My wife and I were in the kitchen, talking about what we should get my son for Christmas. She asked for my opinion.

I brought my A-game to the conversation. I listened and I was patient. Really tuned into her ideas. I offered what I thought were some solid suggestions. With little thought, she shot them all down.

She then proceeded to tell me that she was going to spend twice what I had proposed because I was being cheap and our son deserved more.

Does your wife ask for your opinion and then ignore it?

In the moment, I thought, Why are you even asking me for my opinion? What was the point of this conversation?

And so I resigned myself thinking, She doesn´t listen to me. She doesn´t value my opinion. She can never be wrong.

But I knew better than to speak those thoughts out loud. Dare I risk conflict with her? And especially during the holidays when I knew for the sake of my son, I had to be on my best behavior.

I remember that moment because it was then that I realized I was hiding out to avoid conflict. I didn´t have the guts or the skills to be honest with her. It gnawed at me. I hated the man I’d become. Needless to say, it was a rough holiday season.

Are you happy with the man you’ve become in your marriage?

In our twenties, I remember that my wife would listen. She was open to my thoughts and opinions. In fact, that was one of the things that I loved about her. She respected my intelligence. She loved my ideas when it came to the holidays.

And then in our thirties, something shifted. Our son was born. Like any new mom, she got anxious. Every time my son cried, her nervous system went into high alert.

That´s when I started orienting around her well-being. I wanted her to be ok. Being a good guy meant making sure my wife and son were ok.

But in the process, I started feeling like a second-class citizen in my own home. I started feeling like she always had to be right. She could never be wrong.

Can your partner rarely admit to being wrong?

It was as if my wife’s intelligence trumped mine – about everything.

Which school my son should go to. What we should do when he was misbehaving. Where we should buy his clothes. What we should do for the holidays.

And then it trickled over to us.

How I was not showing up for her. That I was working too much. That I didn’t help around the house. That she didn´t feel like I was on her team.

And over time, I just threw my hands up. I thought, I’m done arguing with this woman. It’s easier to just let her be right all the time.

Do you let your wife be right all the time?

Over time, it´s easy to feel like you have nothing to contribute after you’ve been shot down time and again for years.

Then one day, you realize you´ve lost who you are. You realize you have no opinions. You don´t care about what´s for dinner, what sofa gets bought, or what you do for the holidays.

And maybe like me, you even wake up, scared in the middle of the night, realizing, “I don´t know who I am anymore. This woman has dominated me, crushed the life out of me.”

Have you lost who you are in your marriage?

You may even ask yourself, Is this how I want to spend the rest of my life?

It’s a crossroads for a lot of guys. But we don´t realize it´s also a major opportunity for us to reclaim the self-confidence and courage that we´ve lost.

To rebuild our backbone. Reclaim our wants and needs. And cut through her emotionality with clarity.

Reject a world where she´s never wrong. And create one where your opinions matter.

To step into integrity and be the man you want to be in your marriage. To create kick-ass holidays where you don’t just feel like wallpaper.

That was the vision of who I wanted to be. The guy I wanted to model for my son.

And that´s the man I became. And you can too. Meet that man in the video below.

Are you choosing the status quo over aliveness in your marriage?

Every day that you hide, retreat, or withdraw in your relationship is a day that you betray yourself. You think it’s the status quo. You think it’s peace.

But silently you are deepening the roots of a marriage in which you play small.

At the end of the day, most of us guys want a few simple things in marriage. Trust, acceptance, connection, sex, and the ability to relax and love his wife.

And yet instead, most of us agree to a world where our wife can never be wrong.

Being a confident and capable man in your relationship is not as hard as it seems. Yes, it’s work. I won’t B.S. you.

But when you step in, make it a priority, and do it with a group of guys doing the same, it’s transformational and dare I say, even fun.

Do you want to make this the most fulfilling holiday season in years?

Get your relational chops tuned up just before the holidays.

Go into the holidays with clarity, confidence, and boldness, instead of just dragging yourself into the new year. Check out two ways below to do so.

One, if you´re on the brink of divorce, be the best man you can be for your kids and family this holiday season. In a quick chat by email or a call, I´ll help you stay strong this holiday season.

And second, if you´re committed to your marriage, check out The Men’s Relationship Tools and…

• Learn simple strategies for the holidays to be COOL & COLLECTED with your partner.
• Discover how not to TRIP UP when she wants to break the bank this holiday.
• Set yourself up to go into 2022 as a new you, a CONFIDENT & BOLD man in relationship.

