The Best Marriage Advice Nobody Tells Men

So let's talk today, man, about emotional outsourcing that's going on in most of your marriages and how it's creating a death spiral that is killing your marriage, killing your chances. So the common problems are that it's not so much that you want to save your marriage. Of course you do, but that's the mechanism. What you actually want to do is you're experiencing problems such as no peace, constant criticism, no respect, no sex, no cooperation. Feeling unwanted. She won't try. She wants out. The, the, the list goes on and on. And we, we think that saving the marriage is the solution to these problems, but actually these are the problems that we want to solve. And when we make that connection between the marriage solves these problems, we create an emotional dependency that makes it very hard to actually save the marriage. So what it does is create an emotional outsourcing Death spiral. And by emotional outsourcing, I mean that all of those things then get assigned to your wife. They're all of the, all of the experiences that you want to experience, you're putting in the hands of your wife. So this emotional death spiral basically starts out of, as I don't feel okay, therefore I need her to change. I need her to change her behavior. I need her to change how she's talking to me. I need her to change how she's showing up. I need her to change her decision to leave this marriage, because if she doesn't, I'm not gonna feel okay. So then, because we've outsourced how you feel to her changing, it naturally creates pressure, because now she has all of the pressure on her that everything you want now is in her hands. So that creates pressure, and of course, that causes her to pull away more, which in turn Makes you feel worse about the situation, which in turn creates more fear, which in turn creates more pressure, which in turn creates more distance. So the core problem, the core constraint within the marriage that we're trying to solve here is that you're trying to change her so you can change how you feel. How you feel is the effect. She is the cause, right? So if we can separate how she's behaving with how you feel, then we can get the desired result. Which is changing how you feel internally without so many requirements on her to change how she's showing up, which of course is going to remove a lot of the pressure. So what you actually want is you want something different from the marriage right now. You don't just want your marriage back, you want something different. So the problem that I've just explained here— explained is that you think your wife has to change for this different experience of the marriage to happen, right? Whether that's her coming back into the marriage and stopping a divorce, Or if you're earlier on in the collapse, how she's showing up and how she's behaving, right? Either way, your belief is that for you to experience what you need to experience, she has to change, which of course produces a pressure for us to change her. But the problem is that gives her complete control over how you feel, how she feels, and that creates pressure. Now, ultimately, it doesn't matter how you've arrived at this point. The reason she's leaving the marriage is because she wants pressure relief. And whatever that looks like in your situation, whether she's asked for a divorce, whether she's withdrawn, whether she's shut down, whether she's stonewalling, what she's actually doing at this point is she's looked— the pressure of the marriage has become too much for her, so she's looking for a mechanism to relieve that pressure. And unfortunately, the mechanism that she comes up with is very detrimental to you and the marriage quite often. So if the goal of her leaving the marriage or her negative behavior is pressure release, relief from the pressure, And then the mechanism that you use to solve that problem is actually to apply more pressure. You're actually creating more of the problem that she's trying to escape from, not creating more of the solution. And this is where it breaks down. As men, we think we're creating a solution, but actually we're just doubling down on the problem that created the pressure that she's trying to escape from in the first place. So this is what it looks like, right? And you can see here. You think that she holds the keys to everything you want—your value as a man, your self-worth, your peace, your confidence, your security. You're looking to her to give you all of these things right now. She holds the keys to your well-being. But when we put it in visual, when we visualize it like this, let me ask you a question: Is that man attractive to that woman in any way, shape, or form? When you are looking to her and she holds the keys. to everything that it is that you actually want, is this man attractive to that woman? I think the answer is self-evident, but this is the position that when we're in this emotional outsourcing loop, this is exactly how you are showing up in your marriage. This is exactly how you look to your wife, and then we wonder why she's not sexually attracted to us, why she doesn't treat us with respect, or she doesn't give us The authority that we think we deserve. This is why, because this is visually how we're showing up, and this is visually how she's actually seeing this. So this is the problem that we actually have to solve, right? So as you can see right now, your