0:00:00 - 0:00:24 Today, we have a difficult topic that is very important. It's very difficult and its importance exceeds its difficulty. So we're gonna take a bite out of this. It's information you absolutely need. Even if you don't wanna hear it, you really need to weak men create monstrous women. There's a huge problem 0:00:23 - 0:00:48 with male weakness in the world today. I don't think it's specific to the Christian population, but boy, is it prevalent? I'm not sure exactly what happened along the way where we got our signals crossed and we started to think of nice in terms of the definition that causes great harm to everyone. So 0:00:48 - 0:01:07 I hope that these truths that we will talk about today. I hope there are things that you can really seriously face in your life. This is an immense problem. It's an immense problem and it absolutely has to be fixed. People that don't fix this are not going to be able to progress forward. That's how big 0:01:07 - 0:01:28 of a problem it is. If this isn't right in your marriage, it's gonna have profound effects on everything that matters. That sounds like it's got to be an overstatement. But I promise you it isn't. This is absolutely going to critically limit the happiness of yourself and your wife. One of the themes 0:01:28 - 0:01:51 that I hope is clear throughout this presentation is that the most successful core to enact any of this from is a sincere desire for the benefit of your wife. That's maybe the saddest part of all is as great as the male suffering is in these cases where this has not happened where it hasn't, the marriage 0:01:51 - 0:02:16 has not been founded on good principles. There's tremendous suffering on the part of the male, but it's even sadder to see the complete loss of potential in the life for her own happiness and the good that she could do for those in her family, her husband and her Children. So profound effects on the 0:02:16 - 0:02:41 happiness of yourself and your wife, but also the potential happiness of your Children, of course, here and now, but also as they become adults, kids tend to copy the example of their parents. Maybe that's where you got your bad ideas about marriage from. I don't know, but it is something that if you 0:02:41 - 0:02:59 straighten it out will provide a tremendous benefit to your Children to have a good example of what's possible in marriage and not just what's possible, what ought to be, it should be a baseline, the bare minimum. Here's one that you might not be thinking of. But if your marriage is completely jacked 0:02:59 - 0:03:22 up, it makes it so much harder for your individual repentance. There's meant to be a support structure in marriage. And if it doesn't exist, it's extremely difficult to repent. One of the things that we'll see is that poor spouses enable each other in sin, they, they empower each other to do less than 0:03:21 - 0:03:42 their best. And this is especially true when the man is weak and the woman's out of control and you'll see why in a minute. And then finally, not that this is an exhaustive list. But I think the other big thing is that this will absolutely limit the role you can play in God's kingdom. If your home life 0:03:42 - 0:04:03 is completely jacked up, you are just not gonna have extra resources for anyone else. This is a successful home ought to be a battery of light powering you to reach beyond the limits of your family, to help those outside of your family. But if things aren't right at home, you're not going to have anything 0:04:02 - 0:04:30 to spare. It's gonna drain you every single day. So let's get into it. How do you know you have a problem? Here's some signs. This is probably enough. A again, it's not exhaustive, but I can't tell you how many men I know well, who have one or more of these problems at home. Usually all of them. Here's 0:04:30 - 0:04:52 some signs is that your wife has a, a problem with being a little bit of a monster. If you choose the, your actions out of an attempt to avoid her reaction because you, you know that she's gonna shout at you, she's gonna threaten you. She's gonna belittle you or otherwise make your life a living hell 0:04:52 - 0:05:17 . Your wife's probably a monster if she regularly shirks her responsibilities as a wife and mother. This, I think a huge one is sex. This is from the guys. I know it's a huge weapon and it shouldn't be, but it is childcare. Oh, I just can't deal with these kids and she goes to disappears for hours, maybe 0:05:17 - 0:05:42 days or the house. This is not ok and it shouldn't be normal. And this is one message I wanna send with this presentation is if you're a man and you're dealing with any of the things we're gonna talk about here, you are not alone. It just so happens that men go out of their way to not talk about these 0:05:42 - 0:05:58 things with other men. And so if you're going through these things, you might feel like you're the least lucky guy in the world. Or you might think that just everything in the world is wrong with you or maybe you've processed it enough to realize that you probably just made some poor choices in who you 0:05:58 - 0:06:22 decided to marry and, or in the decisions you've made since then, it's probably some mix of all of that. But what's not true is that you're, you're not alone. There are a ton of men in this situation. It's anecdotal. But I would say most men who are married are in this situation. So you're not alone 0:06:21 - 0:06:42 . And one of the things that I'm hoping to do is increase communication by having, you know, I'm in a weird vantage point because obviously I know a lot of men and, and because of the things I spend my time on, they open up to me about things like this in ways that I don't think they would if we were 0:06:41 - 0:07:05 coworkers or just sort of friends. But by sharing these, what I believe are best practices, we can, we can address these problems instead of just having a whole lot of men suffering in silence and they are addressable. By the way, we'll just say that from the outset. This is not a hopeless situation 0:07:04 - 0:07:30 . It's a terrible situation, but it's not hopeless. Good news. The good news is men were designed for terrible situations. So other signs include the fact that she exerts control and by control. I don't mean she has a voice in, I mean, she runs it as in you don't have a say, this could be how you spend 0:07:30 - 0:07:49 your time. This could be what you say and to whom if you find yourself deleting text messages. And I'm not saying because you're having some illicit affair with some lady, which obviously you should not do. But I'm saying if you're just having a man to man conversation with somebody and she's reading 0:07:49 - 0:08:13 through your phone, if you have to delete text messages to avoid the wrath of your wife. Congratulations. She is a monster. That's not cool. It's not normal. It's all of these things that we're talking about. Their abuse, they're abuse. This is all it's called abuse. Now, one of the things that the world 0:08:13 - 0:08:42 does not talk about because it's impossible in the modern, uh lexicon, the modern social milieu is that there is a such thing as female to male abuse. And actually, it's rampant right now within marriages, it's rampant and it's just as damaging as physical abuse would be from a man to a woman or sexual 0:08:41 - 0:09:05 abuse. And these are the things that we do hear about and rightfully so those shouldn't happen either. But there's no voice for these things and that the time for, for that to has come, for that to come to an end, these are not acceptable things. And so I'm gonna give you some tools to put a stop to 0:09:05 - 0:09:27 it. The, the one thing I didn't get to on the slide was how you spend your money again. If it's a conversation and you guys are a united front on something. That's one thing. But I'm saying you go to work, you earn all this money and then you have no say in how it's spent. That's not cool. So these are 0:09:27 - 0:09:46 signs that you've got a monstrous wife and I use that phrase on purpose. There's nothing softer that would be appropriate. There are harder things that would also be appropriate, but we're gonna make it as easy as we can. You know, the way to think of it before we get on the way to think of a monstrous 0:09:46 - 0:10:05 wife is like a wild horse that hasn't been tamed. And I'm not saying, you know, let's use an animal analogy to degrade a woman. We could use that for men too. Ok. But that's not the subject of the presentation if you've ever dealt with