From Chaos to Connection: How Matt & Whitney Built a Marriage That Thrives

Well, my friends, welcome to another episode of the date your wife podcast. I was on road for last 10 days. Promoting the upcoming man in an arena tour was exhausting and exhilarating and exciting and the person I miss the most, my dog.

Your dog?

No, I don't have a dog. I hate dogs. I ended up coming home when we have three dogs. All right, so anyways, we have some amazing guests today who are here on the date tribe podcast. We have Matt and Whitney ends now. I love bringing people on in our show who don't just have an amazing marriage, but who actually focus on the convers foundation of guiding men through the treacherous game of the trifect of insanity. Marriage, business, kids, chaos. So you two, welcome. Welcome to the show.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Whitney, I'm gonna ask you a question.

Okay.

When did you. Who saw who first go back before you knew each other? Who was. Who was the first one that locked eyes? You saw him or he saw you?

I think he saw me.

Correct.

That was it.

Yeah.

Pretty sure, yeah.

Okay.

Matt, where were you guys at?

We were at my best friend's birthday party and Whitney was late. I was late. We were actually, neither of us were supposed to be there, but Whitney's sister, who was dating my best friend at the time, kind of hounded both of us down. It's like a last minute birthday party. She drove way across town to get me. She called Whitney, who was on a date, and Whitney ended the date early and came out to the. To the birthday. And then I just saw Whitney sitting. She was like a couple seats down from me and something about her, I was like, oh, that's who I want to talk to. And then the guy sitting across from her got up to. Into the bathroom and I just shamelessly took his seat. And my move back then because I didn't exactly have a lot of swaggers. Like I just kind of stare like right into her soul and it worked.

What do you call this move?

I don't know. But we invented Netflix and chill later that night. Oh, all right.

We just chilled.

We just chilled. But we kissed. There's a little more.

We kissed. Little making out.

Yeah, there's a little making out.

What were you feeling with this?

With the.

Did you receive the stare?

Yeah, it made me like kind of. I was really uncomfortable, but also kind of excited. Like, it was, it was, it was a mix of. The attention was really. It was well received. Like I. I liked what. Who was looking at me as well. Right. He's very handsome. We were 23 years old. And, yeah, I had never had someone pay that close attention to me in a setting like that, so it felt pretty special.

Isn't it crazy when you can, like, feel somebody looking at you? You're like, what in the.

Yeah, yeah. And you like that they're looking at you?

Yeah.

You're like, oh, okay.

And the part of the story that Matt always leaves out is there was another girl that was there who was sitting beside him who desperately wanted his attention. And in my opinion at the time, I thought she was like, way hotter than me. And I was like, why are you giving me any attention? This girl, like, wants, you know, you like, she wants you. Wants you. And she's like, ready, ready to go. And he just looked at me and he was like. I said that to him because she. Long story. She noticed.

Yeah, yeah.

So I told him and he was like, I don't care who is looking at me. He's like, I want you. Okay. Did you say.

Was that what you said?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And you were like, hey, here we go.

Yeah, I was pretty pumped.

I tried the. I tried the stair thing with Danielle.

Oh, no, our story was totally different.

We were.

We were at a.

We were at a Mormon fireside of like.

No, no, that's not the stare.

What's.

No, no, no. This was after we had lost everything in banking and I got into energy work and went to experiential breakthrough training.

That was a weird stuff.

And I would. I would come home to her after events and I. My stare was not as effective as yours because it repelled her and she wanted to divorce me.

I was like, he's like, just stare at me. And I was like, are you okay?

Just look at me. Look me in the eyes. Yeah. So I didn't have that move. You had that move. It's interesting enough. Like, that move is actually something the guys are missing out on perpetually in marriage.

Yeah.

Talk about it for a second.

Well, just that strength of presence. Right. And I didn't have strength of presence back then, but I probably had a good buzz on. I don't drink anymore. Definitely drank back then and didn't know what to say. Wasn't exactly like a smooth guy. And I was like. But I'm like, I can let her know with my eyes and with that presence.

And it's pretty smooth to me.

But I have. To your point, I did try it later in marriage. It didn't have the same effect. So I wonder if that's like a first moment kind of thing.

Well, Danielle, I'm make comments to me, too. You would never act like this if we were dating. And I said, and you would absolutely not get away with that if we were dating. I could be gone. So, okay, so you guys meet the first time. We have a little Netflix and chill light. And then how long are we together before we decide to get married?

Well, God sped that up for us about a year in, Whitney came into the bedroom. I was laying in bed, and. And she was like. I could tell something was wrong. And I was like, are you okay? She's like, no. And I was like, what's wrong? And I was like, are you like. Are you. Are you choking? And I'm, like, panicking. She's like, are you having a heart attack? What the fuck's happening to you? She can't. She can't talk. She's, like, grabbing her throat. And I was like, are you pregnant?

She goes, oh.

And then I was like, oh, thank God. That's so much. So much easier than if you were dying. So as far as it went, for me, it was actually a pretty good way to find out.

So you were excited about it?

Yeah, like, we talked about it for a little bit, but honestly, that was. I'm not even joking. That was the best way to find out because it relatively seemed much less of a crisis.

We talked about getting married quite a bit before.

Yeah, we got serious pretty quick. She was the first girl I lived with. And then, yeah, we basically decided to go for it. So we got married six weeks later.

Hold on. Just, like, girls.

Make sure they edit this out.

It's okay. It makes us feel like we're at home.

Totally.

Yeah.

Isla, you gotta stop talking and go upstairs.

Usually my little Isla's in. In school, but since he just got home, she's like, can I stay home and hang out with you?

So they, like, our kids are on break.

They went to breakfast and, like, hung out.

But we do the same.

Yeah, Matt. We make a note of what time this is at. So we got it. Okay. All right, Ready? We're back into the sauce. Okay, so you receive the pregnancy as exciting and you want to throw up?

Yes.

Okay, talk to us about the I can't talk, throw up moment because, you know, Prince Charming over here is like, you're not dead. Okay, that's good. We're making life.

Yeah, well, doesn't really. I don't think it needs to be said, but I'm going to anyway. Our son is now almost 12 years old and next week, and he is obviously the brightest, bright, biggest, greatest gift of our life and was. And at the moment, shortly after.

But we named him Asher, which means.

Blessing and happiness, and he is a definition of happy. He's wonderful. So, yeah, I guess I was just. I didn't really believe it, that it was what I had seen. Yeah, I was just. I was in complete shock, really. And then we went to the doctor, and I had took more tests, and the doctor was like, if I had, you know, just took even one of these, I'd consider myself pregnant. I remember that exact moment. And I broke down again just because of the. I think just the shock. Like, it's just. You're so. We were 25. We met when we were 23. We were 24 and a half. I think we barely turned. We're 25. Not expecting it. So it was just. It just took me some time to wrap my head around what was going on. And for me, there was no option. Like, this was, if I'm pregnant, I'm going to have my. Have my baby. So it was okay. So just having to, like, you know, I couldn't. Didn't get a chance to plan for it or any. Any of that. Right. Yeah. It was just so. So intense, really. And then I looked at. Spoke to Matt after, and I was a little bit. I know we had spoken about getting married very seriously. He'd already spoken. My cousin, who's in the diamond business, like, I knew that was coming, but a part of me thought, you know, are you only marrying me because of this? Right. And I just. I didn't want to go into a marriage with that even, you know, children make marriage so much more serious than actual marriage. Right. But I didn't have that concept. I didn't. I didn't understand that at the time. And he's like, no. He's like, absolutely, I want to be with you. I've always wanted to be with you. And you're going to have the same last name as my children, like, when they're born. So, like, I want to get married now. I was like, okay, so. And for me, I was like, okay, well, you know what? You know, we can do it after, and blah, blah. Anyway, long story short, I just said that repeating myself now. But he was just like, no, let's do it. So. And I wanted to make sure that I had as little of a bump as possible on my wedding day. So we. We planned it. We planned it pretty quickly. I planned it. I planned it. And I think we got married in six weeks. Yeah. So I, yeah, planned a beautiful wedding in six weeks. We had, like, over 200 guests. It was a really beautiful wedding and. Yeah.

How far along were you when you got married?

I guess I was 12.

Oh, yeah. See, for you, especially your first, you probably had, like, nothing.

I had nothing. Yeah, there was nothing there.

So good.

Yeah.

Good timing.

Yeah. The dress fit was good.

Yeah.

Okay. So pregnancy and then babies change.

I know that. I was gonna say you guys got thrown into the mix real fast. You know, it's like we were together.

I think, four years.