The post It’s The Holidays & My Wife Can Never Be Wrong appeared first on Stuart Motola.

“I don’t spend enough time with the kids.

“She doesn’t feel like I’m on her team.

“It’s endless. Sometimes I wonder why she even stays married to me,” Jack says.

Does your wife complain about you?

“Why does she stay married to you? Have you asked her?” I say.

Jack takes a deep breath. He shakes his head.

“It’s a bit embarrassing to say,” he says.

“Trust me, I’ve heard just about everything,” I reply.

“Because…” he says. “… of the kids.”

“And you take that personally?”

“Of course I do. I’m just a shelf item in her world. A slot holder for her to keep our family together.”

Do you feel like a pawn in your partner’s world?

“Jack,” I say. “I want to tell you something. It’s something most of us miss when we are feeling victimized. You have a choice.”

“Say more,” he says.

“You can either be in ‘poor me’ land or you can start to see your wife’s complaints about the dishes and time with your kids as feedback.”

“Ok,” Jack says.

I have his full attention.

I tell Jack how in her complaints, his wife has given him the operating manual on how to be in a happy marriage with her.

Do you want the operating manual on your partner for a fulfilling marriage?

If so, discover how to transform her complaints into your marching orders for a happy marriage, in the video below.

“Jack,” I say. “This doesn’t just mean roll over and do whatever she asks of you. That would be inauthentic.”

He nods.

“What it means instead is to get clear on what she wants. Get curious, get more information from your wife, and ask questions.

“Can you tell me why dishes in the sink bother you so much?

“How much time would you like to see me spending with the kids each week?

“Have a strong spine and don’t just fold at her complaints.

“She’s counting on you to be strong in the face of her complaints. And yes, even if it’s been going on for 10 years.

“This is your chance, Jack. To step up and change things for the better.”

Over the course of several conversations with me for the next 2 months, Jack steps up.

He develops a strong spine with his wife’s complaints and tunes into her feedback. And what do you know, her complaints diminish.

Do you want to diminish your wife’s complaints?

Change happened for Jack because he stayed in action. He didn’t just say, I understand, and that’s enough.

Instead, he showed up and kept showing up. To confront his old unconscious destructive “poor me” behavioral patterns.

He noticed when he was going down the self-pity hole and instead, called forth a stronger and more capable version of himself.

I always say to a client, it’s not just on me to create the change you seek in your relationship. It’s a 200% arrangement. My 100% and yours. That’s how change happens.

Are you ready to show up fully to transform your wife’s complaints into a happy and fulfilling marriage?

If so, let’s have a quick chat.

A quick chat is a guaranteed, powerful conversation to give you meaningful insights on how to create the marriage you want.

And to be clear, talking with me is just an honest conversation, keeping it real.

I’d be honored to hear from you. Move into action and shoot me a quick email.

And for the men who aren’t ready for 1:1 coaching and still want to transform their marriage, check out the Men’s Relationship Tools. Reply “MRS Yes” to try it out and join your first call for free.

The post How To Deal With Her Complaints appeared first on Stuart Motola.

You work hard in your career. You try to be good to your kids.

But over time, you and your wife drift apart. And in time, you lose her. You essentially become roommates.

Do you feel like roommates with your wife?

No man means for this to happen. But like a garden untended to, connection with your wife withers over the years.

With the demands of parenting, work, and daily functioning, a man’s marriage easily falls through the cracks.

And often he knows it’s happening, but he keeps his head up and hopes for the best. Maybe he goes to therapy or couples counseling but often with little success.

Have you fixed your marriage through counseling?

And then, a pattern of getting through the days emerges. Coping mechanisms develop.

Be it pot, porn, alcohol, workaholism, or self-imposed mental scripts that say… “Suck it up, man. She’s busy. Don’t be such a wimp.”

Like many married men I’ve worked with over the last 15 years, maybe you feel like your wife’s last priority, behind the kids, her job, and the house.

You go from being a king to a peripheral prince. Your wife attaches to the kids and no longer needs you the way she once did.

But unlike her, you want more – more connection, more sex, more intimacy.

And if you really go there, it breaks your heart. It’s almost intolerable.

Marriage was supposed to be happily ever after. Or so you thought way back then. But it rarely turns out that way.

