of deca-millionaires, and one of the— one which is $10 million net worth, I think $700,000 cash income a year was, was the standard. This was several years ago. Wealthy by any standard, right? Pretty much like, let's just go wealthy by any standard. And they interviewed the, uh, even their enemies said If John says he's going to do something, it's as good as done. You can count that it's as good as done. This is one of the highest qualities of highly successful people. So you can't ask her to trust you before you trust yourself. And that starts by— self-trust is built by keeping your own words, your own commitments, and actually making those commitments. Power language, not escape language, right? I will go to the gym, not I need to go to the gym. I commit to eating more salads, not I should eat more salads. The easiest way to start this, man, is to say less. I've had conversations recently with men who, they made commitments to me they just didn't need to. They broke those commitments, and it's like, why did you do that? You didn't need to make that commitment. Why did you say you would be there at that time? Why did you say you'd do that on that day? It was unnecessary. Was not required, but you said it anyway, and then you didn't follow through. If you hadn't said it, it wouldn't be a problem. The problem is not that you didn't do the thing. The problem is that you said you were going to do the thing and you didn't do it. That's the problem. Get the tongue in check. Commit clearly or don't commit at all. I need to go to the gym more. What a nonsense statement. Who— what have you— what information have you just given that everybody didn't know? I need— I need to eat less junk food. I need I need to drink less alcohol. I need to watch less porn. I need to— what are you communicating that isn't already known? You're just making yourself feel good without actually putting any requirement to be good on yourself. So commit: I will not drink alcohol this week. I will not go to McDonald's for lunch. I will go to the gym. And execute. Now the key here is start small. Don't Don't start making commitments everywhere that you're not going to follow through on. Start with one thing today. What's one thing that you can commit to? You can use power language, or you can start to remove escape language and replace it with power language. Give me just one thing. So again, no vague promises. I'll do better. What the hell does that mean? I'll do better, Cody Butler. What does it mean? Nothing. No emotional claims. No unmeasured change. When you make commitments through power language, it becomes measurable. I will go to the gym 5 days a week. Okay, well, we can put that in a spreadsheet. I will not eat junk food. We can put that in a spreadsheet. How many times did you eat junk food this week? This becomes measurable. Progress becomes measurable. And this is one of the things that we need. Anything and everything that is measured improves. You want to lose weight? Just weigh yourself every day. Gamify the process. If you can't measure it, you can't improve it. And everything that's measured improves. So to say I'm working on myself is a truly nonsense statement unless you've removed the escape language, replaced it with power language, and we've identified what the measurable metrics are that we're gonna determine, did you actually change or not? So here's the sequence of events here. Escape language is removed. Power language is installed. Clear commitments are made. The actions that are made through the power language is completed. The pattern repeated. So your, the ability to trust yourself to know that you're gonna follow through increases. Her observations of your behavior change, trust begins to rebuild. There is no other path to rebuilding trust. If you were looking for another path other than this, you're a fool and you're wasting time. There is no other path other than this. This is major. This is major. So let's look at why she still doesn't believe you. Well, because your past promises have failed, because your past apologies have meant nothing. You've apologized and then you've done it again. Your past changes did not last. You've trained her that anything you say is either patently false or she can expect a reversal of the behavior at some point in time. This is how— this is what you have trained her. But here's the great thing: you can untrain her and you can train her a different way, and you simply must. So what she's actually looking for is consistency over time. She's not gonna— she's not gonna accept, 'I understand what you— what I've done wrong, here's what I've done wrong, and I've changed.' Doesn't work like that. What she needs to see is the trust patterns. She trusts patterns over time, not moments of change. Anybody can behave themselves for a short period of time. I, I used to, uh, I was a restaurateur and I'd have hundreds of employees at one point. I had multiple restaurants and I had hundreds of employees, and I had a rule: I never gave anybody a pay raise or a promotion in the first 3 months because that was what I had learned from experience, that people could behave themselves for. After 3 months, the real person started to come through. Anybody can behave themselves and show up for 3 months. And be on their best behavior for 3 months. But after that, the real person, the real personality, the real personality traits start to come through. And a lot of times in month, you know, after 3 months, 4 months, 5, it's like what you would have thought was going to be an excellent employee actually is a liability to the business. I learned to trust patterns over time, not moments. Your wife is the same. So let's make this manageable for you. We're not— I'm not asking you to completely change your life in one go. One brick at a time is all I'm asking. Build this thing one brick at a time. