Transcription
What does it mean to restore intimacy with your wife? Is it when she says, "I love you"? When she has sex with you? When she puts her ring back on and tears up the divorce papers? At what point do you actually "win" her back?
The idea of winning or losing your wife isn't so black and white. And most men learn, before it's too late, that they are the ones that gave up when she was still fighting for the marriage. In today's video, I'm going to teach you how to use masculine integrity to win her back. Mastering this will bring back her sexual desire for you; it'll drastically increase your confidence and completely make you bulletproof and not feeling rejected by her. However, if you fail to master this masculine integrity skill, you'll just say "friends" with your wife, causing her to lose attraction. You'll get caught up in your head more around her, not knowing what to say, and you will remain confused as to why you are on a weak frame and how you emotionally crumble to her. I'm going to share a powerful lesson at the end of this video that will completely reframe your idea of rejection.
By the way, if you're new here, my name is Josh Hudson. I'm a licensed therapist with a decade of experience helping thousands of men get their wives back, all by themselves, without bending over backwards just to make her happy. You want to know what resentment is like? "Oh, you just wronged me so much; I can't wait to show you how much you wronged me." What are you doing? "Well, I am drinking this poison my wife gave me; so tastes really painful; it's really frustrating and causes a lot of hopelessness." Then why, why, why are you just putting it down? Let it go. Why are you carrying it? Stop drinking it. "Well, I mean, I mean, she needs to know how much she hurt me, right?" If you haven't heard that quote already, resentment—holding on to it—is like drinking poison, expecting the other person to die.
Now, one concept I talk a lot about on this channel when it comes to your wife is that they have a "doine" narrative. This means that she has parts of her that love you and still wants you back, and then she also has parts that push you away, which is generally more pronounced, but she goes back and forth. The thing is, is that us men have that too, and when you fail to heal that part of you that pushes her away, you will self-sabotage. An example of this with the guys I see in our program is constantly checking their phone, yelling at her, or just drifting back to old habits that caused them to get to where they were in the first place with her.
Now, there are two ways to completely release resentment. The first one is to stop shouting all over your wife. Now, one thing I like to do with the guys that I coach, especially on the group calls, is I'm a stickler for how the language we use impacts the way we see the world and how you interact with your wife. And on the call the other day, on one of our group calls, one of the guys said, "My wife should just let go of the past." My wife should let go of the past. Let's see how that plays out, all right?
When discussing how to get a woman back into your life, whether she's been with you for 10 years to 50, whether she's your wife or girlfriend, you have to understand, at the core fundamental level in any relationship, especially the romantic context, safety is the foundation of her connection to you. Quite simply, danger equals fear, and fear equals death. We are organized in our brain, in our identity, to go towards things, to get closer to things that add to our survival—okay, food, money, shelter, right, love—and we avoid things that are a threat to us. So in the forest or in the wilderness, you saw a saber-tooth tiger; most likely, you're going to run away from it. And if you saw a little bunny and you're starving, you're going to go toward that thing. Likewise, if your partner, your husband, becomes extremely needy and dependent on you and he's not his own man, you're going to be repulsed; you're going to want to be disgusted biologically and move away. Whereas if he's strong and resilient and compassionate, you will go towards that man. This is why a woman can be with the most richest man in the world, who provides her all the security she needs, but if he is not providing her emotional stability and leadership and being assertive and dominant, holding his boundaries, etc., etc., etc.—everything we teach on this channel of an apex man—she will leave him every time for a man with less money, less success. And we have to start out with this fundamental dogmatic truth that there are behaviors that you displayed in the relationship that made her feel unsafe; that's just a fact.
