3 Things to Stop Doing in Your Relationship In 2026

There's certain things that in your relationship are going to break intimacy. They're going to kill sexual connection. They're gonna break down communication and just regular old connection between you and the person that you're dating. And these are some of the things that I've found that really hinder that connection, that ease, that peace. And I think it's You know, if you're anything like me and most of the guys that I interact with, you want peace in your relationship. You want some ease. You want it to be well lubricated and you want it to flow and go well. You know, I've never met a man who's like, yeah, I want my relationship to suck. I want it to be terrible. I don't want it to function. The majority of men, they want exceptional relationships, but there are certain behaviors, actions, habits, decisions that you might be making that are causing that relationship to have more challenge, more struggle than is necessary. So I'm gonna lay out a few of the things that we all need to stop, that every single man needs to stop doing in his relationship this year. So with all that said, don't forget to hit the like and subscribe button. Many of you are already subscribed, which is absolutely phenomenal. But if you are not, please do so. And don't forget to man it forward, share this video with somebody. So, So let's start with probably the most notorious thing that every man needs to stop doing that I see so many of you being guilty of, which is stop performing and pretending to be fine, right? You get home from work, you got some stuff going on in your life, you're stressed about whatever it is, finances, maybe you're stressed about the relationship, and your wife, your girlfriend comes over and she says, Hey, How you doing? How was your day? And you say, fine. Now, maybe you say fine because you just genuinely don't really know what's underneath the frustration, the bitterness, the discontent that you seem to be carrying around. And so you just give the general answer, right? No, I'm fine, right? And we all, I don't know if you've heard the acronym, right? It's like fine stands for like fucked up, insecure, needy, And I don't know what the last one is, maybe emotional, but that's the kind of essence. The truth is that in your relationship, your significant other, if they actually care about you and they've been with you for any period of time, they'll know you're not okay, right? Anytime that you say, I'm fine, but you're actually not, it creates this kind of discrepancy where they start to, their trust in you, And their trust in your ability to be able to express where you're truly at begins to slowly get chipped away. And so for every fine that you give, for every, I'm okay, yeah, I'm fine, but what they feel is you're disgruntled, you're upset, you're disconnected, you're shut down, maybe you're a little bit anxious, or you're like kind of jittery, and you know, you're hypervigilant about certain things. What they're going to receive is you're incongruent. You're telling me one thing, but what I experience from you is the exact opposite. And that puts your significant other on edge. It's going to make anybody start to feel like, oh, I don't know if I can trust you to really tell me how you're feeling. Now, maybe you don't know. That's okay. Maybe it's like, I'm upset. Well, trade fine for something more transparent, something more accurate. accurate. Not— you don't need to give some speech about how you're feeling. You don't need to, uh, you know, self-diagnose like, oh, I'm having an anxious day. You just need to be accurate about what's happening inside of you. Hey babe, how you doing today? How was your day? You know what, I'm irritated. I don't really know why, um, but I just know that I'm, I'm a little agitated today. Or, you know what, I'm I'm having a great day. I feel incredible. Not even too sure why, but I'm just feeling wonderful, right? Be accurate with where you're at and start to really own what it is that you're feeling, how you're actually doing inside of yourself. A lot of times, especially in heterosexual relationships with women, that goes a long way because their nervous system, their relational scanning system, can quiet down when you're just honest about what's happening inside of you. Number 2, and this is specifically for my guys out there that are dating a woman, stop trying to fix her feelings before you've actually heard what's going on. So a lot of the times, guys, you know, she'll bring you a problem and your brain goes straight to, how do I fix this? How do I resolve this? And you're not doing it out of bad intentions, right? You're like, I genuinely care about this person. I'm wanting to help them feel better. They have a problem. Yo, I'll solve it, right? Hopefully some of you caught that reference. But you know, you're like, it's just a linear logical thing. She's upset. There's an issue. Let me help her fix it. When we skip over how does she feel about it? What is actually going on for her? That is the primary piece that we actually need to hear. And so the biggest shift that I can give you is stop trying to fix your partner's problems altogether. You know, I have a general rule with my wife. Like, if I catch myself going down the path of I'm trying to fix this for her, I'll ask her, do you want help? Do you want to be heard? Or do you just want me to hold you? You know, I'll just give her those 3 options. And sometimes I'll specifically ask, do you want me to help you fix this problem? Or do you just need me to hear what it is that you're going through? And usually 1 out of every 10, 1 out of every 20 times, she'll say, actually, I could use your help, your advice, your feedback. What should I do? And then I'll give her my, you know, my perspective. But the majority of the time, she's, she's just coming to me because she's wanting to share emotional content. So here's the big thing that I want you to focus on, and I would love for you to write this down. Shift from the logistical context to the emotional content. Okay. I can explain this really quickly. Shift from the logistical content to the emotional content. So what a lot of us guys do is our partner brings us a problem. They're upset with somebody at work or mom or whatever it is. And we go straight to logistics. What happened? Who's involved? Why? You know, what's caught— what's, what's the distress actually about? What's the main core of the problem and what can we do to solve it? We go straight to the logistical content. What we need to do is shift to the emotional content. We can ask questions like, What was that like for you? How did you feel when she said