What if the hardest truth is also the most freeing—that you’re the common denominator in your relationships? Paul joins us to unpack how a brutal breakup exposed his patterns, pushed him into deep study of attraction and evolutionary psychology, and ultimately led him to coach men through heartbreak, dating, and long-term connection. From chasing the white picket fence to covert contracts and passive aggression, he shows how “nice guy” habits quietly erode trust, desire, and respect.
We compare male idealistic love and female pragmatics without caricature, and examine how modern pressures—workplace competition, shifting roles, and faith perspectives—shape intimacy. The takeaway is clear: attraction thrives when a man holds a steady mental frame, doesn’t ride every emotional wave, and leads with calm rather than control.
Communication gets a reboot with the LUCA model—Listen, Understand, Clarity, Action—so partners feel heard before solutions arrive. We share how women can articulate needs plainly, how men can ask for the “guy’s version” without dismissing, and why genuine desire, not just talk, keeps the connection alive. We also tackle tender realities like midlife changes and perimenopause, and why softness and safety matter as much as logic and plans.
If you’re searching for breakup recovery, how to stop obsessing over an ex, or how to rebuild trust and attraction, this conversation offers field-tested tools and real hope.
If this resonated, follow the show, leave a rating and review, and share it with someone who needs a reset. What’s one habit you’ll practice this week to show up with presence and purpose?
To connect with Paul, you can do so on Instagram @comeonmanpodcast or on his site at comeonmanpod.com
To download a free chapter of host Sylvia Worsham’s bestselling book, In Faith, I Thrive: Finding Joy Through God’s Masterplan, purchase any of her products, or book a call with her, visit her website at www.sylviaworsham.com
Transcript:
If you’ve ever struggled with fear and doubt and worry and wondering what your truck is all about, this podcast is for you. In this show, your host, Sylvia Warsham, will interview elite experts and ordinary people that have created extraordinary lives. So here’s your host, Sylvia Warsham.
Hey Lightbringers, it’s Sylvia Warsham. Welcome to Release. When I wrote his description on PubMed, I just fell down laughing because I could hear my husband’s voice in the back of my head saying, Men need help too, you know. Why do you just coach women? I was like, I really loved his story. He’s an author. He he’ll tell you more about his story, but in in in a in a nutshell, he realized he was the common denominator in every relationship that kind of went bust. So he made it his mission to help men get over their crap. So that when they got into relationships, they would be free of it, healed, and can can start from a space of love, which is really where we want to start our relationships, anyways. So without further ado, Paul, thank you so much for joining us on Released Out Reveal Purpose.
Well, Celia, you uh you described me perfectly. I guess I think we’re done now. We can just wrap this up. No, but that that was that was the case. I uh I I was like most guys, you know. I I I was relatively good with women, I I’d like to think anyway. Uh when I was in high school, I always had girlfriends, but I was always that guy that was running for that white picket fence. And so any girl that was somewhat nice to me, I would go all in on that one and have the sniper mode mentality, overlook red flags, you know, not really get to know the person before I was just fully invested. And I was always the guy that was looking for my soulmate, you know, I’m looking for that white picket fence. And so uh I joined the Navy when I was uh 18 years old. And two years into that enlistment, I went home on leave and I met my my now ex-wife, and uh we met through mutual acquaintances, and but I lived in San Diego and she lived in Colorado, and that’s that’s where I grew up in Colorado. And so we had this long-distance relationship for about a year. I really didn’t know her that well because long-distance relationships are really just glorified pen pals, if you want if you’re gonna be honest. So you don’t really get to know someone unless you’re in person with them on a day-to-day basis. And I eventually convinced her to move out to San Diego with me, where I was stationed, and we eloped three months later because I was that guy who was I’m a protector, I’m a provider, and by God, I moved this girl out here, and it’s my duty to take care of her. And so uh we eloped, and I wanted to make sure that she had military benefits because I was getting ready to go on a deployment in my our first year of marriage. I was gone for nine months that year because uh I was gone for a three-month training cycle, back for a month, and then gone for six months on a full deployment in the Middle East, and so uh one might think that’s where all the problems started, but it actually wasn’t. The the first half of our marriage was pretty good, I would say, and we ended up having two wonderful children out of it. My daughter, she’s 20, she’s off at college, just killing it in life. My son just turned 16, got his driver’s license, he’s doing pretty good. But uh that the last half of our marriage, so we were married for 14 years, so that last seven years was it was just miserable. It was absolutely miserable. There were days where uh I would work 17-hour days because I just didn’t want to go home. I didn’t want to get an earful, and