Episode #382
What would you say an average guy is going through?
Do they feel stuck? Are they trapped in a cycle, playing out generational patterns and unable to break free?
A lot of men get home and they don’t get much affection from their wives. They experience this “roommate” syndrome – living with their spouse without the romantic love vibe that they had at the beginning of their marriage.
This is agonizing for them. In their head, they start to question themselves. Those thoughts are what lead to them neglecting themselves and self-sabotaging even more. This cycle continues until the foundation of their marriage begins to crumble beneath them.
How can you break the cycle?
Figure out what your best assets are and invest in them. Invest time and energy to better yourself. If you neglect that, your house will have the kind of shaky foundation that no amount of counseling can repair.
In this episode, we’re talking about what the average guy is going through right now, why they feel stuck, and why they end up self-sabotaging. We’ll also discuss the importance of breaking generational patterns for yourself and your kids, top fears guys have, and how to make your spouse desire you again.
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Episode Transcript
Ben Allen 0:00
The other thing that she was struggling with was that he fought all the time with his wife; we fought all the time with her. There’s no intimacy, and you fight all the time with her, and the kids are starting to see that. They’re starting to pick up on the relationship that their parents had. And what drove him crazy was knowing that his kids saw him and his wife’s fight and that they would grow up seeing that chaos. And they would think, Oh, that’s what a relationship looks like.
Doug Holt 0:28
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Powerful Man show. I’m your host, Doug Holt, with my special guest, Ben Allen. Ben, thanks so much for making time, man.
Ben Allen 0:41
Thanks for having me on, Doug. I appreciate it. I’m grateful to be here.
Doug Holt 0:45
Yeah, we always have great conversations offline. So I thought it’d be nice to have them online. And the reason being, and for those that don’t know, Ben is one of the advisors at The Powerful Man. And what that means is Ben is talking to hundreds upon hundreds of married business owners every week. And Ben’s got unique insights. Because this is when he’s having a conversation, guys, these aren’t sales calls or things like that. You’re talking to an advisor or someone who’s been through the program, and what they’re trying to do is ascertain what’s going on for you and the best path for you to take. And often, they’ll recommend things to do or give you podcasts to listen to or see if The Activation Method is our flagship program is a good fit. And Ben, one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you is we were talking offline about something I thought, geez, you talk to hundreds of men, you have more insight into what’s going on out there in the real world than probably anybody that I know. Can you take us through just an idea of what an average guy is going through right now? One of the guys that you’ve talked to recently or in the past?
Ben Allen 2:01
Yes, absolutely. So the best place to start is just for me to explain what’s going on with these guys’ heads. So for many of these guys, they get home, and they don’t get any affection from their wives. What I mean by that is a lot of them are called roommate syndrome. When they feel like their roommate with a rank, they get home. And it feels like they’re just living with their spouse. But there’s none of that lovey-dovey, romantic, love vibe that they want that they had at the beginning of the marriage. And so that’s unbearable for them. And in their head, they start to think, am I enough? Am I this confident guy? Am I a guy that can be the provider for my family? And those thoughts are what lead to their self sabotaging themselves even more. So what I hear from many guys is they feel like they’re stuck in this cycle of self-sabotage because they think they’re not enough. Their wife rejects them when they get home. They come in, they try to kiss their wife. And she’s like, nope, she turns her cheek.
And so they start to question, are they really mad at us, were they this guy who’s enough of a man for their wife, and that leads the cycle then also not showing up the way they need to for their wife, not getting their wife, their most attractive self. And then it leads to the cycle where they’re stuck. So the feedback loop is not good enough, and therefore, they get stuck. So that’s the main thing I hear from many of the guys that come to me is feeling stuck. And to get a little bit more granular on that, because I think it’s really important to address this. A lot of these guys are very successful in business. They’re super ambitious, they built multiple, 6, 7, 8 figure companies, and so they’re crushing it at work. Their employees love them, they’re the star of the show, they’re this amazing CEO, and they’re crushing it. So for them to have the contrast of crushing it at work and succeeding there, and then to come home and have home be a place where they’re not succeeding can impact a ton of guys and on the emotional level, and the way that they feel about themselves. And that contrast is a huge aspect of this as well. But I hear from a lot of guys.
Doug Holt 4:25
Absolutely. I can remember being when I was going through the trials and tribulations with my wife, I had three companies doing great, and I was crushing it in every area except in that marriage. And you start to question yourself like, Hey, what’s going on here, what’s happening? You and I were talking about a specific guy offline and just talking about his journey, and we’ll get to where he is today. But what let’s call him Greg. Okay, and let’s talk about what was going on for him when you first started interacting with him.