feelings are pretty much 100% dependent on her. You know, if she gives you respect, you have confidence. If her love controls your sense of self-worth, her affection controls your happiness, her words control your peace, her choice controls your security. You've literally handed her the keys to your kingdom, and not in a good way— in a way that's made you very unattractive to her. And she doesn't want those keys. She doesn't want to be responsible for all of those things. So the false belief that we hold as men here is that— that is causing you a great deal of pain, suffering, and anguish— is that for me to feel differently internally about who I am as a human being She has to behave differently. Or in other words, instead of you pumping security and confidence into the relationship, you're responding to the confidence that she's given. So when she, when she's giving good positive signals, you feel good instead of you feeling good irrespective. And this is what we have to achieve, right? We have to get to a point where we decouple and detach from You needing her to make you feel whole. So this is what emotional outsourcing is, and this is the core problem. And when we— this is the problem that we actually have to solve, right? So what's gone on here, in the simplest terms possible, is you've handed your inner world to somebody else. You've given her complete and total control over your peace, your security, your confidence, and your self-worth. You've handed your inner world to her and and made her responsible for it. Or in other words, you've become a dependent. So the problem this creates is that she now controls how you feel. And because she controls how you feel, the only way you can change how you feel is you need her to change. You can't— you can't change how you feel without her changing. So this then necessitates the need for her to change, which means by default, you are naturally going to start applying pressure to her, whether you know it or not. And pressure is the very thing that she is trying to escape from. So we are literally in the death cycle, death spiral right now. So when you do this, you've handed emotional sovereignty over to you, or you've handed your— you've outsourced your emotional well-being to your wife. You've actually made her the problem within the marriage when the problem is not her. The problem is that you've outsourced something that you shouldn't have outsourced. You've outsourced something to her and you've given her control and you've given her responsibility for a problem that quite frankly is your problem to solve. It's not— she's not the problem for not solving your problem. The problem is you gave her a problem. It was never hers to solve. So ultimately what you're looking for here, man, is you're looking for peace. You want to experience peace, love, respect, connection, security, happiness, all of these things, you know. And ultimately I call this peeling the onion. If you, if you want to really get to the bottom of this, it's very simple, right? You just keep asking yourself the question, why is that important to you? Why is that important to me? So you say, well, I want my wife back. Well, why is that important to you? Because I love her. Okay, well, let's go deeper. Why is it— why is that important? Because it makes me feel connected. Well, why is feeling connected important to you? Because it makes me feel secure. Well, why is security important to you? Because it makes me feel happy. Okay, well, now we're at the root cause of the— of what's going on here. Happiness is actually what you want, and we've just gone through the chain of custody ending in your wife's hands. You don't want your wife back, you want to be happy. But you've connected these 2. Now, that's not to say that you don't— you literally don't want your wife back. That's not true. But your, your wife is a pathway to your happiness. She's not— if you could get her back and be absolutely miserable, you probably wouldn't want her back, right? You'd probably look for a different solution to the problem. So You want all of these things, but you believe she has to give these things to you. She has to give you happiness. She has to give you authority. She has to give you respect. She has to give you confidence, self-worth, value as a human being, competency—all of these things. So now you've left her with only two options, man. She either changes for you to feel okay, or she doesn't change. And you don't feel okay. Either way, you've now made this connection between you feeling okay necessitates her changing. And again, this is how we're showing up in the relationship. When we can see this visually, it makes it very clear to understand why our wives are not sexually attracted to us, why she doesn't want intimacy with us, why she isn't looking at us with— why isn't she giving us the authority? Why isn't she giving us— Respect. The the the masculine status that we that we believe that we deserve because this is how we're showing up in the marriage. You're on your knees, in chains, begging her, "Please make me feel okay. Please make me feel okay." And again, I'm not here to tell anybody anything. I'm just here to give you options, ask you questions, and get you to see things in a slightly different way. Because when the things you see change, when when you change the way you see things, the things you see change. And when you Who, who believes this man is