How To Lead Your Relationship (Without Creating Problems or Pushback)

One of the most popular things that I've talked about in the last decade is the idea of relational leadership. A lot of men still want to be able to lead within the context of relationship, and a lot of women still want a man who has the ability to lead. It doesn't mean that every single woman wants you as a man to make all the decisions in the relationship. In fact, that's what a lot of women will say that they don't want, or is a major turnoff, or gives them the ick, or however people phrase it. But the truth is that you as a man are still going to find value in leading in many different aspects of your life. And there are certain things that are going to break down your ability to lead relationally. And I'm gonna break down a couple things that collapses leadership within a relationship, and then I'm gonna give you 3 specific pillars or strategies that will support you in relational leadership. So let's get in. First off, I wanna say that relational leadership is not about control. It's not about dominating situations, making every single decision, Choo! Choosing for the other person, your significant other, calling all the shots. It's really about setting the direction and the vision for the relationship. Now sometimes that does mean that you are making big decisions, but in other times you're collecting data and information about what your significant other, what the relationship might need, being able to assess that, and then being able to either collaboratively or individually make decisions based on that place. If you are in a place of control, We do that because we don't trust. And if you don't trust your significant other, they're gonna feel that, they're gonna feel resentful, they're not going to feel safe or connected in the relationship, and you are going to lose respect and engagement with the other person. So the aim here is to let go of the control mechanisms and the management-oriented behaviors that you might be deploying. Real relational leadership is actually much harder and more rare than most men give it credit for. Real relational leadership is about creating an environment where your significant other can trust you, where they can open up to you, where they can grow with you, where you're setting the course for the relationship, where you're creating a vision, of course, with them, but you're creating a vision and a direction for the relationship. Another way of saying this is that you're creating the pace, right? The reality is, is that the majority of relationships and commitment are dependent on you as a man saying yes to the next stage of the relationship. And women are constantly trying to gauge where you stand in that pacing. They're trying to get a sense of, are you wanting to move forward? Are you wanting to move forward with— Yes. Are you wanting to move forward with moving in together, with getting engaged or getting married or having kids or whatever it is that the next stage might be? And so your role is to take ownership and responsibility over the pace and the direction of the relationship. Now, how most men collapse relational leadership is that they undermine, they undermine their own trust in themselves. They shirk responsibility in the relationship. They Mm-hmm. disconnect from making decisions that maybe sometimes are hard for the benefit of the relationship, and they eject from wanting to have real honest conversations about what they might need, a standard, an expectation, or they collapse leadership in the relationship because they are listening simply to just solve a problem for their significant other instead of listening to understand, listening to really hear what their significant other is going through. And when your partner begins to feel like a problem or a Rubik's Cube that you are simply trying to solve, she will start to feel more like an object than an actual person. And there's many different ways that we as men do this out of good intentions. You know, we are aiming to support, to serve, to protect, to provide for them. Mm-hmm. And in doing that, we can sometimes miss out on the human that's right in front of us. So I'm gonna give you 3 core pillars, 3 core principles that I have found to be absolutely necessary for relational leadership to take place. So principle number 1, or pillar number 1, is presence over performance. A lot of times as men, we take to relationships like we take to a corporate environment, a job, a work, a sport. We are constantly trying to assess and gauge, "What's my performance in this relationship? How am I performing sexually, financially, etc.?" And that can be debilitating for you. It can also be tiring for your significant other because she's either constantly having to validate and reinforce that, "Yes, honey, indeed, you're doing a good job. You're a good husband. You're a good boyfriend, etc." Um. But it also pulls you out of being present in the relationship. And this is really the first big challenge that a lot of men have, is just being present with their significant other in conversations, in conflict, in hard moments. Even sexually, men being present can be very challenging because the truth is that you and I and every other man is inundated with distractions, with opportunities that are trying to rob you and steal your presence away.

Mm-hmm.