Now, there's an idea here goes with attachment theory, but I kind of separate it myself, where a woman, or most people, even men, yourself, you want to have a certain level of autonomy and also closeness that you feel comfortable with. If you have too much autonomy and the person's distancing themselves from you and you don't have enough connection, you feel like they don't want you; you don't feel safe. Likewise, if they're always around you, smothering you, you won't feel safe as well. In relationships, we tend to flow in and out of closeness and separation, right? And this is actually a pattern that you had with your parents. If you see a kid on the playground, right, he will—the kid will start off holding Mom or Dad's leg, right, not going out to—to play. Once they feel like it's safe enough, they'll go explore out on their own, and then something happens, like a kid smacks another kid; they'll look back at Mom or Dad to make sure everything is okay. We do this in romantic relationships. In the early period of the relationship, you had a connection, but then you found independence again, and you go like this across the relationship. But let's see how the faults play out with this going in a long-term relationship, in the marriage with yourself and your wife, all right?
So if you look at this chart, the spectrum, we have guys that are extremely needy; these are men that are codependent or anxiously attached; it's all synonymous. On the other end, we have men that are avoidant or shutting down or overly independent, so much so that they don't need other people. So most men that we work with, the wife's pulling away, so the guy, by relativity speaking, if she's pulling away, you're chasing; you're the one that's being more needy. There's so many examples, and there's—you can see a video at the end of this one about seven nice guy, needy habits that you need to overcome. But let's just go over a couple examples. So we will often see this in CLC reports that we try to stop the guys from doing. Or the other day, a guy was saying, "Well, Josh, she always gives me a kiss and a hug goodbye in the morning, even no matter how bad we've been, she always does that. The other day she didn't." Okay, so when she left, I opened the door and I said, as she was leaving to work, "Are you going to say 'I love you' and give me a kiss?" Right? So that is a prime example. Or a guy will call, and then they're having a conversation about, let's say, the kids, and the last second he goes, "I love you." He's essentially saying, "Is she feels this? Do you still love me? I'm really worried that you don't love me anymore." See, that's what's going on, and she senses that. So you must be aware of these dynamics, because when you display that neediness, it makes her feel unsafe.
Another example is that if your wife starts having new hobbies, new friends, she starts just being a different person, spending time away from you more than normal, away from the house, I get how that can be hard; like I really do understand; it's difficult. But the one thing that you must not do is to chase her, is to call her, is to check her social media, is she posting things, like where is she going, hitting up her friends, "Oh, hey, uh, what are you doing tonight? Are you with—" I don't know where she's at; like I've heard it all before, okay? And it'll get back to her, and she'll sense it, and she'll know it. So you must avoid those behaviors. And the third one is just checking her phone—like I said, social media, but also checking her phone, snooping, looking at her. If you have her like iPhone location, following her around—not only if she finds out that'll be horrible, but I do truly believe there's like this energetic thing that you're doing. And if I'm going to make it really practical to you, your actions dictate the way you see yourself, yes. And when you feed into that behavior, you are telling yourself, through your own actions, that you are that type of person; you are a needy, insecure person. And so that's going to be self-perpetuated in your interactions with her, all right?
Not as many men face the shutting down paradigm, but some guys do, so I don't want to leave you guys out. So examples of that are not talking about the issues; right, there's a problem, and you're the first one to just leave, like, "I can't deal with this; I'm just going to walk away." And you may say to yourself, "My wife does all these things," which she may do. Second one is into escapism. I know a lot of guys deal with this. Instead of coming home to their wife when she's, you know, stone cold or whatever—my father did this—you'll stay at work later; you'll find excuses to just stay in the office. You can also escape into reading books, watching porn, whatever it is, okay? You are escaping a situation or an environment in which you feel defeated or which you feel hopeless, so you're going to go to areas which—in which you feel confident and competent, and I totally understand that. But in order for you to grow and become the man that gets her back, you need to enter into these arenas that are scary, that are uncomfortable for you to grow and learn.
