I had the absolute pleasure of talking to a husband last night whose wife when through my program, “30 Days to Wanting It More”. I thought I’d talk a little bit about our conversation (I won’t mention names, of course), and share why a lot of the husbands of the program participants hate me in the beginning. So, here’s kind of the cycle that they go through. First off, they hear from their wife that there is in fact a program called, “30 Days to Wanting It More“, and they get really excited. They’re like, “That sounds pretty awesome!” A lot of them will say, “Go ahead. Go for it. I’m super excited!” Some of them will not have such a great reaction, and that’s because it’s triggering their fear of failing and not doing a good job in the bedroom, which is linked to their masculinity. I could do a whole other post on that topic. Now, what I do is in the first week of the program right off the bat, I ask the wives to take a three-week break from sex! Well, this is not what the men were expecting. They were expecting more sex. The reason that husbands hate me, or they hate what they’re going through, isn’t because they’re jerks. It isn’t because they want to force their wife to have sex with them. It isn’t because of any of the reasons that a lot of you might be thinking. It’s because of this, and this was straight from this gentleman’s mouth… I wrote it down because it was brilliant:

“Physical connection tells me that we’re good.”

Men feel like if they’re having a sexual connection, it means that their marriage is good and that everything is okay. It’s so much like when women have a good conversation with our husbands and we get that good connected feeling. We feel like we’re on the same team, we’re excited about something common, and then we can feel like we’re doing good. What it comes down to is, “I’m doing good, he’s doing good, our future is secure”. If we didn’t have that, it would feel super devastating. What I try to convince the husbands (and this gentleman did eventually believe me because he saw the results), is that this is a short-term sacrifice for a long-term experience that will be so much better than what he has ever experienced before. A lot of times that feeling husbands have of, “we’re good, our marriage is okay”, is kind of built on some false premise, and their understanding is not so accurate about what’s actually going on with their wives.

Why?

Well, I find a lot of wives don’t necessarily tell their husbands the full truth of their experience with sex; how sometimes they feel this obligation and expectation and pressure. They feel like they just have to push themselves to have sex because they know it’s their husband’s love language, etc., etc. Men also sometimes hate me because I actually tell their wives to start being really honest. What doesn’t really feel good and what does feel good, and how they’ve been feeling. Maybe they actually feel a bit used or objectified – a lot of it coming from the culture, not necessarily stemming from their husbands, but just the crazy mess that we live in. And that triggers them as well because what they thought was working for their wives might actually be making them feel bad. Another feeling of failure. So then there they are – they come into a program which is apparently all about wanting more sex, and then I ask them to take a break. And then during that break, the program is all about the women. In a sense, the men are left a bit high and dry! I have a little bit of education for them, but generally speaking, it’s the women that have some really important work to do during that time. They need that break in order to have the space and mental clarity to do the work that they need to do, and I give them really specific instructions.

This is the time when men tend to become a little bit panicked.

They may begin to shut down, or even lash out. But I always tell the wives, “Just hang in there! It will get better!” and just encourage them to keep at it. Then, in week four, I give them a new model of sexuality that they can feel comfortable with, and that’s when things tend to start to really improve. It was so great to talk to this guy. He was so lovely, and it was really interesting to hear the behind-the-scenes. This is a self-guided program, so I don’t normally get to talk to all the husbands. For him to describe that feeling of complete and utter devastation when he realized, “well, maybe my wife doesn’t think we’re good. Maybe our marriage isn’t good”, which is so risky and scary… but then slowly working his way back up and doing his own work and reflection in the process, really gave me some great insight to what the men are really feeling while their wives go through the program. Now, I am happy to report that he’s saying that they’re doing so much better than when they started the program, and he’s getting a lot more feedback that they are good and their marriage is rock solid. And at the same time, his wife is really enjoying it and looking forward to it! I hope this was helpful for you guys. My hope is that even if the husbands hate me at first, they will eventually grow to love me 😉 If you have any questions, feel free to contact me!