"She Says That We Have Grown Apart"

'And John, you say that your wife has said that you have grown apart.' Well, John, is that true? Um, sometimes that happens. Sometimes it's not a nefarious, evil, conniving thing, meaning that they're fooling around with somebody else. And then again, sometimes it does. Um, you know, I've had some men come to me to try and flip it, the gender, so we can kind of empathize or see the point of view here. Not, not, not agreeing with it But just to kind of understand it, I have some men in our group, for example, who go through major life changes, usually in a more quote-unquote shallow variety, such as getting better physically. Guy loses 100 pounds, starts putting on muscle, joins a CrossFit class. That's the big brand name that is responsible for lots of different marital problems. So he joins this class, He's surrounded by a group of people that are all getting in shape and very youthful and energetic, and they look good, and he's starting to look like them. And then, wife, do you want to join me? No. No. Wife, do you want to get healthy with me? No. Wife, you're still 100 pounds overweight. I'm worried about you. Go to hell. They've kind of grown apart, and he's like, I don't want to be part of that unhealthy world anymore. That's one way that can kind of manifest itself. She went— and then John says, follow-up, she went back to school and she got her PhD. I'm retired Army. She— I am retired Army. She lost a lot of weight and she makes more money than I. That's the definition of grown apart, isn't it? She furthered her education, uh, the income, her looks, and she's probably just like what I described, isn't it, John? With surrounds herself with a new group of people, the PhD people, a bunch of intellectual types, and going back to school and losing weight, and comes home to John and she's like, hmm, I don't know if I want to do this anymore. And it sucks being on the other end of that, to be 100% transparent is what I'm trying to say. I went through something similar to that and I was on your end of things, John. I had an ex-wife who really got into the world of fitness. And that led to a lot of things which I won't talk about here because it's probably nobody's business, but which led to her inevitably saying, I don't want to be with you no more. And it sucks being on the other end of that. Years later, you come to terms with it and go, eh, I kind of get it. Unfortunate the way it went down, the way it transpired. A lot of better ways of doing what happened there, but it happened. Yeah. And bazillions of men and women that have been in our shoes, John, and it sucks. A lot of us being, quote, left behind when it comes to our partner improving. This is in essence why so many of us, uh, experience insecurity when we see that overt self-improvement from our partner. Why, you know, this is why the ladies in our life and This is what men in my group, the Brotherhood, the HFM Brotherhood, help4men.com, please join us. What they often report is, I decided to hell with this, I'm going to the gym and working out. And his woman seems to do anything and everything she can to get in the way of that. Instead of being his cheerleader, or hell, joining him, which is what he wants, she stays behind and bitches and moans and does all she can to sabotage his effort. And he's like, this makes no sense. She's like, other than myself, she's the other person who would benefit from all this work that I'm putting in. Why would she get in the way of that? Insecurity. She innately knows what John and the other John and myself have, have experienced. With a sense of self-improvement, a heightened sense of confidence and so forth, comes a separation between you two, which increases the chances of you two separating. That's basically it. And we are living proof that, yeah, that happens. Unfortunately, not always, probably not most of the time, but it happens.