I got pregnant 24. I had Bailey at 24.

But we had been together since you were 18.

Yeah, we met at 18, married at 26 years. 24.

But I gone through that. My first relationship, where she got pregnant the first month that we were together with my son, who's 26. So we were in the hurricane, like, on that. Okay, so you guys, you. You speed this up. You get married, you have the baby, and then this is where we watch shit unravel for guys. So this was not planned. It happened. You're married six weeks later. You're now going through the pregnancy, and now you have the birth of your son. What's his name again?

Asher.

Asher. So you have Asher, and now. I'm sure you've seen this with your guys. This is where the shift happens. Talk about from your perspective, Matt. The baby's born, you guys are married. Talk about the. After the baby, with the dynamic of you two as a couple.

Yeah. And it's all the same dynamics that people go through when they have a. You know, when they have their first child. But because we were young, it was unexpected. I was in a phase in my life. I was like a very bad alcoholic drunk every day, 364, 365 days out of the year. Didn't stop after we had a baby. Probably amped it up, if anything. And all of a sudden, it's like, okay, got a real career as a financial advisor. And you know that world, right? It's like, phone, book, phone. We'll see if you're here in a year and trying to learn how to be a dad, learn how to be a husband, learn how to provide. It was rough. And the only thing I really understood in my world was like, well, I better make money. Like, Whitney's at home. We moved to a new city. So I was like, well, I'm just gonna focus on that. And then what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna berate Whitney for not doing all the things that I want her to do when I'm at work. And I'm gonna be ungrateful, and I'm gonna be an asshole, and I'm gonna check out. And we never. We didn't. We. We didn't have a framework, right? We didn't know, okay, how do I. How do I be a husband?

Right?

Like everything else I'd done in my. In my life at that point, there was training, there was education, there was a certification. There was something. It was like, we'll just figure this thing out. And it wasn't enough. And so we just kind of year after year, the tension built, the resentment built, the unmet needs built, and it just got to a point where neither of us thought it could even work well.

And I didn't know how to be a wife either. I think that's something, you know, modern in our modern time. I think. I think the tides are shifting, thankfully. But I was born off of the cusp of feminism and what women are supposed to. You know, it's almost like we're denying or defying our gender if we want to stay home and we want to uphold traditional values and support our husbands. So I was this very young mother in a new city. No family, none of my own family. No family, no support, no friends. My husband's off working, trying, you know, trying to make ends meet so that we can. So he can provide for us. And I'm in my head, like, the work I'm doing at home with my baby, who I love more than anything in the world, isn't enough. And it's not. It's not good enough, and it's not sufficient, and I need to figure out how to be successful on my own. And it almost created this strange competition between us that I didn't even know was brewing. You know, I didn't realize that I was. That I had these ideas in my head of, like, that I needed to be, like, meet him or surpass him in some way. It was very strange, and I had no idea I was thinking that way at the time. Obviously, looking back, and we've looked back a lot. We've done a lot of. We've really worked together. I know that's what was going on. So Matt, he does. He speaks to his flaws as the male half of our partnership, but I also was very, very flawed, and I also didn't know how to show up, and that. That took a lot of time to. To figure out, so. And doing that with a baby was just.

Were you working at the time, too?

I was trying to. So I. And I did. I did go back to work. I was pushing him to let me let. But because, you know, everything in a marriage is a. Is a discussion, right? So people don't like that word, but I'm just gonna say it. I was pushing him to let me go back to work because I felt like I needed to. I felt like I needed to be independent. And then you also have all this noise of, like, well, what if, you know, he leaves and you're on your own? Right? So it's like, we're going into marriage already with this idea that I need to be independent because I can't trust him, right? Because he's not going to support me. Because that's what men do. Like, they don't support and love you, you know, which is obviously crazy. I think now we can get to that later because we've been through that, and that's the opposite of what happened. He was always supportive, but, yeah, so I did. So eventually, he didn't like it. He was like, I think, you know, your time, you best been at home. Like, you know, I'm trying to build this business, but if you need to do this, okay. And it made our life so much worse, so much harder. Like, me, I was. I'd be at home with my son all day. Then Matt would come home from work, and then I'd go to work, kind of tag team. Then I come home at, like, midnight and then go to sleep, wake up with a baby, right? So we were just playing tag. And it wasn't. That dynamic, wasn't allowing him to be the best he could be and build the way he wanted to. And it also wasn't allowing me to be the mother I wanted to be and the wife that I didn't know I wanted to be at the time, but that I wanted to be.

Yeah, I think it's interesting, too, because, like, for me, I've always felt that similar thing where it's like, well, for us, we had, like, kind of lost everything back when the market crashed. And I kind of went into work thinking, like, I've got to provide for myself in case he doesn't. And then, like you said, it created this weird dynamic of, like, competition. And then I was like, got this place. I'm like, I don't want to compete. I actually want to be the wife. But I didn't even know what that looked like, because it's like. Like you said, we're trained to be. Like, you have to do it all. And then you're almost, like, not showing up as the wife, but you're like, but wait, I actually want this. So it's very confusing and like you said, I think it is kind of now turning, but it's because of like women like you that are talking about it that it's like, hey, yeah, well, and it's. I was telling him the other day because he was gone all last week and I was way more in like mom duty and I was like, I got to give moms like, like some kudos because it full time moms. Like you deserve a trophy. Like, it is so much harder to be a full time mom than like, I'm like, I. I don't know if I can do it. Like, I like to do a little bit of both. I was like, I love my kids, but I mean it's, it is a, it is a full time job and it's can be stressful.

Our competition years were. It was like, as a man, it was. There was no safe place to go. So it was like we would come home, she's building and she's building her hair brand because I had broken all trust. I had an affair. We had lost all the money. Like all of this shit went sideways and she stockpile having cash launching her hair brand, not telling me about the money, preparing. Had she been who she is now or even in the last like 10 years, she just bounced. But she was young, she was like in her late 20s, trying to figure herself out, didn't know what to do, Was scared, had two young children, same kind of fear. It's this guy can't fucking provide, he's probably gonna bounce. Meanwhile, in my head I'm thinking the same thing. We both have one foot in, one out. This lack of trust. And you're like, we're gonna build this relationship while both of us have a foot out the fucking door. And thinking in our minds just in case this is gonna work. So I'm gonna keep one foot in the driveway with the keys in the ignition and then I'm gonna bounce back and forth. The back and forth you guys were talking about. We call it volleyballing. And we got into this routine too, literally. We just swapped the kids swap the kids, do your thing, do my thing. And then we would never spend time.

But not like connected.

So the competition for us, I want to hear from you, Matt, from your side. I got to a point where I felt like I was coming. I would go to war all day and then I would come home to a woman that now was competing with me at home. There was no safe place to come home to. There was no rest. There was no recovery. There was no feminine energy available for me to heal. So I was guarded day, battling the world of man. And then I would come home to this woman. I called her Barbie in a Box. And I'd battle with her, and it was back and forth. Fuck you. Fuck you. And she kept making more money and being more successful. And inside of that, it just created this point where it's like, I don't know why we're together.

I think that's when we had to choose. We're like, we had. I remember it was probably back in 2016, 17. I was like, okay, we're. I'm not doing this anymore. So, like, either we're gonna both choose to be here and figure out what that looks like, to be here so that we both feel like our needs are being met or why are we together? You know, like, you get to this place where you're like, the tipping point of pain is, like, where you make decisions, and it's either you're either gonna go or you're gonna stay. And I was like, you know what? For me, I was like, if I go, I still have some scars that I'm probably gonna project on the next guy that I'm with, so I probably should really work on me and see if we can work this out. Plus, we have kids. So when. Whenever I hear like, oh, never seeing it for the kids, I say, always stay in it for the kids. Like you. They're your family, you know? And for me, it's like, I had to take a good look in the mirror. Like, hey, I'm 50% of the equation. Whether I'm the villain or he's the villain, it doesn't matter. I'm 50% of the equation. So we kind of had our, like, moment where we, like, came back together. I'm like, hey, we started going to therapy. We started working on ourselves, and we just kind of had to create this relationship where we were. And we still are always trying to figure out how to meet each other's needs. You know, it's hard because I feel like men and women speak two totally different languages.

They totally do. I call it a practice. You know, I think that every. Every day. And it's not tiring. It's something I'm so proud that I get to do. But every day, I'm practicing being a better partner, a better wife, a better person, not just in relation to him, but to the world and for my friends, for my community, for my family. And everybody benefits when you are practicing being the best version of yourself.

And there's no better place to practice that than in a relationship that isn't working.