Ben Allen 5:00
Yeah, great. So for Greg, he came to me, and he was telling me the roommate thing where he walks in the door, his wife does not appreciate him. His wife does not acknowledge him, and he has a very successful business. His wife does not acknowledge that he’s the husband for her. And they had had some talks that the only reason they were staying together was for the kids. And imagine hearing that, you come home and you tell your wife, like what’s going on here? Why isn’t this working? And she says, I want out, and you’re like, shit, well? Is that really what you want? And she’s like, well, I want out when the kids leave. And so you have this tension. It’s like, the only reason that they’re there is that the kids are there. And that’s why he came to us with that pain. And the other thing that he was struggling with was that he would fight all the time with his wife. He fights all the time with her, and there is no intimacy; you fight all the time with her. And the kids were starting to see that they were starting to pick up on their parents’ relationship. And what drove him crazy was knowing that his kids were seeing him and his wife fight. And that they would grow up seeing that chaos. And they would think, oh, that’s what a relationship looks like. And that’s when he knew.
Doug Holt 6:33
Yeah. I have two kids then, and they are just always watching. And the scary thing is, for a lot of us guys, till when we’re in this situation like this guy, what we realize is that our daughters are going to grow up and find a man who treats them. The way we treat our wives, they’re going to grow up acting like our wives, and our sons will grow up acting like us and finding a relationship. So that pattern just keeps repeating. And we realize like, wait a minute, and this is one thing that I love about the men that come to you. And you can speak to this probably more if these are guys, they’re going look, I’m breaking this generational pattern, I’m breaking this problem. These are habits that have been repeated in the past. And I’m going to do this not only for me, but I’m going to do this also for my kids. And going through there and seeing about this guy, he was able to turn this around full circle. He was available to invest in his best asset. Just like a business, you figure out what your best assets are, and you invest in them is your number one asset for any of you guys listening. Are you 100% if you’re in the business of you, you are your own company, you are your number one asset in that company. And so many of us guys just don’t invest in ourselves; invest time, invest energy, invest in a course or a program to better ourselves, invest in or whatever it is.
And, this guy had tried marriage counseling; it just brought him back. It’s like looking in the rearview mirror trying to drive forward, and we talked about that a lot. It just shattered him. But where he is today is phenomenal. I was able to spend some time with him. And he has changed his business around his relationship, his relationship with his kids, around his friendships. And he’s even joined our one-year mastermind program, which has been fantastic to see. I mean, it’s got to be so awesome for me then to see these guys as a coach because I get the kind of the after photo, so to speak, after you talk to him. But in the front lines, I have to imagine from your perspective, what you’re trying to do is just talk to these guys and let them know if there’s another way if it’s a good fit for them. So transparently, guys, that’s one of the things that our advisors do is they are pre-qualifying you. We want to make sure that the guys that come in are the right fit for us. Because we only have room for eight to nine guys in a group. We keep it super intimate for the results. So, Ben, I have to imagine it’s really rewarding to see emails like that last email that the wife wrote that was sent around to the team. And like we can talk about a little bit. Does that just feel great? I mean, I imagine it would be.
Ben Allen 9:22
Yeah. Oh, it’s incredible. And that’s why I wake up every morning and do what I do. It’s just so amazing to know that there’s a guy out there that is now living a better life than his kids can grow up with two parents in the home that his wife respects and loves again. I mean, that’s why I do this, is to kind of adapt for these guys. And yeah, I mean, one of the main things, when we were talking about generational patterns, was that a lot of some guys I speak to they’re on their second or third marriage, and they’re finally seen the light, and they finally say shit, this is a pattern. I’ve carried it into multiple marriages. And now it’s time to change. And when I hear that from somebody, it’s like a sigh of relief, not for me, but them. Because they say, Wow, you’re breaking it. Finally, I mean, it took you a while, and that’s okay. But you’re finally taking the necessary action. And that’s huge when that happens.
Doug Holt 10:22
Oh, absolutely. What will you say was one of the top fears guys have when you get on the phone with them? What are they wrestling with?