I knew as soon as I pulled in that driveway, I just had to like stay in my head for a minute and just clear my head because I just got done dealing with all the nonsense at work, and I knew I was gonna have to walk in the house and get an earful about what I wasn’t doing right in life and you know, just get nagged to death. And so I just didn’t want to go home a lot. There were days when I would go out to my garage and grab a cot and go sleep in my office because I didn’t want to sleep in the same room as her. You know, there was just it was just bad. And so uh the thing was though, I never would have quit. I never would have quit because I made vows and my parents are still together, they hate each other, but they’re still together. My both sets of grandparents, they stayed together. So I was like, this is just how life is. You’re just you get married, you have some kids, it’s fun at first, and then you’re just miserable for the rest of your life, and you’re a workhorse, and that’s your job as a man. And so I just was resolved to be miserable for the rest of my life, and thank God. Thank God she had enough. And in 2014, she filed for divorce. And so I found myself back on the dating circuit after 15 years of not having any practice. Uh, I was 50 pounds overweight, and I just floundered. I floundered for that that about 11 months that year uh on the dating circuit, you know, just not understanding women very well. And uh at 11 months at the 11 months mark, I met a gal that I I’d like to say took pity on me and went back into that old pattern of just the first girl is nice to me. I’m just going all in. And I ended up in a four and a half year relationship with her that I probably shouldn’t have been in longer than a couple of months. But I was looking for some some semblance of normalcy, and I wanted to get back to my life the way it was when I was married, and so I immediately fell back into husband mode where I didn’t feel like I had to try anymore. And so she luckily, she luckily I say it funny, uh, you know, in a funny way, luckily she checked out mentally from the relationship two years into that, and she spent the next two and a half years just lining up her male orbiters and trying to find a replacement. And and by the end of that relationship, she was just pushing me away and sort of acting so bad that I was like, I can’t do this anymore. And so I ended up breaking up with her, and then I came to find out that she was cheating on me at the end, and so it was after that relationship uh where I really had my epiphany because after that relationship, I I lost all the weight during that relationship. I decided to take my health back and get back in shape. And so after that relationship, I was able to get dates super easy, uh, but I couldn’t keep women around longer than two or three dates. And I was like, what am I doing wrong here? And that’s really where I had my epiphany because I was like, man, the two biggest relationships of my life failed. I’m back on the dating circuit. I have no idea what I’m doing with women, I can’t keep them around. I’m like literally repelling women. Um there’s something I’m doing wrong here. And so I realized that I was the common denominator. And uh one of the blessings of that second relationship, I I and I I call her Red Pill Chick uh on my podcast, just I’d like to keep people anonymous. So in my relationship with Red Pill Chick, one of the blessings was that she was really big into audiobooks and self-help books, and so she sort of got me into that. And I go, you know, I bet you there’s some books I could read on relationships and maybe you know fix this problem that I’m having. And so I did a uh a deep dive on in books on intersexual dynamics, the psychology of attraction, evolutionary psychology, just all this kind of stuff to figure out what I was doing wrong with women. And during that process, I ended up in a men’s group on Facebook. It’s it doesn’t exist anymore, but it was called the 3% man group. And we were all studying the work of a guy named Corey Wayne. He wrote a phenomenal book called How to Be a 3% Man. So we were all studying this book and going out dating and then sharing date updates, what worked, what didn’t, sort of swapping notes with the guys on what’s working and in relationships and stuff. And out of that, I started my podcast just to interview the other guys in the group, just see, hey, what what got you here? What landed you here? What met what did you mess up in your previous relationships that landed you in this space? And and all of us had uh uh very similar journeys. And so from that, the podcast started growing, and I started talking to other authors and some of the bigger names in the men’s self-help space. I eventually got invited on a Saturday uh panel show with with guys like uh I don’t know if your audience is familiar with these guys, but uh Rolo Tomasi and Rich Cooper and stuff like that, where we would just talk about intersexual dynamics and stuff on Saturdays, and that blew up into uh having a much bigger audience, starting to coach men, and then eventually writing my own books. And so I just I just recently re-released my fourth book, and it’s purely designed for guys going through the breakup process, and it’s sort of aimed at guys who I’ve seen over the last uh five to ten years of guys who get broken up with and they know they need to move on, but they can’t stop thinking about their ex. And so, um, and I’m sure you’ve met guys like this, I’m sure your audience members they have brothers like this where they’re just pine.