Do you feel like you’ve lost your wife?

In the space of losing your wife, she starts getting emotional and even inconsistent. It seems as if she’s under a spell of emotions at times.

You want to know what you did wrong, what you could do better. You’re a good guy. You want to make things right for her.

But she says…

“You should just know.”

“I’ve told you a thousand times.”

“I shouldn’t have to tell you time and again.”

And you hear the words. But nothing makes sense. You’re at a loss for what to do.

Does your wife seem cold or irrational?

If so, this unconscious thing happens. You start to turn away from her. It isn’t on purpose, but you try to find a way through.

You seek other ways to be happy – be it more golf, more time with the kids, more work. Any way to experience a sense of value.

There is little value with her. And it’s like being stranded on a deserted island. Your emotions start to turn on you – resentment, anger, bitterness, or just apathy.

Do you feel undervalued by your wife?

Often a man assumes that his wife’s irrationality or lack of consistency is because of him.

He doesn’t know what’s happened. Why he’s lost his wife. How his marriage has gotten to such a tough place.

How do you make sense of it all?

In the video below, discover how to get your head back into the game of your marriage with an irrational or distant wife.

The days are long and the years are short, it’s often said.

Don’t be the guy who wakes up one day, and says, how did I get here?

Or even worse, how do I get out of here?

Can you afford to wait years to create the marriage you want?

If not, up your marital game today. Let’s have a quick chat. A guaranteed, powerful conversation to give you meaningful insights on how to create the marriage you want.

I’d be honored to hear from you. And to be clear, talking with me is just an honest, real conversation between two guys. No sales pitch. To get started, shoot me a quick email

Lastly for the men who aren’t ready to talk 1:1 and still want to transform their marriage, try out the Men’s Relationship Tools for free. It’s also a great way to see what I can offer you.

The post How To Stay Married To An Irrational Wife appeared first on Stuart Motola.

Sounds like the words of a guy who is financially stressed.

Anyone who’s been married a while can tell you that arguments about money and marriage go hand in hand.

Do you and your wife fight about money?

It can be infuriating for a guy when he feels like his wife wastes money.

“I work my ass off, trying to put aside for our future, and she’s pissing away cash like it’s nothing,” said Todd.

And so the typical cycle went like this. Todd’s wife would spend frivolously. He would get upset. She’d hide her spending from him. He would discover it months later.

He’d confront her. She’d say, “That was forever ago, you expect me to remember that?”

A fight would ensue. He’d feel powerless. She’d feel humiliated. And both would dig in for their survival. He can’t control me. She can’t piss away money like it grows on trees.

Is money a source of conflict for you and your wife?

You may know the rest of the story.

Afterward, Todd and his wife put each other in the doghouse. Trust went to hell. Intimacy was off the radar for the next week or two.

In the end, two lonely people living lonely lives, isolated on separate sides of the fence. And then every six to eight weeks, they repeat the cycle.

Why is money such a problem for so many married couples?

For guys, it’s simple. Much of our self-esteem is embedded in our ability to earn and provide. It relates to our built-in need to serve and protect.

While women are earning like never before, they typically don’t wrap their self-esteem around their earnings. But men, on the other hand, do.

And so when Todd’s wife spent $10 on a box of cookies that he thought shouldn’t cost more than $5, it became a big deal. But in the flood of emotions, he missed something big. Todd failed to realize that it wasn’t just about the money.

What he missed was that this was about something much more personal. It was about his self-confidence in his marriage. His ability to confidently communicate to his wife.

In the absence of self-confidence, he resorted to trying to change his wife’s behaviors in order to be okay and respected. But it wasn’t about her. It’s about him.

Do you wish you could communicate confidently with your wife?

If you could, you wouldn’t fall into this trap of thought, common for many guys. They think, If only I could make more money, then I wouldn’t have to worry about her spending.

But more money is not going to fix a self-confidence problem. Todd could tell you that. He was the guy worth millions, yes, millions, complaining to his wife about a $10 box of cookies.

His complaint wasn’t really about cookies. It was about his self-worth as a man. It was about his ability to communicate confidently to his wife. This was deeply personal for him.

Why else would a multi-millionaire make such a big deal about a $10 box of cookies?

Do you get upset at dumb things you judge your wife does?

