Episode #604
Did you know that 70% of divorces are initiated by women? With that number going up to 90% if she has a college degree?
So if things aren’t going well in your marriage…. what’s holding you back from saving it?
YOU need to take ownership of your life EVEN if she doesn’t want to make a change. Because you can change your entire marriage by just showing up differently because she is responding to how YOU show up in the relationship.
In this episode, we’ll talk about the fastest way to fix a struggling marriage as an Alpha and what to do to be more interesting to your partner so you can keep the spark alive in the relationship.
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Doug Holt: Hey, guys, welcome back to another episode of the TPM show. I’m your host, Doug Holt with my co-host Tim The Powerful Man Matthews. I missed that introduction, buddy. We still love doing that. I loved your reaction when I first started calling you The Powerful Man Matthews, how excited you were.
Tim Matthews: Excited…
Doug Holt: You get so excited. My son jumps up and down when he’s excited. I picture you over there…
Tim Matthews: Oh, come off it. Fucking hell.
Doug Holt: Well, Tim, today we’re going to talk about the fastest way to fix a struggling marriage without your wife’s help. So this topic comes up because a lot of guys have been saying, well, geez, you know, I can’t fix my marriage on my own, my wife needs to do the work first. And this is the classic scenario where the guy believes that it’s all his wife’s fault, and there’s nothing that he can do. And that’s not the case.
In fact, most of our men who come into our program, the Activation Method, which is our flagship program, when they come into the AM, what they find is, usually for most guys, within a few weeks, they’re able to start turning their marriage around. Now doesn’t happen to all the guys. Some take longer. Some guys, unfortunately, have left it too late. And here we are coming through the holidays. So, I think this is especially timely because obviously during the holidays, what tends to happen is there’s more stress, and there’s more demands put on you, your wife, and the relationship. And out of that comes a lot of shit tests, a lot of testing of who you are.
But more importantly, after the holidays, in the first week of January, it’s known as divorce day. And that’s where most of the divorces are filed. lawyers call it divorce day. You can Google this. And over 70% of divorces are filed by the woman. And that goes up to 90% of divorces are filed by the wife if she has a college education or above. So, what is the fastest way to fix a struggling marriage without your wife’s help? Well, we’re gonna get into the details here in a little bit. But let me give you a hint. It has to do with the man listening to this, the man watching this. The fastest way to fix your struggling marriage is to start working on you, to start becoming the better version of you. The best version of you. As you start on that journey. Things start to shape up. Dominoes get in alignment, and you need that first domino to push over.
Tim Matthews: Yeah, I want to take us right back to the beginning just for a moment. Because I think it’s very important. If you resonate with this, and you are finding yourself telling yourself the story that you can’t fix it until your wife fixes it, then I would like for you to consider how you might be giving away the frame to your wife and the leadership to your wife in many other areas of the marriage. Because the reality is, there’s a very clear indication that if you’re buying into this story, then you have given away the leadership, and you are looking to your wife for direction, and you are looking to your wife for permission. And when she says okay, let’s fix this, you then go and get to work.
That is not what she wants, and that is highly unlikely to happen. And more importantly, that is not what you want. You don’t want your wife to say, okay, let’s fix this. And then you go, okay, yeah, let’s fix this, and you follow her lead. That’s not the best situation, in our experience. And you know, we’ve worked with a lot of marriages, a lot of men who have been on the brink of divorce, who have been separated, sleeping in separate rooms, haven’t had sex for years. And every time they see a huge shift, and it all comes from what Doug’s gonna share with you.
Doug Holt: Yeah. And so guys, when you look at this, and you’re looking at the fastest way, the fastest way to do it is starting with the ARS, your Alpha Rise and Shine. We’ve done a lot of podcasts on exactly how we teach the ARS. We do it a little differently. So, if you’re in a coaching environment, we actually customize it for the guys. But starting with your ARS, what is going to happen – if you don’t already have this morning routine, and it coincides with the decompression routine, which we’ll talk about – but the ARS, what tends to happen for the guys, is, all of a sudden, your wife notices that you’re getting up early in the morning. She’s like, what the heck is he doing? And not only that, but you’re taking care of yourself, right?
