Second, consider this non-PC phrase. One that men may use to describe a buddy’s romantic state in early relationship.

Are you pussy whipped?

With full respect to women, a woman’s ability to “pussy whip” a man is simultaneously her power to capture him.

And while an intoxicating spell, when a man is in this spell, he’s also forming an unhealthy initial relational attachment with his partner.

And in his early years – his 20’s in particular – it could lead to the long-term decision of marriage.

“She’s the one.

I love her.

She makes me happy.

I want to marry her”

Maybe that was you 10 or 20 years ago as a younger man and today you’re thinking… What happened? Where’d all that magic go?

I hate to say it. But it wasn’t magic. It was a script. An inner script of self-abandonment into your partner. A script setting the foundation for … yep, you guessed it… codependence.

To be whipped or codependent is to…

… place your self-esteem outside of yourself.

… feel like you have to caretake your partner.

… take on the emotional burdens of her upsets.

No disrespect to the whipped man. I was that man for many years in a 20-year marriage. So I know him well.

He’s not a bad guy. And he’s not somebody to be disparaged or made fun of.

Were you once this whipped guy?

Are you a codependent guy today?

What’s that mean for you moving forward?

In a nutshell, you’d know if you’re whipped or codependent because you’d be diminished when your wife or partner rejects you, tells you she’s disappointed in you, or in layman’s terms, has you feeling like she has you by the balls.

So what can you do about feeling like you’re at the mercy of your wife?

First, start to recognize the internal sensations, feelings, or thoughts that you have with her.

Begin to get familiar with those internal dynamics to rewire them.

Notice if you feel caught in her psychological or emotional web.

A sense of if she’s not happy, I can’t be happy.

A feeling of I don’t know where she ends and where I begin.

A thought of it kind of feels good to feel like I’m at her mercy.

All of that is enmeshment, another word for codependence.

And it can feel juicy and delicious and simultaneously imprisoning and destructive.

And to get free, you have to identify the internal dynamics within yourself, as ultimately it’s about you, not her.

Discover if you’re in patterns of codependence with your wife and how to get out of them in the video below.

Enmeshment and codependence are real stuff. We do them as a clumsy and unconscious attempt to heal early life wounds when we were enmeshed with our parents.

It’s extremely psychologically and emotionally unhealthy and will destroy a marriage until you know better.

Yet oddly enough, there is a kink, a good feeling in giving away your power to your wife or partner. It’s unconscious and paradoxical.

To escape from the trap of enmeshment, you need the courage to look at yourself and do the deeper work of relationship.

It begins with you brother. The gift and invitation in all this is to get free. Create the relationship you want.

Take the first step. Shoot me a quick email.

The post How Codependence Can Wreck Your Marriage appeared first on Stuart Motola.

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.

“It’s your job to make her happy.”

“If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”

No doubt you’ve heard one or all of these expressions. Maybe one of these voices lives in your head.

How do you make your wife happy?

Every month I talk to guys who approach their marriage as a “wife happy-making” endeavor.

They realize they’re not happy. So they go with this belief…

If I can make her happy then I can be happy.

Do you prioritize your wife’s happiness over your own?

If so, I honor your intention to be selfless, to be a good man, to put your wife first.

But I will also add it’s disingenuous. Meaning you’re not being honest.

You have an ulterior motive; and that is your own happiness.

Do you try to meet your wife’s needs to get her to meet yours?

Let’s be clear, this is classic human nature. There’s no shame in having an ulterior motive.

That’s part of what makes us human. We are constantly scanning the landscape of our lives to see what we can get and where we can get it.

But until we acknowledge this, we will do the sideways game of seeking our own happiness through our partner’s.

What if you just went directly after what you want?

First, you’re more likely to get it. And second, you’ll be less frustrated.

The first way to do so is to call out the old pattern of trying to make her happy. And get clear on the disingenuity of it. Read this next sentence twice if necessary.

Nobody can make anyone happy.

Sure, you can offer acts of kindness or loving words in a moment.

But you can’t make anyone happy on a long-term basis.

Her happiness is her responsibility.

That means she, just like you, has to get clear on her authentic wants and needs and advocate for them in a relational manner.

Screaming, complaining, cutting you down is not relational. Nor is walking out, avoiding, withdrawing, or stonewalling.

If this is your reality with your partner, check out how to stop old and unhealthy patterns.

So how can you be happy if she’s not happy?

In the video below, learn to claim your own well-being in relationship without putting her needs above your own.