If so, then consider something that was big for Todd. The deeper message here. The story you tell yourself. That somehow you have failed as a man when you can’t get through to her.

It’s easy to beat yourself up about your inability to communicate with your wife.

In the absence of self-confidence, men often lose themselves in a tangled web of self-judgment, fear, and projection. But none of that gets dealt with because we’re too focused on the damn cookies.

Of course, the cookies are a metaphor. For you, it might be a parking ticket that goes unpaid, a bill that got lost, or a check that never got cashed. Whatever it is for you…

What if you could just relax, communicate well, and enjoy your marriage?

In the video below, check out the precise words that helped put Todd back in charge of his marriage.

What is it that you ultimately want in your relationship?

At the end of the day, Todd wanted what a lot of married men want – self-confidence with his wife, trust in their marriage, and the ability to relax and love her.

And what a thing it is that we guys will toss all that away for a $10 box of cookies. In truth, we don’t even know we’re being so foolish.

Yet in the absence of the simple ability to convey impact, to talk about what’s really under the hood for us, we spend years complaining, hiding, or blowing things up.

Being a confident and capable man in your relationship is not all that hard. You just need to stay in your productive powers.

Do you want to go from frustrated to confident with your partner?

If you answered yes, let’s have a quick chat.

A guaranteed, powerful conversation to help you get the upper hand on your partner’s verbose ways. I’d be honored to hear from you.

And to be clear, talking with me is just an honest, real conversation between two guys. No sales pitch. To get started, shoot me a quick email.

Lastly for the men who aren’t ready to talk 1:1 and still want to transform their marriage, try out Men’s Relationship Tools.

It’s also a great way to see what coaching can offer you.

The post How To Get Your Wife To Stop Wasting Money appeared first on Stuart Motola.

The truth is in your cock. It’s in your balls. The evidence is in your body.

You want to have more sex than your wife.

Maybe she’s distant. She’s cold. She’s timid, closed off, or uninterested in sex.

It feels like a slap in the face. A closed door to a critical part of you. You’re a man, for crying out loud. You have needs.

You feel most loved, admired, and respected when your partner is open to you sexually.

When that door shuts, it’s as if you’re left stranded on a desert island without food or water. You feel starved.

At worst, it can cause you to feel desperate, in pain, and even lose hope in your relationship.

True or false? You feel most connected emotionally with your partner when you feel connected sexually.

And yet you can be shamed for this. You hear things from her (or as a client recently told me, from his female therapist) like…

“All you care about is sex.”

“You’re a cliché man.”

“I’m not your sexual object.”

Do you want more sex than your wife?

In today’s culture, it’s easy for you to feel shamed for your desires.

Hell, you might even be saying to yourself, I’m a good guy. It’s not like I’m hiring a prostitute or having an affair. It’s my wife, for cryin’ out loud.

(And no shame on those guys who are having affairs or hiring prostitutes. I’m not in the moral judgment business but in the business of understanding unmet human needs and how to bring them back into integrity.)

It can feel like a life sentence when you want more sex than your wife.

I know. I lived it for many years in my marriage.

Sometimes I thought it was god’s cruel joke that she needed to connect emotionally before becoming sexual, all the while it was the opposite for me.

Do you struggle with the emotional-sexual divide in your marriage?

It can feel like a bit of a cluster fuck. You want to figure it out.

And in the process of trying to do so, you feel damned if you act on it and damned if you don’t.

Of course, the internet has all kinds of tips – talk to her about it, get it out in the open, make her feel loved, and on and on.

And yet in trying to implement, it’s easy to face plant and get even more frustrated.

How have you attempted to solve your sexual challenges?

Most guys try one of the four below.

A. Attempt to do everything to make her happy and score points so she’ll open up to you sexually.
(That was my strategy)

B. Ignore it and make the best of it.

C. Use porn and live in fantasies.

D. Get attention at a massage parlor or strip club.

How do you deal with wanting more sex than your wife?

Well, I’ll let you in on a little secret. The lack of sexual fulfillment is on the top level, a symptom.

Underneath are a bunch of other problems.

And to be candid, these may very well be problems in your marriage that you may not want to deal with.

Frankly, it might feel like too much work. And if that’s so, that’s great information.

It helps you get clear on where you want to put your energy, and what your higher priorities are.

You get to decide how you want to do you.

But if you effectively deal with those deeper problems, you’re in a much greater position to create the sexually fulfilling marriage that you seek.