And so you might find yourself on a date with your wife or your girlfriend, and while you are there with them physically, intellectually, psychologically, emotionally, you're completely somewhere else. You're thinking about a project at work, the task list that you have to do, all the things that are happening with the kids or with your best friend or whatever it is. And so you're not actually present for being there with them. We can oftentimes get caught in, "Well, I provide all these things, I take care of all these things, I do these things, I plan," and you wonder why your significant other, your wife, your girlfriend, is telling you, "I kind of feel lonely. I kind of feel like you're distracted all the time. I don't feel like you understand what I'm going through or that you know me." And so your partner doesn't necessarily need a better version of your output. Sometimes, sometimes, in some cases, you do need to do more. You do need to pick up more around the house or pick up more relationally or within the family system. Sometimes that is the case, and you can tune into when that is, but more often than not, it's that you are lacking presence in the moments of connection that you have with your significant other. So she's not actually getting you, she's getting a distracted version of you, and she needs you. Yeah. To be there, to be actually there, paying attention, listening to what she's saying, feeling something that is in her emotionally, that's in the room with the two of you, and she needs your presence to attune to her. And presence is not a passive thing. It's not like you're just sitting there, you know, sort of like mulling out. It's one of the most demanding things that you can offer, and it's one of the most— Yeah. Beautiful things that you can offer, one of the most powerful things that you can offer, because it requires you to put down everything else that you are carrying in life. Presence actually requires you to put down the distractions and the task lists and the inner critic and the inner dialogue. And so it requires you to stop managing the relationship. It requires you to let go of the chronic overthinking and the criticisms that happen inside and the distractions. And it asks you to be fully there in the moment, in your body, with your breath, with her, being able to look into her eyes, being able to breathe with her, and being able to take 5, 10, 15, 20 minutes of complete presence where she gets all of you, unfiltered, undistracted, And for a lot of women especially, that presence from you is what she needs to feel safe, is what she needs in order to feel trust, and it's what she needs in order for her to feel like a priority in the relationship. A lot of the times when I hear a woman that I'm working with in a couple say to me, "I just don't feel like I'm a priority. I don't feel like he understands me," I know immediately that that man is probably not present very much with his woman. So the best thing you can do to begin to lead is to be more present, give more eye contact, take a few breaths while being able to connect. Don't make it creepy, don't make it weird, but when you're out at dinner, make an effort to put your phone away. Make an effort to be fully present. Make an effort to let go of the distractions or the to-do lists or the tasks that you have to do. Doesn't mean you're not gonna come back to them. It means that for a period of time, you're able to separate from the need to do and perform and just be.

All right, my friend, exciting announcement. I've put together a free 90-minute self-worth workshop. After working with men for over a decade, I have seen this pattern time and time again. Men come in because they're struggling with confidence. They are continuing to sabotage themself.

They can't seem to be disciplined and get their routines and habits into place.

And they've done some therapy, they've done some, personal development work, and some of it's worked, but none of it's really stuck. And they can't figure out why they're struggling with the same bad habits, the same lack of confidence, the same lack of discipline. And what I have found is that that is because there's something off with their sense of self-worth. Their self-worth was interrupted somewhere along the way. And so I've built a free 90-minute live workshop for you where I'm gonna teach you everything you need to know about self-worth. I'm gonna teach you what it actually is, what builds it, what breaks it, and then give you very specific tools and strategies to actually build your self-worth in a lasting, meaningful way. So if you're interested, head on over to mantalksinfo.com/pod. Again, it's mantalksinfo.com/pod. You can sign up today. The workshop will be on June 18th, and I'm looking forward to seeing you live on the call.