Now, looking at that expectation, you can see clearly which behaviors that you did that caused her to be pushed away from you because you didn't make her feel safe. And I'm going to give you a final analogy on this that's going to make complete sense, okay? So most men are either the bird cage or they have no nest. You want to have the bird nest, okay? If your wife or girlfriend is this lovely, beautiful, feminine, singing bird that you want—a lot of guys, they'll put too many strong boundaries of control around her, and they'll put her in a cage, and then she feels unsafe because she feels controlled; she doesn't have autonomy. Or a guy has no boundaries, no backbone, no self-respect, doesn't assert himself, and what happens? She doesn't feel safe either because there's no nest for her to lay in, no guy for her to rest her head on your chest, to look up at you, to feel secure. You must be the bird nest. I'm going to teach you more how to do this, but through that analogy, recognize you have your boundaries and your stability and who you are and your values; you know yourself, but you're not controlling her.
Now, once you make her feel safe—before I start giving you the positive actions to get her back—we have to release this emotional toxin that's going to self-sabotage your chances of getting her back. If you want to get the most out of this video, which I hope you do, you will pause it, and you'll think of a "should" statement about your wife: "My wife should be doing this; my wife should be feeling this way," or whatever it is, and you can apply this framework within this video. So the first question I ask this man when I take our clients through this process: You ask yourself, "How do you react when you think that thought? When you think the thought, 'My wife should let go of the past,' how do you feel? How do you react to her?" And he said, "Well, I—I'm angry; I'm like pissed off; like she shouldn't be this way; like I just get—I get frustrated with her." And of course, I ask him what would that lead to. He's like, "Well, I would probably push her further away, and I wouldn't be the man that she feels safe with." I'm like, "Well, at least the guy's being honest," you know, that—that like when I get a guy answering like that, I'm like, "Okay, at least he feels sad about it," but at the same time, that's growth, right? Because growth is not easy; it's painful.
So the next question you ask yourself is, "Who would you be without that thought?" Another way of asking this is, "If I can go into your brain right now, and I can just extract where you just cannot put those words together in your mind ever again, how would you be different with her?" And the client said, "I'd be calm, more loving, more committed, more devoted, more masculine; I'd make her feel safer." And the last powerful tool in this exercise is you're going to take the sentence and you're going to completely turn opposite one word at a time. So I'll give you three examples so you can see this how—how this plays out. So instead of "She should let go of the past," the opposite of that would be "you" or "I," right? "I should let go of the past." And when you write that new sentence down, you ask yourself, "How is that true?" And so for the client, he said, "Well, I'm also holding on to things that she's done, you know, she had this emotional affair partner a few months back, and you know, she's not seeing him anymore, but like I'm—I'm pissed off, and I haven't letting go of it; I'm still holding on to resentment"—AKA going back to the resentment piece. You see? The second one is, instead of saying, "My wife should let go of the past," you say, "My wife should not let go of the past." Now, how is that true? Well, the client struggled with this one a little bit, but the reason why that's true is because reality is saying that she's not letting it go. And so what if, instead, you say, "She should let go of the past because she isn't." Who are you to determine what she should do? She's not let go of the past for various reasons, and until you can fully understand why that is, she will continue to hold on to it. But if you tell yourself, "She should be this way because she is," that allows you to open up and share and be more vulnerable and attuned and connected, and paradoxically, she does let go because you are accepting and validating her. The last one is, instead of "My wife should let go of the past," "My wife should let go of the future." Now, that one's really hard, and the client almost teared up when he said that one out loud, because to her, she is letting go of the future, right? She's not seeing the future. And as painful as these new sentences are, these new ways of perceiving reality, it allows you to take full responsibility of where you're currently at. Because the biggest thing holding a lot of men back is that when you argue with what's happening, you show up as your not best self, your low-value self; you're frustrated; you're—you're being difficult; you're—you're just being like a petulant child at times, right? And—and I've been there too, okay? I'm speaking to myself as much as I'm speaking to you. This isn't easy; a lot of this is subconscious and automatic, and a lot of people don't point this out to us, which—by the way, if you want it pointed out to you automatically to change, that's what our marriage evaluation team does. So if you want to set a free call to our team, click the link down below. Just make sure you're fully committed; it's not free advice; it is for men who want to take action and do something different. So if that sounds like you, click the link. But let's continue. The last one is, "I should let go of the future." Now, I just told them how to interpret this one, because for most men, they are so outcome-focused in conversations with their wife; they're not accepting what is in the present moment, and they're trying to get their wife to just be happy, can just get back to where it is. And when you focus on the future so much, what happens is she feels that outcome process, and it's needy, instead of just being with her in the moment and not thinking about getting her to go somewhere else. She feels accepted and loved by you, and then therefore she wants a future with you.