that? You know, what does it make you question? These very, very basic questions that are going to help you understand how your partner feels about the situation. And this is important because you don't want to get in a position where you are constantly trying to solve their problems. That's going to make it feel like you are in a parental role. It's gonna make you feel eventually like your partner is incapable. going to feel incapable. And for many relationships, this is a dynamic that gets reinforced. Usually that person, if you are in that dynamic, right, where your partner, your significant other, they're constantly coming to you, trying to get you to solve their problems, they usually are the type of person that feels incapable. They lack a sense of competence, they lack some confidence, and they are maybe outsourcing the problem solving in their own life. They don't actually wanna do anything about it. And you continuing to offer, here's what you should do, here's what you should do, here's how you should solve this, here's what I would do, let me take care of that for you, more often than not is going to reinforce this dynamic of you being the over-functioning partner and them being the under-functioning partner. And this perspective happens a lot in relationships, between men and women, and it can create a lot of resentment, a lot of animosity. And so my guess is, even though I don't know you watching this, you probably want to be with a person who can handle their own business, right? Who can take care of their own things. So treat them as somebody that is capable of handling the problems in their life by shifting from the logistics to the emotional content. How did you feel when that happened? You know, what's it like to even share this with me? Yeah. What does it make you question about that relationship? Those types of questions are going to help you understand what it's really like for your significant other to be going through that challenge. And for women especially, that is a huge part of emotional understanding, connection, closeness, intimacy. And so, when you can shift from logistical context to emotional content, how does she feel about what's happening? How does she feel about the problem? And the challenges that she's facing, you will be creating intimacy. Number 3, stop outsourcing your regulation, your state of being okay, to her mood. This is a big one for guys. A lot of the men that I work with, their mood as a man goes along with whatever their woman is feeling. And so, if she's calm, you're good. If she's upset, you're anxious or stressed. You know, if she's shut down, you're there within seconds, or you're frantically trying to solve whatever it is that she's feeling. And so your internal state becomes run really by her nervous system, by her emotions. And for a lot of men, this feels chaotic. And for a lot of men, this is in many ways the heart and soul of a mother wound. You very, very, very, very likely grew up around a mother whose emotions either were vacant and distant, and so you were constantly trying to feel where she was at because maybe she was shut down or she was disconnected, or, you know, she was maybe an addict of some form, but you couldn't quite understand what she was feeling, or her emotions were all over the place. And they were the center force, maybe of the family system, or at least your relationship to her. And so you were constantly, as a kid, trying to adapt to whatever mom was feeling and trying to alter your behavior and your internal state to match hers so that you could have a relationship with her, or you were trying to make sure that you were a good boy to make sure that she never got disrupted and, you know, didn't feel anything negative. So for a lot of men, you get in this habit, we get in this habit of our internal state, how we feel is tied to our partner's moods. They're up, we're up, they're down, we're down, you know, trying to fix it, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So what we can do is shift to separating our internal state. You separate your internal state from hers. And a very good way of doing this, I'm gonna give you some simple exercises. Number 1 is when she's not all right, in your head, take a breath and then say, I can be okay even when she's not. I can be okay when she's upset. I can be okay when she's sad. I'm still all right even though she's angry with me. I'm still okay even though she's disappointed about something at work. I'm still all right even though she's— frustrated and angry with the kids. Literally in the moment, you have to practice detachment. You have to practice detaching your internal state from hers. Because for many of you, again, you haven't moved out of this childlike state of having the dependence on your mother's emotional state. And that's really what it is. When we are kids, we are dependent on our caregiver's state. There's not really a lot of detachment. And we rely on them for co-regulation, for feeling okay, et cetera. So you have to practice detachment in the moment. As soon as you see that your girlfriend or your wife is getting upset, or she's disappointed, or she's sad, or she's angry, or whatever it is, maybe she's even happy, you know, she's elated about something. I'm okay, even though she's feeling X, Y, and Z. My state doesn't have to change just because hers has. And this is a very important practice. The second thing is you need some type of daily routine or ritual that is for your personal regulation. Breathwork, meditation, taking a breath or a few moments before you respond to anything that she said. A huge practice that's helped me is instituting a pause anytime my wife asks me to make a decision about anything. I will probably 95% of the time not make a decision in that moment. Sometimes I'll say, you know what, give me 5 minutes to think about it and I'll come back to you. Give me a day to think about it. Let me sit with this and then I'll come back to you. I am practicing Pausing, because my past, my personal past was such that I had a predisposition towards my— the woman that I'm with asks me for something and I say yes to appease her, or I say no because, you know, I'm avoiding some type of connection. So we have to break ourselves of that habit. So build your own routine when it comes to your own regulation, breathwork, and meditation. And then build in the pause. Pause before you respond. Pause before you make any decision and give yourself some space to do so. All right, comment below. Let me know which one stood out to you, which one hit home the most that you are going to be working on today and this week and letting go of this year. All right, see you next time.