I have friends that I can, I’m already picturing who those are because of as a life coach myself, I pick up on energies, and when energies shift and when certain names come up, you see them tense up. Like their job tenses up, their their shoulders, it’s very clear physical signs. People, some people don’t notice those things. I tend to notice the subtleties in energy shifts. It’s probably why I’m a pretty good life coach. I know when people are lying uh because they’ll avert their eyes and they don’t and they’ll look down most most of the time, speaking about someone because they don’t want you to see the anger behind their eyes. And um, so yes, I have I have I have family members that I’m thinking of right now because I realize there’s there’s a question I really wanted to ask you, if I may. In your research and how you kind of came about doing this, did you ever notice the dynamics between your parents and what you were modeled as a kid? Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, that’s that’s so huge because no one teaches you how to be in a romantic relationship. We learn this from observation, from watching our parents interact with each other. And I absolutely turned into my dad in a marriage situation. And my dad’s very, he’s a he’s very much a classical nice guy. And when I say nice guy, I’m talking about guys that suffer from nice guy syndrome. He’s he’s passive aggressive, he does nice things to get things, and then when he doesn’t get those things, he’s angry about it. And it’s not because he’s doing it because he’s genuinely wanting to give, it’s because he’s trying to get something in return. Um, and I was that guy, I was totally that guy. You know, um, my relationship with Red Pill Chick, when when I first started dating her, I would buy her flowers every month. And it wasn’t because I was genuinely in hindsight, I realized this. It wasn’t because I was genuinely trying to show affection. It was really because I was trying to get brownie points and get on her good side and get that validation. And you could tell it was nice at first. She kind of liked it at first, but after a while it became meaningless, absolutely meaningless uh to her. And that was a tough pill for me to swallow at the end because I was always taught, you know, flowers and chocolates and be that guy and be that, you know, be super overly nice and accommodating and agreeable. And uh, but when things don’t go my way, that’s when the passive aggressiveness comes out, and that’s when I start getting angry and I have anger problems and stuff like that. And so I I that took a lot of uh self-awareness to get past all that kind of stuff. And it’s so it’s a day, it’s a work in progress thing. You’ll never the work never stops, and that’s what a lot of guys don’t understand. A lot of guys will read this type of material and they’ll do it just long enough to get their ex back or to fix their relationship to a point where they they’re happy again, or you know, it just till they get into their next relationship, and then they fall back on that old programming because they stop working on this stuff. And what I the biggest takeaway when I was studying this stuff was realizing that it’s constantly a work in progress. You’re never you’re never gonna be perfect at this. And so uh that’s one of the things that I try to really instill in the guys that I coach and in my books that hey, you’re gonna fall back on old programming if you don’t at least revisit this stuff once a year or something and keep it on the forefront of your mind and keep practicing at this stuff.
And that’s I I love that because people think um it’s gonna be a one and that’s it.
And that’s not how growth works. You’re always leveling up, I find, that once you reach a certain level, it’s kind of like a video game. To level up, you gotta do master other skills and continue the consistency of the skills you learned in the previous levels.
Do you find that to be true? Oh, that’s it’s absolutely true, and a lot of people just don’t realize this too. I mean, you can’t you can’t undo 20, 30, 40 years of bad relationship programming by reading one book one time or going to a couple of sessions with a coach. You you just can’t do it. It’s you’ve got decades of programming and neural pathways and all this kind of stuff in your mind that you’re going to naturally fall back onto. So you have to create new neural pathways and then keep reinforcing those because the old neural pathways never go away. You just you you you have to just really start actively focusing on going down these new neural pathways and making these new habits um stick. And so it’s yeah, the work never stops. You always have to keep working at it.
So do tell me from the male perspective, what tips can you give to the listeners of release doubt um to stay consistent with the habits?
