A speaker tells Tim his marriage problems stem from his own lack of leadership and emotional investment, not his wife's resentment. Tim has avoided hard conversations and neglected the relationship, and divorce is the weak way out. Taking ownership and fighting for the marriage can rebuild intimacy.
Tim, I'm having all these problems in my marriage. My wife is withholding physical intimacy with me. She seems resentful and hostile towards me. It seems like nothing I ever do is good enough. It seems like I just can't make my wife happy. Well, let me ask you this. It wasn't always like this, was it? It wasn't always like this, was it? No, it wasn't. And so I'm going to tell you a harsh reality that probably every other person in your life will not tell you. It's your fault. It's your fault. Because your wife and the state of her, her emotional state on a day-to-day basis, that's a reflection of what you pour into her. Your wife, her moods, what she puts into the children, her level of happiness and fulfillment in your home is a reflection of you and your lack of leadership. And see, that's the harsh truth and reality that a lot of men don't want to face. You know what they want to do? They want to blame it on their wife, and they want to take the exit door, which is what? Get divorced, because that's easier. Weak, passive Insecure men who don't want to take the hard road to get to a better place get divorced. Divorce is easy. It's easy. Know why? It requires nothing from you. Requires nothing from you. You know what it doesn't require you to do? Look at yourself in the mirror and get real raw and brutally honest with yourself about why it ended up like this. You sit back and you blame your wife and you make your wife the scapegoat for why your marriage has gone downhill. So that's what you do now. That's, that's how you face every problem in your life is by blaming somebody else. Oh, you'll take ownership of the victories. All these good things that I did for my wife, and I just don't understand Yeah, you do. Stop telling yourself that lie. Stop lying to yourself about how I don't know what happened and how we ended up here. Yeah, you do. Yes, you do. Yes, you do. Let me ask you this: when you go back in time, can you identify a precipitating event that led to this moment that you're in right now? A lot of times guys realize, yeah, I wasn't there for my wife during this time, or yeah, you know, when, when this person passed away, or when, when this thing happened, when I cheated on my wife, when something, something happened. And what took place is because you're probably more of the avoidant type, hence the reason why you want to get divorced. Because you're more the avoidant type, what you probably did is you swept it under the rug and you didn't want to have the hard conversations about your wife, about how she was affected or what she was going through. And then you create that wedge. You create that wedge. And see, the reason that you allowed that wedge to stay there is because it allowed you to just do you. It allowed you to just go off on your path to do what you wanted to do and not have the obligation to connect with your wife. You can't be married and act like you're single, bro. You can't be married and act like you're single. You're married. Guess what? That was a vow. That was an oath that you made. The only reason you want to back out of it is because you don't want to do the hard work that's required to make it better than it ever was. Yeah, I said it— better than it ever was. Because the adversity that you go through in your marriage is oftentimes the foundation which creates a brand new emotional connection in a relationship with emotional and physical intimacy that far exceeded what you had before. Why? Because you know and your wife knows that he has my back, that my husband will go to war to save this marriage. My husband will go to war to save this marriage, to save this family. And to be the leader that God called him to be. So make a choice: run away or rise.