The second way to heal resentment is to find wisdom. Wisdom simply is a memory without emotion. I want to tell you a story that really makes sense with this one, okay? When I found out my mom was seeing her ex-boyfriend in high school, I got really angry, and I was like, "I'm never going to talk to her again," because the way I saw it, the way I was perceiving it is that my mom was choosing selfishly to leave my father for this other person, right? A person that she used to be with. And a lot of the pain I experienced, I was like, "My father is going through the same pain that I went through," and so I hated my mom. And then God has an interesting way of aligning things for your life to learn lessons, right? I was working with this client, and this client—man, he—he was physically beaten by his parents growing up, both of them; they would physically beat him. And every session, I would sit here and just hold space for him while he was just crying, weeping, sobbing to me, and it was so painful to see this that he had to go through this with his parents growing up, and he was still well-adjusted for what happened. But the moment I was going to just decide that I was never going to talk to my mom again, for at least a really long time and not forgive her, he comes into the session feeling a little bit lighter, and he's like, "Josh, I am going to forgive my parents; I forgive them; they were doing the best they could, and as much as it hurt me, I love them, and I don't want to spend my life ruining the relationship with them." And I was like, "If this man can forgive his parents for physically beating him in his childhood, I can forgive my mom." And in that moment, a light went off, and I called my mom. I went to the gym, and I—I told her, I said, "Mom, I understand that you're just trying to be happy; that you just want to find love yourself, and you're doing what's best for you, and I think you should." And that shift of perception—a weight lifted off my chest for letting go, not holding on to that resentment. And it all started with just seeing that I could change the way I view things and how it was playing out, okay?
Now that you've made her feel safe and you've released resentment, now we go towards action and getting her back. The third concept is to learn to love leading. I know this is under the dating context, and you may say to yourself, "Well, Josh, like I'm married to my wife; it's a little different." I want you to remove the context of what's going on and look at the inner behavioral qualities that we're analyzing that a lot of men used to have, like yourself, that you've—because you're—I see a lot of men, what they do is that, "Oh, she's my wife," right? And it's almost like you forget that she's a woman, and then there are inherent things that women need to feel safe and lead towards emotional and physical connection, okay? So we're going to analyze this; I know it's a dating context, but there are still underlying qualities here. So let's jump in. "Hi, who looks like a carrot, Conan O'Brien? My friend, um, Hannah here thinks he's sexy." "That's weird, because I think that your friend Hannah is really sexy." "Oh my God!" So that's an example of being direct, right? He didn't say it with neediness, right? He's just like, "I think this is the thing; this is how I see the world; this is how I see you." It wasn't like, "Do you see me sexy?" "You did not just say that!" "How old are you? What are you, a lawyer?" What? Immediately, she tests him. We all—we all know about tests on this channel. If you haven't watched any of the testing videos, definitely watch them. But she falls up with the test, as a woman should, and let's see how he responds to it a little bit. "Come on, I know you want—" "Is she going to be—" "Don't you think you're a little old to be using cheesy pickup—"
Lines another test. Love it. Objection leading the witness and see how he uses humor to beat the test. He doesn't react. He's like, "Well, I'm not that old," or "I'm only—I'm only 37," or whatever it is, right? That would be falling into her frame and losing. He takes her test and uses it as clay to build a fun interaction.
Wow, Hannah, you're really wearing that dress like you're doing it a favor.
Oh God, that's a line. Me sitting over there for the past 2 hours not being able to take my eyes off of you is a fact. I mean, there's lots of beautiful women in this bar, your friend included. "Hi, I love you, but I can't take my eyes off of you." That's a fact; it's not a line. I find you very attractive. Do you find me attractive? She does. I don't. You do? She does. Yes, she does. I—I don't. You do? You do again. See how he was rejected and then how he dealt with that.
"I don't."
"Hannah, can I buy you a drink?"
"No."
"You say 'no' a lot, don't you?"
"No."
"Oh boy."
"Permission to approach the bench?"
"Seriously, just come on."
Let me see how this is healthy persistence. He's not being overly obnoxious, right? He's using humor and playfulness to be persistent.
"Let me deliver my closing argument."
"Sure, proceed."
Anna, we live in a physical world, right?
Uh-huh.
And you're going to age, right?
Mhm.
I guarantee you this: you're never going to regret going home with that guy from the bar that one time that was a total tomcat in the sack. But I can't guarantee that you won't not regret it. That's a double negative. You're a double negative.
Okay, Hannah, can I buy you a drink?
Okay. It's—you know what? It's time to go home. Really? Wow. It's forward of you, but okay, I'll do it. A TBO saw three. So should I get my car or yours? Should I pull the car around? See how his—his emotional state was not crashed at all by her rejection.
Okay, so what can we learn from that clip? Well, the first thing is that he was authentically just going after what he wanted. Okay? And when she met him with resistance—as all women will—all women will test—he didn't take it personally, right? That it was any lack of his value. Because when your wife attacks you or says certain things about you and you feel defeated by it, the only reason that you do is because somewhat you agree with her. Okay? And what you can take from that lesson is, with that ability—part of the masculine role is to express yourself, to be who you are, to say what your boundaries are, what your values are, and no one can compromise who you are. You are this physical ship floating through the waters of life, and nothing can take you off course. Things will try to take you off course, but you go after what you want, and there's no need, no attachment, and when you're met with resistance, you throw up the wind sails and you use that wind to sail in the direction that you want. So that's a little bit more in the conception. So let's talk about the practical.
Okay, so when you come home from work, right, to your family—yes—you know, do the chores, take care of your kids, spend time with them, do all the check marks. But otherwise, when it comes to your free time, what you do is that if you're going to engage with your wife, you're going to do so by not needing anything from her. I want you to literally imagine that there is this emanating value coming from you that you're just exuding this positive, like green light, okay? And you don't need to suck or take anything from her. So you don't need to go up to her and say—say like, "Oh, how was your day? What was going on?" Like, and you're asking a million questions, and you're just—she feels that you're just trying to pull the conversation that you want her around. Instead, you tell her how your day was. You make jokes. When she does an eye roll or acts like she doesn't care, it is uneffective to you. Okay? You're not taking it personal, right? And also recognize that you need other things in your life that you're going to go do, so to create that proper space to also make her feel safe.