You’re doing your meditation, whether it be a walking meditation, a seated meditation, you’re doing your exercises, you’re working out, you’re taking care of your health, your vibrancy is increasing by doing this. you’re also journaling. So, you’re learning new skills as you’re journaling and getting things out. Your wife is seeing this happen. Now, this is akin to investing in a stock, and then all of a sudden you see the stock’s price start to rise. And when you see a stock’s price start to rise, guys, do you jump out of that stock or do you get more curious and start checking it a little bit more? Right?
The answer is you start checking it more. You start watching this stock as it continues to rise. And as your stock starts to rise, your wife is going to start to take notice, you’re going to become more interesting to her. Right? You become a curiosity to her. And what happens is that she takes notice, she’s also noticing, hey, look, he’s doing those things that he said he’s wanting to do. I mean, how many times have all of us talked about getting in better shape, or doing betterment for ourselves? A lot of us have. And she’s noticing you doing this. And so, when you couple this, the ARS with the AD, where you’re coming home with calm energy when you enter the house, you’re centered, you’re not being reactive, so you’re no longer in DEER mode.
And DEER is an acronym for defend, excuse, explain, react, which most of us nice guys get into. I was in it, for sure. But now you’re coming home, you’re not only starting the day as a WOLF, you’re coming home as a WOLF, which is an acronym for wise, open, loving and fierce. Your wife’s energy is going to start to shift, she’s going to start responding to you in a different way. Now, she used to respond to you as the DEER, when you defend, excuse, explain, react, and that would set her off, right? She’s responding to that energy that will probably put her off, push her further away. And a lot of women say they don’t feel safe.
But when you come in as the WOLF, you’re doing your ARS, you’re doing your decompression, she’s gonna respond to that energy as well. And her response is going to be much more favorable, much more positive to you. She’s actually going to want to be around you. She wants to know what you’re doing, why you’re doing it. And it’s very common, when a man joins our program and starts doing the ARS, the decompression, along with a triadic connection, which we teach, that the women start thinking he’s having an affair. ‘Who’s the other woman’ is a common thing that the wives start to think. One wife is saying, hey, I want a divorce, and then a week later, she’s like, hey, are you having an affair? Wait a minute, I want to get back.
And she’s going after her husband and trying to win him back, which is a complete 180 from where he was a week ago. And this is what you have to do, guys. We have to realize that us as men, as leaders, we can take control of the energy in our home, the energy in our relationships. And once we realize that our wife, in this case, is reacting to who we are, to how we have been showing up, if we agree that, hey, she’s reacting to the way I’ve been showing up, then doesn’t it make sense that she can also react to the way you are going to show up in a positive manner now, and we can switch that energy? Guys, we’ve seen this thousands of times, so we know it to be true. And it is the fastest way to fix a struggling marriage. Now, of course, you add on the triadic connection, and a bunch of other things that we teach, the Clean Slate method, hidden motives technique, that is like a catalyst. That’s like adding gasoline to the fire. But it all starts with you. With your shifts in energy going from a DEER to a WOLF, and taking charge of your day, of your life, and not being a victim.
Tim Matthews: Guys, the same is true with the people in your company. Your team are going to respond to your energy. The performance of the company is going to reflect the way that you show up, quite frankly, everything that Doug has been saying. How driven your team are, how clear they are, how inspired they are, how much initiative they use. They’re going to respond to you. They’ve already been responding to you. This is how, along with experiencing huge shifts in the marriage, the guys are able to experience huge shifts in the business as well.