Oh, that’s I mean, that’s really just a discipline over motivation type thing. Just realizing that you have to do it, so you need to do it whether you want to do it or not. Which that’s the hardest part. You know, that’s like it’s like going to the gym. You know, uh I I made a promise to myself back in 2016 that I was going to lose weight and start exercising at least Monday through Friday, no matter what. And so there, I mean, most days I don’t feel like it. I don’t feel like going to the gym. I don’t feel like going for a run or riding on my air bike or whatever. But I do it because I made a promise to myself to do it. And so I think that’s the key is developing that discipline of I’m gonna make this a habit now. I’m gonna at least revisit this stuff once a year, or you know, just make that a part of your morning commute, just listening to these types of audiobooks or whatever it is, listening to the podcast. But you’ve got to keep this stuff on the forefront of your mind and keep practicing it and not just paying it lip service. You’ve got to actually go out and and be active and aware and uh and practice this stuff.
Yes, you do, and I find that because you mentioned neurolinguistic programming, the deception of the mind is very powerful. Can you talk a little bit more about that because you are trained in this? Uh to guide guys specifically, and women that are guiding guys through this, like what what tips can you share there to get past the deception of the mind?
Yeah, one one fascinating thing about the mind that a lot of people don’t realize is that we have we have a negativity bias. And so one of the big things about realizing that is that it almost feels good to feel bad. So a lot of guys when a lot of guys uh default to anger, right? So women default to sadness in relationships, like so. If you’re you know she’s upset, she’s gonna cry. If he’s upset, he’s gonna be upset and yell and stuff like that. And so uh and when you’re mad in the moment, you want to almost stay there, right? Or when you’re sad in the moment, you almost want to stay there. And I think that’s one of the biggest things that guys need to uh be aware of. All everything comes down to awareness, is just recognizing when you’re doing something that’s not uh serving you, and staying in a negative mindset and negative mind state isn’t serving you at all. It feels good in the moment, though, right? Because the the in your brain’s telling you, like, yeah, you know, feel it feels good to be here, right? Like stay here, keep focusing on the negativity, keep focusing on what she did wrong, and keep fuming and being mad about it. And so as soon as you recognize that you’re in that pattern, it’s super important for guys to snap out of it. And you mentioned neurolinguistic programming. There’s one thing that uh I teach guys is uh what’s called an instant state change. And that’s where uh if you recognize you’re you’re in this pattern in the moment, uh a great way to force yourself into the present, because when you’re mad and angry and all that kind of stuff, you’re focused on something that happened in the past, you know, and the past doesn’t exist anymore, and the future doesn’t exist. The only thing that exists is right now, and so what forces you in the present is to just start focusing on things that you’re sensing and use all your five senses so you stop, look around, and start just sort of naming things that you’re seeing around in the room, and then take a deep breath. What does the air smell like? And then listen for things. What do you what do you hear right now? It forces you out of thinking about this negative thing and forces you in the moment so you can snap out of it. And once you’re snapped out of it and you’re in the present, now you can actively change your mindset into something positive. And a way to think of something positive is whatever you’re thinking about that’s negative, think of the exact opposite of it. You know, think of something uh, you know, uh a different scenario where everything is hunky-dory and everything’s great, and really start imagining that and visualizing that. And that’ll help you snap out of that kind of negativity in the moment.
I love that. I I do love that because the five senses is something that therapists use a lot um when males and females are in conflict, like in even in session. It’s like, okay, let’s stop for a moment. You both are very angry, let’s just reconnect with our senses and what are you feeling and what are you seeing? And it just it does calm you down immensely. But um one thing that uh came to mind as you were speaking was, and this is because I’m very curious about it. What have you found uh is the message that guys wish that their wives knew or that their partners knew about men?
Oh, interesting. That’s something I never really thought about. Let’s think about it for a moment. Yeah. Well, you know, it it’s interesting because a lot of guys a lot of one thing that both men and women I don’t think quite understand is that men tend to love idealistically and women tend to love a little more uh opportunistically, and that’s not to that’s not to disparage women at all, but uh that’s just how we’re sort of wired, right? So men are really the romantics, and women are more of uh what is he providing for me and my kids? And that that’s that it that that typically is how things play out. And if you think about it, um how many women do you know have married men that make less than them? There might be a few, but most most don’t. Most want a guy that’s making more money, you know, and it’s usually and it’s not necessarily that she doesn’t love him and you know she only loves him for his money, but that’s just something that’s wired in women is I need a guy that it can go out and slay the dragons and and can take handle business and take care of life’s problems and all this kind of stuff. And so a lot of it is what can he do for me and my kids, and for guys, it’s unconditional. It’s all it’s it’s as close as you’ll get to unconditional, where like a let’s say a highfalutin lawyer, he’s making$300,000,$500,000 a year, and he meets the the most beautiful, charming, sweet barista at at uh Starbucks. He will date that girl, fall in love with her, and marry that girl. Like he doesn’t care that she’s a barista. But if you have a high-falutin female attorney, she’s making$300,000 to$500,000 a year, and there’s like a cute guy at Starbucks, she’s not going to entertain that guy, you know, i i in a in a long term, I think.