Yeah, well, I mean, I don't think I wasn't practicing very well at that time.

No. But whatever your insecurities are, whatever your triggers are, like, they're gonna get pushed every day over and over again until you either run away from the trigger or you figure out, okay, what's going on inside of me that I can address. And you guys both made really good points. Like learning to be a wife, like, competing. I think the. The problem in our relationship came down in a lot of ways to. We don't understand the roles that men and women play in relationship. Like, nobody taught me that from my dad's generation. They weren't modeling it properly. And so I, you know, you trying to figure out how to be a wife, me trying to figure out how to be a husband, but not actually knowing what a wife or a husband is. And it's like, well, it's not the 1950s model, but it's not the feminist model. It's like, well, let's just design this insanely complex relationship from scratch as two clueless 25 year olds. It's like, it's way too complex. Like, you can't figure that shit out on your own. You just can't. Unless you just battle for years and years and years. And I think, you know, to your point about staying together for the kids, I haven't seen a relationship that I really admire who hasn't been through 2, 5, 10 years worth of battle, who hasn't been this close to getting divorced two, three, four, five times. And it's a beautiful idea to say, well, we're going to stay together just because, you know, we love each other so much. But in the relationships that we work with, like the kids is what keeps you together a lot of the time where it's like, hey, I would have bounced, but I love you to death, and I don't want these kids to deal with the fallout from this divorce. I don't think there's anything wrong with saying that.

Right.

Doesn't mean you love your partner any less. Like, it's okay to. There's this, you know, there's so much crap online like, don't stay together for the kids. Don't. Yeah, you don't want to have a totally dysfunctional relationship where everyone's, you know, or that's just this toxic environment and the kids are witnessing that for 15 years. But if you can make it work for the Kids, you're going to get to a place where you're going to be thriving as a couple anyway. So I think it's totally okay. Give yourself a few years to try making it work for the kids.

Anyway, so talk about, from your perspective, just the competition factor, because even with guys in our experience at Warrior, like, I'm sure it's been similar to yours, but I want to hear your perspective on it. The competition game is such a difficult game to navigate.

Yeah.

How did you talk about what it was like being in it for you with Whitney? She eloquently put what it was like from her side. I'd want to hear from your side. And then what have you been able. What did you do to navigate into a more immovable place with it where competition was something that just didn't exist at the level that it had existed for years.

Yeah, the competition thing was hard. And that kind of goes back to what men and women need in a relationship.

Right.

And what. What I needed was, just to put it really kind of bluntly, I needed a little pat on the back sometimes. I didn't need Whitney trying to outdo what I was doing or tell me that I wasn't showing up in the ways that she wanted me to show up. I needed her to say, hey, the way that you're trying to show up for this family, I really appreciate that, and I see that. And a man, and speaking personally, but for men in general, we can bear a lot of suffering on behalf of the people we love if they're saying, great job. I appreciate what you're doing. I see the sacrifice that you're making, and it means a lot to me. Like, that's all I was looking for. But what I was getting was, hey, Matt, all the things that you're trying to do for the family, that's getting in the way of the things that I'm trying to do. And so my sacrifices weren't being appreciated. They were being thrown at my. In my face, like, I was being selfish almost, and I was doing the same thing to you. And there's a million different emotions I could describe that experience with, but really what it made me feel was like, insecure and useless. And feeling insecure and useless as a man is about as bad as it gets, especially when it's the people that you love most. Right. It's like, hey, I'm doing this for you. Or at least I'm trying to. I think I am. And what I'm getting back is what you're doing is just getting in the way of things that I think are more important. And so how I handled that. And this is kind of where our business got born from. I just took Whitney seriously. I said, okay, I've been battling with her. She'll throw something in my face or I'll do the same, and then we'll go back and forth and we'll be in this battle for the next year. And I was like, well, I'm just gonna take what she says really seriously. And if there's any truth to it, I'm gonna acknowledge that. And so I stepped out of this battle mode and I said, I'm just not gonna back up before you talk about.

Yeah, so this is. Cause what you're gonna need to. By the way, you guys listen to this right now. This is a fucking guy you need to listen to. So, like, I'm around the man space. Like, I'm around bullshit artists. I'm around fucking posers. I'm around players, and I'm around king makers. So the dude you're listening to right now, this is just a taste of what's going on here. I normally don't do a hard promo like this. I'm telling you, this is not only my guy, he's here at my house for a reason. And I have tools here. But this man has distinctions and alignment that you have to consume and partake in. We might wake your ass up here and do the shit we do to help you with everything in life. A warrior. But there are minor distinctions and nuances in this. Well, I'm going to stop him on this, because the nuances is where the revolution of rebirth happens. Concepts will get you on the field, but it doesn't mean you're going to fucking win. So just know, follow him. Buy shit. Get in his programs for all you guys right now that are knocking on divorce or you're already in the numb and dumb phase. You know exactly what the fuck I'm talking about, too. I was there. All of us have been there. You don't have to go there. How many times I do this on a show?

Never.

Never, bro. You're, like, called by God on this one, bro. I'm serious. Like, I played this game by soul. This is live. I'm saying this shit right now. I'm just telling you. Thank you. I appreciate you coming here. This was more than us just doing a show. So that being said, well, let me.

Let me say thank you for that. Because coming from you, that means the world to me. It really does.

Yeah, you have weapons and I haven't even gotten to. We haven't even pulled up. We haven't pushed the magic button and seen your gun collection yet. I'm like, I just know there's a big gun collection. We're gonna push a button about to see em all. So the distinction of you being able to make that turn talk, like, what was. Because it's never just like I had a moment and it shifted. It was a process. What began the shift for you though? To not be in collision with her and to see, hey, I'm going to listen for truth because this is a very difficult turn for guys.

So the most specific moment was I was watching a Jordan Peterson talk and he said, if you've got any memory that's older than about 18 months, when you recall that you still have an emotional reaction to it, it means there's something that you haven't solved yet there. And this is a time in my life where I was really, really anxious, socially anxious, couldn't sleep and really, really bad alcoholic. Like I said, you know, drinking till I passed out or ran out of booze every night for years in a row. I mean, I get a fever of 100, I wouldn't stop. And when I heard that from Jordan Peterson, I was like, well, pretty much every memory I have causes me anxiety. Like I can't think about anything because all I feel feel is guilt and shame all the time. And so like, well, I'm going to take that seriously. So I spent a year and a half basically dissecting my whole life, like saying, okay, everything I've hidden from myself, which is everything I'm going to be radically honest with myself. So panic, moment, thinking about some memory, it's okay what actually happened there. It's like, okay, well, you were posing, you were trying to sound smart, you were trying to be nice, even though you didn't mean it. You're trying to be the nice guy, but you're over here being an asshole. You're being dishonest, you're not presenting yourself accurately, you're blaming other people, playing the victim. And I spent like two, three hours a day for a year and a half just going through my history. What I realized is when you do that, the anxiety comes down and the power comes back up when you actually recognize, okay, what was my role in that? Taking away everybody else, what they did wrong, if they betrayed me, if they hurt me, what was my role in that? And it shifted me internally. I started drinking less, I started showing up with more energy. I started having more power. People Started looking me in the eyes when I was talking to them in a different way. And I was like, well, what if I apply that to Whitney? And that was the hardest part because, like. Because I knew it was Whitney's fault. Like, I knew she was ungrateful. She had bad value. She wasn't committed. She wasn't hardworking. She wasn't ambitious. She didn't have what I had. I knew it was Whitney. And I was like, well, what if I step back from that? And I said, maybe it's me. And, oh, surprise. What I found out is it was a lot me. Right. It wasn't 100% me, but I treated it. There was a. There's a few months where I was like, I'm just gonna treat it like it's 100% me. And then by the end of that few months, I'll know. I'll know. And. And when you do that, you get clear vision. When you. When you're willing to look at yourself first, then when you look at the other person, you can say with confidence, hey, here's where you're not showing up, and I know it. And you're not screaming it from a place of resentment and fear. You're saying, hey, from a place of confidence and clarity. You are not showing up this way, and I need you to. And so I just. I just took it all on me. I was like, I'm gonna. I'm gonna listen to what she's saying. And then it turns out Whitney has this incredible intuition, this incredible depth. She's. She. I have to study things for a really long time to understand them, and I learn really slowly, and I learned through a lot of pain. And Whitney can just look at something, go, bing. And she had me now sexually prepared.

It is.

Yeah. It's this insane intuition that I just don't have.

Have women who are connected to that part of themselves. I think. I think women have.

Yeah.

That special gift. Yeah.