We have a saying, doors start to open in walls that the men have previously been trying to walk around or climb over. How is that? It’s because synchronicities start to align, they become clear-headed, they’re able to seize opportunities, to speak with more clarity and certainty, they have better direction, they’re more decisive. It’s the same thing that they do at home. This is how they’re able to be killing it in the bedroom, as well as in the boardroom. I know it might sound like a big claim, I get it. And I’d probably have doubts about it if I was you and I heard it.
At the same time, we’ve seen it time and time again. You can go to thepowerfulman.com/results, you can see everything there if you so wish. You hit the nail on the head, Doug. Even the guys in the inner circle, they were talking about this, in the Wolverines private Voxer channel they have. They were talking about the impact that they have when they’re walking through the door after doing the decompression versus when they don’t do the decompression, how their family responds to them and reacts to them, and how important it is for them to set the tone of the house when they’re walking through the door, so they can then create the kind of environment and evening they want to have. All through how they show up.
Doug Holt: Yeah, it’s 100%, guys. You know, once we take ownership, once we take ownership of our lives, our businesses, everything else, this is when the change happens. But it starts with the first step. So whether you join the AM or not, we’ve given you the tools for the ARS, we’ve given you the tools for the decompression. We have over 600 podcasts thus far. That’s 600 episodes that you can go through the archives. We’ve made them all available, whether it be YouTube, Spotify, iTunes – you name it – that’s all available for you for free.
Now, obviously going through the program, it’s going to go into much more detail and nuance. But the basics, you can start that today, or tomorrow morning for the ARS. Set yourself up tonight for success for tomorrow. You know, Tim, you and I were talking about this, I’ll lay out my workout clothes the night before. I have an alarm that goes off around 7pm. I have two little kids. But it reminds me to set myself up for success. And I’ll lay out my clothes, I’ll get the coffee ready, I’ll do all those little things that make the ARS almost impossible for me to miss. Almost impossible, right? I don’t get it every time, I’m not perfect. But you also can have shorter versions and longer versions and all of those things. But that allows me to be the catalyst, that allows me to control and be proactive with the energy that I approach my day with.
It allows me to dictate my day rather than my day dictating me, or anybody else coming into there. And when I can do that, I can lead with a very, very WOLF energy, wise, open, loving and fierce. And my whole family responds to that. I have a little daughter, a little son who’s gonna be turning six, and my wife. And they respond to my energy. When I have a lot of anxiety, just as we all do from time to time, or if I’m upset, they pick up on that energy and that vibe. Right? Don’t you guys agree? Your wife or your kids, they pick up when you’re angry, and they react.
And people don’t want to be around you as much when you’re grumpy. But the same is true, you can be like a magnet attracting them when you’re a in different frequency and a different vibration, so to speak. That’s what we want to be in more. As powerful men, this is the area we want to live in, to thrive in, and be consistent in this energetic force. It’s not always perfect. It doesn’t always look pretty. But most of the time it does. And this is the fastest way to fix a struggling marriage, guys, to really own your side of the street and do what you can do, control those things you can control.
And the only thing that you can control is you. That’s it. You can’t control your wife. You can’t control your kids. You can yell, you can scream, you can kick, you can pound the table, right? And they’ll listen to you for a little bit. But you get to control yourself. And it starts with your ARS. And at the end of the day, you have to have a decompression routine. And it’s not just pouring another glass of scotch, right? A decompression routine that allows you to set yourself up for success, allows you to reflect on the day, get the lessons from that day so you can continue to grow, and like a stock, that your price can continue to rise.
Tim Matthews: I love it. Well said.
Doug Holt: Gentlemen, as we always say, in the moment of insight, take massive action. This is your chance. If your marriage isn’t- even if it’s just good, it deserves to be great. And you get to change that. You get to make that happen. I’m not saying it’s 100% in your control, because it’s not. But your actions are 100% in your control, the way that you respond to things is 100% in your control. And I want you to have that, because having that control is actually true freedom, boys. And that’s what we want. Gentlemen, we’ll see you next time on TPM.