Do you think do you think it’s the societal way that we’ve grown up? Or do you think this is a generational?
This is uh this goes back to this is an evolutionary psychology thing, and it makes sense too, because if you think about it, especially back back in caveman times, you Know uh a woman has a lot of responsibility when it comes to procreation. You know, she can only get pregnant at one time and then she’s basically cooked for nine months, and so and then she’s got to take care of this offspring for the rest of her life, and a guy can come and go and and and not have to take care of these kids. So it it it sort of was uh the women that survived, the women and the children that survived were because women were smart about trying to find a guy that would stick around and be able to protect her and and her offspring, especially protect her while she’s pregnant and she can’t do anything. Like she needs a guy that can stick around. So it it behooved women to find guys that would stick around and be able to protect and provide for her and her children, and so that just carried over through evolution. And then and nowadays there are a lot of women that make more than men, you know. There’s in fact, just statistically, that’s uh it keeps that that gap keeps growing. And so, but the thing is that women are still programmed a certain way, men are still programmed a certain way, and so they still are looking for a a higher earning guy. So maybe the high flutant attorney, she’s looking for a doctor that makes more than her or something like that, you know what I mean? And so it just sort of it it’s at every level. And and so what what women don’t quite understand is that um these guys would, I mean, literally die for you, you know, and it’s if you if there I saw this video the other day where uh they were interviewing women. They were interviewing women and they asked them, okay, if if something bad was to happen, uh would you give your life for your husband or should he give his life for you? And every single one of those women is like, oh, well, he should he should give his life for me, obviously, you know. Which which is it it’s an interesting dynamic because every guy would be out there going, oh, I would die for her. I would die for her. No, but it’s interesting. They die for her, but they won’t change for her.
Right?
I find that very interesting, don’t you? I do find that interesting. And we were we were talking about that offline, how most guys don’t seek this help out. You know, if I if I really wanted to be a shady internet grifter guy, I would try to coach only women because I would make more money doing it. You know, but guys just don’t spend the money on the help that they need unless unless everything’s going to hell in a handbasket.
Well, and the thing is, the society think of it though. I mean, society does play a role. They kind of paying men against women constantly. There’s this constant competition between us. Yeah, and that competition also spills into the marriage because it’s almost like competing. Like, well, I make more and I’m not, and it’s like it’s not supposed to be that way. You know, the the in the God-centered marriage, it’s up one individual. You’re working as a partnership. The woman is the helper, right? And you know, he takes the rib out of Adam, you know, and creates Eve. And you’re thinking, okay, the rib is close to the heart. This woman is there to protect his heart. And so if you kind of bring the spiritual side of things, it’s a very different dynamic. However, I read a couple of books on the matter of men and women being very biologically different. The one that I loved because they did it in novel form was Keys to the Kingdom. And it’s by all the stages.
My girlfriend reads that on repeat. That’s yes, it’s the best.
Keys to the kingdom and Queen’s Code were the two books because they follow each other, right? So Keys to the Kingdom is first, and then Queen’s Code. And what I found so interesting about those books, for those that are listening, is that you’re you are in fact correct. Men would die for their women. They’re really romantic and they’re really uh programmed to be true partners. The problem is that women, from the time they’re little, are not given the same um equality, if you will, of men. Like it really is there, it’s still there, it’s very subtle, but it is still there, and in some countries it’s rightly there. You know, you go into and it spills into the way we think about men. We think like we we constantly have to compete with them. The truth is we don’t. We can look at our guys and say, you know, he’s really good at protecting, so I’m just gonna rely on him for that. I’m good at nurturing, so he should rely on me for that, you know, and it’s and it’s not this, I gotta do everything for her, she can’t do anything for me, but they’re programmed that way as well.