And so, ask yourself another question, beyond how do I make my wife happy.

A question that brings you to the third entity of the “we.” Beyond you and beyond her.

A place for you both to do the work to meet in between.

How do you create a kick-ass relationship?

Dive deeper. Shoot me a quick email. Let’s jump on a 15 minute call and see how 1:1 coaching can benefit you.

Or join me on the next Men’s Relationship Tools weekly call on Tuesdays at 12pm ET, a couching roundtable for any man to get relationship support, for only $67/month.

The post How Do You Make Your Wife Happy? 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.

“Why don’t you take me seriously?”

“You don’t listen.”

Does your wife say any of these things to you?

It’s not uncommon for a guy to hear something similar from his wife. And there’s a good reason why.

As men, we often struggle to keep up with our partner’s words. We feel like she’s verbose and talking circles around us.

“She uses a thousand words when a simple and concise articulation would suffice,” my client Robert, an investment advisor, said to me recently.

Over 15 years of coaching married men, I’ve seen it time and again that guys feel their head spinning trying to keep up their wives’ words.

Part of that is that the neurochemical makeup of the male brain versus the female brain, which gives her an advantage when it comes to verbal communication.

Do you struggle to keep up with your wife’s words?

Neurological research posits that the male brain is wired in a different way than the female brain.

This is from the article Male and Female Brains: Are they wired differently?

“Women are better at attention, word memory and social cognition, and verbal abilities.

“Men are better at spatial processing and sensorimotor speed.”

In a nutshell, the female brain is more expansive and adept with words.

Often this can be used against men, especially in the media, labeling us as dummies.

And yet, that might be true for the dude who doesn’t try to use his words or listen well.

But if you’re reading this, you’re not that guy.

Chances are you’re a regular guy like me who is intelligent and still struggles to keep up with her words.

You give it your best shot. You listen well. And still it’s not enough for her.

It’s enough to keep a guy lost and confused.

Does she tell you that you don’t listen?

A lot of times we are listening and we’re just trying to find a way to help her get past whatever she’s talking about.

We’re essentially trying to fix her, so things can be ok, to limit the verbal assault, so that she can chill out.

It’s a way of trying to access the crux of her words to keep the peace.

You may have seen this parody of a guy trying to not fix his female partner in the nail in the head video.

Do you try to fix your wife?

Even if you said no, and thought that yes, you really try to hear her out, sometimes it still might not be enough for her.

In the video below, check out how my client Robert stood strong, and you can too, after he was dismissed by his wife for not listening…even though he was.

Are you struggling with a verbose partner?

Do you struggle to keep up with her words?

Do you get beat up for it?

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 the Men’s Relationship Tools for free.

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

The post She Says I Don’t Listen 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.

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.

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.

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.

Watching the game. Making the stuffing. Carving the turkey. Eating until we’re stuffed.

Black Friday. Preparing for Christmas, Hanukkah, or Kwanza. Exchanging gifts. Being with loved ones.

Planning for New Year’s. The big night out or the big party. Resolutions, anyone?

It’s a time of social commitments, family gatherings, work parties. Lots of mingling.

And in the background, the deep freeze of winter hums. And during the longest nights of the year, we may even go dark on ourselves – in an effort to just try to get through it all.

But pause a minute.

Right now before it all starts, ask yourself:

• What do I really want from this time of year?
• Do I just want to get through it all?
• Or do I want something more?

Maybe there are a few people you really want to cherish, truly express gratitude. How might you do that? Through words, a card, a sharing of how you feel?

Or maybe showing up perfunctorily at Thanksgiving dinner is just fine. Tolerance is a virtue, is it not?

Maybe you want to expand love to others, get past your old resentments or functional ways.

What is the intention you bring to the holidays? Is it enough to just be grateful to be alive?

The holidays are a sort of birth canal. We get through it all and come out into the New Year. In a sense, we are all the Baby New Year.  Some of us come out, relieved, and others, saddened.

What if it was different this year? What if, instead, you brought conscious intention to it all? Do you have a story you need to challenge, of how things will be?

Consider the questions below.

• Will you buy gifts connected to your desire to give? Or a desire to check off tasks?
• Will New Year’s be meaningful or unconscious?

Now’s your chance before it all starts, to consider it.  It can be a tough time of year. Or a meaningful one. Ultimately, we decide.

This is self-relationship. Your true power.

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 A Conscious Holiday appeared first on Stuart Motola.