Do you like your sex life as it is or do you want to create something better?

Check out the video below to work on the deeper problems stopping you from creating the sexually fulfilling marriage you seek.

Sex is primal. And at the same time, after years of marriage, we can lose access to that primal energy.

Sex can become mundane.

When there’s no aliveness in you and your life, it makes perfect sense that you’ll experience deadness in the bedroom.

Without curiosity and variety, things flatline in relationship.

An unfulfilled sexual life is just a symptom of where you’ve flatlined with your partner.

Are you ready to bring more aliveness to your marriage and bedroom?

If so, let’s have a quick chat. A guaranteed, powerful conversation to give you meaningful insights on how to create the marriage you want.

And to be clear, talking with me is just an honest, real conversation between two guys. No sales pitch.

I’d be honored to hear from you. Move into action and shoot me a quick email.

Lastly for the men who aren’t ready to talk 1:1 and still want to transform their marriage or just know who the hell I am to consider coaching, check out the Men’s Relationship Tools.

The post I Want More Sex Than My Wife appeared first on Stuart Motola.

Be it the freedom to do what we want. Believe what we want. Or just live our lives as we please.

And yet often at a young age, in our 20s or 30s, we do something that goes counter to maintaining our freedom.

We get married. Yes, you heard that right.

We bind ourselves to one person for sex, love, connection, and intimacy for the rest of our lives (or at least that’s our intention).

It’s not until years later that we get slammed by that lack of freedom.

Do you have any of these voices in your head?

“She tells me what to do.”

“She gets on me for not taking out the trash.”

“I get beat up for not saying the right thing.”

And on and on.

In a worst-case scenario, you may feel trapped in your marriage.

Do you feel trapped in your marriage?

You wake up every day to the same person, come home and eat with the same person, spend weekends together, take vacations together.

How easy it is for it all to get mundane and flat. In the space, it’s easy to feel confined, like you’ve lost your freedom.

You may even be asking yourself…

Is it worth staying married feeling so trapped?

Whether you take the “death do us part” bit seriously or not, maybe you’re just focused on getting through the next few months or years of your marriage, or until the kids get into college.

You could be just trying to build a good track record with your wife, to create some optimism or a sense of “hey, this is all right, we’ll be OK, even good together.”

And still, there’s the reality of being so in each other’s business day in and day out. And at times, you turn against one another. You fight.

It can feel overbearing, too much, and confining. This experience of coupledom has a name. It’s called enmeshment.

And it feels like you don’t know where she begins and where you end.

Do you feel enmeshed with your wife?

Enmeshment is a vitality killer in your marriage.

We enmesh as a way of creating safety in marriage. But it’s not healthy and feels like crap.

Too much safety diminishes passion and aliveness. It creates deadness and a feeling of entrapment in your marriage.

Do you feel the vitality in your marriage has flatlined?

If so, check out the video below for a powerful and easy tip to implement to go from feeling trapped in your marriage to feeling free again.

Feeling trapped in your marriage is no way to live, day in and out.

What you need to know is that the trap isn’t so much about your marriage but how you’ve been incapacitated to do anything about it.

Are you ready to feel free again in your marriage?

If so, let’s have a quick chat. A guaranteed, powerful conversation to give you meaningful insights on how to create the marriage you want.

And to be clear, talking with me is just an honest, real conversation.

I’d be honored to hear from you. Move into action and shoot me a quick email.

And for the many women reading this, wanting to learn more about men, here is a special link for you women.

Lastly for the men who aren’t ready to talk 1:1 and still want to transform their marriage, check out the Men’s Relationship Tools.

The post What To Do When You Feel Trapped In Your Marriage appeared first on Stuart Motola.

Your wife asks you your opinion on something – the curtains, the placemats, or a school thing with your kid.

So you give your opinion. I like the blue curtains. The red placemats look great. Sure, let’s get a tutor for Billy.

And then she does what she wants, as if you never said a thing. You ask yourself…

Why did she even bother to ask my opinion?

And it happens again. Rinse and repeat.

Over time, you stop sharing your thoughts. Your opinions.

And then eventually, a distance builds between you and her. As if you live in separate worlds.

Maybe on a rare day, she still asks your opinion but you just withdraw and don’t give it.

Or a part of you says actually it’s better that she doesn’t ask my opinion because she didn’t listen to me anyway.

