Why Doing Everything Right Fails

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I've spoken at this point over a decade of doing this work with men. I've spoken to thousands and thousands of dudes. And a phrase that I will often hear is, "Dude, my relationship disintegrated," like they went through a divorce or whatever it may be, "and I honestly don't know what else I could have done." And what he means by that is he showed up in the relationship, he was loyal, he was faithful, he worked, he provided, he listened, he didn't disappear from the relationship, he went to therapy, he was patient, he was understanding. And despite all of that, the relationship still broke. Down. The sex life still died. The emotional distance between he and his wife still grew and grew over time. This is confusing to the guy in a way that most people just don't understand. After all, he did everything right, and somehow that still made things exponentially worse. Today we're going to talk about why exactly that phrase, doing everything right, is a big part of the problem. And it's not because men shouldn't be good partners, so to speak, And it's not because all women are evil and terrible. It's because, quote, doing everything right kind of becomes a survival strategy, if you will. And that strategy comes with a cost. Most men I talk to don't just want to become good husbands, so to speak. They want to become bulletproof husbands. They want to be guys who can't be blamed. They want to be guys who can't be accused. They want to be guys who can't be faulted. So they organize their behavior in the relationship around one goal. Remove every possible means of conflict. And to a lot of men, based on the way that we were raised, that sounds noble. It sounds like the good thing to do. But over time, all that turns into is over-functioning. What that over-functioning looks like is managing her emotions, always anticipating her needs, swallowing your frustration, avoiding those hard conversations, avoiding the drama, editing yourself constantly. And the umbrella term that you can apply to all of this is choosing your peace over honesty. You tell yourself, this is just what mature men do. This is what commitment looks like. This is how relationships survive. And maybe it does survive, but just for a little while. Eventually, something will flip in the relationship. When you constantly live under the theme of being the guy who doesn't rock the boat, You stop asking one critical question. Does this relationship work for me? And all you guys who say you did everything right, you stopped asking that question of yourself years ago, if you ever asked it. Instead, you ask, how do I make this relationship easier? How do I keep her calm? How do I avoid another fight? That is not partnership per se. That's just being an emotional manager. Here's one big point I wanna make. Remember this. Attraction to another person does not grow when one person is constantly editing themselves. You become predictable, you become safe, you become reliable, which are all great things, but when they are built on the foundation of fear, fear of conflict, all that comes at the expense of polarity in a relationship. Another big point for you guys to remember, there is a big difference between being a good man and being a manageable man or a controllable man. A very manageable man is one that is easy to anticipate. You are very easy to emotionally regulate. You are very easy to lean on and you are very easy to take for granted. You are not dangerous. You are not disruptive in any way and you are not surprising. And that removes any and all tension, positive or otherwise, from the relationship. There is one such belief that keeps men stuck in dysfunctional relationships. And that is, if I am patient enough, if I wait this out, she will eventually see just how much I care about her and our relationship. You don't announce it necessarily. You don't write this stuff down. But internally, you tell yourself, all this work that I am doing has to mean something eventually. And then when it doesn't result in anything, that's when the old resentment kicks in, doesn't it? And that resentment as a man, for most of you nice guys out there, doesn't show up as, you know, really aggressive anger. It shows up as withdrawal. Quiet bitterness, passive aggressiveness, passive disappointment, feeling very unappreciated, and eventually getting to the point of saying, "What's the point of all this?" And the cruel irony of all this— yes, there's a lot of irony in relationships, as I often say— is that the more resentment you suppress and keep down, and the more you keep doing the, quote, "right thing" in the relationship, the less attractive you become. Because all that resentment, it leaks and bubbles to the surface. Trust me. Your posture is different. Your presence in the room is different. Everything says, "This is a guy that I can't really trust here because obviously lurking under the surface is a bunch of stuff he's not talking about." How ironic. You're trying to be Mr. Safe and Predictable and keep the waters calm, but your resentment builds and builds and builds to the point where everyone can see it and nobody trusts you anymore. So if you're like most guys, you double down on your efforts. More patience, more understanding, more sacrifice, and more and more self-denial. Because as a man, we are taught over and over again, directly or indirectly, that endurance equals virtue. Good men stay, good men sacrifice, good men do not quit. So when things invariably get worse and worse, we don't run for the hills, we just continue to absorb it. This is precisely why so many of you guys, after years, if not decades, of a dysfunctional relationship, when you finally get to the finish line with the inevitable divorce, What does every guy say? I don't even recognize myself anymore. I don't know who the hell I am. And this happened in part to thousands and thousands of moments where you just swallow the truth instead of speaking out, instead of sticking up for yourself, instead of having boundaries and saying, this is what I like and don't like. You played the part of the nice guy. Some of you guys still in such relationships, you eventually say, you know what? I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. Maybe you read my latest book, Rebuild, and by the way, you can learn more at readrebuild.com, and you do the hard work of building what I call the 7 pillars and following the blueprint for success. You go to therapy, you start working on yourself, you start building confidence, and you stop chasing approval, and you reclaim yourself again, if not building a brand new version of yourself. You become calmer, more grounded, and more directed in life, and instead of the relationship improving, you start seeing things more clearly. And you realize you were holding this relationship together by abandoning yourself. And that realization for a lot of men is brutal. It means that the relationship didn't survive on mutual effort. It survived on imbalance. Here's the brutal truth, guys. You can do everything in the world right, and you can still be in the wrong relationship to the wrong person. If one person in a relationship grows by making the other person smaller, by suppressing them, by keeping them down, that gap does eventually become unbearable. And this, for many men, is where the guilt starts coming in. If I stop doing all these things, then I'm selfish. If I set boundaries, then I'm an a-hole. If I choose myself ever, I am failing as a man. But here's how you reframe the whole situation. Self-respect is not selfish. Healthy relationships require two people who are at times willing to tolerate discomfort, two people who are willing to self-reflect, two people who are willing to risk tension in a relationship, and yes, two people who are willing to grow together. And if one person is doing all the work, that is a fast track to disconnection. Let me make this abundantly clear for you guys. This is not about becoming about being cold and distant and manipulative. It's not about purposely withholding love. It's about stopping the belief, the overwhelming encompassing belief that your love and your devotion and the quality of your relationship is based on how much you can endure. Some of you out there will finally realize this and you will stop disappearing in a relationship. And once you stop disappearing, Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, depends on how you wanna look at it, your relationship will not survive the truth. So for those of you saying, "I did everything right. How can this still fall apart?" The answer may not be that you failed, dude. The answer may be that the version of you that was holding this all together alone wasn't living honestly. And when you finally showed up for yourself, the relationship couldn't survive that. 'cause it was at baseline built on a very shaky foundation. That's very painful for a lot of guys to hear, but it's very clarifying. And that clarity is the beginning of the rebuilding phase of your life, whether it's rebuilding your relationship or just rebuilding you. Guys, if this hits close to home for you, you ain't alone. You are waking up to something that most men were never taught. Doing everything right, Does not guarantee connection, but abandoning yourself does guarantee resentment. Guys, if you like this type of content, give me a like, give me a subscribe, give me a follow, however it works, wherever you're watching this. Leave a comment down below. What do you think of all this? And check out our website at help4men.com and the Brotherhood, our private support community for men only. All right guys, thanks for watching.

Catch you on the next one.