attractive to that woman? Who believes this man has a chance of getting this woman back for any reason other than she doesn't want to be alone? She's, she's, you know, she's scared of being alone, or she's scared of the financial consequences or something like that. This man is never going to get that woman back because he's demonstrating true masculine leadership. So when you're on, when you're on your knees begging her to make you feel okay, you try to change her. Inevitably, understandably so, right? You try to get a different response from her. So you explain yourself, you defend yourself, you convince, you chase, you pressure. These are all mechanisms that you're using to get her to change. Or in other words, and when I say change, it doesn't necessarily mean like change everything about her to get, get her to give you a different response back into the relationship. So the real goal that you're approaching this marriage reconciliation with right now is you're trying to get her to change so you can feel better, which is actually a very selfish motivation. You know, people go, well, I'm making the changes, I'm doing the work, I'm doing this and that and everything else, Cody. I'm following your advice and she's still, still not changing. Well, your motivation hasn't changed. Your actions have changed, but you're not being judged by your actions. She's judging your motivation. And even though your actions potentially are good, they're still coming from the place of, I'm only doing this because I need to get a different response from you so I can feel better. It's selfish. It's a selfish motivation. So that's the emotional outsourcing loop, right? To put it in a graphic form so it's easy to understand, it starts out with the— at the top right with, I do not feel okay. I don't feel okay right now. I'm not good, Cody. And in order to feel good, I need her to change. I need her to change her decision to leave. I need her to change her attitude towards me. I need her to change the words that she's saying. I need her to change her behavior. So because I— because this change is a necessity, I pressure her to do it innocently, often inadvertently, oftenly. This is not necessarily nefarious. This is not you being a horrible human being, a controlling manipulative Controlling human being. This is simply you trying to get your needs met in a very unenlightened, uneducated way. It's you trying to do something without understanding the bigger picture of you. You can get your needs met while meeting her needs. That's a possibility, right? And that's our goal. How does everybody? How do we arrive at a win-win in this marriage? How do you get your needs met while at the same time meeting her needs? That's the goal, right? When we can do that, she comes back. But right now. You're not doing that. We're in stage 3 here, or step 3, which is you're pressuring her to change because this is the only way you can feel okay. So remember, we just said pressure is the thing she's looking away, moving away from, and you're using pressure as the mechanism to get her to do what you want. It's not going to work, man. So inevitably, when you apply this pressure, she pulls away, which inevitably moves to stage 5, which is you feel worse, right? It's like, I'm doing more and more and more, and the more I do, the harder it gets and the less response, or even worse, The worse the situation gets, which then completes the flywheel here and takes you back to, I'm not okay. I'm not okay, Cody. I'm not okay at all. And now the pressure to her becomes more acute. You, you need her to change more than you did before the first cycle of this flywheel. And it goes on and on and on and on. This is the emotional outsourcing loop, the death spiral that is killing your marriage right now and will continue to kill it until you break it. So then obviously we go back to the beginning, the loop starts again. More pressure results in more distance from her, etc., etc., etc. So why does the pressure grow? Well, the more you need from her, the more important her response becomes. When, when it becomes more and more and more important for her to behave in a way that makes you feel okay, the more significant it becomes. So the more pressure you apply to get the result that you're looking for. Now, this obviously creates very, very negative emotional states within you. So essentially, this flywheel that you're on is going to create these 5 states: fear, chasing, control, defensiveness, or pressure, or all of them, most likely, right? So these behaviors all create more pressure. So again, when we place this visually, let's look at them. When we can see— when we visualize what fear is, when we visualize what chasing, control, defensiveness, and pressure is, we can see Which one of these is helping your marriage? Which one of these is your wife looking at going, "Damn, this is the man I want to spend the rest of my life with." Damn, this is a bed I want to sleep in tonight. Damn, this is a house I'm not willing to give up. This is what's going on. This is the visualization of your marriage. And until we understand what these emotional states are doing, this is why this is why the core attitudes are so important because they overcome. Fear, chasing, control, defensiveness, and pressure. This is how you move past these states into more productive states. So what feels like love to you feels like pressure to her. And again, let