Yeah. You know, I I would say that’s probably been worse since since the 60s, uh, just because it very well. Women are competing against men, especially in the workforce, which actually sort of forces them to be more masculine. And so then they tend to carry that over to the relationships where they’re just, you know, sort of ball busting and you know, it’s my by way of the highway, and they end up setting the tone and leading their relationships where then they when they when they have to do that. The funny thing about that is they do that and then they resent their men for not setting the tone and leading the relationships. And so, uh, and but a lot of guys are just also taught happy wife, happy life. Like, let her do it. Like we gotta let her make all the decisions because if if if if I if I make a decision and she doesn’t like it, she’s gonna be unhappy, and we can’t have that. And so that’s that’s going back and forth.
It’s so comical, yeah. You know, but I find that on the God perspective, He actually, God actually tells the man, you are you are the leader, spiritual leader of the home. You need to lead. In other words, you are she’s not the only one just submitting to you, you need to submit to her as well. It’s it’s a mutual submission to each other so that the the individuals become one, which is really the way marriage truly will like shines when you see the back and forth and they’re relying each on each other’s strengths, and when we are weaker, like when we go through grief or loss, the spouse is there. Like my husband was there when my father was passing away last year. It was one of the toughest losses any of us can go through. It’s it was my biggest fear, and he was right there and supported me. And I don’t forget those things as his wife, you know, and now it’s like okay, if if I sense that he’s a little bit more stressed at work, it’s trying to keep the kids away from him so he can, you know, chillax after work, um, which is what Queen’s Code talks about. It talks about how women tend to turn their men into frogs, like instead of the prince into the frog, but like frog farmers is the term she uses. I burst out laughing because I was like, this is so comical. Because, in essence, as women, we want our men to be like us, but they’re not, they’re men. They’re single focus. Like they the example I always share that just makes everybody laugh is the example that um Allison Armstrong shares in Queen’s Code, which is you know, a guy gets hungry, he goes to the refrigerator, he gets food, he eats, he goes back to work. A woman gets hungry, we go to the refrigerator, we notice something that’s like out of place, we start cleaning the refrigerator, then we forget why we were there in the first place, and we’re starving. Hungry. And we get so frustrated with our men when they’re like that. Well, they had to be that way because they were the hunters, they had to have the single focus, or his family didn’t eat. The women were the nurturers, yeah. They had to know all the details. So she she talks about the meadow report, how women just keep talking and talking, it just drives men crazy. Well, we’re sharing all the details because that’s our meadow report. This is what we did from the beginning of time, right?
Yeah, that’s that’s very good. One one of the things that uh I tell guys too is because uh I was guilty of this. Uh when women are sharing all these stories, a lot of us tune out because there’s so many side tangents that we can’t focus on it, and then next thing you know, we’re thinking about anything else but what she’s saying, and then women can sense that you’re not paying attention, and so then they’re like, What did I say? What did I say, right? And then all of a sudden, ah, sorry, honey, I wasn’t paying attention, and then you always do this, and then it’s a big fight, right? And so what I tell guys is uh, you know, it’s important to listen to your girl um because she wants to feel heard and understood, but it’s also okay to ask her to tell you the guy’s version, you know, hey honey, I really want to hear this story, but can you give it to me in the guy’s version? Just condense this down a little bit. Um, you know, and I think sometimes uh a woman might get offended by that, but uh eventually you if you’re if you’re uh consistent with it and you’re you say it in a sort of a playful, fun way and not an insulting way, like they they can they can usually accommodate that. And I’ve never had a problem with that. My my girlfriend doesn’t talk, you know, so I’m a lot of guys think I have a unicorn, but my daughter is like that. My daughter will just run her mouth and it’s like it’s a lot. Yeah, hey honey, can you can you just condense that down into a into a guy’s version so I can so I can take it all in, you know?
Yeah, because she she would talk about how men listen to solve a problem. And that’s why as women we have to tell our guys, I just want you to listen. There’s nothing to solve here.