Ben Allen 10:32
Yeah, great question. So one of the top fears for a lot of men is they’ve tried so many things. And so they sort of have this feeling that there’s no hope, this fear that there is this fear that, oh, if I go to counseling, if I try therapy, if I try reading these books, I mean, I’ve tried all these things, and they haven’t worked, why? And that’s a huge fear that a lot of guys have right there. They don’t want to dip their toes into something because, in the past, things that they’ve tried have either brought up existing issues or just been a temporary Band-Aid fix. And so I get that fear. And there are many ways we can trick ourselves in our brain to think, oh, this is scary. And they get that that’s one of the main ones that I hear a lot. And yeah, we can talk a little bit about that.
Doug Holt 11:22
Yeah, let’s unpack that. Because I know that was my concern early on. The Powerful Man didn’t come in wasn’t in when I was first going through my marital issues, let’s just say, going through that when my wife and I were fighting, and we tried counseling, and it didn’t work. Not only do we try counseling once, but we tried two different counselors, thinking that okay, a male would be better. Guys, It wasn’t any better, just as there’s the secret there. And what I thought was interesting in this, and I was talking to another guy on our team today, Ben is, and one of the things he said, which I thought was interesting is he said, Doug, have you ever seen just a ton of testimonials on a marriage counselors website? No, never. Okay, have you ever seen a ton of testimonials like a lot of them from men, business people in a book on improving? No, never. We have hundreds, and we have these testimonials and guys that have been through the program, showcasing that it works. And the reason it’s different is the approach. Again, I’ll go back to that number one asset model, we go to counseling you’re looking in the rearview mirror, you’re rehashing things that just don’t work, you leave counseling, and you try to be the nice guy, you try hard, and then something happens, you get an argument, you blow up. And it’s like, all that work you did to be the nice guy is out the window. And you’re back in counseling, repeating the cycle over and over and over again. Whereas what we’re going to focus on is investing in your number one asset first and foremost, and that’s you, and once we do that, we’re going to go ahead and clean the slate with the wife and start over. So it’s almost like putting that restart button in your marriage, and also other aspects of your life, quite frankly, of what you can jump off into.
Ben Allen 13:10
Hmm, that’s a great point, Doug. One of the major things that I feel like many things that guys try are missing is essentially the foundational piece, which is you. Just like you’re talking about. Suppose you neglect that, you try and build a marriage on top of you, which is the person that needs to evolve and needs to become a better husband, a better man. In that case, that house is on a shaky foundation, and no amount of counseling will make that house stable again. So great there.
Doug Holt 13:49
Hey, sorry to interrupt the show. But I wanted to ask you a question. Do you ever feel like something’s just missing, like there’s something more out there, and you just can’t put your finger on it? I get it. Go over right now to The PowerfulMan.com/Freedom to discover the system that other businessmen just like you are using. We’ve included 10 case studies, ten men just like you who have found the solution and found their way on their path. But we want to share that with you. Go over to ThePowerfulMan.com/freedom right away. Now let’s get back to the show.
Yeah, and when I’m thinking about this guy we’re talking about, I think of his real name. I can’t think of the name that we gave him. But anyway, who I’m talking about and when I’m thinking about him, this guy was a stud. So I don’t want to paint a picture; he was an alpha from the outside by all means. It’s just when he got home. What you would do is a consistent pattern is he goes around taking care of everybody else in business he was dominating making sure everything was getting done at home. He was making sure things were getting taken care of by his wife, and his wife had a complaint about the house not being cleaned. So he pitched in and worked a little extra on the house, got some cleaners, okay, he’s just checking off all the boxes. But at the end of the day, he was drained, he was drained, he had nothing to give to himself. And what happens consistently, guys? When you follow this pattern, and most business leaders fall into this, you’re constantly giving to other people. And when it becomes your turn when you need something, your cup is empty. You have not invested in your number one asset. And then many guys, like this guy, turn to the wife with the needy energy of needing to be filled. And guys that don’t get that, then they turned to alcohol, to drugs, to porn, to special massages, to name it down the gamut that comes in. And that’s where they kind of fall into this area that books don’t talk about. There are no books that we’re able to find or read, talk about this idea. And to me, it clicked like a light bulb in that idea that I was taking care of everybody else’s needs. What about me? And when I started flipping that around, investing in myself, investing in there, I was able to take care of myself first. And then also help others around me kind of like, like the airplane, right? What do they tell you about an airplane? In the case of an accident, the oxygen tank will drop from the ceiling, and they don’t say make sure you put your mask on everybody else first. No, put the mask on you first. So then you can help everybody. And I think that’s where we miss it in our culture quite often.
Ben Allen 16:40
100%. And that’s what can be scary for many guys to wrap their heads around because they think, Oh, well, if I stop, if I take care of my knees, I’m no longer taking care of everyone else. And that’s a thought that a lot of guys have. And it’s a fear that prevents them from actually taking care of themselves. And that’s a fear that, frankly, comes from all sorts of childhood things and patterns that are too long to discuss in the podcast today. But it’s a fear that many guys have, and what ends up happening is that they think, okay, it’s selfish for me to take care of myself. And the funny part is, it’s selfless. Because if you do the glass of water analogy, if you’re filling up your cup every day, and that cup is overflowing, now you have extra water to give to your kids, to your wife, to your loved ones. Whereas if your cup is empty, nothing is overflowing to give to them. So that’s a huge, huge paradigm.
Doug Holt 17:42
That’s 100%. I was talking to guys, and we had a call for the men in The Brotherhood today. It was a quarterly call that we do. And we reviewed their goals, the path, we went through a coaching call, and one of the guys was talking about it. And he said, Look, when I started this program, my wife told me I was selfish because I was taking time. After all, it takes time to go through the program. And I was doing it. And we kind of all laughed because this particular guy’s had such a strong transformation that now he’s thinking about leaving the marriage. But he’s in such a great place that he’s doing it from a place of power, and his wife adores him. So it’s an interesting perspective. And the reason I bring that up is when somebody says you’re selfish, really what they’re saying here is you’re not doing what I want you to do. That’s all that means. It’s a manipulative tactic. So guys, whenever you hear that, when someone says, You’re so selfish, what they’re saying is, gosh, darn it, you’re not doing what I want you to do, which is a selfish act of trying to control and manipulate somebody. So it’s a really interesting perspective to take when you hear that. It’s understandable when your marriage isn’t working well for your wife, your partner, to not want you to do something. The resistance is there because so much hate and negative feelings have been built up. And that’s where the Clean Slate Method and the tragic connection come in so handy.
Ben Allen 19:11
Absolutely, yeah, that’s a huge thing that many guys don’t know how much of an impact the clean slate has on their marriage. Like when they’re able to clear the air and completely wipe the slate clean, let go of the resentments, and just stop looking in the rearview mirror. It opens up the world for a whole new marriage and a whole new perspective going forward, which I think is super helpful for many men.
Doug Holt 19:44
I know you, and I’ve talked about this before, like the balance being in a marriage, you’re bound when you get married. All the good feelings and emotions outweigh the bad. So if you picture a balance beam scale, the good feelings, good emotions, good experiences are heavy, and the negative ones aren’t right. So, For example, if you fart in front of your wife, she giggles no big deal. Nothing wrong if you miss a meeting appointment with her or whatever; no big deal. But over time, those negative feelings start to stack up over the years of animosity and things of that nature. Now, the bad experiences of feelings and fights outweigh the good ones. And so, with the Clean Slate Method, it just wipes all that out and evens the balance beam to get them to go there. And so now they’re in neutral territory. That’s why I call it. It’s almost basically the restart button. Coming through there, there’s a lot of aspects to it. Now that you’ve got that balance being restarted, now we get to work on how you are able to persuade, let’s say, your wife and get those good feelings back. So you’re in the momentum in your favor?
Ben Allen 20:51
Yeah, you can start to tip it to the right side.
Doug Holt 20:55
Absolutely. So, Ben, another question for you because I want to give these guys as much as possible. I know your time is limited with us today. So when you are talking to men out there, and they’re calling you up, and they’re having something going through them, excuse me going on in their lives? Where do you see the resistance for these guys from stepping forward?
Ben Allen 21:17
Great question. A huge resistance for these guys. And stepping forward and taking this action is the fear that even if they were to change as a man, even if they were to become activated, become that guy who can now meet her needs, that she wouldn’t be receptive to it? I’m doing all this work. And my wife, she’s not going to cheat. She’s so far gone; she needs to change too. And why would she change if I changed? And so they’re worried that they’re going to put this work in to become this amazing guy and that she’s not going to change on her side of the street. And so, a lot of the issues that she’s now portraying to him are going to stick around, even after the changes. One of the biggest fears that I hear from many guys is, will she change?
Doug Holt 22:16
And what do you say to that? I mean, I have my response, but be curious to hear yours.
Ben Allen 22:20
Well, great. So what I say to that is, we’ve all heard this saying it takes two to tango. We all agree with that. Now, the thing is in dance and tango, and there’s one leader of the dance. There’s only one guy who leads the tango. And that gets to be you as the man you get to step up and lead. And a lot of guys get stuck in this Limbo where they wait for their wives to change. But what’s funny is she’s waiting for you to change as well. And so then no one ends up changing, and then gets stuck. And so, for you to break that sort of stalemate of change, you have to first clean up your side of the yard. And by doing that, it’s going to motivate her to change. Another thing to keep in mind is that she’s directly reacting to what you’re doing. Many of the reactions she’s giving you are because you’re not stepping up and reading your heartbeat. So as soon as you start to do that, she’s finally very aware of you then my husband?
Doug Holt 23:19
I’m going to take this. My perspective is similar. I love that mine’s a little bit different. Because when someone first told me that idea, I was like, forget you. It’s my wife. That’s the issue. She’s the crazy one. I don’t need to meet her needs, and she needs to meet mine. That’s the problem here. And what got me going, guys is the realization that waits a minute. If we’re going to go through a divorce, what would I do? Well, gosh, I’m going to work out more, I’m going to make sure my body’s good, I’m going to take care of me. Because now I’m in the marketplace, right? I’m in the stock, like the New York Stock Exchange, I’m in the marketplace, looking for somebody, looking for a buyer. What woman is going to invest in Doug Holt, right 2.0, let’s call him? And so But what happened is, when I started working on myself, my wife started taking a lot of notice because she also knew other women were taking a lot of notice. After all, I was working, and I was taking care of myself. I was doing what now we call the Live Like A King system, the morning routine decompression, all of these things. And my stock, so to speak, was going up. My sexual market value of who I was as a man was going up, thus making me much more attractive to other women. And my wife and all of a sudden, my wife started doing things. She started coming around.
And so you can think of it as coming back to meet your wife, take care of yourself so you can meet your wife’s needs. But really, the way I looked at it was I’m going to take care of myself. I’m going to invest in Doug; my stock will rise, and if I decide to stay, I will and what happened is that the result is almost like a byproduct of being for me, like something that I just kind of would do that would happen great. Has my wife changed? She started desiring me a lot and started doing those things that we thought we would do in marriage—that initial stuff. And really, I started becoming the man that she saw when she said I did when we got married, and she started looking at me again with love, respect, and admiration. And she started doing work on herself, later on as a byproduct of that, because I just kept going, this train not stopping. And if you want on the go-ahead?
Ben Allen 25:28
Yeah, I get that. And something to keep in mind also is that when you do change, alright, she’s going to start to be like, well, what’s happening here, start to get this curiosity around you changing, and she’s going to start to ask you questions and start to want to engage with you again. And so for the guys specifically, whose wife is completely shut off and doesn’t want to engage with them, changing up the routine and the way you do things will inevitably lead to her asking questions and wanting to get more information about that.
Doug Holt 26:09
100%, it’s amazing to see transparently, there’s a large percentage of guys that don’t tell their wives are doing the program. It’s not something we encourage or say, they don’t tell them, and their wives just are like, what the heck is going on here, you’re like, and their wives start pursuing them. And the guys are talking in the group like, This is crazy. This stuff works, which is awesome. To see. Well, Ben, man, I want to thank you so much on behalf of myself, The Powerful Man movement, and all the men who live and families you’ve touched and changed and did a 360 round for their entire family. I just wanted to thank you for the work you do and the time you take these guys.
Ben Allen 26:51
Well, thanks, Doug, for that. And thank you for being an amazing coach and a supporter for all these men as well. And for leading this movement, and onward and upwards. We’re only going to help more people and are excited about that. So,
Doug Holt 27:05
Absolutely. Well, guys, this strikes a chord with you all. I just want Ben to come on here. Because he is a guy that’s on the front lines talking to others, and he sees these patterns coming through that resonate with you at all, I encourage you to reach out, go over to our Facebook group; we have a free Facebook group. As you said previously, I know concern for some guys. I don’t want anybody to know that I’m in a group with other guys. There are over 2000 men in there, and it’s completely private. You cannot see who’s in there. You cannot see who’s posting what. The members can, but your wife or friends aren’t going to know. And reach out. Tag Ben in a post and get on a phone call and have a conversation with Ben or one of the other advisors. That way, they can give you the best direction on the best route for you to take. As always, guys, what I want you to do is take action. Whatever action it is you want to take doesn’t have to be The Powerful Man program or part of being part of the movement. But take some action. Take some action today. Fan. Thanks again. Guys. That’s a wrap for us today, The Powerful Man show. We’ll see you next time. Thank you.