me ask the question. Let's come back to this. Which one of these men is going to win his wife back? Which one of these men is taking the right action right now? Which one of these men is engaging in the right strategy? Yet I hypothesize that each and every one of you is engaging in at least one, if not all, of these strategies right now, thinking that this is going going to help you save your marriage, right? So when you engage in these, like, we don't call it fear, control, pressure. We call it fighting for the marriage. We call it trying to fix things. We call it asking for answers. We call it, we call it trying to reconnect. We call it trying to be understood. But the reality is it falls into one of those 5 categories. So she doesn't experience it as fighting for the marriage, etc., etc., etc. She experiences it as pressure control, stress, emotional weight, and it produces a need for space in her. Or in other words, again, in your in your attempt to save the marriage, you're actually destroying actively destroying the marriage. So this is why the harder you try, the worse the situation gets. If you if you're like the if you're driving the car in the wrong direction, going faster isn't progressive. It isn't the solution. And that's what a lot of you do. You go, this marriage is not going well, so I'm going to hit the gas and go faster, harder. Drive longer. I'm not going to take a break. I'll pee in a bottle. No, no, no, no, no. The progressive thing is, is to stop and look at the map, because the faster you go, the, the further you're getting away from the solution, right? So you obviously want, you know, closeness, so you chase. She pulls away. You want peace, so you force the conversation. That creates more conflict. You want security, So you push for reassurance, which creates more pressure. You want respect, so you defend yourself against what you're being accused of, which produces more arguments. When did conflict ever reduce conflict? So again, the real problem here is that you're not just trying to change the marriage, you're trying to change her so you can change how you feel. This is the crux of it here. When we peel the onion, We get down to this, to the real root of the problem is you don't like how you feel right now, and you've decided that she holds the keys to changing how you feel. That makes you a dependent. That makes you another child in the relationship. She's dependent on, on, on your state. So, or you're dependent, you become dependent on her emotional state and her words, right? Your emotional state now depends on her behavior. In other words, so again, look at this, right? We've got two men here. One one man says I'm strong enough for both of us, and the other man is I need to be strong. I need you to be strong enough for me. Which man do you think she is going to choose? Which man is attractive to her? Which man is going to get respect, intimacy, connection, competency? All of these. Thanks. It's obvious when we put it like this, right? Like, when you show up in the relationship from the perspective of, I'm strong enough for both of us, I got this— you're the Spartan. When you show up from the place of, I need you to be strong enough for me because I'm not okay right now and I need you to change to make me okay— you're the, you're the man here who's saying, I need you to be strong enough for me. Which one of these men is going to win this woman? For those of you who are saying, my wife's emotionally involved with another man, my wife's having an affair, she's doing this, she doesn't want— like, this is why. This is what you're up against, and this is the solution and the problem simultaneously. You cannot show up to this marriage from the place of, I need you to be strong enough for me, or in other words, I need you to change. And expect to have any real chance of saving this marriage. It's just not going to happen. This man is going to win 10 times out of 10. I'm strong enough for the both of us. This is where you have to get to. This is why detachment is important. This is why decoupling from her emotions, untethering from her emotions is important, because it's the only way you can become strong enough for the both of you. So if you want to win this game called marriage, You cannot control what she feels. You can't even want to. Like many of you go, well, I don't want, I don't want her to feel this. I don't want her to feel that. I, I can't let her think that, Cody. I can't let her do that. I can't let her do what she wants. I can't let her choose that because if, if she chooses that, I won't be okay. You can't control what she does, feels, thinks, wants, or chooses because if you do You are Mr. I need you to be strong enough for me, and this is the position you've put yourself in in your marriage, and I think we both know how that's going to end more likely more often than not. So this the control hopefully you're seeing now that the the control that is being exerted, and again let me reiterate here control is not necessarily saying be home by 10 p.m. bitch or I'm going to smack you. It's not that. You, you can't control how she shows up and what she says, but what you can control, what you have total autonomy over, is how you respond to the situation, what you believe about the situation, how you behave in spite of everything she says, does, and, and behaves, right? What you choose to focus on, who you choose to be regardless