Without knowing it, at least consciously, (but you feel it) you’re stuck where you are with her. A status quo.

You have a story. She doesn’t consider me. She does her own thing. She does not care about me.

Do you feel disregarded by your wife?

If so, chances are you don’t ask yourself this next question.

How can I lead in my relationship?

Most guys say, hell, I’d just like to be able to have an opinion that she listens to.

But you gave that up a while ago.

So you don’t try to lead but you let her lead – at least in the domain of ordinary things – house, kids, etc.

And yet chances are you lead in other areas, like money, but it doesn’t feel like leadership. It just feels like you do your thing and she follows.

You try to explain the savings, planning, investments to her, but she doesn’t really pay attention. She says, “That’s your thing, not mine.”

So it’s as if you’re alone again. And that’s the problem. Feeling alone in your marriage. Now where you’re not alone is when you become relational.

When you look at yourself, the relationship you want, and step in to create it.

That’s a level of leadership few men ever act on or even know they can. At least in a way that invites her to participate.

So why don’t you lead in the relationship? And why won’t she let you?

In this video discover three reasons why she shuts down your leadership and what to do about it.

For those short on time, here’s a headline on the video. For the robust version, watch the video.

Part of the reason she shuts down your leadership is she’s been conditioned to. She has such a need for voice – and this comes from her wound of not having one as a little girl – that she can’t even consider your voice.

Another piece is that you’ve suppressed your voice, so when it comes out, it typically comes out sideways with resentments.

Sort yourself out, brother. Learn to lead in your relationship. The work starts with you.

Yes if one person changes, the other is forced to change. Or not. And that’s great info for you as well.

Learn to lead in your relationship. Take the first step.

Shoot me a quick email.

Stay Strong & Be Relational,
Stu

P.S. Join a group of men tackling their relationship challenges head-on every Tuesday at 12pm ET on the Men’s Relationship Tools calls.

First call is free. Reply to get a zoom link.

The post 3 Reasons Your Wife Won’t Let You Lead appeared first on Stuart Motola.

“Baby,” he says, “I work 10 hours a day, I do everything I can for us to have a good life.”

“Yes, that’s fine,” she says. “But I don’t feel like you love me.”

“What did I do wrong?” He asks her.

“Nothing,” she says.

Do you struggle to understand how you failed your wife?

If so, just know that there are millions of men who are in the same boat as you.

In his seminal book many years ago “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus,” John Gray spoke to this.

He explained a core difference between men and women and how they show love.

Essentially, he said men and women have different brains.

Men are logical. Women are emotional.

And yes, it can often feel like we are on two different planets.

Do you try to understand your wife logically?

If so, there you go, that’s part of the problem.

Due to a lack of advanced emotional intelligence in many of us men, we often ignore emotions and instead attempt to show our love through logic. We try to fix things.

Do you try to serve your wife by fixing and it often backfires?

A guy’s inner script typically goes like this – Tell me the problem and let me use my superior rational powers to make things better, sweetie.

He uses his rational powers at work all the time – in law, finance, business, engineering, science – and it pays off, but not at home.

“Well, then the other day,” Dave continues. “She said that she wanted me to take care of the food for the party, and then when I came home with everything, she got upset at me.

“I asked her why, and she says, oh because I didn’t do it right.

“Baby, I got everything you asked me for. I even had a list.” He scratches his head, mystified.

“That’s not the point,” his wife says. “Three people canceled and now we’ll have too much food.”

“Wait a minute, love. Is this about you being upset for me not getting the right food at the market or about people not coming tonight?”

“Why do you have to argue with me?” She says.

Dave has that “I can never win” look on his face.

And then it goes downhill from there.

Do you struggle to understand your wife?

Well, if so, consider Dave’s story. Maybe it’s yours too. Clearly, there were some illogical things going on.

Logically, Dave got it right, and maybe you do too, but still emotionally he’s on another planet and can’t see what his wife really needs.

Do you want to figure out what your wife really needs?

If so, check out the video below to see how your logic spins you into a place of helplessness with her and what to do instead.

“Dave,” I say, after he’s done telling me about the party incident. “Her upset wasn’t about you.”

“But why did it come out on me?” He asks. “I try to do my best for her and nothing seems like enough.”

“Emotions, Dave. Emotions. Tune into her emotions.

“Start learning her language. Decode her.