For the last point of asserting your masculine manhood—this is a concept that I posted in our Facebook group that I got a lot of engagement, so let me just read it verbatim to you. Some men get this confused, so let me elaborate here. Should you always agree with your wife? A lot of men get this topic extremely twisted around. When I say to validate your wife, does that mean to simply agree with her? Hell no. Let's first ask us: what are the goals of communication? Number one: to understand and to be understood. Number two: to seek a solution. And number three: to conduct yourself with self-respect. So why does so many men feel like I'm telling them to put their tail between their legs when they go validate their wife? The question is: can you still understand someone and maintain respect? So I just got off a call with an amazing man in the program. Now, look, I'm not going to sugarcoat this: his wife is truly abusive. She verbally demeans, attacks, criticizes, and sometimes gets physical with him. He was relegated to the basement. Now, on our call together, we discussed that he needs to assert himself, to stand up for himself and what he wants, to stand his ground, and to conduct himself in conversation with self-respect above all else. Now, this means, for his specific situation, telling his wife that he is moving back upstairs, telling her that the way she speaks to him in front of their son is not okay, and he wants what is best for everyone, including her. That's a very important point. Number three: if she cannot honor the second point, he will have to move out of the home. Look, as a huge caveat, I gave this man advice based on an hour-long call with him, as I wouldn't give it to every man because context does matter. Okay? So this is not general advice for every single person. Now, the way he starts his conversation is with validating his wife, saying something to the tune of, "Look, I understand that it's painful to be around me because of your past pain, and you feel uncomfortable with me back in the room. I want what's best for us, and that starts with me respecting myself; therefore, I'm going to do what I think is best for me, and I'm not trying to control you in any way. You can choose to stay in the room with me or move out." You see, he starts with validation and then goes into asserting his own perception by first understanding the way she sees the world. It doesn't mean that he has to agree with her. You can understand how someone sees the world, but it doesn't mean you have to agree. Okay? I have to restate that. A quote that sums up this idea is from Marshall D. Rosenberg. He says, "If the other person's behavior is not in harmony with my own needs, the more I empathize with them and their needs, the more likely I am to get my own needs met." This all starts with knowing your boundaries and expressing them without control. If something doesn't sit right with you internally, an apex man expresses that.
All right, this fifth concept is going to completely make you bulletproof with rejection. So in the beginning of the video, I asked you questions in alignment with: when do you fully have your wife? When she sleeps with you? When she moves back in? When she notices your changes? And when is it fully done with her? When you're fully rejected? Is it when the divorce papers come in? Is it when she says that she's leaving? The thing is that you get to decide. You have to realize that there are men who, when their wife said that, "I'm leaving you," they thought it was over for good because they never experienced that before. And then you have other men who have been with a woman or their wife over the years where she's literally moved out or she said, "I'm no longer in love with you," multiple times, but she always comes back. So where does this leave you? This leaves you with the idea that rejection is something that you decide. You determine when you feel like you're rejected by your wife, when it's over. Okay? Okay? Because I am telling you, no matter what your situation is, how bad it is, there are men—countless men—who have been in the same situation that have won their life back. So what is the difference? Look, there are even men where the wife was in love with another man and going to marry the other guy, and they still worked it out. That's Sean's story. You can check it out by clicking the card above. So with all that said, all I'm trying to convey to you is that if you feel defeated by what she said, if you think it's over because of what she said—whether it's the papers, whether it's the worst that she said to you—you then you're going to make it so. There was a study showing that 40% of women, when they give divorce papers for the first time, it is a test. They're not serious about it. They're like, really questioning the relationship. Absolutely, it's not completely a game, but it's not final in their mind. And this goes back to the dual my narrative that yes, her protection now is completely on the surface where she's more ice cold and apathetic and angry, but that part of her is still there, hoping. And if you fall into fear yourself and thinking it's over, it is over. Okay? But the smartest person I've ever met—had the privilege of meeting—everything that came out of her mouth was just true. She might as well have been saying, "Water is wet, fire is hot." Whenever she spoke, I never doubted anything she said. She was the most wisest woman ever, and I had the opportunity to ask her a couple of questions. One of the questions I asked her is, "How do I know my partner is the one? Is my soulmate?" And her response was simply, "How do you know she's the one?" She said, "If you want her to be, that's it." And the thing is that you have more power than you recognize, more ability to shift and alter the relationship. And if you focus on what you want versus what you don't want and don't take rejection as a final state but more of a fleeting moment in how she feels, which shifts all the time, then you recognize that you have more power to influence that. Okay? Check out the video I said right here and smash like if you're new here, subscribe, and I'll see you guys in the next one. Cheers.