of the situation— these are the things that you Can control. She does not have to change. Renee, can I get you to pause? Can I get you to mute yourself, please? Thank you. She doesn't have to change for you to show up differently. She's allowed to be uncertain, and you can still be secure in that uncertainty. She's allowed to be angry with you, with the situation, with the marriage. You can still remain calm. In that situation, that's your choice. She can disagree with everything you say. You can still be confident in your opinion. I don't need you to agree with me. There'll be a lot of men that watch this presentation and disagree with what I'm saying. Doesn't bother me. You're allowed to disagree with me. I can still be confident in what I'm presenting here. Agreeing, having somebody disagree with me does not invalidate what I'm saying. Listening to somebody who has an opposing viewpoint does not mean I agree with their viewpoint. I can listen to another viewpoint, I can disagree with that viewpoint, and I can still be very confident within myself. I do not need everybody who watches this video or presentation to agree with me to remain confident in my skills to help men in marriage crisis. Not necessary. She can reject you and your worth stays the same. Again, this message can be rejected by men. Doesn't mean that I go, well, shit, I'm worthless now. I've lost all my sense of self-worth because you rejected my message. No, I don't require your agreement or acceptance for me to have a sense of self-worth. It's not necessary. So what's the solution? That's the problem. We've gone into great detail on the problem. Let's go into the solution. The solution is what I call emotional sovereignty. Which means becoming emotionally independent, right? So take back control of your inner world. This is where the game is won and lost. It's internally. It's in the game is whether you get your marriage back or not really is going to be determined by can you rebuild your inner world. It's got nothing to do. The outer world is nothing but a reflection of your inner world. Your wife does not control your peace, your security, your confidence, or your self-worth. You do. And if you've given her control over that, well, that's on you. That's not on her. That, that's yours. That's your bad for giving it to her, and you can take it back. And she shouldn't— you shouldn't be in control of her peace, security, confidence, self-worth either. This is a two-way street. This is, this is where marriage becomes healthy, is when neither person needs the other person. They choose the other person. When you need nothing from your wife and your wife needs nothing from you, Then you're truly choosing each other. Then you're in a truly consensual relationship that can grow and flourish. When she needs something from you or you need something from her in order to be okay, this is not a consensual relationship. This is, this is control, dependency, addiction, manipulation, whatever you want to call it. It's not a consensual relationship. It's more, it's more akin to a hostage situation than it is a marriage. If your wife holds your peace, security, confidence, and self-worth, in her hands, then it's a hot— you're in a hostage situation, and vice versa. And many of you try to inflict that on your wives as well by bringing finances, kids, psychological well-being. Again, it's like you're not looking to create an environment where it's 2 healthy individuals that need nothing from each other. They come together because they choose it. It's a host— it creates a hostage situation. And I know that doesn't sound nice, but hey, guess what? It's the truth that will set you free. It's the truth that will change your marriage. Not what you would like for it to be, what it is. You've got to start acting on what is, not what should or what ought to be. So emotional sovereignty means simply you don't need another person to behave a certain way for you to be okay. I don't need you to agree with everything that I've said in this conversation today to feel like I'm making a contribution to the world. To feel confident in that I'm doing something worthwhile. As I've said, there will be people that disagree with this, adamantly disagree with what I'm presenting here. I don't need— I don't need those people to agree with me to feel like a worthwhile human being. I'm emotionally sovereign, or in other words, independent of— independent of their opinion. Their opinion doesn't control me. Now, that's not to say I'm arrogant and I don't care. Of course I care. I have preference. I would prefer That you agree with me. I would prefer that you see it my way. I would prefer to have that. But the point is, my— that, that's a preference, not a necessity. I don't need you to agree. I would prefer and like you to agree. And this is what emotional sovereignty is. It doesn't mean you don't care. It means you have a preference, and if that preference is not met, you're okay anyway. So stop needing her to regulate you. This is the takeaway, right? This is this this line right here will save thousands of marriages. Stop requiring her to regulate you and take back responsibility for what is your responsibility, your own emotional self-regulation. Right now, your need is screaming so loud at your wife she can't hear anything, or you're screaming, "Make me feel secure, woman. Make me feel loved, woman. Please make me feel wanted