horses. You know, this is, this is actually quite a good, a good 0:10:05 - 0:10:27 fit. Ok? Wild horses by nature, they're not going to be domesticated horses. They're not going to do the things you need domesticated horses to do. They might look very similar to the domesticated version, but they sure don't act like it. And there's a process to tame a horse and it's really tedious 0:10:26 - 0:10:47 and involved and dangerous and it doesn't always succeed. In fact, a lot of times it won't succeed or it won't stick, it only worked for a little while. And this is, unfortunately, this is a party that you didn't know you were taking a place at. But it's, it's just the reality of the situation. And so 0:10:47 - 0:11:13 ee exposing this problem talking about it just a little bit. Now we're gonna talk about tactics as to what you can do and why you should. So there's this phrase, well worn phrase, Happy Wife. Happy life and that's not false. But what we think of when we think of that is this idea of, of you've heard 0:11:13 - 0:11:34 of people pleasers. Well, there are a lot of men out there who are wife pleasers and let me tell you why that doesn't work because what a woman says and what a woman really wants usually are not the same thing. They're usually not the same thing. And so if you give a woman, everything she says she wants 0:11:34 - 0:11:53 , you know what? You end up with a monstrous wife and monstrous wives are not happy, they're miserable and you don't need me to tell you this. You know, your wife is miserable. Ok? It's no mystery. So why is that you say to yourself? But I'm a nice guy, I'm giving her all the things that she asked for 0:11:53 - 0:12:17 and I'm trying, I'm doing everything humanly possible to make her happy. Well, that's where you went wrong. You see, that's not what women want you to do. That's not what makes them happy. Women do not like weak men. What they say with their lips will sound like they're asking you to be weak, to be a 0:12:17 - 0:12:41 nice guy. But they don't like NACOS. And we're going to go through a little bit of why women are not happy with men that they can control. Because first and foremost, what they're looking for in a relationship is security. Women are fundamentally insecure. It's in their nature. They can't help it. So 0:12:41 - 0:13:12 fundamentally, what they're looking for from men is security. They know that if you can't stand up to her, you can't stand up for her. If your woman can control you, then you can't protect her. And that makes her feel insecure. And so it's a, it's a dizzying downward spiral because every time you try 0:13:11 - 0:13:27 to be nice to her to quote unquote, make her happy, you're actually going to make her less happy because you're failing to provide the things she's actually asking you for, which isn't what she's saying with her lips. But what she's saying with her actions, she's saying, I don't feel secure, I don't 0:13:27 - 0:13:52 feel safe, help me feel secure and safe. And instead of doing that, you're listening to her words and doing what she says and then she just gets worse. If you want a happy wife, stop being a weenie and start being a man. And since no one taught you that, let me give you some pointers. Here's a true phrase 0:13:52 - 0:14:22 , a true slogan, ideal man, happy wife. So I'm not pulling any punches here. I'm gonna give you the hardest part. First, maybe the hardest parts also. Last I guess you can be the judge of that. But I'm just telling you how it is. Ok? You have to fix yourself confidence, true confidence. It comes from 0:14:22 - 0:14:45 evidence. Now, if you're face to face with a wild animal and you're staring down a grizzly bear that bear is going to know if you're scared or not and they're gonna rush, you, come up right close to, to where you're standing, it'll feel like they're right in your face because they'll be so close when 0:14:45 - 0:15:10 they rush you and they're testing you. And if you flinch, you've proven that you're weak and they'll eat you. Women constantly test men. They just wanna, if, if, if you haven't been proven, they're gonna do it all the time. And even when you have been proven, they're gonna keep doing it, it'll just be 0:15:10 - 0:15:34 a lot less frequent. You can't fake confidence. You can't stand in the mirror each morning and say I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and dog on it. People like me, women are going to smell that from a mile away. You can't fake them out on this. And so if you're a piece of garbage and you know that your 0:15:34 - 0:16:00 hopes of taming your monstrous wife are zero. If you're not happy with yourself and you don't respect yourself, your wife will absolutely not be happy with you and she will not respect you either. Now, it doesn't follow that when you fix that automatically, she's on board, but it's necessary. It's insufficient 0:15:59 - 0:16:22 , but it's necessary. So, before you do anything in changing how you interact with your wife, the first thing you need to do is fix yourself. Now, it turns out that Jesus knew what he was talking about with everything he said. And so it's no surprise that he knew what he was talking about when he said 0:16:22 - 0:16:48 , be ye perfect. He didn't pull any punches either. Although it does seem that most Christian allegedly, churches spend an awful lot of time trying to convince their adherents that Jesus didn't mean what he actually said. But assuming he did, which he did, we have an obligation to be the best men we 0:16:48 - 0:17:11 can be. And we shouldn't do that for any other reason except that we want to, that we choose it because again, if you're faking it, it's gonna fall apart. It's just not going to do what it needs to do now, a benefit of this. It's not the reason you do it because if you do one thing you're gonna learn 0:17:10 - 0:17:28 is if you do something for a woman, it's just that's not sufficient motivation to do hard things. You might get a couple of things done that you wouldn't otherwise. But then you'll fall flat on your face. It's insufficient motivation. You have to want it for you no matter what she does with it, it doesn't 0:17:27 - 0:17:50 matter. And that's, I've got this down as you need to have a defined purpose that you have chosen a life plan that you have written and it's a contract with yourself. It's not between you and anybody else. It can be between you and God, but no other people because that has to stand above everybody else 0:17:49 - 0:18:11 . Now, you can change it anytime. You're the one who wrote it, you can change it. But what's written on that plan, that's what you've got to live. You've got to hold to your character and, and this is teaching you to transcend above what other people try to force you to do or force you to be like, because 0:18:11 - 0:18:31 when you're the kind of person that's washed around by the waves that other people send out, your wife will never respect you and she'll just keep making your life horrible. So you choose to be the best man that you can be. And you think about what that means and you write it down and you work on it 0:18:31 - 0:18:59 and you work on it and you work on it and that no one's getting on your case, it's just you against you in the fringe benefit of this, which is a pretty mighty fringe benefit is that you're going to learn to live above her reproach. And this has at least two meanings. One, you're not gonna have to worry 0:18:59 - 0:19:24 about her catching you doing stuff because you're gonna catch you doing stuff and you're gonna fix it before she even sees it. And it's almost like a magical superpower to unlock that alone will have tremendous uh a tremendous effect on your daily life. But second, we talked about how confidence comes 0:19:24 - 0:19:47 from evidence, you're going to have a lot more self-confidence because you've defined what the ideal is. And you're living up to it and to the extent that you do that and you're, you're gonna trip a couple of times, but you can get right back up and see how long you can do it for this time. And maybe 0:19:47 - 0:20:07 you trip up in an hour, the first time a day, the second time, a week, the third time, maybe you're going strong for three months and you trip up on something, it doesn't matter. You keep going. And as you do this, what's gonna happen is that your confidence is going to get so high that you're gonna 0:20:07 - 0:20:31 notice for the first time in your marriage, just how much you were leaning on your wife to make you feel good about yourself. And that's not good because