I have a special question for the women when he's done on the subject, so get ready, ladies.

Yeah. And. And when Whitney looked at me that way, what I saw was, oh, she's not actually trying to make me feel small, like, I don't know how to support her as a woman. She doesn't know how to support me as a man. What she's doing is she's seeing me not showing up at my potential as the man. Because women don't marry you. They marry your potential.

Right.

Honest. And she saw me failing my potential over and over and over again, and she was Punishing me for it. And then I thought to myself, well, do I want her to stop punishing me for that? Maybe she could do it in a more encouraging way. But do I want her to settle for who I am right now? It's like, fuck, no. I don't want that at all. And I switched. This view from Whitney is the worst to. Whitney is trying to bring out the best in me. And she's a gift. She's a gift from God. And if I get through this gauntlet with her, I'll emerge a very different man. And that's. That's when that pivot sort of happened.

How do you hear that without, like. For men? Like, without being, like, triggered, you know? Like, how do you literally view that from a different lens of, like. Because women, they do.

They.

They marry for potential. And sometimes our delivery is not great.

Most of the time, it's terrible.

Yeah, right.

Most of the time it's horrible.

And it's like, we have these, like, standards 98 of the time.

And it's so.

It's like, how do you. Even if I come, like, to him and I say so softly, and so.

Like, you're still gonna be triggered even if I did.

It's.

How do you not get triggered as a man when your wife's trying to call you to level up?

When have you said it softly? Fucking never.

Oh, whatever.

You've never said it softly. You're the worst tact of all human beings on the planet.

You get your point across. I do like an Oreo sandwich. So it's like, I get my point across, and then I come back and we go have sex, and then it makes it all better.

That's not an Oreo.

That's a flip side.

No, that's. That's you. You forgot the top of the Oreo. You smashed the cream in my face, and then you backdoored me. But ain't really backdoor me. I don't like that shit. I'm trying to go down the road.

But no, that's, like, a legit question. I'm like, how do you. If I come to him in, like, the sweetest voice ever, he's only gonna. He's like, I don't like your tone. I'm like, you've never come to me.

In a sweet tone for feedback.

You can't even hear the sweet tone.

Never have.

I had a sweet tone.

You have a sweet tone after the fact. When you attempt to describe to me what you said. There's the sweet tone in the moment.

Back to the question how do you. How do you receive that from your wife without getting triggered?

So initially, not well. Definitely not well, because I think you guys probably have a pretty similar communication style based on what you were just saying. But I lived in, like, a constant state of being triggered. I was triggered all the time. I was a victim. I was resentful, I was insecure, I was anxious. And so I just decided I was not going to let the trigger dictate my response. And I was going to sit with it and just be like, okay, you said something. I want to fly off the handle. I want to punch a hole through the wall, which I've done more than once. I'm just going to sit with this, and I'm going to back off, and I'm going to see what truth. And there was always truth to it. Even if she delivered it terribly, even if it stung, even if it was 90% wrong. There was 10% truth in it always. And usually it was way more than 10. And so I stepped back, and then the next thing that I did was I. I taught Whitney. So she taught me through a lot of fights, how to communicate with her, which was really, to just put it bluntly, like, skip the specifics and address the underlying emotional reality she's experiencing. Right. She says, you don't do the dishes enough. I can pull up my spreadsheet and say, 72. Last month.

72%. Like, just want you do the dishes.

You never do that. Based on the spreadsheet.

Like, I've been tracking this. I'm like, I'll.

Yeah, we've had this conversation before, and I got data.

Just so you guys know, we hate when you have data.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, every time I'd win on a data level, I'd still lose on an emotional. It didn't matter. It gets worse.

It gets worse.

She's got an emotional black belt. I do not. I'm not rolling with her. So I was like, okay, skip the dishes. What's the underlying emotion? Oh, she's probably feeling unsupported. And then I would just speak right to that. Hey, sounds like, you know, I'm not showing up for you. You got a lot on your plate. You need something more. For me.

Yeah.

And then she'd melt, and then we'd have a good conversation. And once we did that for long enough, then. And that was when he basically training me, hey, here's how to communicate within me where it doesn't. Doesn't escalate. Then I trained Whitney, hey, if you wanted something from me, Just be super explicit. Just say it calmly, say it with love, and tell me what a good husband I am and recognize that I want. I want to do right by you. And if you deliver it in that way, I'll probably be able to just go, okay, yeah, good point. I can do that. But one more element is this is where we spend most of our discussion sometimes is, okay, here's what you need. Here's what I need. Okay, got it. Now we're gonna negotiate. Like, what's the deal? Where both of us, let's go back to the dishes. Easy example. Okay, you want me to do the dishes three times a week. Okay, here's what you can do for me, Whitney, where I'll be thrilled to do the dishes three times a week. Or she wants me to wake up with the kids and take them to school twice a week. Okay. Or vice versa. I want you to take the kids to school. Okay, what could I do for you? Where you'd be thrilled to take the kids to school every day. And she's like, well, put them to bed and let me go watch tv.

This is making it sound like Matt does dishes and takes the kids to school, which is not the case. But that's okay.

It's just an example. It's just an example. No data. Yeah, Just give an emotional example.

Yeah.

Dishes are not my strength.

No, no. And I don't want you to. So, like.

Yeah, but yeah. And sometimes that last piece of, like, what are you gonna give me so I can give you what you need? Sometimes we. Sometimes that's four hours of heated discussion. But we always get somewhere where, like, okay, we'd both be happy with this deal. Okay, go now.

It's gotten way easier. Like, it's.

We're really good at fighting now.

We are really good at fighting.

I feel like.

Yeah.

Negotiating.

Negotiating, yes, yes. But would have in the past been a blow up fight. It doesn't usually get there anymore. But I mean, this is coming from a couple whose fights used to be so aggressive and crazy. Like, holes were getting punched and I was, you know, running out out the house in the rain and bare feet. Like, you know what I mean? Like, we were.

Maybe I'll get hit by a car. Yeah.

So I mean, like, like a real movie.

Maybe you will. You're going barefoot.

Exactly.

So we're not trying to, like, you know, present the image. Like we've always. Clearly, we have not always had it figured out. You know what I mean? And we're still works in progress. We came from super dysfunctional to very functional now, which I'm very proud of. But, yeah, we started there. So.

So question for you ladies. You ready? Coming hard in the pain on this one, because not only to Matt and I, but every man on the planet like to know this answer. Why is it so fundamentally difficult for a woman to say, I'm sorry?

I can answer that.

Cool. Whitney, you're up. Danielle needs time to think.

Because we so. So often, we're so. We don't. We don't feel emotionally safe. We're so. So emotionally insecure. And that can come from so many different places. It can come from being little girls on the playground and being bullied by our best friends to, you know, being told backhanded compliments and having to kind of decipher everything. As we grow into adolescence, we end up putting up these big walls to protect ourselves because everything is like an emotional, personal attack, like when you're a young girl. And so almost all women without the support, especially out the support of a strong man to help us feel this way. This is my perspective. I'm not saying this for everyone, but definitely for me. We're very emotionally insecure, and so we need to protect ourselves. And if we say, sorry, we're opening up. We're vulnerable now, and now we're vulnerable to your attacks, even though you're not attacking us. But that's how we'll. How we'll perceive it. We need to feel so radically emotionally safe and, like, you're not going to use it against us. You're not going to hurt us before we can let it all go. And that. That comes from, like, intense trust and that has to be built. Like, I needed Matt to make me feel whether or not it's true. I needed to feel like there was unconditional love coming from him. Like, I could do no wrong, right? I could be a little girl. I could be a child again. Like, think about how we treat our daughters, right? My daughter, she's seven years old. She flies off the handle on a regular basis. And I'm not. I'm not gonna hold her accountable. Like, I'm not. Like, I. Do you know what I mean? To a degree, I hold her accountable. But I'm not. Like, you should be better than this. I'm like, come here, baby. Come here. Get in my arms. Let me hug you. Let me. Let me hug you back. Hug you into feeling better again. Let me show you. Like, I want her to feel. I want her to know that she's unconditionally loved and she's Safe. And then she can go, okay, okay. Okay, Mommy. And then she'll come to me. I'm sorry. I know. I know I misbehaved. I know I shouldn't have done that. I shouldn't have said that. But it takes her feeling safe to do that. And the thing is, women, like, yeah, we're strong, you know, big women, but we're also just little girls inside. And we don't really ever stop being little girls. Like, and we need to show up as adults. I'm not saying we don't, obviously, but that little girl piece is still so much a part of us. And she's usually really wounded. And when. When Matt shows me and has shown me this unconditional love, this almost like this daddy love, you know, that he's got me no matter what. It's so much easier to apologize. I feel so safe with him that I'm just. Like. I often will come to him and apologize, and in advance, like, before he's. Even before I even know, like, that he's been offended. And he'll. He's like, whoa, whoa. Like, you're fine. Like, you don't need to. That was fine. You know, but that's taken a lot of time, and that is 100% on him. Like, I'm. Like, I am the way I am today because of him.