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. How do you start a journey of 1,000 miles? One step. Let's make this manageable. So one kept word. Think of what is one area of your life where you've been using escape language— I should, I need, that you can change? What is one task that you can complete that typically you would not have done? It's clear your inbox out by 10 AM on Monday morning for the weekend, something like that. A calm response, one honest admission. And it doesn't have to be to your wife, it can be to yourself. When we jump into the coaching section here in a minute. It can be to me or the fellow brothers in the group. An honest admission, a non-defensive conversation, a repeated standard, and one day at a time. Pick one standard to repeat and let's take this one day at a time. If you fail today, that's fine. Acknowledge it, make an honest admission of the failure, and get back on the horse. So the key principle to understand is, is trust with your wife is not built through proof moments, which many of us think it is, and we're looking for those proof moments. Trust is rebuilt through repeated patterns over time. And a lot of times it's the, the most valuable moments are the ones that we're most challenged with. When she says she doesn't want to work on this, when she says she is moving out, when she doesn't move out, when you get a letter from a lawyer. This is when we fall apart, when we're under emotional stress. This is when the real test comes in. So let's do some practical language swaps here. So what typically is present and what needs to be present. So I need to help more. I will handle dinner Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I need to be more patient. I will not raise my voice in conversations. This is aspirational nonsense that nobody believes. This is commitment that's measurable. I will handle dinner Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Is that a commitment? Yes or no? Is that measurable? Yes or no? Is that pass or fail? Yes or no? Can I talk to you next week if that's your commitment, and you can tell me categorically if you passed this or you failed it? Yes or no? If you, if you deal with your wife and say, I will handle dinner Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and you do that every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for the next month, does that rebuild trust or destroy it? I need to be patient. I'm trying to change. Well, quite frankly, who cares, right? You owe me a bunch of money. You're trying to pay me back. I don't really care that you're trying to pay me back. How much money did you deposit into my bank account? That's all I care about, right? Replace I am trying to with I have started X and will continue it until whatever. I have started going to the gym and I will continue it 5 days a week in perpetuity. I have committed to 0 hours of social media per day, and I will continue that daily. I'm trying to wean myself off social media, for example. I, I'll get to it. Well, what does that mean? That's a— I'll get to it means nothing. Of course you're going to get to it next week, next month, next year. Like, when? What does that mean? It means absolutely nothing to you. In your mind, you're committing to do the task. To her, that's, that's an escape. I'll get to it versus I will complete it by 6 PM today. Can you take the trash out, please? I will have it out by 3 PM. Your wife might go, the insurance on the car is getting ready to expire. And your response is, 'I'll get to it, I'll sort it out,' versus, 'I will have it renewed by 6 PM today, I will have it renewed by the close of business today.' My wife— this is a big one for my wife— she worries about these things. Like, she goes, 'I think the tires are low on air on the car,' and I go, 'Leave it with me, I'll sort it.' That makes her uncomfortable. That means I'll get to it when I get to it, might be next week. If she goes, the air— I think the air in the tires might be low on my car, Cody. And I go, I will have it to the gas station and checked by 3 PM today. That gives her confidence, that gives her trust in me. When I'm assuming the role of protector, provider, prophet, and priest, when she says there's something that I, that I consider a threat to me and my family the car might not be safe in my interpretation. And I go, leave it with me, that will be absolutely dealt with by 3 PM today. Do you need the car before then? No. Great, 3 PM is fine. You'll have the car by 3 PM and it will be checked. In the protector role of protector, provider, prophet, and priest, this gives her trust in me. This allows her