again, women can detect this and they resent it. Women hate when men treat them like their mommy. They don't want that role. They married a husband 0:20:30 - 0:20:56 , not a son. So you learn to live above her reproach because you don't need her for self-confidence. She's along for the ride and you'd have it no other way. You want her to be there. You want her life to be better and you feel like being a part of it makes that happen, but it's not about you needing 0:20:55 - 0:21:23 her. So as you live this, you, you become more and more consistent and this is really important because every flaw you show your wife will cause her to lose respect for you and with the loss of respect comes all the things we started this presentation with. Fundamentally, those are all symptoms of the 0:21:22 - 0:21:48 problem of a lack of respect. And contrary to popular Christian belief, women don't have an obligation to magically respect weak husbands. They have a right to actually having a good husband if the husband expects respect. If the husband's OK. Being a weenie, it's a different story but women should not 0:21:48 - 0:22:12 have to submit to husbands that are losers or respect husbands that are weenies and they don't, by the way. So it really doesn't matter if, if you want to try to force them or not, it ain't gonna happen. So, always live according to your beliefs in every way. If you're hypocritical in any way, you're 0:22:12 - 0:22:38 just cutting your legs off as far as you, you're standing with your wife. So that's ideal man. Happy wife. Now we touched on this. Let's dive a little deeper. Your wife is not your best friend. Say it with me. Your wife is not your best friend, but Rob. So many people have told me my wife is my best 0:22:38 - 0:22:58 friend. Well, they don't know what they're talking about. Look at your marriage and ask yourself why it stinks of giving you the answers. But Rob, I know people who, who men who think that their wife is their best friend, they talk about it all the time. Their marriage seems ok. It seems ok behind closed 0:22:58 - 0:23:19 doors. And we're going to get to this point, there's only one person in a woman's life who sees her for who she really is and that's her husband because the rest of the time she's wearing a mask, he's the only one that's around her in places and in situations and for enough time that she cannot keep 0:23:18 - 0:23:38 the mask on and some, some wives really rejoice in the opportunity to take the mask off. Unfortunately, in some cases that man is, is the punching bag for this woman and she's nice to everybody else, even the stranger at the grocery store, but she won't even treat her husband like a decent human being 0:23:38 - 0:24:01 . He's like the, the concentration of all of her negative qualities get poured out onto him. This happens more times than I care to uh put a bound on. It's a very common thing anyway, that guy, you know, who says his wife is his best friend and he seems to mean it, his wife is absolutely miserable. He's 0:24:00 - 0:24:19 probably too stupid to notice, but they probably won't be together in a couple of years because she's going to leave him and take half his stuff and he'll say I, I don't know what happened. We were so happy. Meanwhile, she every week is, is complaining to her friends about how much of a loser she's married 0:24:19 - 0:24:49 to and she's actively evaluating escape plans, including other men. She can run to. Your wife is not your best friend, don't ever complain to your wife. Now, I'm not saying, don't call out unacceptable behavior. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying don't go to your wife and say, oh woe is me. My life 0:24:49 - 0:25:16 is so hard. Let me cry on your lap. There's nothing wrong with a man coming in from the world to his home with bullet holes bleeding on the carpet. You don't have a duty nor should you try to put on a front that everything in the world is hunky dory when you've got the weight of the world on your shoulders 0:25:16 - 0:25:44 . Is that what I'm saying? I'm saying, don't run to your wife for emotional comfort. Don't run to your wife to get her to solve the problems that you're trying to work out in your head. When she says what's wrong, you just say tough day at work, but I'll get over it. I'll figure it out. No biggie. Now 0:25:44 - 0:26:09 , does this mean you have to be superman? No, it means you need some guy friends and we're gonna get to that in a second. But don't believe this lie that you can vent to your wife without terrible negative consequences. It's never worth it, folks. It's never worth it. You don't have the female privilege 0:26:08 - 0:26:37 of just kind of shirking off your load. If it gets too heavy, there's not going to be a clean up crew to mop up after you. You're supposed to be the hull that never breaks in your family. The wall in which your, your family is the garden. So you can't let that wall crack every time you do, your wife 0:26:37 - 0:26:59 will absolutely lose respect for you. And if you can get it back, it's a long road. It's a really long road and it's a road that most men aren't strong enough to walk. Frankly. The other problem is that women have selective memory. She might not remember what you ask her to do. That's really important 0:26:59 - 0:00:00 to you. But she sure as heck is going to remember every single time you show weakness, whether because you're making a mistake, you do the wrong thing or you complain, case in point, she's going to bring all these things up at the worst possible time. Usually when you're pointing out something that, 0:00:00 - 0:27:36 that accurately she needs to be better at and she's gonna deflect, blame. It's like shooting off chaff. Every time you show weakness in front of her, she's saving that up for a rainy day. As soon as you shoot the missiles, you can fire off the chaff and list off all the times you were weak. She's going 0:27:36 - 0:27:59 to weaponize it. Don't give her your weakness because she's going to weaponize your weakness. Ok? So I mentioned getting yourself some male friends. Here's the deal. There's this illusion of equal friendships in the world, just like there's this illusion of equal partners and relationships, romantic 0:27:58 - 0:28:29 relationships, it's all, it's all a myth, all human relationships are directional. And if you need somebody to vent with what you're looking for is someone who's better than you, at least in that area. So get your, that's called a mentor, get yourself a mentor or better yet several, you can segment them 0:28:29 - 0:28:49 out in portions of your life. You like gardening, go find someone who's a better gardener and you can riff off gardening tips with them. Now, why does this person have to be better than you? Cause you don't vent to people who are weaker than you, you just make their, their lives worse. You don't put 0:28:49 - 0:29:11 burdens on people that are too heavy for them to carry, that's not very masculine. So you find someone who's better than you, who can be a father to you in a very specific way and you do that for other people. That's a very wholesome masculine thing to do. And you'll find that when you do it, you feel 0:29:11 - 0:29:35 much better about your world because it shows you that your sacrifice is making life better for someone and there will and you'll find that when you find good men and you go to them for advice or even just someone to listen, they're usually going to be more than willing to hear you and they'll give you 0:29:35 - 0:29:56 some tips. And here's my word of caution. When I say if you need to vent, go find a guy friend, not your wife. I'm not saying that that's going to be the same as what you think you have. Now, when you vent to your wife, which I've already corrected to show you that's an illusion. Something very different 0:29:56 - 0:30:14 is going on and it's probably not something you want. It's probably very much connected to a whole bunch of stuff in your life that you don't like. So you need to knock that off. But this doesn't mean that the masculine version of this is a complete substitute. It's also different than what you imagine 0:30:13 - 0:30:38 you have now in many ways it's better, but in some ways it's worse because frequently that mentor is not gonna say, oh they're there, everything's gonna be ok. The mentor is gonna put a foot in your butt and say, hey, man, you really messed up. You need to do better or? Yeah, this sounds hard. But guess 0:30:37 - 0:31:02 what? Life's hard or? Hey, man, this is still easy mode. It