And I'll just. Just to give a little bit of context to that, Whitney is not a wallflower.

Like, she's.

She's so kind to me, and she speaks so highly of me, but she's half Israeli, half Irish, right? So just imagine that combo. She's a jiu jitsu competitor, right? Combat sport. Like, she's a very. She's much tougher than I am in many, many ways. And so she's speaking from a place of real honesty here. She's not naturally. Not naturally somebody who will take shit. I'll just put it that way.

Yeah.

So you. You. You are a killer. Of course you are. Because you're married to a man with a massive heart leading the movement with men.

Yeah.

As that's Danielle. Like, if we were to say a murder needed to occur. And I had my approach to the murder. Knock on the front door, shoot you in the face. Danielle will walk up to the front door, likely a short skirt, cleavage out, and a tray with a scalpel, hand it to the man and talk him into cutting off my throat.

Well, you gotta be strategic. And that was a really dark example.

One eye just blasted him and kicked the door down. And Danielle's like, you should kill yourself. I'm just saying that's how it is. I'm with the seductive masters. Okay, so no questions over here. Whitney just nailed.

I was like, I like her answer.

That was really.

No, I was. I feel like I your experience, baby. And I would agree with everything you said. I think I've gotten better over the years because I'm like, why? This is so stupid. Why are we even having this conversation? But it comes back to, like, feeling safe, you know? And then, then I feel like it's in this place where it's like, yeah, sorry, like, it doesn't matter. And you can open up the. These conversations. I think in the past when we were like, in a dark place, I was so angry towards you that I could. I. I physically could not say sorry. Like, I was just. We were just like in such a dark place. I was just like, I don't. Like, I didn't know if we were gonna be together. Like, I just didn't know how to even open up that way to feel safe. Because like I said, he told you, like, we had lost everything. He had an emotional affair. Like, I was pregnant with my second daughter. Like, I just felt like I got like really drop kicked to the floor. So I'm, I'm trying to build up this trust with him and feeling this safety, meanwhile stockpiling cash and building a brand. And I also think too, for some reason, women today, they're like, why can you not say sorry? They're like, oh, don't say sorry. Like, if all like, we having a conversation, like, oh, sorry about that. They're like, no, no, no, no need to say sorry. I'm like, why are we taught that we can't say sorry? And so for women, it's like, you can say sorry if you're sorry. Like, why is that a why is.

Not a natural reaction for you?

No, but I'm saying, I think for me it was years of built up resentment.

But even now, it's not a natural reaction for you. I can count on two hands the number of times you've said sorry in the last five years.

If I feel like a sorry is needed, I'll say so.

Exactly. So this is what I'm talking about, though. So, like, she'll go to a different frame, which is. She like, plays it up around here. And we've talked about it and so many times like it. But this is what a lot of women face. And we see it on the guy side, which guys are quicker to be like, okay, I'm Sorry, I'm accountable. I fucked it up. Women, hell no. This shit doesn't happen. And we see this across our men over and over and over again because we see the pain in the men going, why does this bitch never fucking own her shit? So here comes the second question to you two. You ready? You get to start this one.

I'm ready.

There's constant perpetual talk about men in marriage, about their reactivity, and there's no conversation around the activity from the woman that caused the reactivity. Therapy is always about the man's reactivity and the complete avoidance of the woman's trigger tone, attitude, and behavior that caused the reactivity. If you look at this online, too, you don't hear. It doesn't. It doesn't get brought up. We don't go to the root cause. So from you two, from your perspective, you're with two men that love you. You've worked. We both worked through a lot of shit as couples. We've worked through a ton. We've experienced a ton in that. You get to answer this one first. When does a woman have to be responsible in marriage for her activity that causes the reactivity versus the perpetual focus on the reactivity of the man to the activity that came from the breasts and vagina side.

First off, I do have to say that I think women are reactive, too. We're just reactive. It takes us longer. It waits until it's to the point where you're like, there's so much resentment that all of a sudden there's like this big reactive blow up over, like, he didn't take out the garbage the right way and he turned the doorknob weird, you know? So I think that women's reaction is because they almost, like, hold the door.

No, no. Talk about the action. Not the reaction, the action.

No, I think it's causing shit.

Let me make it simpler.

I just think you're too reactive.

Well, you're.

Again, if anybody's listening to this podcast, he's obviously super reactive.

But we're. Again, look, you just did it. You. Now you want to talk about my reactivity? I'm saying your activity.

Give me an example.

You say dumb shit to me, and then I get angry. If you don't say dumb shit, I don't get angry. So when does a woman have to be accountable for saying dumb shit?

What if she's stressed?

What if the reactivity is stressed? We're working through some shit right now.

No, I mean, it's like, I can say something being stressful.

Coach Matt's Going to reach out here in a minute. Coach Matt's coming.

I'm excited because it's with kids in business, there's sometimes that my tone might not be the sweetest tone. And I'm like, I'm sorry, I've been stressed and you didn't like my tone. And now I'm getting blown up on. I'm like, whoa. Like, literally, how did you. Why did you just react so, like, aggressive? What he really wants when he comes home is for me to come home, be like, how was your day? What's going on?

Yes.

How's this? Which I do, but sometimes I don't. If I'm stressed and you don't like my tone and your reactivity. Let's just say your reactivity is far more aggressive than my tone, which is your activity. What do you guys think? We might need some.

Coach Matt, we need you in this game right now. Let's go.

I want to hear your answer first.

Oh, yeah. Whitney, come at it.

I don't know. Well, I really understood. What Danielle was trying to say.

Is really hard.

You called in the Israeli translator to translate the absolute Hebrew that was being.

Spoken right there that nobody understood.

I really. Because what she's saying is that something might have. Okay, so this is the thing. Women have a hard time being explicit with their needs, especially in the moment. And again, it goes back to, like, the fact that we're taught to be quiet and not to, you know, not to speak up and be polite and kind of hold it all in. And again, like, you know, in a group of women, like, if you were to just say what you think in front of a group of girls when you're a teenager, like, oh, my goodness, like, that's just gonna blow up in your face. Yeah. So I think we just. Instead of. So I think what she's saying, and I would agree is that when there's a. When something happens where I think we need to take accountability per se, I think that's where we're trying to go with this, is in the moment. If we were just to handle things head on in the moment instead of letting that resentment build, then our tone would be nicer more of the time. So let's say the real issue was, I don't know, Matt, you scheduled, like, five boys trips in the last two months or something. But I don't want to say no. I don't want to tell them not to go because I want him to have fun. And I'm kind of conflicted because I'm like, well, I don't want to say no. I want him to have fun, but I also really don't want him to be gone that much. And what I should do is have that conversation in the moment when I'm not resentful, but I'm not stressed and be like, hey, babe, you know, I know, you know, you deserve this, and I want you to go, but I really appreciate it if maybe you could, like, scale back by a couple, because I want these things. And then he could, in that moment, we could have a great conversation, but instead I'd be quiet. Wait, wait, wait. Then, like, there'd be five boy strips, and it might be the garbage, and it might be the dishes, and it might be, you know, whatever. And then now all of a sudden, he walks in the room after being away, and I'm like, you know, angry and like, where the fuck were you? Why? What is that? Right? So I think that's where it stems from. Am I getting you right? Like, is that. Yeah. So I think, yeah, I think if women were more open, explicit and honest about how we feel in the moment, that wouldn't. It wouldn't escalate so much.

Is that true for you? Is that what you're saying? I mean, that's a great explanation. Is that what's going on?

Yeah, I think that sometimes it's like, as women, we hear you got to be the support role. And you're like, okay. So then you're like, well, then I can't share too much of my feelings because I don't want to burden him because he's working hard and I appreciate that. So I'll just tuck it away in a safe place. And it could be like, resentful over stuff of like, he has, like, back to back business meetings and trips and this and that. And I'm like, I can't tell him to not do that. So, yeah, there's probably times where I'm like, I can't. I don't feel connected with him a lot of times too. So if I don't feel connected, I'm. I'm less aware of my tone and things like that. I'm like, well, my needs aren't being met. Even though I know he's out trying to, like, push for the family, I'm also like, but my needs aren't being met and it doesn't come with another cleaner or another nanny. Like, I have to feel connected to him. So for me, if I don't feel connected, I do tend to feel like that resentment build up and therefore My tone maybe might not be as nice, but it's because of, like, lack of connection when we are connected. I think we're both very good at, like, coming home, whether it's like, the day of work, like, literally, like, putting the kids aside. Hey, how are you? How was your day? Let's go to dinner. Let's debrief. But if we're disconnected, that's when he's reactive. And I have a tone.