to trust in me versus I'll get to it. She wants me to get to it today, not next week. I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to. Again, I didn't mean to lose the $100,000, John. I did it. It was wrong. I accept responsibility for it. I will never do it again, and I will have it paid back by X. That is the only language that allows any possibility of reconciliation at that relationship. I didn't mean to lose money, John. It was a mistake. I'm sorry. I don't give a crap, Cody Butler. You didn't mean to? Awesome. Where's my money? This is what your wife is doing. I didn't mean to upset you. I didn't mean to destroy emotional safety. Awesome. I'm glad you didn't mean to, but you did, and you're still doing it, and you're still not taking responsibility for it, and I still see no hope of this changing, so I'm out of here. This is how we change it. I destroyed your emotional safety. It was wrong. I won't repeat it. I will no longer do this. I will no longer do that. Commitment. So here are some of the things that have to be eliminated immediately. The faster you can do this, the better. Excuses, reasons, justifications, blame stories, deflections and projections, mutual accountability. Well, we're both to blame. You probably are, but here's the truth. You're not responsible for her behavior. You're responsible for your behavior. I had a falling out with a builder in a renovation project, and I lost my mind with him, and I behaved pretty badly, to be quite frank with you. And my wife pulled me off to the side and said, Cody, you're not responsible for his behavior. It's his fault as well. He's— it's his fault he did this. He's over budget. This is not what he said. He's messed this up. He's messed that up. He said he'd be here 8 o'clock today to fix this. It's 10 o'clock now. All true. But she goes, that's he— that's his responsibility. You are responsible for your behavior, and you are not behaving very well right now. You are my protector, provider, prophet, and priest, and you're acting like a loose cannon. You're none of those things right now. Point taken, wife. Yes, there was mutual accountability in the breakdown of that relationship, but I'm not responsible for his actions. I made excuses for my behavior, justified. I made reasons why I was behaving badly. I blamed him. I told a story about why I was behaving badly. And here's something I hear all the time. A man will say something to me and I'll give him the story back as it truly is, and he'll say, I can see why it will come across that way. No, That's not how it comes across, that's how it is. When you say, I can see why it would come across that way, you're saying that's an excuse, that's a reason, it's justification, it's a story. If your wife says, you are destroying my emotional safety, and you say, I can see why it would come across that way, does that imply any change in the situation whatsoever? Absolutely not. I can see why is escape language. I understand now I have destroyed your emotional safety. I take full responsibility for that, and I will no longer raise my voice in conversations. That's power language. You've taken a measurable, actionable step that can now be documented, that I or someone else, an accountability partner, can hold you accountable to. This is progress. This is how trust is rebuilt. And quite frankly, it's the only way trust is rebuilt. So the final one is the idea that your situation is unique. When someone says, Cody, you have to understand, I think my situation is unique, all you're saying is I'm special and the rules don't apply to— apply to me. Okay, well, maybe you are special, maybe the rules don't apply to you, but how's it working out for you so far? It's my question. How long are we going to go with this hypothesis that your situation is unique and that you're special? How long are we going to go with this? Your marriage is in collapse, bro. Let's let reality guide us. Like, if your marriage is in collapse, you're not special, which is what this is. My situation is unique. It's not, trust me. So here's some— here are some mistakes to avoid. Do not demand trust from your wife. You're not entitled to it, and demanding it, you're not going to get it. Don't ask if she notices the changes that you're making. Don't argue that you've changed. Don't argue that things are diff— different. When she— when you say, I've— I— as an example, I've definitely improved emotional safety in this house, and she goes, I don't think so, don't argue that you have. Well, I disagree with you, I'm no longer raising my— well, you're arguing, bro. You're destroying emotional safety in the very sentence where you're trying to prove that you didn't. Don't announce every improvement. What she's— what she sees is far more significant than what you tell her. She simply— your words just simply don't mean anything at this point. Telling her that you've changed, telling her it's just pointless. You're just gonna— you're gonna damage the situation. Do not use change as leverage, like you've changed so she should change. That's not the case. If you're not doing this because you see that the way you've been showing up is actually dishonest and you don't, you don't accept that, then don't do it at all. I had a