gets a heck of a lot worse. You better buckle up sometimes. That's exactly what a man needs to hear. One of the most weakening things a man can experience is for him to be going through a brutal experience and then someone to say they're there 0:31:02 - 0:31:28 , it's not that bad. It'll get better, don't worry about it. You know, if you're in, let's just make believe for a second that you're in a combat situation and you go back to a forward support base, you're just on the front lines, a bunch of your guys got shot up. You made it out, you're out of bullets 0:31:27 - 0:31:55 , you're exhausted, you're hungry. Sometimes the best thing that you can get is a couple of magazines and, and an MRE some food to go and they send you right back out because you don't need the, the problem to go away. You just need some ammunition. You need a resupply. There's this goofy meme out there 0:31:55 - 0:32:18 of Robert Redford. Slow nodding from Jeremiah Johnson. And I wish I had more time to tell you about that movie. It's based on a true story. You should look it up. It's, it'll put hair on your chest. So unfortunately, not hair on your head because otherwise I'd look like fabio by now. Um So that meme 0:32:17 - 0:33:04 , we call it the man nod and sometimes the most empowering thing is to have a chat with a guy that, you know, has been through some stuff and you say, hey, I'm going through some stuff and sometimes even uh without any words being said, looking into the eyes that mentor, you can see a wealth of experience 0:33:03 - 0:33:43 that exceeds your own. And sometimes the greatest confidence can be instilled through silent, a silent slow nod. And if, if you haven't had the gift of something like that, I hope you do one day. So get yourself some guy friends but not, not male version of female friends, which tend to be fake friends 0:33:42 - 0:34:10 . I'm saying, legit guy, friends mentors. All right. Next dimension, responsible man, happy wife. Here's a catchphrase for you. You're free to use this. But if you get it printed on a T shirt, please send me one. I'll let you pick between large and extra large. I'm one of those two sizes. Men have testosterone 0:34:09 - 0:34:35 , women have men and I'm not just being funny with that. This is legitimate. Testosterone has many amazing effects. One of them is that when you're in a high stress situation, you knuckle down and your focus goes through the roof. This is one reason why they say if you really want to get something done 0:34:34 - 0:34:59 , hand it to someone who's already busy. That's great advice. As long as we're talking about a man because that man, it, when you increase the stress, the productivity usually goes up. It's a function of testosterone. This is why when you're, when you're in the midst of a, a crisis, you stop thinking 0:34:59 - 0:35:28 about food. You don't need as much sleep, it's a huge blessing. It's how we're built. Women don't have that. Ok. Women, the more weight you add, the more they buckle. So God gave men testosterone and God gave women men and there are certainly things we can reverse this relationship around on. But as 0:35:28 - 0:35:53 far as stress goes, we've got it boys. So use it to be a man is to be responsible. Everything's gonna be your fault, whether you like it or not So, the best thing you can do is just own it. Be the guy that sees the problems and work on them before anyone else even notices they're there. If you do your 0:35:53 - 0:36:22 job, right. Most of the time they'll never notice because you've already taken care of it. When, when you live such that your dereliction of duty causes things to get through the wall and your wife becomes the one who sees the problem before it happens. She's gonna be really unhappy and you see these 0:36:21 - 0:36:42 symptoms. So usually when you've got a wife who's nagging a lot again, it's not about the problems. It's about the fact that she feels like she's the one that's got to worry about them. She doesn't feel secure and she doesn't feel secure because she knows she's seeing things that you're not seeing or 0:36:41 - 0:37:04 she's seeing things, she knows you're not gonna do anything about. Let me, let me help you step into a world beyond your own where you have some kind of sophisticated to do list system and you're operating in peak productivity, which means no matter what part of the day it is, you're popping stuff off 0:37:04 - 0:37:29 that stack. Even when you're exhausted, you're thinking, what's the most high impact thing I can do while exhausted? A woman married to a guy like this is not worried about Jack Diddley squat. Even if she sees something that's not on his radar. Here's all it takes. Hey, honey, this one thing needs a 0:37:29 - 0:37:53 blah, blah. The husband pulls out his phone punches in his to do list and is done. She will never have to bring it up again if she does. He can say. Yup. Here it is in the priority list. I got 10 things ahead of it. I expect I'll probably be getting to that in about three weeks depending on something 0:37:53 - 0:38:13 . If something more high priority jumps in, what the heck is she gonna worry about? If anything she's gonna get worried that he's gonna give her something to do off his to do list. Right. So, it's a total inversion of the nagging wife meme. It is. I guess that's a trope, the archetype of the nagging 0:38:13 - 0:38:33 wife, an organized husband is not someone you're gonna nag to, because you're gonna walk away from that conversation with something to do. Right. It's like, yeah, we do need to get that done. I'll tell you what. Here's four things ahead of it in my list that I think you can handle. Why don't you go do 0:38:33 - 0:38:59 those and then report back if you need something else, I'll keep cranking on what I'm working on because I've already thought through it and here's all the reasons it's more important than whatever you're asking me to do or reminding me to do. So, the symptoms of a woman who feels the need to lead. They're 0:38:59 - 0:39:24 not happy, the bitter and they're resentful. They don't like having to be men. They don't like that at all. Women are happy being women turns out imagine that their stress, they're tired and you say, ok, but that's all them. Not my problem. Uh Yes, it is. Look at your life, look at your wife and come 0:39:24 - 0:39:47 back and tell me that's not a problem. But even if somehow you can put a bubble around all that, they're absolutely going to neglect the kids. They're gonna neglect the house and they're gonna neglect you. And those are all a big problem. So, if your wife's doing any of that stuff, you should think about 0:39:46 - 0:40:08 whether she's being more responsible than you, at least in some ways and you should think about ways. You can take that off of her and put it on yourself where it belongs. Now, I, I already mentioned in this little blurb, it doesn't mean she's not doing things to help out on your, to do list. It just 0:40:08 - 0:40:26 means that you're the one with the list. She doesn't have to worry about it. It's not her problem. All she has to worry about is what's right in front of her. And the things that she takes as far as long term duties of I'm going to be responsible for this or that. But those things are not going to make 0:40:26 - 0:40:49 her unhappy, bitter, resentful, stressed or tired. She's just gonna do them and be ok with that. All right now, we gotta talk about ma ma ma money. Successful man. Happy wife now. Ok. Word games. We could quibble about what successful means. I just mean money right now. Women do care about status. If 0:40:49 - 0:41:07 you're the lowest man on the pole at work, she's gonna have less respect for you. That's just the way it goes. This is female nature. Not sure anything can be done to change it. So you're the one that has to change in order to accord with it. It's a game you have to play whose rules you don't get to 0:41:07 - 0:41:25 pick. But you do get to pick the game that you're gonna play. How well you will play. I mean, so if you're not married yet, I would give you the advice. Hey, as you're choosing a career to train for, make sure you pick something where you make enough money that your wife can have as many kids as she 0:41:25 - 0:41:51 wants. She doesn't have to go to work outside the home if she doesn't want to and you can go on vacations. Now, why do vacations matter? It turns out that most women, they don't work to live. I'm sorry, I messed that up. They don't live to work. They work to live. Most women go to work because they want 0:41:51 - 0:42:15 to have money to have fun. They wanna go on adventures. Ok. Now, whether your wife's a stay at home mom or not, women like breaks from the monotony. So they want to go do fun things and vacation doesn't mean you need to spend two weeks in some tropical place. Although that helps it, it just means you 0:42:15 - 0:42:35 need to have the resources where you can take time and go somewhere. That's not your house. That might be two miles down the road. If you live in a nice place with a lake or a river or something or go for a hike in the woods, but it seems to be pretty dang important to most women and maybe, maybe you 0:42:35 - 0:42:58 don't have to go anywhere, but you just gotta change up the routine. And so it's like stay at home vacation or something. Now, I realize that for most men watching this, it's gonna be too late to make changes to how much money you make. At least big changes because those kinds of changes seem to cost 0:42:57 - 0:43:20 a lot more the later in life you do them and the opportunity clock does run out. But there's, it's context specific. Every situation, every person will be different, but there's a whole lot that still can be done in many situations. And even if there's absolutely nothing that can be done, it bears saying 0:43:20 - 0:43:56 that every deviation from the ideal in this, the man loses leverage. So we started, I think the first thing we looked at was ideal man, happy wife in a perfect world. You'd have a perfect man. He'd be absolutely flawless. And so his, his wife would not have any reason to be upset, resentful, whatever 0:43:55 - 0:44:17 with him. Ever, every problem she had would be 100% her fault. And we don't live in such a perfect world. Although what most women demand for men is pretty damn close to it. That's just the, the cards we've been dealt. The fact is that the further from the ideal you are in all ways and we're just talking 0:44:17 - 0:44:35 about money here, but it's true for everything you're going to have to give things up. And that really stinks to here because most people, especially from a religious bent, they've been told their whole lives that the second they got married, everything would be perfect, all their problems would be solved 0:44:35 - 0:44:54 . Every need they have in life would be wrapped up in their wife. That rhymes which means it must be true, but that's not true. Ok. And that, so if you live in a situation, for example, where your wife does have to work, she's absolutely gonna resent you for that. And maybe she doesn't resent you too 0:44:54 - 0:45:13 much for it right now. But there will probably be a time where she would resent you a whole lot for it. It's going to be your fault because remember everything is your fault because you're a man. That's what it means to be responsible. So, what kind of adjustment would you have to make for that? She 0:45:13 - 0:45:36 is absolutely going to ex expect accommodations on her behavior because she has to work. She's going to expect that you let her get away with a whole lot more than you would otherwise because she has to work. So she's gonna expect that you help her out around the house, which is pretty reasonable if 0:45:36 - 0:45:54 she has to work because she's not home all the time. She's going to expect that you help out more with dinners or this or that or whatever. But also behaviorally, you know, they're there, you're gonna come home nights and you say, hey, how about we have a little excitement. She's gonna say no and that 0:45:54 - 0:46:16 no is gonna stem from the fact that she's resentful that she has to work. She's gonna say I'm tired, whatever. And it's gonna happen way more often than it could happen, justifiably if she didn't have to work outside the home to you get how it works. And so if you've seen my other videos, uh, that are 0:46:16 - 0:46:34 more directed to younger men who haven't been married yet, I make a really big deal out of the money question and I make a really big deal out of it for the videos for, for young women who haven't married yet when they're looking at men, why it turns out it's a precondition for a whole lot of stuff if 0:46:34 - 0:46:57 you get this right. It doesn't mean everything else is gonna work out. But man, is it easier? It's marriage in easy mode. It's never easy, but it's relatively way more easy. So, Hopefully that makes sense. All right. This one's super duper important, strong man, happy wife. I think all these are important 0:46:56 - 0:47:21 , by the way. Um I spent an unusually high amount of time on this prepping this presentation you probably didn't notice. And that's ok. And my, my problem, not yours, but I really tried to boil this down. It could have been a lot longer. So I, I hope that these are all just the bold points and you can 0:47:21 - 0:47:51 fill in the blanks. You have to set boundaries on your wife. She sure as heck has set boundaries on you. But in, in the modern marriage, it's funny because it's touted equal partner, this equal partner that it's not equal folks. It is ridiculously tilted towards the woman in so many ways like divorce 0:47:51 - 0:48:16 , but this is one as well. She absolutely has set boundaries on you, but no one has bothered to explain to her the female equivalent of those boundaries. So you've got one side of a scale loaded and you're just eating it left and right. So, you know, if you came home one day and you said, hey, honey 0:48:15 - 0:48:34 , I just didn't feel like going to work anymore. I quit my job. I'm not gonna do anything else. I'm just gonna take some time off and figure it out and find myself. Just not feeling it today. Maybe I'll go back next week. I have a headache. I didn't go to work today by the way the mortgage isn't gonna 0:48:34 - 0:49:00 get paid. So figure it out. Not my problem. You just figure it out. Of course, that would not be accepted by her and we could go on and on with this. If you hold off and punch your wife in the face, she would understandably call the cops on the spot and you'd be in jail and as you should be right. But 0:49:00 - 0:49:21 maybe I should read the list before getting into the, the counter examples, the balance behind closed doors, she can tear you apart and belittle you and call you names every single time you get into an argument and nothing ever happens to her. She still has uh a position in the church, all of her lady 0:49:21 - 0:49:42 friends that, that think she's perfect in every way. If, if you punch her in the face, you will immediately become the uh the scorn of the neighborhood. A again rightfully. So people will say, man, that guy is a monster. How could he have done that? What kind of man is this? But she can basically get 0:49:42 - 0:50:10 away with murder for the female versions of that. And that's not cool. So here's a list of things that you should immediately stop accepting from your wife flip outs. What do I mean by that? Uh If it's happening to you, I don't think I have to explain it, but some women have a way of becoming emotionally 0:50:09 - 0:50:35 unhinged and they, they start screaming at you and going crazy when you're having an argument, whether that's anger or just complete irrational. I don't know, Harpy on cocaine stuff. If she does it, what should you do? Calmly call it out? Hey, I can see you're a little emotionally unhinged right now 0:50:35 - 0:51:00 and I'm not ok with that and if it persists discontinue the conversation, I'm not ok with you treating me like this. And if you keep doing it, I'm not gonna stay in this conversation. I'm gonna walk out of the room and we can keep talking later when you're calm, you have permission to say that you, if 0:51:00 - 0:51:18 you're a woman, you have permission to say that too. Conversations have to be consensual. You should think about that a lot has been said about sexual consent conversation should be consensual. Your wife does not have a right to follow you around like one of those ghosts in Super Mario that every time 0:51:18 - 0:51:39 you turn your back, she comes at you and she stops when you turn, you have a right to exit the conversation. If she doesn't like that, you can get in your car, you can drive away and you can come back whenever the heck you feel like it and you can tell her that. But calmly, we'll get into that in a minute 0:51:39 - 0:52:03 , belittling. If she starts calling you names, the conversation has ended and you say, look, I'm sorry, you can't sit here and call me names. I'm not gonna participate in a conversation where you're not treating me, at least as good as you