again. Please make me feel worthy." Please make me feel okay. Again, what's attractive in this? How is your wife looking at this going, damn, that's a man I want to be with? Emotional sovereignty says, I don't need you to create my security. I find security and I bring it to the relationship. I am responsible for my peace. I know that I'm a worthwhile human being. I know that I'm a worthwhile human being. I control my response to the situation. I respond to situations. I don't react to situations, and I choose how I respond. I was talking to my wife today. I'm a bit of a hothead sometimes, and I blow up, and to her it comes across as being, and other people, as being very erratic and chaotic sometimes. Like, I'll end relationships. And to her it seems chaotic, but the reality is, she goes, that person triggered you, Cody, and then you got all upset and you ended that relationship again. And I go, there's nothing erratic about what I did there. I said, if I— I've never ended a relationship that meant anything to me. I'm like, by the time, by the time I get into the situation with that person and I end that relationship, that's not me getting hot-headed and going, oh, you disagreed with me and you offended me, so I'm ending this relationship. I've deemed that relationship to have no value. Prior to, I've already decided ahead of time that if this person responds in a way that affects me negatively, I will end that relationship. I've never ended a valuable relationship in, in, in chaos and hotheadedness, and this is where I can control my responses. I choose how I show up to this relationship. I'm not reacting to situations. I'm responding to situations. Or in other words, here's here's a huge takeaway: I am responsible. I am responsible for how I feel. I am responsible for how I show up. I'm responsible for my own well-being. And here's here's the attitude, right? Which again, go back and watch the detachment video. It's on YouTube or whatever. Like it it it's This is an extension of that, right? I want her, but I don't need her. In other words, I don't need her to be okay. I want her because she makes my life better. I want her because I can contribute to her life as well, but I don't need her. Again, this is where the relationship stops being a hostage situation and becomes 2 consensual adults choosing to be together. Most marriages are 2 starving people coming together going, let's get together and share our food, which sounds great when you're starving and the other person's agreed to share their food with you. But when you realize they're starving as well and they entered into this relationship thinking that they're going to eat your food, this is bad. 2 starving people make for a good marriage? Not. A good marriage is 2 abundantly full people who have an excess to share. Share between each other, share to their immediate community, share to their extended community. This is where a marriage becomes exciting and worthwhile. So need creates fear, pressure, control, chase, and dependency. We've covered that. Choice— choice— I choose you, I need you versus I choose you creates freedom, calm, confidence, patience, and stability within the man. Again, which is— which do you think is attractive to your wife? So When you move from necessity and need to choice, the pressure starts to disappear, right? And for all of you that's paying attention, taking notes, why is your wife wanting out of this marriage? Why is your wife pulling away from you or shutting down? Escaping from pressure, right? This is the solution. So you stop— when you do this, you stop needing her to reassure, prove your worth, fix your confidence issues, fix your self-esteem, calm your fear and instability, and make you happy. It's not her job. You both get more freedom in the marriage, right? She can have her experience of life and you can have your experience of life, and her experience of life does not challenge you in any way, shape, or form. Again, to put this another way, fundamentally what is being said right now is that the life that you're experiencing, dear wife, is not compatible with me, because when you're having these experiences in life, it's threat— it's causing threats within me that are just intolerable. So I'm going to— instead of addressing my own insecurities, I need you to change, please, so I don't have to address my insecurities. And this is when you start to show up differently, right? When you, when you show up because you want her, not because you need her, you show up differently. So again, this is, this is what's going on fundamentally. The strong man radiates peace, radiates strength, radiates certainty, radiates self-worth. Radiates confidence into the relationship because he has it in abundance. It's coming from his core. It's coming from outside of him. The weak man needs his peace from his wife. He needs— he finds his strength in his wife, his certainty. When his wife is certain, he's certain. When his wife says nice stuff to him, he's in a good place. He has self-worth. When she's acting Like she's his wife and she's going to be around. He has confidence. Or in other words, he's parasitic to the relationship. Which one of these 2 men do you think is gonna— is this woman gonna gravitate towards? It's an absolute no-brainer. And again, when we're in a situation where your wife is choosing another man or your wife is choosing another situation, She is struggling with every