Coach.

Okay, I could. I. I could go on this one, because this is.

This is like, we're calling in. We got to call in a black thought on this one because, Wendy, we're. We're still sitting over. This is like, the third show where I'm like, we brought a coach in. We're in therapy.

We're like, we're ready.

So we are not the marriage coaches. We are example of what not to do and an example of growth. Okay, so off.

But even as long as. As we've been married, we still. There's still times where I'm like, how are we still in this stupid argument? Like, we've been married. We know we love each other. We know we're each other's person. How did this happen again? I'm like, all right, coach.

Okay, so I could. I could do hours on this, and I have many times. So cut me off at some point. But it's just a fundamental difference in the way that we think and communicate. Right. So to put it. I'm oversimplifying it here, but the way that men view the world is we kind of factually analyze the situation, and then we determine what we should feel. It doesn't always work that way. You lose control and stuff. But generally speaking, you're like. Even if you're feeling angry, if somebody explains factually what went on, you're like, oh, okay, I don't actually need to be angry. And it's a good thing. Men know how to do that, because if men didn't know how to sublimate their emotions like that, the world would be a very violent place very quickly. Women is kind of the opposite process, right? You're not, like, you're not always operating from here. You're operating from here. And that's that magical intuition that we were talking about. And what can happen is if a woman's feeling, let's say, disconnected, she's going to put on the disconnected glasses. And then the only facts that can get through those glasses are the disconnected facts. And so if Whitney's in a state of disconnect, I know, there's going to be zero accountability. There's going to be zero ownership. It's just not going to happen. And so the most practical thing that I found you can do as a man is like, okay, well, let's just switch those glasses. Because if she's all of a sudden feeling connected, she's gonna put on the connected glasses, and then the only facts that are gonna get through are the connected glasses. And that's why you can have these experiences where she's like, everything's the worst. You never show up for me. And then two hours later, she's like, you're the best husband, and you always show up for me, and I'm so thankful for you. And we've got, like, PTSD and whiplash. We're like, what. What just happened there? Right. Doesn't make any sense. And that's also part of the accountability piece, because you and I form our identity based on our code of honor, our principles, our beliefs, our analysis. We're like, I think I've got an accurate view of the world that I've built these beliefs on, and that's where my identity rests. Your identity rests much more in your feelings and your intuition. And so if we're like, hey, you did that wrong, apologize for it. Those feelings can kind of collapse on themselves. And it's like, well, I can't collapse in on myself and lose my identity and hate myself, so I can't own that thing. And so, as a man, you have to give them the time to kind of process that, get to a place of connection. And when they're feeling connected and they're really feeling, you know, feeling good, feeling strong internally, then they can say, yeah, good point. I probably shouldn't have done that. And you can take it really far. Like, the last. The last few months, we've hit a new level where we've gotten a couple of little scraps, and Whitney's come back in the room and apologize, like, right afterwards. And I was like, it's a. That's. That's still fairly new for us. And even to the point where I was like, hey. Like, no. Like, I was actually. That was like, my bad there. But that's. That's a bit where that comes from. Does that make sense? Would you agree with that? It's always. It's always a fight. He's talking to men, so. Talking to women about women. But. Oh, sorry.

I don't know. I don't know.

What are you. What are you. What are you hearing from? I think it was a Good example. What do you hear?

No, I mean, like, it makes sense. I, I. What are you hearing?

Oh, my God. Don't do the thing you do. She does this, too. She does this, too. I'll ask her question.

I was, like, so, like, present in the conversation that I wasn't expecting you to ask.

I know, but. Well, you were present in the conversation. What did you hear from what he was saying?

Yeah, tell me if you don't think that lands.

No, I think. I think it does. I think a lot of times it's like, again, like, if I'm feeling disconnected, I like that it's like you have the goggles on, where it's like, I'm like, again, just, like, guarding myself, you know? So it's like, how does he help me take off those goggles, those disconnected goggles?

It. It's hard. It's hard to do as a man, where it's like, hey, right now, I just went out and, you know, I went on this trip to make us money that you told me you wanted to because we want to get a nicer house, whatever. And now you're punishing me for this thing you wanted me to do. So it's very hard in that moment to step back from that and not just say, this is insane, because that's like, that's where our mind goes immediately, like, this is insane. And just say, okay, she's feeling disconnected right now. I've been gone for a while. She's been dealing with the kids and all this other stuff. I have to look at her with love in my eyes and just be like, find something nice to say. Hey, thank you so much for doing this while I was gone. I was missing you the whole time, and I'm really happy to be back. And you can see with. And I see this with Whitney, she'll go like. Like, you can just.

He just doesn't take me seriously. Right? Which I know sounds. It can sound. I don't know. I don't know what the word is, but degrading or whatever. But I need him to not take me seriously all the time, because my emotions aren't always super serious, Even though they feel really serious, they can change like this. So how serious are they? You know what I mean? And so when he kind of does the thing where he's sort of like, okay, she's in. She's in a mood, and he's. He kind of comes above that. Like, he's. He's above my emotions, they change, right? So he kind of.

He's got here's an example. I hope it comes across the right way. My daughter, this was like, I don't know, last summer, I was in the basement and I heard this, like, clatter. And I kind of listened up. She was like, whatever, five or six. And then she just screams, daddy, why did you make me spill the milk? Right? So I go upstairs and it'd be very easy in that moment to be like, I did not make you spill the milk. That is stupid. But she's my seven year old daughter. I'm not threatened by her. I'm threatened by Whitney in a way that I'm not threatened by my daughter. So for her, it was very easy to be like, oh, Aria, come here. It's okay. And like, daddy's here. It's okay. I'm not mad at you. Like, let's clean this up together. Go get a rag, I'll help you. And then as soon as that was all done, she came back. She's like, daddy, I. I know you didn't spill the milk, right? I'm like, that's accountability. I'm like, yeah. I'm like, I know that too. It's okay. And I really thought about that and I was like, okay, let's see if this works with Whitney. And Whitney got really upset about something and blaming me. And I was like, hey, it's okay. Like, don't worry. I understand where you're coming from. Like, you've got this on your plate and this is happening and your friend's going through this and your mom's going through this. I get you got it on your plate. It's all good. And she just softens five minutes later, hey, you know, I shouldn't have said that. That was your fault. Like, I know that wasn't you. And you're doing this and it's like. And I started getting back everything I needed. If I made her feel safe and loved first. And what I've learned is nothing good happens in a relationship until she's feeling safe and loved. Because at that point, I'm not really talking to Whitney. I'm talking to her pain. I'm talking to her fear. She's in fight or flight mode. And women, like, if I ask, when's the last time you felt afraid for your physical safety? That's the answer that I always get from men. Right? What. What about you? When's the last time you felt unsafe?

When's the last time I felt unsafe? Like financially or just my relationship?

Just at any point in the day, Physically unsafe or.

Oh, like Two nights ago.

Yeah. It's usually within the last week. Right. So men, like, I'll talk to clients who are, like, combat vets, and they'll be. I don't remember the last time I felt unsafe. And it's like, Whitney, Walmart, yesterday, I went down an aisle and it was dark, and a guy came into the aisle. And so we don't understand how sensitive women are to threat. They've got a way higher. They're like a walking alarm system in a lot of ways. And so when I understand that about Whitney, I'm like, oh, her alarm's going off. She's feeling unsafe. I'm not going to get anywhere if I try to, like, break this down logically. It's like, she just needs daddy to give her a hug. And then once she's feeling safe and connected again, then we can have this serious discussion, and then it's a really productive discussion.

Do you think it's women's responsibility to kind of if from what I hear, women are always like, I don't feel connected. And that's why they built. They build this resentment. Do you think it's women's responsibility to, like, bring the guy back in? Like, hey, I can't feel you. Like, I know you're working hard, but I need you to come back to this planet for a minute. Because that's something that, like, for me, I. I'll appreciate that he's in work mode, but I'll be like, hey, we need to go to dinner tonight. We need to go to lunch. We need to sleep in for an extra hour together or whatever it is. But I feel like I'm the one that's, like, trying to. Otherwise, I just feel like he's working. And then it's like, I'm expected to have sex, but then I don't get the connection in between. And then I just feel like a used piece of meat. So do you think it's women's responsibility to try to make sure that their man kind of stays connected? If that's what we crave and value and need, which ultimately I actually think the man wants the connection, too. I find it's the women that are, like, kind of like, bringing the guy back down, I say, to this planet. But they're just so, like, out in work mode all the time. It's like, hey, come be present for a minute.