would. Some random human being, I'm your husband. This is unacceptable 0:52:02 - 0:52:28 . So you can either knock it off or I'm out of here gonna leave this conversation and we can continue it when you're willing to treat me with the respect that we both deserve. You're allowed to say that folks and you should blame shifting. Um, hey, you left your dirty socks out for the 4/100 time. Can 0:52:28 - 0:52:49 you please put these away? Well, you leave your socks out all the time. Um, no, I don't, but that's not the point. You left your socks out. Well, last week you were supposed to put air in the tires of the car and you didn't. Ok. What does that have anything to do with the conversation? Well, time out 0:52:48 - 0:53:14 . What I did at any other time is completely irrelevant to what we're talking about right now, which is what you did and I'd like you to take ownership of this and fix it. It's really not a big deal. We don't have to spend any time talking about anything else done. Yes. Physical abuse. There are guys 0:53:14 - 0:53:36 out there that get beat by their wife and they let it happen because I don't know, they think that they're not a man or whatever if they do something about it. So if it happens again, you should say you're not going to do this to me ever again. And the second you do, I absolutely am going to call the 0:53:36 - 0:54:05 cops on you and you will go to jail. It's not acceptable. I'm not gonna do that to you and you're not gonna do that to me. And then the next time she does it, you should call 911 and get the cops and take care of it. So notice I'm not encouraging you to use physical counter force and in any issues with 0:54:05 - 0:54:26 any of that stuff, you go find yourself a lawyer to talk to and or the police. I'm neither. But 911 is the thing that everybody should use and can use. It's not acceptable and all this business about, well, real men wouldn't do that. Let me tell you something. If your wife is willing to beat you physically 0:54:25 - 0:54:50 , you're just asking for her to do something worse, whether it's to you or your kids that all of these things are signs of being unhinged. And if you've lived a life where you've empowered your wife to be or continue to be like that, you're asking for worse things to happen to you. You got to put a stop 0:54:49 - 0:55:13 to it and there are tools for this withholding of sex. This is a really complicated subject and I've uh posted a link somewhere. There are ladies out there who talk about this. Um There are men out there of course as well, but this is something you should look into because the details of this, of course 0:55:12 - 0:55:38 , it's, it can be quite a complicated situation. But women usually, especially Christian women, they need to be educated on the importance of sex for men because they don't understand what the equivalencies are for the woman. And the, the analogy I like to use is. Well, how would you like it if I only 0:55:37 - 0:56:03 paid the mortgage sometimes, or I only paid the mortgage every other month. So details of what an ideal situation looks like and what exactly can be expected by either party and all of that is beyond the scope of this conversation. But I will say if you feel like your needs aren't being met and you feel 0:56:03 - 0:56:24 like they're reasonable, you probably have a problem on your hands and the sooner you address that, the better whatever resolution looks like. And it will also say that women disproportionately they minimize this and, and you can look in the sta at the stats, they're terrible. They're super depressing 0:56:23 - 0:56:52 . But many, many, many marriages are either completely sexless or have a situation where the man wants to have sex 2345 times more often than they do and still within very reasonable expectations. It's sad. Ok. It's, it's, it's a really big deal for most men and it's really not taken seriously by most 0:56:51 - 0:57:17 women. So other than that, you can go on your own little trashing your, your search history journey. To figure that out. Ok, some women will constantly threaten to divorce their husbands openly. And so we'll get to divorce on a slide a little later. So just keep that in mind, it's just a placeholder 0:57:17 - 0:57:41 for now. Uh rather than talking about it twice. But in general, what you want to do is take away the power. Now in me saying this, I know this is gonna trigger a lot of people but I need to explain what I mean by that. I mean, the power you gave your wife through you being weak, not towards her, through 0:57:41 - 0:58:05 you being weak yourself with yourself. If you do an inventory because your situation, everybody's unique. Ok? If your wife plays games with you with things like this where she's abusing you emotionally, if you go down that list, you're going to find that you're enabling her to do all these things because 0:58:04 - 0:58:33 you're afraid to be the kind of man you, you should be, you don't have control over your emotions, not her emotions, your emotions, you don't have control over the things that you think you need that she can deprive you of. You're not willing to tell the truth because you're afraid of what she might 0:58:32 - 0:58:56 do to you. And so when I mean, take away the power, we're getting back to where we started with be the ideal man. Have your purpose and live up to it, be your own person and be the kind of person you can be proud of and then you're way less susceptible to all this garbage. Right. You know, maybe a man 0:58:55 - 0:00:00 and women do this too. A lot of times people endure physical abuse because they're afraid of what would happen if they didn't. Well, just do what you ought to do and face the consequences. Sometimes, especially with men, they're afraid that if their wife leaves them, they're going to be alone. Well, 0:00:00 - 0:59:43 you need to sort out whether it's more important to be who you really are and be proud of yourself or be a weenie and you have a monstrous wife who happens to stay with you. Yeah, you might be alone if she leaves you, but you'll also be a, an honorable person that you can be proud of yourself no matter 0:59:43 - 1:00:10 who's with you and guess what's gonna make you more attractive to women. So you might end up with a better person anyway. It's tough talk. But you know, divorce is a weapon that women use. So we got to be realistic about it. It's a weapon menus too. Sometimes. Always control your emotions. Always a prime 1:00:09 - 1:00:29 tactic for ladies like this is they're going to try to trigger you because when you've got them pinned on something, they could be better at one of their tactics is to trigger you to do something worse in the moment. And that's a way of deflecting their blame. If they can get you angry, then all of a 1:00:29 - 1:00:49 sudden, it's not their fault. It doesn't matter how much it was their fault, it's not their fault anymore because you did something worse. And so you gotta stay calm. Now, your calmness can also help them stay calm. But the, the prime purpose is so that you can avoid that blame shifting. You'll take 1:00:49 - 0:00:00 away the power. Now, when I say control your emotions, I don't mean that you should never raise your voice. Now, we've been kind of light on scriptures in this presentation, but go reread the New Testament and count how many times Jesus raised his voice. It happens. I'll give you a clue. It happens. 