aspect of life as well. She's struggling with her own peace. She's struggling with her own strength, certainty, self-worth, confidence. Do you think she's not? Do you think she's not going to battle with life every single day? And it's not her job to win the battle for you and her both. She needs a man who's strong enough who has that strength inside of him in abundance to where he can give it to her and he can show her and teach her. Monkey see, monkey do, right? Do as I do. When you demonstrate self-worth, when you radiate self-worth, the other— your wife is naturally going to be attracted that to that because she wants it. And it's not enough to say, I'm confident now, I've got some self-worth now. No, you have to demonstrate it. You got to become the Spartan and you got to be— you got to stop being the little weak man over here because he is not getting that woman back. He's not getting her back. And this is why, you know, say men who go, well, how do I change my wife? How do I get her to change her behavior? This Graphic here should demonstrate why that is never gonna work. Doesn't matter; she's allowed to do whatever the hell she wants to do. If you've got a woman that thinks it's okay to go around and go off and screw around, or if you think it's a woman who go off and behave badly, maybe consider the woman you're with, right? If that's how she behaves, let her go is what I would say. But the reality is, your your wife can behave however she wants to and should be allowed and should be able to behave however she wants to because when she sees you as this Spartan over here, she's going to want to become that because she wants peace, she wants strength, she wants all of these positive attributes, right? And the only way that you are going to change her is to show her that you have them. And she's going to look at you and go, there's something in this man I want. I want that peace that you have. I want that stability that you have. And she's going to start to— she's going to start to look at you as a source of authority that then she's going to give you the position of allowing her to change. You cannot evangelize somebody until you have something that they want. You can't show up as this weak man over here that has no peace, strength, certainty, self-worth, or confidence, and then go to his wife, let me teach you how to be a valid, worthwhile human being. This is like— this man who most of us are showing up as, the weak man here, it's like a mosquito pulling up against an Airbus 380 saying, let me teach you how to fly. It's a joke. What are you going to teach this person? You're going to teach them how to be chaotic? You're going to teach them how to be insecure? You're going to teach them how to be unpredictable, emotionally dependent? What are you going to teach? So we need less chasing, less pressure, less defensiveness, less fear, less control, and we need more calm, more confidence, more stability, more peace, more freedom, more better, right? So that creates a new loop. Let's have a look at the new loop. This is called the— I call it the emotional Sovereignty loop. So it starts with, I take responsibility for myself. I take responsibility for myself. When you do that, you move to step 2, which is I stop needing her to change. She's not responsible for me being okay. I am responsible for me being okay. I take full responsibility for my own welfare, and I don't need her to change for me to feel okay anymore. Then pressure drops. Pressure is the thing she's trying to get away from. When pressure— when she leaves the marriage, man, there's pressure. Trust me, she's a woman going back into the world. That's pressure. She's got to find somewhere to live. She's got to deal with society. She's got to deal with dates, all kinds of stuff, man. Like, leaving the marriage is not pressure-free. It's just less pressure. So when you stop needing her to change for you to be okay, you reduce pressure in the marriage, which is the environment. She's going to choose the environment with the least amount of pressure. You have to make your marriage the environment that has the least amount of pressure. You can't go, well, my wife's trying to escape pressure, so my strategy is to increase more pressure within the marriage, and then she can go outside of the marriage and there's less pressure. Then I'm going to make her feel guilty, and then she'll come back because she doesn't want— that's not going to work, is it? So when pressure drops, you show up differently because You're no longer tethered to her reactions. When she pulls away, you're good with that because it doesn't matter to you. When she says something that challenges your ego, you're good with that because you don't need her to agree with you anymore. When you show up differently in the marriage, the relationship gets a different experience. When she gets the Spartan, not the guy in chains, she gets a different experience of the marriage. The marriage as a whole becomes a different experience. The culture of the marriage changes from one of codependency to one of mutual benefit. When the marriage experience changes for the better for you, you get that positive feedback that when I take responsibility for my own welfare, things get better, and you create a very positive emotional sovereignty loop here. So again, let's do a summary here. Before The emotional outsourcing is she has to change, you know, I need her