BEING HER with Margarita Nazarenko - 101: Turn His Avoidance Into Obsession: Make Him Chase You & Bond for Good with Adam Lane Smith

Episode Date: February 23, 2025

Why do avoidant men run from intimacy, and how can you get them to bond without chasing? In this powerful conversation, Adam Lane Smith breaks down the core fears driving avoidant attachment styles and shares actionable tips to flip the script — so he starts chasing you. We talk about the emotional triggers that make men commit, the biggest mistakes women make when dating avoidants, and how to create deep, lasting bonds (without sacrificing your self-worth).💖 If you've ever wondered, "Why won't he commit?" — this one's for you.In this episode:The psychology behind avoidant attachmentHow to stop chasing and make him pursue youEmotional intimacy hacks that deepen connectionThe key to turning avoidance into obsession🎧 Tune in now to Being Her — and don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and leave a review!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's hard to love somebody who's just a mirror of you. I'd love to ask you three questions. Give me your honest gut answers. Do you feel like this person trusts you? Yes. Would you feel good about yourself as a partner? Very. Do you think this relationship would last a long time?

How do you backtrack? How do you get him feeling safe around you again? Maybe managing your anxiety levels, start getting it down so that you're not obsessing over him, chasing him, begging, pleading. Start really managing yourself so that you can be a calm, peaceful, feminine present. when he's around you, and then he can actually be calming the presence. Can I ask you about the whole porn conversation? This does not mean the woman is not doing enough.

It does not mean that she's not offering her body or having enough sex or bad at sex. It means that this man does not know how to oxytocin bond appropriately. Probably doesn't know that sex should be the man going and saying, hey, wife, I love you. I would really like to get frisky with you tonight. Can we do that? And she says, hey, I would love to. And I don't really feel connected to you lately. So could we go on a date first or spend.

20 minutes talking. Can we build some connection, oxytocin? And then do some floorplay, oxytocin, and then have sex so that we both really enjoy it. And he goes, hell yeah, that sounds awesome. That's an evening. Adam Lane Smith, welcome to being her. Thank you so much for being here. You are probably the man I'm most excited to have on our show. I'm touched. Thank you. I've been actually following you on social media for a couple of years and I love your material. So I was excited for this conversation. So there we go. We both win. I know. We both win. And And every time I say something about attachment, men, everything, they're like, I want to hear it from a man. So here is your man, ladies.

He's here to sell you the truth. There we go. Glad to be here. And thank you. Before we introduce who you are and what you do, I want to start with a question that I know will get everybody hooked. And that is, every time I speak about an avoidant man on my platforms, the comments I get is just leave him.

Just forget him. Just leave him. It's not worth it. Is it true that you cannot build a relationship? with an avoidant man. Avoident men can be some of the most devoted, loving, connected partners you could possibly imagine, but only if you understand what he needs from you. And what is that? Well, we'll talk about that, but honestly, what he needs from you is love in a way that he can experience because biochemically, he's never experienced love before and he doesn't know what's

possible. Wow. That is, because to me, I don't find people disposed. And if you love someone, it's hard already to find someone you love. So all these people are in love with avoidant people or men in this case. And to just say, forget it, just leave him is a very easy thing to say, but a really hard thing to do. So I love your content because you focus on how to actually make it work. So can we take it back to the beginning? How come you are the avoidant man attachment expert? How did that happen?

Good, great. Very good question. I grew up with attachment issues myself. And I was miserable up until I was about 21, 22. And I said, I can't live this way anymore. I need to fix this. So I just white-knuckled it and made myself have all of the conversations I was avoiding, made myself clarify all the relationships that were bad and remove them,

and would only allow myself to have new relationships that were really compatible. And I made myself go through those talks. And it was terrible because I wondered half the time if I was doing something catastrophically wrong that was going to ruin my life. And what I found was that as I fixed those pieces, my life got so massively better. And I said, what the hell did I just do? Has anyone else ever done this? So I went to school, got my master's degree in psychology, became a licensed marriage or family

therapist. And along the way, they did tell me about something called attachment theory, but they hand-waved it, as I'm learning that most clinicians get, and said, this is just for babies. If you work with babies, you might need to know this. If you don't, it doesn't matter because attachment doesn't work for adults. It's only personality disorders. Don't ever worry about attachment theory. And that's what most Western therapists and psychiatrists are getting, not all, but most.

So after years and years and years of work and research in the field trying to figure out what I had done, I stumbled back across attachment theory again via Dr. Robert Glover's book, and he's become a very dear mentor of mine, his book, No More Mr. