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.

In this video, discover play by play how to finally get through to her.

The post What To Do When You Fear Your Relationship Is Over appeared first on Stuart Motola.

Move into action.

Remove the blocks that keep you from getting through to her.

Shoot me a quick email for a quick chat.

A guaranteed, powerful, honest conversation, keeping it real, to give you meaningful insights on how to create the relationship you want.

For the women out there, let’s talk as well.  That’s right, as a men’s coach, I help female partners better navigate with their male partners.

Guys, forward this link to your woman or check it out yourself.

Not ready for 1:1 coaching and still want to transform your relationship?

Check out the Men’s Relationship Tools weekly calls. Reply to join your first call for free.

The post How To Finally Get Through To Your Woman appeared first on Stuart Motola.

The post How Guys Screw Up With Their Partner appeared first on Stuart Motola.

Just hearing all this makes my stomach cringe. To be married to a woman laden with problems is overwhelming for a guy.

Often his natural response is to take on the burden of her unhappiness and compound it by feeling like a failure if he can’t help her make things better.

Do you take on the burden of your wife’s problems?

An immature woman will blame a man for not perfectly supporting her or making things better.

A mature woman will take responsibility for her situation. She will notice her mindset, her attitude, and her projections.

Note, this is not easy and takes a lot of work to gain this level of maturity, for men and women.

To be honest, many of my clients are in a relationship with an immature woman. And to be clear, this doesn’t mean she’s to blame for your relationship problems.

What’s more important to look at is how you enable her immaturity and take it on as your problem to solve.

Do you enable immature behavior in your wife?

Enabling happens in many different ways, such as fixing, pleasing, rescuing. Anything that you would do to try to “make her better.”

I know this dynamic firsthand as it’s been my own personal dynamic in relationship. As a coach, I can go into classic fixer behavior.

But the problem is that when I do the fixer bit, my partner becomes a burden to me, to such an extent that I can lose my shit and want to push the eject button.

And then I become untrustworthy.

If you’re acting from a compensating behavior such as a pleaser, fixer, or rescuer, you’re taking a burden onto yourself which is unsustainable. Until you recognize that, you’ll blame her for being the problem.

What’s your compensating behavior in your relationship?

All these behaviors are a burden to you and they get even further compounded when you use a self-talk script of “I failed her.”

You can’t be powerful in relationship when you feel overwhelmed and burdened.

The first step to taking back your power is noticing your compensating behaviors and how they further compound your relationship challenges.

So the compensating behavior is not about her, it’s about you trying to heal a deep wound within yourself – be it neglect, abandonment, or some other form of abuse.

Noticing hooks and triggers is the start of you owning your shit and taking charge of it, instead of dumping it onto her with blame or judgment.

The next step is standing side-by-side with your partner, listening and loving, without offering too much advice, if any.

This means listening to her problems without taking it on as your problem but staying compassionate.

Do you want to let go of the burdens in your relationship?

Check out the video below for three quick tips on how to diminish the burden so that you can be in your power to create the marriage you want.

Let’s face it, we’re in a relationship to experience a richer and bigger life. If we feel burdened, weighted, or stressed frequently, our relationship suffers.

We are not achieving the mission of a bigger, richer life with a partner.

Note, this is different than the immature expectation of being completed or made whole by a partner.

This is a form of codependence and causes unhealthy relational dynamics.

How can you get healthy in your relationship today?

Take the first step and 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 the Men’s Relationship Tools for free.

It’s also a great way to get to know me and see if my coaching style is a fit for you.

The post Get Past The Burden Of Feeling Like A Failure To Her 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.

Of course, this is because men are superficial and only care about the physical.

And if you believe that, then you know nothing about most men and you’re being superficial.

Time and again, I hear guys saying…

“She’s shut down.”

“I feel hopeless.”

“The challenges continue.”

Do you struggle with sex in your marriage?

Sex is such a big deal to guys not for the reason we typically think of. It’s not because he’s only interested in the physical.

A lack of sex in a relationship is about connection. It’s the most obvious sign that his wife is shut down to him.

It’s not just that he wants to get off or have a release.

The bigger issue is he doesn’t feel loved, accepted, and connected.

Do you feel unloved by your wife or partner?

It’s often been said that in relationship, a woman seeks to be adored and cherished. And a man wants to be respected and admired.

Through sexual intimacy, more than any other way, he feels those things.

And so if sex is lacking, he feels vacant and relationally impoverished.

Do you feel respected and admired in your relationship?

If you don’t, it’s easy for a man to feel rejected, angry, or depressed.

If that’s you, I feel you, brother. And I know it’s tough. I experienced those feelings for years in a sexually challenged marriage.

But my situation didn’t change until I got clear that being in victim mode was not serving me. While it felt good and I could be righteous about it, that didn’t get me to the sexually fulfilling relationship I ultimately wanted.

A relationship where I felt my partner’s love and admiration.

Instead of being at the mercy of your situation, use your energy to change it.

In the video below, discover three common reactions men have with sex challenges and how they can use their situation to create the sexually fulfilling marriage they seek.

In 15 years of coaching married men with sexless marriages, I’ve seen two types of men.

One is the man who stays stuck in inaction and the other is the guy who steps up his game to take action.

The second guy knows that to get a different outcome, he needs different input, different thoughts and beliefs about himself and his situation to create the marriage he seeks.

He puts himself in a position to create the marriage he wants, knows it’ll take some work and he’s willing to do the work.

He’s not just trying to make a bad thing go away but he’s committed to learning how that bad thing can be used towards creating something better, more powerful and more fulfilling for the benefit of himself, his kids, and yes, his wife.

Are you ready to use your sexless marriage to create the marriage you ultimately seek?

If so, let’s have a quick chat. A 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, real conversation.

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, check out the Men’s Relationship Tools.

The post What Your Sexless Marriage Can Teach 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.

I hear a lot of men saying things like…

I fear her anger.

Or, I fear I’ll never be enough for her.

I also hear, I fear she’ll never want to have sex again.

I fear that if I try to talk about it, she’s gonna blow up at me.

Do you have fears in your relationship?

Fear is a tough one because often it’s not just the fear that’s the problem. But on top of that is fearing fear.

“We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Immortal words of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

It speaks to the fact that what’s more challenging than fear itself is how we relate to fear.

Most of us don’t even know that we have a relationship with fear. By relationship, I mean an orientation, a way we choose its impact on us.

What’s your relationship with fear?

When you don’t know, it’s easy to project your fears onto your partner.

That sounds like “It’s her fault, she never…”

On the flip side, it’s easy to spiral internally with fear.

That sounds like, “I’ll never be happy with her. I’ll never get the love I want. I’ll never have the sex life I seek.”

What if instead of projecting or spiraling, fear worked for you?

That would be a game-changer. You would understand fear’s true purpose in your relationship and your life.

Fear would be an ally and helper.

Or, a protector.

It would even provide you with meaningful value.

In the video below, learn through an experiential exercise how to transform fear from an enemy into a helper that just wants the best for you.

What do you fear in your life? Or relationship?

When fear brings you to your knees, it’s hard to imagine anything but the threat fear brings.

But in the bigger context of your internal system, fear is merely reacting to an empty throne.

An empty throne is when a man has no center, no King, no understanding of what he’s playing for in his life.

Fear challenges you to find your center, to re-throne your King. And it’s from your center that you can turn the key to transforming fear into the ally it really is.

Stop fearing fear. Be it with your wife or your job. Your kids or your life.

Take the first step. Let’s have a quick chat.

A guaranteed, powerful conversation to give you meaningful insights on how to re-take the throne of your life and make your fears work for you.

And to be clear, talking means no sales job, just an honest conversation between two guys keeping it real.

I’d be honored to hear from you. Even the first small step to shoot me a quick email is an act of courage.

The post #1 Way To Overcome Your Fear Of Your Marriage Blowing Up appeared first on Stuart Motola.