I think we're better at it than men. Yeah. I mean, I definitely am the one that encourages us to go on staycations and trips and dates and stuff. Like that, because I want to be connected to him. That's true for us, I think.

So, Yeah. I mean, I won't always hit my own pause button, and Whitney will kind of force that out sometimes, and she'll recognize when I need it, too, and she'll recognize when it's not the time. But, yeah, I. Again, I work with men, and so I'm very comfortable telling men, this is your responsibility. But I think women are way better at that. And if you can offer that to your husband in a way that's respectful of his priorities, I think that's a beautiful gift that you can offer to the men don't.

Yeah. Men don't know how to. Like, you know, he'll. He. Like, he'll. He went. He hosted a retreat, and he was like, you know, it was a very intensive retreat with these men and that he was, you know, sort of. Sort of responsible for. And he comes home, and then all of a sudden, he's like, expect. In his mind, he's like, okay, now I have to transition back to, like, home. I'm not home. And kids. And I looked at him, and I was like, babe, like, you need. Like, I. Obviously, I would prefer him to be home. He's just been gone for four or five days. But I was like, you need to go, like, go check into a hotel somewhere. Like, go do something. Go be on your own. You need to reintegrate here, you know, because I'm seeing, like you're. You've just. You've just done a wonderful thing that you love to do, but there you. But there's stress, and you're. You know, you've had to carry all this for a while. You need to go. And he just like. He's like, okay, okay. Yeah. All right. Yes. You know, you're right. I do. I do. Thank you. You know what I mean? And I'm like, okay, cool. Great. And then it's funny because the last time that I did that, he. He went. He went and checked it, and then he came back.

Yeah. Because I went to the hotel, had a cigar. I was there for, like, three or four hours. Like, okay, I'm good now.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't. I don't actually want to stay here anymore.

Yeah, men need that.

But you giving reintegrate, that was like. Was like it, you know, because five years ago, eight years ago, if I walked in the door, it was, here you go. You've been gone. I'm going out. The friends. I've already booked time. I've already had Five drinks and I'm out.

I'm gone.

Yeah, like, your turn now.

But yeah.

Yeah, but I think because I work really hard to fulfill your needs. You work really hard to fulfill my needs. We're both pretty comfortable asking and offering, I would say.

Yeah. I would say, like, you. Like, this is what. Circle it back to. The practice thing is, like, we both. It's a daily practice, like, anything. Or yoga, working out, anything. Like, every day. I'm trying to build the muscle of our relationship, and sometimes that means I'm going to suffer. Like, I'm going to be in pain. I'm going to have to carry the burden a little longer, and that muscle is just going to get stronger. And sometimes he has to. Right. But again, he's not. He's also. He also does so much to make me feel good about it. Like, he come. He comes home, and he's just like, go, mode. He's not asking to go anywhere. Not that it would bother me if he did at this point. It would have.

Yeah.

But he's just ready to get back in and wants to give me a break. And I'm like, no, no. Like, you just did some really important work, and you've got a lot on your shoulders. Like, you need to go. But again, so it's because he kind of. He creates this environment. He's. We talk about this a lot. Like, he's. He's the leader in our marriage. He's the captain of our ship, and so he carries the burden of our family in a way that I can never understand. And so because he's created this environment, this ship, proverbial ship for us, I'm then able to give and take on more and anticipate his needs and things like that. But it all stems from you, I.

Think, this piece of that. Until I could start becoming immovable, like, 95% of the time, which was like, you're talking about, you know, Matt, coming up above the circus, the emotional hurricane of constant, perpetual change and the game of facts. I'll give you a simple example that happened today. So I've been gone for seven days straight on a grind in four time zones. Promoting speaking, training, dealing with podcasts, being a guest, traveling. Just constantly took a red eye home last night so I could be here today, and I come home, I'm like, where? My wife's in bed. She's probably with the girls. Like, I'm in sweats. I didn't feel. Guys, I'm gonna shower in a different room. I showered, put some, like, cologne on Smelling good, put my white Miami pants on. I was like, you know what? I'm gonna come in and just lay by her. That was it. There was no intention for sex, Nothing. And so I come in to lay by her and she's like, I'm so tired. I'm so tired.

He denies that. I'm still sleeping.

Still sleeping. I'm still sleeping. Now in my mind, I was like, the king has fucking returned.

I have two toddlers.

He is showered, he has shit, and he is not shaved. This beard gets shaved tonight. But I was like, I've done. All I wanted to do was come in and hold her and connect with her. And then I get the. I'm sleeping, I'm sleeping. So I got triggered this morning. Like, hurt. Like, I'm like, what the fuck, woman? This is what I'm thinking aside. You fucking kidding me right now? We're on FaceTime every single night. We're talking about how much we miss each other. Then the minute I physically am in.

The room, two toddlers in my bed.

It'S a. I'm not saying any of the context is wrong. I'm saying everything in me is like. This was not the response I was looking for. What I was looking for was, open your arms, pull me into the bed, hold me, tired or not, kiss me on the neck, say, so glad you're home, and hold me. No, no, no.

But it happened later.

I'm too sleepy. So. But no, that happened because I came back. So then I go in the other room and I lay down in the guest bed and I'm like feeling angry inside and I'm like, But I'm also having awareness now.

I had no idea he was angry.

But this is the beast. And Matt's not on his head because he knows what that feels like as a guy when you come back and then you're not being champion for the wars you just won. You're like, do you understand my 18 hour days for seven straight days. I appreciate that you've been with the kids and I've acknowledged that 27 times this week. And I am not being received right upon return to the kingdom. What is the problem here? So I go lay down in the other room, and then the girls come in and cuddle with me and I'm out with my daughters and I'm feeling filled up, but I'm having my moment. I lay there and meditate and I'm like, okay. She just does this when she's tired. It's not what it really means. We've had A lot of connection this week. Don't be fucking weird. So I have to process myself through it.

Take that to be serious.

Come on. But I'm just saying this kind of shit happens all the time though. And it's unaware by women that they're doing it. And the guys don't know how to deal with it because they're like, we factually don't understand. We're gone for seven days providing for the family, the trips, the bags, the shoes while everyone's running the credit cards up all week. Girls are buying new fucking dogs. We got shit happening. And who's paying for all this? Me. So the guy who's out hunting to provide this lifestyle and a $30 million house on the intercoastal so that everybody can be free with two nann and all the supply. And the fun part was I wasn't coming for sex. I was coming for acknowledgement. That's it. Now I'm not. This is not putting out, but this is a moment that happened this morning. So then I'm like, okay, well, I have a decision on how I'm gonna handle this. Which is like, I can just go off with the girls this morning and feel a little pouty.

I would have never known.

I know, but I'm telling you, this is what guys do. I'm being a little pouty inside. And then build resentment and then I'll find a reason to go work today and then I'll ignore you all afternoon. I'm like, oh, you don't want to receive me when I come home? Fuck you. I'm going to go ahead and just keep working then, which becomes the pattern. And then dudes just cycle it up on such a small thing because of our internal. Because factually I'm like, I don't think.

I showed up really good this week with you being out of town though.

That's what was so shocking to me about this morning's Heisman trophy winner.

But I have to add a piece to the story. So the new dog at 3am I'm hearing this like it sounds like it's getting murdered. And I'm like, what in the world? And my daughter's spam texting me and she's like, the dog's got fleas. And da da. The dog from 3 to 6 or like 5:30 was just like sounding like I was getting killed. Finally I finally fall back asleep and that's when he comes in. I'm like, I'm still sleeping, babe. Because I'm like, I've Literally been listening to a dog scream for the last three hours. I'm about to go chuck it out the window. That's what I'm thinking.

And again, I understand all that.

I didn't even.

I knew it was happening. I'd read the text threads before you did. I was coming home from the flight. So then I come back and I'm like, remember, I make a very specific decision. I'm sitting there with the girls. I'm like, the girls want to go play right now. We could easily go to the pancake house and I could bail all morning with the girls. I was like, but I don't like how I'm feeling with this right now. So I'm gonna go force my way back into the bedroom. So I told the little girls, go down the nanny. And we cuddled and we laid there for like an hour. We didn't have sex because then they came back in. That would have been great.