“She’ll pivot from food shopping to guests cancelling in a micro-second. And you’ll be left in the dust on the food shopping.

“She was upset about the guests, not you.”

“But…” he says. “It shouldn’t have come out on me.”

“I know, it seems unfair. But this is your chance to man up.”

“Try this, Dave,” I continue. “Say this to yourself.

“Her emotions came out on me. It wasn’t about me. I can be there for her.

“And I can say, I’m sorry, sweetie, that people cancelled. Let’s still do our best to have fun together.”

Hmmm… Dave looks up, thinking. He’s struggling to buy it.

“Ok, I’ll do my best,” he says. He gets it.

Changing his marriage is more important than being right.

In the weeks to come, Dave starts implementing and things improve dramatically with his wife.

Do you want to learn how to decode your wife’s emotions so you can experience less frustration and more joy?

If so, let’s have a quick chat. Men or women who want to learn more about men (that’s right, I am coaching women now).

A quick chat is a guaranteed, powerful conversation to give you meaningful insights on how to create the marriage you want.

And to be clear, talking with me is just an honest conversation, keeping it real.

I’d be honored to hear from you. Move into action and shoot me a quick email.

And for the men who aren’t ready for 1:1 coaching and still want to transform their marriage, check out the Men’s Relationship Tools.

The post Why Her Emotions Frustrate You appeared first on Stuart Motola.

They say, “I love my wife. She’s great but I don’t know if I can stay married to her.”

And then they explain further…

“We haven’t had sex in months.

“She’s not even interested.

“She’s frigid.”

Do you struggle with sex in your relationship?

Sex is a big deal for us dudes.

It’s often been said that we men need to have sex to feel emotionally connected.

And on the flip side, she needs to be emotionally connected to have sex.

It can feel like such a disconnect. God’s cruel joke.

What comes first – sex or emotional connection?

Many guys don’t even know that his wife needs to be emotionally connected to have sex.

They think she just needs to open her legs and accept him.

They say, “I do everything to fulfill what she needs of me. She doesn’t reciprocate.”

I understand this well because I was in a 20-year marriage where sex was often lacking.

I tried to behave myself. You know, score points. Try to be loving. And then maybe she’d be open up to sex.

But most of the time, she’d reject me. It was as if she saw this sudden wave of exemplary behavior and didn’t quite trust it. And with good reason.

Do you try to score points with your wife to get sex?

Eventually, I’d wonder, What’s the point?

Why even bother to try to build an emotional connection if I can’t get laid once in a while by my own damn wife?

So I’d feel the sting of rejection. To cope, I’d suck it up and try to stay the course for my son and the family.

But do we really have to castrate ourselves to stay married?

There’s got to be a better way. But yet it’s so easy just to throw in the towel, give up, look at other women, or accept the status quo.

There’s a name for that course of action. It’s called “playing small.”

It feels like crap because it is small – small-minded, small-hearted, and small sexually.

What if you had a better way to revive your sexless marriage?

Before we get there, let’s acknowledge something big.

In a long-term relationship or marriage, we have this other dynamic going on. I’ll speak to it in a second.

Often, we don’t know about this dynamic, because the only reference we have for abundant sex is in the good old days, during the honeymoon chemical-flooding phase of doing it in the bathroom, the car, the kitchen, a park bench, anywhere we could get our sex organs out.

What we had then that was lost many years into marriage was simply this… Eros.

Eros is mystery, the unknown, erotic curiosity, arousal, and passion.

It’s something that gets squashed in the day-to-day functioning of married life – getting the kids to school, going to work, bills paid, etc., etc.

We lost our eros and passion because at some point, whether we knew it or not, we prioritized security, stability, and commitment over risk, vulnerability, and deep connection.

Does fear of risk hold you back from creating a fulfilling sex life?

In this video below, I talk about 3 steps to creating a sexually fulfilling marriage, and 3 mental errors we guys make in the process.

Do you want to up level your sex life?

There’s an old joke. To kill off your sex life, get married.

But let’s face it, you didn’t get married to kill off your sex life.

You got married to build a home – psychological, emotional, physical, sexual in one another, and a literal home for your kids.

Fixing a sexless marriage takes some work. And yes, there could be some struggle in achieving it.

Hard conversations, not taking everything personally, and a willingness to get curious about your partner’s blocks.

Are you willing to be in the struggle of rebuilding your sex life?

