In this monologue, the speaker warns that contempt—exalting oneself over one’s wife—is a destructive behavior that can lead to divorce. Contempt is described as an ego‑driven need to appear superior, control the relationship, and chip away at a partner’s self‑esteem. The speaker argues that true humility is not thinking less of oneself but thinking of oneself less, which involves validating a spouse’s perspective even without agreement. He emphasizes the importance of building up, inspiring, and sacrificing for one’s partner, noting that neglecting these actions turns the marriage into a sacrifice. The root of contempt is traced to unresolved personal wounds that were buried before the marriage, which surface as a need to dominate. The talk calls for creative, compassionate adaptation, replacing business‑style power dynamics with love, empathy, and mutual support to prevent self‑sabotage and preserve the marriage.
Chapters
This one behavior, if you don't stop this behavior in your marriage, it will be the cause of divorce. What's the behavior? Contempt. Now, what is contempt? Contempt is when I exalt myself over my wife. I make myself appear superior to my wife as though I have all the answers and the way that I think is always right and I know everything there is to be known and I know what's happening and why it's happening. And I slowly chip away at my wife's self-confidence. I slowly chip away at my wife's self-esteem. Why? Because I need to overcompensate, and I always have to be the one who's in control. I always have to be the one who's in charge. I always have to be the one who's right, who has the answers. You're ego-driven, and your ego— your ego, your inability to be humble is going to kill your marriage. See, humility isn't thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less. It's thinking of your wife's perspective. It's learning how to validate your wife. See, I can validate my wife without agreeing with her, and I can validate my wife and not agree with her and not have to tell her that I don't agree with her. Yeah, you know what, honey, I can see that. I can see that perspective. Yeah, I don't have to agree with it, but I can validate it. My wife is my— my wife is my partner, one of my greatest assets that God ever gave me is this person in my life. Why would I want to spend my life with somebody that isn't at a level that I want to be at in my life? So I'm going to tear down the person that I need to live with, that I have to spend my life with. That's the ultimate form of self-sabotage. How are you not seeing this? You build them up. You're building up somebody with you. You should be bringing out the best in them, inspiring them, uplifting them, validating them, showing them compassion, love, empathy. Putting them first in your life at times, sacrificing. If you don't make sacrifices for what you want, then what you want will become the sacrifice. If you don't make sacrifices for a healthy, loving, passionate marriage, then that's exactly what's going to be the sacrifice. And what do you need to sacrifice to do that? Realizing that I don't need to use this power through mentality, this ego-driven mentality that I've used in my business, in my marriage, because it's like trying to fit a round peg through a square hole. It doesn't work. It's not working. It's not working, brother. And you need to get creative and ingenuitive in terms of how you learn to adapt and show love to your wife. You can't create a marriage that's one-sided. You can't create a marriage where you're constantly putting down your wife, exalting yourself over her to appear superior. Why do you need to do that? No, no, let me ask you, where is that coming from in you? Where is it coming from in you that you need to exalt yourself over your own wife to appear superior? I'm going to tell you where that's coming from. It's coming from a place in you that you buried long before you even met your wife, and now that wound is bleeding out all over your marriage. You got a gaping hole in your heart, bro, and instead of tending to that, instead of doing that work, you know what you've done? Denied it was even there.