That that that’s the big thing that I tell guys on the opposite end is uh we initially, yeah, we instinctively want to go, well, there’s a clear solution here to your nail in the head problem. Have you seen that, the nail in the head video? No, no, I need to watch that. Let me write that down because I will forget. It’s called it’s called it’s not about the nail. And the video is a is a woman sitting there going, I just I just feel this sense of pressure, and I’m you know, and it and and and and it’s really I just got this big headache, and and it, you know, do you understand like how I feel right now? And the guy’s like, well, yeah, and as it zooms out, she’s got a nail sticking out of her head. And the guy’s like, well, you’ve got a nail in your head. And she’s like, you you always make it about something else, okay? It’s about I just want you to listen and stuff. And he’s like, What but I think if you just pulled that out and she’s like, No, you don’t understand, it’s not about the nail. And and that’s true, that’s how that’s how it is. And so for guys, because we’re fixers, we want to fix everything. And I tell guys, like, look, man, it you don’t have to own her problems. It’s actually quite freeing when you don’t and you just go, oh, and how does that nail make you feel? You know, it’s not logical, but uh, you know, women are more about feelings and get expressing their emotions and stuff, and guys are about you know, in the moment, fixing stuff, and it’s all about logic and reasoning most of the time. Uh, it is.
It is because I I married an electrical engineer and I’m an author, and uh I’ve coached I’m on the opposite end of the spectrum, so you can imagine like our discussions. It’s joyful, it’s joyful sometimes, but uh I I learned a tremendous amount and I reread Queen’s Code uh from time to time because I get so much out of it. I actually took so many notes the first go around. The second go around I actually enjoyed the book. Um, and I find that it is true. A lot of these concepts are very, very true. She does the trainings, which I contemplated doing because I thought, why not? You know, the more I can learn about the opposite sex, the bet the best way I can relate to all the males in my life, not just my husband, my child, my son, my 20-year-old son. So, you know, I think we’ve gone through tips, and I can sense that this is truly your divine purpose. You’re really in what you’re meant to do in your life.
Oh, yeah, definitely. I I I often say on my podcast that I my my purpose in life is to help men level up and get better with women. And the funny thing about doing that is it tends to make us better men in all areas of our lives.
What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned in this journey?
The biggest lesson I’ve learned is uh having a a solid mental frame in in your relationship. And uh a lot of guys don’t don’t have a mental frame. In fact, most of the time they’re operating in their wife’s or their girlfriend’s frames. And that’s where you get the happy wife, happy life scenario where you’re just constantly worrying about her reactions to things and her emotions to things and what she might think. And when you step back and you stop worrying about that stuff so much, and you get more centered in in what what you think and what you care about, and be a little more have make yourself uh more of your mental point of origin, you’ll tend that your relationship tends to fall into place. And when you have good mental frame, you don’t have to own her emotions, you don’t have to always fix her problems. And you’ll find that she finds you more attractive when you’re not climbing on her emotional roller coaster and you stay grounded and you can actually be the rock that she needs to live on.
Yeah, he gets triggered a lot. My husband will tend to get triggered if my emotions, which makes me not feel secure in sharing them. Yeah. Yeah, and so I’m sharing this with your guys when you release this interview. That for women, we need our guys to be sometimes our sounding board, which is not fair, but in retrospect, we can be their sounding board as well. I mean, if it’s a give and receive uh scenario, right? But sometimes I want to be able to relax and be me and not be constantly on edge. Um, because our nervous systems cannot relax as women, uh, when we have to be very careful how we position what we’re saying to y’all. Because if you get triggered by everything, then what I mean, then we’re never gonna be able to be ourselves when we’re um when we’re upset, it kind of always plays into them. It’s like, oh, you’re crossing my boundary. It’s like, no, we’re I’m expressing like something that’s actually happening for me. Like, I’ll give an example. I’m 50, I’m about to turn 51, and I’m in perimenopause, and that throws a whole different dynamic into our marriage because my hormonal changes are going like if they’re dropping dramatically. I medically cannot take hormone replacement therapy because it’s contraindicated. I nearly died from taking birth control pills in 2012, so I will never be able to touch anything with hormone replacement. So I gotta go the holistic route. I’ve done the holistic route, it’s not always the best because the weight gain and all these changes that just start occurring in women’s lives, very pronounced. Our men don’t realize how much it affects us emotionally and mentally. And so I have just been in like we went to Hawaii, I took a picture, and I have been like not dieting, but I had worked with the doctor, I’m not eating additional sugars. I mean, like it’s a very hardcore thing that I’m doing because I gotta do it. And I saw myself on the picture and I just my I just