Jake’s a big-shot engineer. An engineer who travels the country and lectures internationally. The rock star of engineers who trains other big-shot engineers. He’s brilliant.
Jake can’t reconcile himself to his own failure at home. He loves his kids, but he refuses to fully acknowledge his wife’s unhappiness.
Sure, it bugs him. And yes, he wants her to be happy. But instead of engaging with her, he’s thinking about throwing in the towel.
Do you ever think about throwing in the towel in your marriage?
“Why the hell not?” he says. “I’m happy in my life. But with her, all I get is a boatload of complaints.”
I nod. “Jake, why did you marry Emily?”
“She was charming, charismatic, the kind of woman who turned heads at a party.”
“So you married a trophy?” I say.
“Well… uh… no!”
“What else attracted you to her?” I say.
He pauses and thinks, goes a bit deeper.
“She was kind and loving. She had an open-hearted way about her.”
“Thank you.” I nod. “And now you’ve lost her heart and you want out?”
He pauses. “Yeah, but…”
There is no but. He knows it and stops short.
“You’ve focused on her unhappiness and her complaints as the problem. You’ve retreated into your work life and left her behind. True or false?”
No answer. Implied is true.
Do you sometimes want to just leave it all behind?
“So what do I do?” Jake asks me.
“You first decide if you want to save your family and resuscitate your marriage. It might mean you getting off your high horse of my life’s great, she’s a pain in the ass.”
“Ok. And how do I do that?”
I go on to teach Jake about relationality, about “we” consciousness instead of “me” consciousness, about having a relationship with his wife.
Do you want an authentic relationship with your wife?
You see Jake had diagnosed the problem – it was Emily’s unhappiness that was the problem. It wasn’t their marriage or his being emotionally checked out.
It’s something that I see with a lot of successful men who put themselves in this safe, constructed reality.
And it’s why so many men are stuck in their marriage.
Are you stuck in your marriage?
Learn why so many men get stuck in their relationship in the video below.
Within a few weeks, Jake starts spending more time at home, trying to help out around the house. He understands how he lost the sense of team with his wife.
He begins to now play for his family, instead of the fleeting egoic trip of accolades from his work colleagues.
Who would be at his deathbed at the end of his days?
Who would be walking with him in the next 10 years?
As a 47-year-old man, he starts thinking about these things.
What’s the long game you’re playing in your marriage?
Work was not the problem. But giving everything to work and little to his relationship was. No wonder Jake ended up in a marital shit show.
Jake began putting his home life in better balance with his work life. And after two months of working together, we brought Emily onto our calls.
I spoke with her alone first. It was important that she saw I wasn’t just working for Jake but for them as a couple.
In a month, they both learned to open up to one another, to hear each other’s side of the story, to stop reacting and start responding, and slow down and connect with one another.
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Previously Published on stuartmotola.com
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