The second pillar is really important, and it's really important for conflict, it's really important for the maintenance of the relationship, and that is regulation before response. Regulating before you respond, regulating before reaction takes place. So every relationship, right, you have a nervous system, your girlfriend, your wife has a nervous system, that relationship also has a nervous system, and it's made up of yours and hers,, and it's made up, and how it experiences life, or how the relationship's nervous system operates, is through the continual back and forth and dialogue, how it goes through dysregulation and conflict. And so when you dysregulate, when you spike into defensiveness or aggressiveness, when you shut down or stonewall, when you become super anxious, when you explode under pressure, all of that doesn't just affect you and your nervous system, it also infiltrates her system and the nervous system of the relationship. So you kind of flood the relational field, and because in the majority of relationships between men and women, you're the larger person, it can feel, especially if you have outsized reactions, it can feel like your energy, your emotions, your intensity is really penetrating or infiltrating and disrupting the nervous system of the relationship. And this is a hard lesson I've had to learn. I can see how impactful my nervous system, my state is to my family system, to my wife and our relationship. It really is a massive, massive influence within the solidness and the solidity and the okayness of the relationship. So this is where self-leadership and relational leadership really meet, right? Your ability to regulate yourself, to pause, to take a breath, to understand when you're getting activated, defensive, reactive, and to say, "I'm getting hijacked, I need to pause," or, "I'm about to shut down, I want you to know what's happening," or to be able to communicate, "I feel like I'm getting super defensive," "Can we take 5 minutes to just take a breath? Can we take 5 minutes to just pause this conversation? I want to hear you, I want to understand, but I can feel myself getting reactive, and so I need to pause." And in doing that, you're interrupting the cycle that usually plays out between you and your significant other where you get reactive, you stonewall, you shut down, or you blow up and you explode and you say some things that you that you later regret. So pause, regulate before you respond. If you could take anything from any of my work, it's regulate before you respond. Otherwise, you're gonna react, right? Viktor Frankl said, "There is a space between stimulus and response, and that's a pause." When we don't pause, we just react. And where do we react from? Hostility, aggression, dysregulation.

Pause.

Pillar number 3, this is a hard one for some folks in modern-day relationships, but pillar number 3 in terms of leading your relationship is honesty as an act of love. Honesty is an act of love and trust. A lot of men in relationships, they will operate with a kind of honesty deficit, honesty deficit. And it's not because you're a liar, it's not because you've learned that peace is more valuable than truth, although for some of you guys, you might actually believe that. It's like, it's just easier to maintain peace than to tell her how I actually feel or to tell her what's actually going on. And so what you end up doing is you just go along with what's happening. You say yes when you mean no, you know, you withhold how you're actually feeling. You withhold when you're disappointed or when you want something, and you slowly justify types of dishonesty in the relationship. You begin to see your woman as somebody that isn't capable of hearing your truth, of hearing what it is that you want, need, desire, what you are not okay with, what's not all right with you in the relationship. And that distortion, that view of she can't handle my truth, or the relationship can't handle the truth because it will collapse, is the ultimate form of sabotage and decay to the intimacy. Because what ends up happening is you begin to more and more believe that the relationship can't hold you, your truth, your authenticity. And eventually down the road, what that will lead to is you inevitably looking elsewhere to have all of you inside of a relationship. So, start to see honesty as an act of love in the relationship. No more lying through omission, no more withholding little truths, no more withholding some of the pieces that you would normally say, "I'm not okay with that. I didn't like that. That wasn't all right with me. I'd love more of this. I want us to do more of X, Y, and Z. Come over here, sit next to me, give me a hug, make out with me," that type of stuff where you're tuning in to what you honestly need, want, desire, expect in the relationship, the standards that you hold, and you're beginning to communicate from a place of honesty as an act of love. Now, this is important because the best relationships that I have seen, they have zero guesswork. They have zero guesswork. And for a lot of you guys, the tragedy is that you've been told to withhold certain aspects of what you want, what's not okay with you. And so the women that you're with end up guessing a lot. They guess a lot about how you feel, what you want, what you expect, what you need. And that can be deeply frustrating. And it's not operating from a place of leadership. Leadership is about influence. It is about ownership. It is about direction. And so there is a risk of exposing yourself to the truth. But as you expose the truth that is in your relationship with your partner, it begins to change the relationship. It begins to strengthen the relationship. It begins to alter you and her and the dynamic. And sometimes the truth will make the relationship so much more potent, or it'll show the glaring cracks in the foundation that need to be worked on, the resentment that's built up, the anger that has built up, those types of things. And sometimes a relationship will actually end because it can't handle the truth, right? You can't handle the truth. I had to throw in a few Good Men reference there, but it can't sustain the truth, and that is okay. Would you rather live in a relationship built on lies and try and sustain that for the entirety of your life? Or would you rather let a relationship that can't hold the truth of what you need, want, and desire fall apart so that you can find one that can? So these are the 3 main pillars of relational leadership. Comment below. Don't forget to man it forward. Don't forget to like and subscribe so that YouTube and Spotify can show you more of this content if you've enjoyed it. As always, this is Connor Beaton signing off. Bye.