0:00:00 - 1:01:37 So there's nothing inherently evil about that. The point is, are you in control? Sometimes some women need to hear things expressed in a very serious way before they'll pay attention. That's how you're gonna punch through their emotional wall. And sometimes it's a terrible idea. So remain in control 1:01:37 - 1:01:59 of your emotions. Keep that subject to your reasoning. Calm reasoning is what will win the day. Never ever apologize for anything that you don't sincerely believe was your fault. Now, maybe a conversation starts that way and your wife makes a compelling case. That is your fault, of course, take credit 1:01:58 - 1:02:28 for it and apologize if it's your fault. But don't play this blame shifting game. Don't allow for things that you did 15 years ago to get dredged up for the 5/100 time. Sorry that's not going to work. I already mentioned, use reason, use logic. That is your strong point. So if you're fighting a ground 1:02:28 - 1:02:51 fighter, like Brazilian jiu jitsu and you're a kickboxer, whatever you do, you make sure that guy doesn't take you to the Met because if he takes you to the Met, you just lost. That's that guy's strong place. Women have trained their whole lives to battle emotionally. That's why they belittle you and 1:02:51 - 1:03:25 they do all these things because they don't get in fistfights with other ladies. They do character assassinations and stuff like that. Excuse me, your strong place is a man is reason and logic. Now don't manipulate her. Don't make yourself out to be better than you are. Don't be a hypocrite. This is 1:03:25 - 1:03:53 why we started with you have to actually be your idea of the ideal man because she will nit pick all those flaws and bring them out to use against you in an argument and you have to take that power away. And finally, and this is gonna come back in our divorce discussion. You need to be honest and realistic 1:03:52 - 1:04:24 about the resources that you bring to the table. Men and women have an unrealistically low appraisal of the value of a decent man. There are tons of decent men who in a disagreement with their wife when there's a pressure, they act like they're the biggest loser in the world and it makes no sense whatsoever 1:04:23 - 1:04:49 . And they act like their wife is God's gift to the earth when she's a completely normal woman. I'll give you a real example of this. Let's say you got a guy who makes over six fig uh over 100,000 a year and he has for years and he funds his wife to be a stay at home mom and she has had many kids and 1:04:49 - 1:05:18 she has not been limited in the number of kids that she has by her husband's money, his earnings potential. And he works very hard at his job. And then they get into discussions and she has all the leverage and, and there are more dimensions to men and women. But in all the other ways, the man and the 1:05:18 - 1:05:48 woman are very normal for the sake of the argument. Ok. That man should have ridiculous leverage in a conversation because he's giving a completely normal woman an extremely exceptional life. Far less than 10% of men could provide that life and way less than 10% choose to. And yet he's coming into this 1:05:48 - 1:06:13 conversation like a beaten dog, that's wrong, that's wrong. And of course, that woman is going to be a monster because she thinks they're on equal footing. All she's done is what every woman has done since the dawn of time. He's outperformed 95% of his peers as men. These two things are not the same 1:06:13 - 1:06:45 and we need to get real about this again. Going back to the money conversation and it's not all about money. If a woman's working outside the home full time, that conversation has to go completely differently. Even if the guy is making measurably more money than the wife in that situation. They're both 1:06:45 - 1:07:19 putting in the same time and it's not gonna buy him much in the conversation. And so their votes become much more equal, so to speak. Now, you didn't know this when you got married because no one told you and they filled your head with lies about equal partner. This that and the other. But it turns out 1:07:19 - 1:07:42 that this being a husband is one of those funny things where the dictionary is also an instruction manual and you should look up the definition for husbandmen. Your mission that you did not know you accepted when you said I do is to help your wife see and acknowledge who she really is and to see and 1:07:42 - 1:08:12 fulfill her potential. Now that all sounds rosy. But unfortunately, included in that mission is showing her her flaws, pointing them out and helping her get over them. It includes helping her see the value of improvement because most young women already think they're God's gift to the earth, especially 1:08:11 - 1:08:45 today. And this is usually as painful as it sounds some religious backing for this. You know, we're supposed to pray that the Father's kingdom come and that his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That's not a request for God to do that. It's an offering for us to do it. You're signing up when 1:08:45 - 1:09:06 you say that that will be done on earth as it is in heaven. You're not saying please do the work so that your will is done on earth. You're saying I will do the work in my little scope that you've given me so that earth is more like heaven and guess where that starts brothers right in your house. The 1:09:06 - 1:09:33 first place that starts is in the mirror. That's why we started this presentation talking about that. But once you get yourself sorted out, the very next thing, look around you, your house is the next place to get aligned with God. And the very first place in your house is your wife. You are the only 1:09:33 - 1:09:54 person on God's green earth that sees how your wife really is. She's always wearing a mask. You're the only one that sees her without it. And it's not because she wants it to be that way. It's because no one can do that 24 7. And you're the lucky guy who gets to see her when she's not wearing it, which 1:09:54 - 1:10:19 means that the greatest burden out of everyone on this planet to help your wife achieve her potential is on you, not her parents, not her kids, not her coworkers, not her girlfriends, you. And you say, well, why isn't it on her? Well, of course, she has responsibility in that. But your job as a man is 1:10:19 - 1:10:55 to be closer to God than she is. That's probably another one no one told you about. So you're gonna have insights that she doesn't have and you get to jump through all the hoops to help her see those things without being draconian about it. And so it's a lot like pruning a tree. All right. So as you 1:10:55 - 1:11:22 go about with your loppers, let me try to give you some help. So you don't get divorced unless you really want to tip. Number one. Be the best man. She can get. Women are hyper gms, which means that they never stop looking for greener grass. It will never stop when her pulse stops, she'll stop looking 1:11:22 - 1:11:46 . She's constantly going to be evaluating whether she could get better somewhere else. This is just a function of female nature. And so you get to play the game, you don't get to pick the rules. The game is, you have to be a better man than anyone else who would accept her. You don't have to be the best 1:11:45 - 1:12:12 man in the world. You just have to be the best man that would tolerate her. So if she's content with you now and then she drops £50 you better do something to be better than you were when she was £50 heavier. If you get demoted at work and you take a 25% pay cut you better do something else to make up 1:12:12 - 1:12:38 that value in her eyes. All of these changes are going to increase the odds she's going to leave you and, or she will make your life such a living hell that you wish she would. So the fuzzy version is be all that you can be just like that old army commercial, be better than any man she knows or can imagine 1:12:37 - 1:12:57 who would tolerate her. Now, that's really tricky if she had a history when you guys got married, if she had had boyfriends before you're competing against an imaginary man that doesn't actually exist who's composed of all the best parts of all the men that she dated. This is why women really shouldn't 1:12:56 - 1:13:19 date before they get married. Phrased a different way. They shouldn't continue dating anyone. They don't have the full intention of marrying, but that's kind of the rosy version. There's also a general Sherman version or raised earth version. If you're not familiar with the history, some would say that 1:13:19 - 1:13:42 General Sherman won the war, the civil war for the North because instead of engaging in traditional battles where the union was getting their butts kicked because it generally pun intended. The generals in the South tended to be better. But Sherman marched across the fields and just burned them. He just 1:13:42 - 1:14:07 marched right across the South and burned everything in his path because it turns out starvation is a strong motivator and that was a huge violation of the traditional rules of war. But Sherman didn't care, Sherman was there to win and it's not fun to talk about. But this is the kind of thing that proves 1:14:06 - 1:14:27 to be very effective in avoiding divorce. Women get divorced when they think it will lead to something better and the laws don't do them any favor in this because they make it out so that, you know, think of how silly it would be to sign a contract where the other person is going to get rewarded if they 1:14:27 - 1:14:56 break the contract. And that's what modern marriage is because the divorce laws are