I got so deflated, you know, because I see a lot of people that are taking the the route of the shots and they’re dropping so many pounds and all these things, and I’m just like I contemplated doing that, but I don’t want to do that because I don’t really need to do that. I don’t have an obesity issue, my BMI is is perfectly normal, but I just mentally like I’ve always been very active. I’ve played pickleball and I do a weight training class, and so it’s a very big deal for me. So I take the picture and I look at it, and my husband’s like, why can’t you just be happy taking the picture? And I was just like, you know, that’s very inconsiderate. It’s yeah, you don’t know what I’m going through. And I just sat there and I got very quiet. I didn’t get angry, I got sad. And I on the way back to the to the condo, I said, you know, Donnie, I I’m going through these major emotional uh roller coaster. And I really I wish I wasn’t that person. I wish I could just accept the fact that I’m going to gain weight. I I wish I could accept the fact that I can’t do the easy route like a lot of women can do with the hormone replacement, that I’ve got to work harder at this because if I take something, I’m it might kill me. And um I just want you to understand that no matter how much how hard I try, it uh I feel really bad just looking at it. It has nothing to do with not enjoying the moment with our daughter, because it was a picture with our daughter, and it just was like, I just felt awful. And then he just I I don’t know if the Holy Spirit spoke into him, but he just kind of reached over and grabbed my hand because I’m you know, I didn’t realize that that’s what was happening. And I think men out there need to realize that we need softness. Women need to be related to in a softer way. This logical, truth-telling way does not work for us at all. Yeah, it makes us feel like we always have to be on, like we can never be vulnerable with you guys and and let our guard down. And if you really want a partnership with us, learn how to be softer with us. Just FYI.
Well, one of the things that I I teach guys um in my uh my third book, well, my last two books have really edgy titles, but this one’s for guys in like a dead bedroom situation. Um get her to but uh I I teach guys uh what uh is called the Luca model of communication, which is uh listen listen, understand, clarity, action. And um I got the acronym from a friend of mine in the space, his name is Paul Benjamin, genius guy, and so I I made sure to put that in the book, but it’s all about listening and not because most guys aren’t listening. Most guys are just thinking about the next thing they’re gonna say, they’re getting defensive, they want to explain and rationalize things, and it just doesn’t work right. And so if you just shut up and let her emote and talk about her feelings and what’s bothering her, and then you just ask clarifying questions and get an understanding of what she’s actually going through, she’ll feel heard and understood, and that then she’ll feel a lot more closer to you, and and you can actually get to some semblance of resolution to things, and that’s where the action comes in. And sometimes the action is to just listen, you don’t have to you know solve a problem at all. Um one thing that you did, I think, really well there that I think a lot of women don’t, is that you took a moment to articulate what you need and what what your problem is, and you were very clear with it, which is a lot of women won’t do that. And I would say uh if if you have any female listeners, they probably are guilty of this. They expect men to just get it. They you know, hey, that’s where guys are like, I’m not a mind reader, right? And so uh one thing that I try to teach guys is how to be more perceptive and pay attention and just get it because a lot of their a lot of their women won’t articulate that stuff, they won’t be direct and like that. Uh they hint at things, they’re very subtle at things, and they hope you just sort of pick things up, but guys are awful at that. Guys are absolutely awful at that. So um, yeah, it’s kind of a it’s a fascinating dynamic because we’re often told communication is the key to a healthy relationship, but men and women communicate completely differently. Women are more covert and you know, you know, subtle, and guys are more direct, and this is what I mean. And it’s it’s like we’re speaking different languages. So um what I often say on my show is communication is not the key to a healthy relationship, uh, genuine desire is, but communication is great for conflict resolution. So if anyone wanted to book you or get you on their podcast, how do they reach you, Paul? I would say the the best way to find me is if you go to uh if you go to get over your x dot us. It’s my blog. There’s a uh link at the top to book a call with me. That’s a great way to get a hold of me. You can also find me on social media and you can reach reach out to me on all the different platforms that I’m on. I I my my inbox is open.
Well, it was amazing having you on the show. Thank you so much for joining us on release out reveal purpose. And I just wanted to uh say I really enjoyed our conversation and our mutual collaboration thing. This is what guys want girls to think, and I want it guys to understand about women because what we’re in it is to help relationships thrive and and maybe reduce the the divorce rate that is currently out there. So thank you, Paul, for being on Release Doubt Reveal Purpose. And for the listeners, remember Matthew 5.14, be the light. Have a wonderful week, guys. Stay safe. Love you all. Bye now.
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