situation when I was much younger, I rented a storage building and I signed a contract saying I'd pay X amount of rent on the first of every month. And quite frankly, I never did. Like, I pay on the fifth of the month, second of the month, tenth, whenever I felt like. And this was, you in the '90s, right, when there wasn't, you know, it was very different. You actually had to go in and write a check to the person. And first of the month, I'd be like, eh, I'm busy today, I'll do it tomorrow. And I go in on the second. That was good enough for me. I'm like, I pay the money, whatever, right? And he called me in and he was about to evict me. He wanted to evict— the man wanted to evict me. And I said, how dare you? And he goes, well, if you want to stay, I'm welcome— you're welcome to stay, and I would like for you to stay, but you need to start dealing with me honestly. You haven't been honest once yet. Not once. I could have killed that. I was enraged. Me, I was like, how dare you challenge my integrity? How dare you challenge my honesty? I would never take on some— a commitment like this and not follow through or pay it. How dare you? I have every intention to pay this. But the truth was I'd made the commitment to pay every month on the first of the month, and I had yet to do that. I'd broken my commitments. I had not followed through on my promises. He was absolutely right. I was dishonest in every transaction with him. I was dishonest in every engagement with him. And when he told me, you haven't been honest with me once yet, instead of taking that as correction— he's absolutely right, I haven't been honest with him once, so that means that I'm a dishonest man and I'm an untrustworthy man— Which, once I accepted that point, bloody how hard is it to fix it, right? Just pay the man on the first of the month. I've got the money. Like, it's not like I haven't got the money. I just can't be bothered to drive 300 meters to the storage building from my house and give it to him on time. It's not a hard fix. But this is where a lot of us are. We don't see ourselves as dishonest and untrustworthy because we're not really understanding the escape language that we're using and how it is creating an environment that actually truly is dishonest. Once we see ourselves and we hold the mirror up and see ourselves, actually, I have been I have been showing up untrustworthy. I have been showing up dishonestly. I have been showing up with a lack of integrity. I have not been committal. I have been making excuses. I have been blaming others. I have been telling stories. And hopefully you can see today the reason I've gone through all of this is because it's insidious. It's not obvious. We don't necessarily— it's not like it's obvious that that's making us an untrustworthy person. It's somewhat hidden but not below the surface, and we don't see it. But once we see it and we understand this is what is actually destroying the marriage Now we have an accurate diagnosis of what our words are doing, the impact that they're having, and how to change them. So don't expect emotional rewards for this. You may get, you may get a pat on the back, like, and to be quite honest with you, the rewards are probably going to come much later. I've told this story many times, but we've got a lot of new men, so I'll just tell it very quickly. I always have my mother-in-law and I have a very fruity relationship, and it's always subject to a complete nuclear explosion when we go to stay with them for holidays and trips and stuff like that. And I held it together. I really made an effort to not have any blowups from my mother-in-law. Anyway, a couple of weeks— a week goes by. My wife says nothing to me, by the way, here. Nothing. Not a word. We have the same personal trainer. I go to my personal training session. I'm up. The trainer goes, you, you've won some points with your wife. She's very happy with you. And I go, what are you talking about? And he goes, she was singing your praises today, how well you did at Sydney, in Sydney with the mother-in-law, and how well you behaved, and how proud she was of you, and how impressed she was with your self-restraint. I'm like, oh, not a word to me. She hasn't given me the emotional reward because she doesn't want me to do it to get a cookie. She wants me to do it because that's the husband she wants me to be— her protector, provider, prophet, and priest. And if she has to incentivize that behavior, I'm not that thing. If I only behave properly when there's emotional rewards, or I get sex if I do— if I behave well— then I'm not the protector, provider, prophet, and priest. I'm a man who only responds to incentivization. And don't rush the process. You can't. You didn't tear this thing down in a week, you're not going to rebuild it in a week. So here's what to do instead. Speak less, man. Button the beak. This is the best advice I can give to anybody on this call or watching the replay of this call. Button the beak. Speak less. Commit. Do not commit to anything unless you think it through. And if you say you're going to be somewhere, make little things matter. Everything matters. If you're going to say— if you have a call scheduled at 3 o'clock, 3:01, is not acceptable. That's failure. Commit