At the end of the day, you get to decide what you want to struggle for, and what problems you choose.

When asked if they’re willing to put in the work to rebuild their sex life, most guys say, “Well it depends.”

I hate to break it to you. But nothing groundbreaking happens in the land of “it depends.”

If that’s you, it’s a sign that you’re not super serious about turning around your sex life.

For those guys who are serious, ready to be in the struggle, and ready to do something life-changing, let’s have a quick chat.

You are the kind of man I work with. You are the man I help up level his sex life.

A quick chat is a guaranteed, powerful conversation to give you meaningful insights on how to really understand what’s keeping you stuck from having a great sex life.

And to be clear, talking with me is just an honest conversation between two guys keeping it real to explore how you can move ahead in your relationship.

I’d be honored to hear from you. Move into action and shoot me a quick email.

And if you’re more of a group guy, consider checking out the Men’s Relationship Tools where I am helping men step into action to enhance sex, passion, trust, and confidence in their relationship.

The post 3 Steps To Fix Your Sexless Marriage appeared first on Stuart Motola.

We’ve been together 12 years, says another.

We’ve been together 22 years, says a third guy.

What do all these guys have in common?

All of them flatlined in their marriages. They all felt dead inside with their partner. They struggled with passion in their marriages.

Passion. It often fades in a long-term relationship. Aliveness, a sense of a spark, excitement, connection, sex.

Guys want passion. Women want passion too. All humans want passion.

It seems to be this universal desire as if it’s a right of ours to have passion in our primary relationship.

People are saying to themselves, “I have a right to experience passion, to get out of the dead zone in my marriage, it’s killing me.”

And yet so many people struggle with attaining passion.

Do you lack passion in your relationship?

It’s one thing to want passion. It’s another to sabotage it. And so, often your desire for something else is sabotaging passion.

And that something else is… Can you guess what it is?

Drumroll, please…. It is comfort, safety, and security.

Too much safety, too much comfort kills passion. Passion grows out of uncertainty and risk.

Now don’t get me wrong, safety is critical as a baseline quality to any long-term relationship.

But most people have flatlined in their relationship precisely because somewhere down the road, they chose safety over passion.

They live in an inner script of….

Well, you know, she gets upset when I say the wrong word, so I don’t say anything anymore.

Or…

Yeah, she hates it when I ask for sex. I got tired of her rejecting me, so I stopped asking.

It’s safe to retreat or disengage. But it won’t get you the passion you seek in your relationship.

Do you choose safety over passion in your relationship?

If so, I get it, we need to be safe – emotionally, physically, psychologically – in a long-term relationship.

We need to feel that sense of a safe home in our partner. A place we can rest, experience calm, a sense of respite from the world. But again…

Too much safety leads to a flatlined, dead relationship.

So where are you willing to get unsafe in your relationship?

Maybe you’ve taken risks but they didn’t work out. Then, you just recoiled back into safety.

“I asked her out on a date night and she said no.”

“I tried to do that blindfold thing I’ve been fantasizing about, but she wouldn’t go for it.”

“I touched her on the inside of her arm like she asked me to and then she told me I did it wrong.”

Risks are important but the right risks are even more important.

Are you taking the right risks in your relationship, if any at all?

Risks that get you payoffs.

Risks that honor where you are and help you with the next step needed to move forward into passion.

Risks that won’t crush you if things go south.

Take the right risk at the right time and succeed. And then the next risk and the next.

Build a bridge of risks to get you across that river that’s been keeping you stuck on the shores of deadness.

Do you want to learn how to bring passion back into your marriage?

Check out the video below to discover how stepping into the right risks will bring the passion back to your relationship.

“The level of passion in your relationship is commensurate to the level of risk you’re willing to tolerate in your relationship,” Tony Robbins once said.

It’s a powerful statement that speaks precisely to why risk-averse individuals have no passion in their relationship.

It may be where you feel stuck right now.

Are you willing to take a risk right now?

If so, take that first step and let’s have a quick chat.

A guaranteed, powerful conversation to give you meaningful insights on how to build your risk tolerance to bring passion back into your relationship.

And to be clear, talking with me is just an honest conversation between two guys keeping it real to explore how you can move ahead in your relationship.

I’d be honored to hear from you. Move into action and shoot me a quick email.

The post What Stops You From Getting Passion Back In Your Marriage appeared first on Stuart Motola.