so skewed in favor of women. So what's the raised earth version of be the best man she can get help her not be deluded about her value because by default, modern women grossly over inflate their value. You could be a 1:14:56 - 1:15:18 completely average woman and think you're a nine, you can be a 45 year old woman with 10 kids and think you're just gonna leave your husband and find some young buck who's wealthy and awesome in every way. And he's gonna take care of you for the rest of your life. And so these things take tact, which 1:15:18 - 1:15:42 I'm probably the worst person in the world to advise you on. But you ought to regularly remind your wife of reality and that will help her. Not mis mistakenly think that there is greener grass when your grass is greenest is gonna get another part of this. It's a little different is make her life much 1:15:42 - 1:16:11 better with you than without you. So, in most cases, the legal ramifications of divorce are going to make it so that she would be better off without you unless you're an amazing guy. We kind of covered that. And so it's something more, more than just money in a house. Right. But there's a raised earth 1:16:10 - 1:16:41 version of this too, which is that the laws about divorce and child support and alimony, those are based on a couple of assumptions about motives that a man might have to avoid certain punishments in his life. Now, what if you couldn't care less about those punishments? Do you think that that would affect 1:16:40 - 1:17:12 your wife's likelihood of invoking them? Of course, it would, of course it would you see that all only works because for the most part, a man doesn't want to go to jail and would a good man would feel like he's abandoning his kids if he did that? But if your position is different, maybe that doesn't 1:17:11 - 1:17:33 apply to you, maybe you're in the position where you feel like if your wife totally torched your marriage and divorced you, it wouldn't be your fault at all. It be her fault and whatever consequence followed for your kids would also be her fault, not yours. And if she understood that she'd probably be 1:17:33 - 1:18:03 less likely to divorce you. So, you know, that's a tough position. But in the world today, uh, I think that there are some options that are kind of forced on people. And it's unfortunate, it's unfortunate when laws encourage people to do morally wrong things. Now, last slide, one thing I've seen in men 1:18:03 - 1:18:26 when they get a little shaken up by, by these sorts of things and they spur into action again. I, I cannot underscore it enough. It's almost never the case that the very first thing they focus on is improving themselves. They almost always want to jump straight to, I want my wife to be a better person 1:18:25 - 1:18:43 . So my life is easier and I, I've already told you this in this presentation. That is absolutely the wrong motive to do any of this. It's not gonna work. She's gonna end up leaving you if you try that and you push it too hard. And, and that might be the best thing if you're that weak in the end, the 1:18:43 - 1:19:10 whole point is to fix the weakness, not to embrace it, trying to force your wife to be better. Just so your life is easier. That's being even more weak than you have been to create the problem in the first place. So this is like, II, I said, it's kind of like pruning a tree. You know, there's only so 1:19:09 - 1:19:29 much of a tree you can prune every season. I think the rule of thumb is never go past the third. Well, with people. It's even less than that. You don't jump on your wife and prune a third of her away. Start criticizing all this stuff. She's not gonna be able to take that, especially if you've conditioned 1:19:28 - 1:19:58 her for years to have way lower expectations of herself than what you're putting on her right now. That's not fair and it's not gonna work. So go ahead and make changes to yourself right away and try to get as close to perfect as you can. But give her time to change. Be patient with her, don't be patient 1:19:57 - 1:20:22 with yourself but be patient with her. I don't know if you've ever had and I, I, I am using the analogy of a dog to talk about women, but, uh, it's not in a derogatory way if you know me at all. I really like dogs and this fits, um, if you've ever adopted a dog and I've done this at least three times 1:20:22 - 1:20:39 now. They come trained a certain way. I guess we had one for short term. So it's been at least four and there's some things they know how to do and there's some things they don't know how to do and there's some things they're conditioned to, you know, we had a dog that we adopted and he peed all over 1:20:39 - 1:20:56 the place in the house. So we just couldn't stop. It took a long time and a lot of work before we figured out something that works and guess what, he's still prone to do that. We have to watch him like a hawk when we've got him inside and, and there are certain bounds that we've permanently changed our 1:20:56 - 1:21:16 behavior to help him avoid that thing. He wasn't willing to change. And that's what it's like. There's some, and you got to work with them very slowly and help them make changes. And a lot of what we have said in this presentation is fully applicable the other way. And if you're a wife and you'd like 1:21:16 - 1:21:39 to see your, your husband get better in certain ways, be patient, be patient, roll it out over time. One reason you don't want to just compel your wife to change right away in all the ways you might imagine are best. One obvious reason not to do that is because you really should have a discussion and 1:21:39 - 1:21:59 not just launch into this stuff. But the other thing is that she's gonna know that the reason you're so urgent about her changing has nothing to do with her benefit. It has to do with yours. And it's going to pull the rug out from your moral authority to make the arguments. You have to be willing to 1:21:59 - 0:00:00 stand there. And I know we said literally, you should not tolerate physical abuse from your wife, but figuratively, you need to stand there and let the punches land for as long as it takes, if you're really serious about helping her and you need to decide, are you all in and is that worth it to you? 0:00:00 - 1:22:46 Because maybe in your situation there's a different tack that you want to take and, and maybe for you, it's just like, you know, this wall is too high. I'm just gonna take it. I'm not gonna challenge any of this. It's just not worth the cost. All right, fine. And she might divorce you anyway because 1:22:46 - 1:23:09 that actually happens quite often these days. And is that something you want to face? And maybe you don't care, that's fine. And maybe for you, you care more about the what seems like the easy way, non confrontation than you do your kids. That's fine. I mean, it's not fine, but if that's the way it is 1:23:09 - 1:23:35 , that's the way it is. You got to make the choice, you gotta make the choice. So I hope that this has been eye opening and that it invites you to change in good ways. And I look forward to a time when fewer men that I know are in this situation and it's a rough road and I've given you the slow man nod 1:23:35 - 1:24:00 . It's a terrible thing, but this is a huge chunk of your path to Zion. And I made a slight case for that. But you're gonna find if you disregard this council and you try to keep marching towards being the man that God wants you to be according to what he has taught you his voice to you internally, you're 1:24:00 - 1:24:26 going to find resistance coming from your own house. And I'm telling you right now, this stuff's not optional. Your specific implementation may vary. But what I'm saying is you will only be able to reconcile yourself so far to God without reconciling your family. You can't just have your wife just, you 1:24:25 - 0:00:00 know, running around and bucking like a wild horse all the time doing whatever the heck she wants and expect that as a family, you're going to come to Christ. It doesn't work that way. You gotta get your own family sorted out. That's step two in the process. Specifically, your wife, if your husband, 0:00:00 - 1:25:06 your wife is step two, yourself is step one, your wife is step two, your kids are step three. And again, if you want to help your kids, how far are you going to be able to go if your wife's not on board? Not Barry? So you got to come to unity and that's a two way street. So hopefully this has been helpful 1:25:05 - 1:25:08 and I wish you the best.