clearly with power language. I will take the trash out. I will get the tires on the car checked by 3 PM today. Follow through quietly without expectations. Don't make a big scene of look what I did. Own your failure immediately when it happens. My wife goes, Cody Butler, it's 3 o'clock. Did you get the tires checked? No, I failed. No, I'm sorry, I did not. I failed. I, I will fix that. I will have it done by 4 o'clock. In fact, I will take it now. I will fix this immediately. Correct the problem without drama. Just fix it. Just fix it. Don't talk about it. Don't explain why it happened. Just bloody fix it. Here's the thing, right? How many have done this? I've done this myself. I find myself guilty. You're 5 minutes late for a phone call and you go, oh, my phone was updating. Ah, the app closed down. Oh, I told Siri to call John and Siri called the wrong John. BS. All nonsense. You were late. Just say it. I'm sorry, I was late. It's inexcusable. 'Can you forgive me?' 'Yes, it will not happen again.' 'No, but everybody knows it's not true. Everybody knows you're just making an excuse. You were just late. Just own it. Correct the behavior.' And here's the real measure of this, if this is really taking place or not. So, can you keep your word when she gives you no praise, no positive feedback? Can you follow through when she remains cold? Can you keep doing this when you get the letter from the lawyer or she moves out? Can you say— can you stay consistent when she openly doubts you or challenges you? Can you act without needing credit for the action, or do you need a cookie? Can you remove every escape route from your language? Can you start saying, "I will buy X," instead of saying, "I need to"? These are small things that all of us are capable of doing today. To transform you from, quite frankly, unreliable to a weapon, from somebody who is a child who needs taken care of to your wife's protector, provider, prophet, and priest. The pathway to transformation is not dramatic and it's not hard. But here's the thing, right? You got to, you got to start using power language. You got to start doing this publicly. This is, we're going to jump over to some Q&A in a minute, some hot seats or whatever. And it's like, this is your opportunity to openly commit with a, to a bunch of men who are here to support you and help you through this, to hold you accountable and to correct you when you fail and to pick you up when you fall down, to help you through this. So The question is, can you remove every escape route from your language, or do you have to keep giving yourself outs, back doors? So, conclusion, man, trust was not lost. Trust was not, uh, trust was lost one broken word at a time. Wasn't one big thing, won't be rebuilt with one big, big thing. Trust is rebuilt by keeping one word at a time. Imagine that. Turn around and go back the way you came. Escape language keeps you untrustworthy. Simple as. One of the things I say is how you do anything is how you do everything. If you're 1 minute late to a phone call, then you are untrustworthy. And you— if I can't trust you to be on time with 1 minute, I can't trust you to manage my investment fund. I can't try to trust you to manage my investment portfolio. It's as simple as that. If you can't show up to a coaching call on time and you're one of my coaches, I can't trust you with my client. Even if you're 1 minute late, I can't trust you with my client. How you do anything is how you do everything. And you don't— you— I don't need to wait, and you don't need to wait, and your wife does not need to wait until there's one ungodly almighty screw-up to figure out that you're untrustworthy. One tiny little thing at a time. I was one day late, two days late with those payments. That made me untrustworthy. That man could not put me in a position of trust. Simply couldn't. Power— escape language keeps you untrustworthy. Power language makes your words binding again. First, you become a man you can trust, you can trust. Then over time, she may begin to trust you again. And I'm going to change that— she will begin to trust you again. But there has to be enough evidence. So let's just wrap this up with a quote here that could sum this entire lesson up, which we can go biblical if you want, but it doesn't matter because it's equally as true. Let your yes mean yes and your no mean no. That is the summation of this lesson. That is the summation. This single statement will save your marriage. It is not more complicated than that. And just this, I copy and pasted this from ChatGPT. I asked, what does this mean? And just copy and pasted it so we could see. A command to live with absolute integrity, honesty, and simplicity, ensuring your word is trustworthy. It means being consistent, reliable, and straightforward, not overexplaining or using manipulation. Who thinks their wife would appreciate this? Who thinks this would make a difference? This is not a religious statement. This is a— this is an observation of reality. Let your yes mean yes and your no mean no. Not your yes mean if I feel like it, your yes mean until something better comes along, or no means unless I change my mind. That is it, man. That is this, uh, that's this lesson. Let's jump over to some Q&A.