to change. It creates pressure, she pulls away, you feel powerless. With emotional sovereignty, you start from the position of my inner world belongs to me, I am responsible and in charge for my inner world. I don't— then it goes to I don't need her to change to be okay. The pressure in the marriage drops. She experiences less pressure. You moved from reaction to response. You choose how you respond to situations instead of manically responding because you're like, oh my God, I'm about to lose something that is so valuable, important to me. I need— I'll do anything to keep it. I'll control, manipulate, pressure, lie, steal, rob. Doesn't matter, man. I'll do it. I'm not above it. Then you get your personal power back. You regain your emotional sovereignty. You regain the throne of your life. That's it. So the shift here is from, I need her to change, which is where many of you are, to, I need to change how I respond to this marriage. I need to change how I'm showing up to this marriage. So your exercise— let's make this practical. Let's bring this puppy dog home. Pick one thing that you really, really want: peace, security, respect, confidence, connection, An emotion, right? An inner state. For me, it's peace. If I got peace, I'm good, man. The other stuff— peace is a necessity. The others are nice-to-haves for me. If I can get them, I'll have them. If I don't, then I'll be all right. Peace, gotta have that. Ask yourself, what feeling am I expecting my wife to give me right now? What feeling? Peace. I'm expecting her to give me a feeling of peace. Well, then the next question is, how would I act if I already felt that feeling? How would I act if I already felt okay? Many of us think that actions come out of feelings, but it works the other way around as well. Feelings can also create actions or environments, right? If any environment that you want to create, ask yourself the question, if I had the experience that I wanted already, how would I behave? If I, if I wanted to feel patient towards my wife, if I wanted— I don't feel patient towards my wife right now. That's the fact, right? That's the fact of the matter. If I— but if I wanted to feel patient towards my wife, if I wanted to experience patience, how would I act? How would I be acting? Don't allow the emotion to determine your behavior and action. Allow— choose the desired emotion and then ask the question, how would I act? Because that is what produces the emotion. That action is the cause, the emotion is the effect. So our core lesson, man, today is stop outsourcing your inner world. Her feelings belong to her. She can think whatever she wants, she can feel whatever she wants, she can say whatever she wants. Your feelings belong to you. You can think whatever you want, you can say whatever you want, and you can believe whatever you want. Now, super quick here, when I talk to a lot of men, they're behaving in a way towards their wife that they simply would not tolerate. You will not be— you will not have— you will not be told what to do. You will not be told how to feel. That's autonomy that you claim, and you're not going to have that challenged. Yet at the same time, you don't extend that to your wife. She can feel however she wants to. Let her feel it. Give her the space to feel it. Don't go, I can't let you feel that because if you feel that, that damages my insecurity and it's more important that I feel secure than you are allowed to feel whatever you want. Learn to control your responses. Your need is what's creating the pressure that she's trying to escape, escape from right now. Your need is the problem. Your sovereignty is what creates the freedom for her to come back. Your emotional sovereignty. Your emotional sovereignty is the only thing that's going to reduce the pressure. So our conclusion is this is what a marriage that's built on emotional outsourcing looks like, and this is what a marriage that's built on emotional sovereignty looks like. And we can work backwards, right? Which one of those two— if you want to know if you're creating emotional sovereignty or if you're emotionally outsourcing right now, if there's any confusion, which there should not be, Is your marriage a desolate wasteland? Is it an apocalypse, an apocalyptic view of the world? Or is it a lush, abundant landscape? Because the only way you move from the apocalypse to the abundant landscape is you've got to stop outsourcing your emotions to people that are not— were never designed to carry that weight and simply are not equipped To carry that weight, and you've got to step up and you've got to start being the man you were designed to be emotionally. Untether yourself from the opinions of others. Find your strength, security, peace, love, joy, happiness internally, and stop looking to get stuff from other people that it's not their job or responsibility to give you. That's it, man. Do this, and at the very— I can tell you your life will improve. I don't know if your wife's going to come back or I'm not, because I don't know honestly what the hell you've done, and you're probably not going to tell me. But I can tell you, I can't promise you an outcome, but I can promise you a journey. And I can promise you that if you move from emotional outsourcing to emotional sovereignty, everything in your life is going to start to improve. The world you live in is going to get better. So that's it from me. Let's jump over to the Q&A.