But the five year old kept coming in.

Yeah, I know. She kept coming in every 15 minutes. But I was laying there with you and connected with you. This. I could not do this.

But I woke up this morning being like, oh, I'm so glad he came in and, like, cuddled with me. I didn't know he was pouty and went to the other room till right now. On the show, we've had.

We've had so many of those moments where to me, it's so obvious that what you just did was, like, rude and unappreciative and dismissive and just like, you were trying to make me feel like a worm. And you're just like, you know, not. You're just like, what do you mean? Yeah, but, yeah, I can. I can relate to that because we still have those moments, like, all the time. And you, you know, and I always think they're intentional because I'm always like, she obviously realizes that that's the worst thing you can do.

I have no idea. Like, what?

Just like, I literally was like, I think I throw up. The dog's been screaming. I got toddlers all over me.

But it's like, you know, because I'll watch Whitney with her friends and, you know, she might have. She might bump into friends she hasn't seen, like, a close friend in a while out some republic. And that friend will be like, you know, really, really just kind of cold. And I'll be like, didn't that bother you? She's like, oh, no. But she's going through this and she had this, like, doesn't bother me. Like, oh, you don't read the same thing. Because with you. And I, like, doesn't matter how tired or how grumpy I am, if I bump into you, I'm gonna be upbeat, I'm gonna shake your hand, I'm gonna look you in the eyes, right? That's how we are. But they are just like, well, no, you're not feeling good, so what's the big deal? Why would you take that personally? You were tired. I wouldn't take that personally. But for me, I'm like, well, it doesn't matter how I'm feeling. I gotta show up in a certain way no matter how I'm feeling ever. And that's a testosterone something, right? Results, right?

So the solution is you guys are both starting testosterone injection.

And it's not the worst thing.

I'm glad, though, that you went and played out the rest of the day, because that was. That would be a pattern where I'm like, okay, now we're even more disconnected because I did something that I didn't even know that triggered him, and now he went right back into work mode and I'm like, what did I do? You know? And so at least you were. You were a good guy to recognize that that would not. That would not be you up for success. No, but I. I think one of the things for me that, like, made me shift.

Okay.

Higher.

Here's one thing that's helped me in our marriage is I used to, like, get irritated and close off over the stupid stuff. And then I got to this place in our marriage where I was like, does this get me what I want? And so I started being a better communicator because I realized in the end, I saw the cycles and the patterns and I was like, that's not going to get me what I want. And so I had to make a conscious effort to, like, be a better communicator and be like, hey, this is bothering me because I was always afraid to share my communication or what's bothering me in fear of this it's going to end in a fight, which then makes me not feel safe or secure and all the things. So I was like, well, I'm obviously not getting what I want by not communicating. So it's like learning how to fight effectively, learning how to communicate effectively. And I think that you guys actually are doing great things and teaching people, teaching married people how to communicate effectively, because if you're not in the fight, then you're numb and you're not going to be married anymore. So it's not necessarily the fight. It's learning how to stay in the fight and effectively communicate. So I'm. I'm glad that you're giving men these tools because I think men feel very alone. Like, Garrett's painting out this whole story and, like, he needs tools and weapons to be like, dude, like, okay, never mind. I'm gonna come back in, cuddle my wife, and things like that. But there's this. There's this awareness that needs to happen now, now in today's world.

And there's an awareness that comes to your side.

There is both, absolutely.

When my husband comes home from a seven day bender, no matter how fucking tired I am, I acknowledge his presence when he gets home.

I was asleep.

Even when you're asleep. That's the fun part about our world. Nobody gives a fuck how we feel. And we have to show up in rooms with men who are dying. And I could be tired, exhausted, fought with you, not had sex for three days. Kids are fucking shenanigans. Dogs got lice and flea. There's shit on the floor and it doesn't matter. I have to learn how to turn on a switch and it doesn't fucking matter how I feel. So it's super hard for dudes to understand, particularly high producing men to understand how feelings can get in the way of doing what we consider to be honor, respect, and code. Because in our world, you show up as a man and just float with your feelings all the time. You are unfucking trustworthy. We can't rely on you. So then the translation, particularly when you lead men all day, you understand you two women are linked up dudes who are not only in the gauntlet of being men, we're in the gauntlet of weaponizing men all day long. The transition to try to come home from that to immovable. Also a world where we are constantly solving problems all day long. And in our world, we have to throat punch dudes. So now we come home and we hear situations like Bailey this morning with her dog, and I'm like, what would Matt do? What would Matt do? So, dude, as we wrap up for today, tell us a little bit about what your mission has been and what you've been accomplishing with your commitment in the last five years to help men get through this process. And Whitney, you have, like, been incredible. This is only your second podcast.

Yeah, thank you, babe.

You're like, murdering it. Do you do events with them?

No.

Do you guys do a podcast together?

We've spoken a couple of times.

But you don't do an active podcast together.

Not yet.

Yeah, that needs to start. You're great.

Oh, thank you.

This is your second podcast. You murdered it today. That was fantastic.

Good job.

Yeah, you did great, I think, because.

Everybody wants to hear, like, the male and female perspective.

You didn't cry.

No, because I think I started to cry before we did the podcast, before we started. Yes.

Okay, so. So talk to us. What is. What is, like, the commission and the game that you're standing on right now?

Yeah. I mean, my personal mission that I'm trying to accomplish with my coaching company is I want to build an army of sovereign men living lives of strength and freedom. Because I think that's. You can talk about economic problems and political problems and all this, like, everything starts with men in strong, loving families living from a place of freedom. That's what heals your home, your community, your neighborhood, society, everything. And what our company does is we help men who are somewhere on the brink of divorce save their relationship. And we work exclusively with men. Well, we work with clients who are female once in a while, but we really just work with men. And our fundamental belief is that it does not take two to save a relationship. It takes one. And if one person. If that man shows up as the man he's meant to be in the relationship, nine times out of 10 in response, she will show up as the woman that she's meant to be. And so far, the data in our programs is bearing that out.

It's amazing. How do. How do people find out more about it besides following on social media? Put all your tags here. But, like, where would they go online?

You can go to sovereign mancoaching.com or you can chat with us on Instagram. Okay.

Just hit you up on your personal Instagram.

Instagram page at the Underscore. Sovereign. Underscore Man. Okay. Yeah, Perfect.

Whitney, you have been amazing today.

Thanks, guys.

Babe, thanks for the coaching session.

We learn more about ourselves. Again, thank you for inviting these amazing people here.

Thank you. Thank you so much for having us. Yeah, yeah.

For welcoming us into your home. Yeah, it's really, really.

Thank you.

You have a beautiful family. Your daughters are just so sweet.

Thank you.

So nice to meet them.

They're. They're very sweet. They're very sweet to everyone that meets them.

We have. We have one of those, too.

So people have, like, the complete. They're like, oh, my God, your girls are so this. And we're like, yeah, they gave you their best.

Yeah.

And they exhausted their best.

Definitely dumped on us.

Yes. All right, well, Listen as we wrap up the show today here on the day to Y podcast again, all the social media links for Matt and Whitney will be placed underneath the show. Share the show up. This is how we get the message out there, right? We don't. This show is amazing. It's a personal mission for us, but also bringing powerful couples like Matt and Whitney today to be able to share and express with you. If you got value from this both, check out Matt's programs. Go step in a sovereign man. Go experience what he's up to. On top of this, share the show with other couples. Because you never know individuals. There's a thousands and thousands and thousands of couples that have liberated themselves in marriage from this show simply because they're given permission to have conversations with each other. Use the show as part of your date night play and listen to their show. Listen to this episode and then engage in the dialogue around the topics. We brought up like five or six massive topics today. These shows should give you permission to be able to have conversations that oftentimes are very painful and difficult to have. I like to put Danielle in the hot box on the show live because she can't run away and it helps us heal with personal on us. On flip side of this too. We have a couple of things coming up. Man and Arena Tour May 17th is our first stop on the tour. If you have not heard anything about what we're doing with the man arena tour, check it out. ManInThe Arena Tour.com and Danielle, you have a final thought as we wrap up for this show.

Yeah. Don't let your daughter bring home a dog.

Oh God. Do not let your daughters buy dogs.

Especially with fleas.

Yes, says the one who keeps buying ducks.

I mean, I have a dog.

Yeah, exactly. My daughters just follow your example. So let's go back to the root cause. I think that's been the topic of this whole show. Wow. Here we go.

Thrown under the bus.

This whole show.

Love it.

This show's been great. And that brings us to a wrap for another episode of the date your wife podcast.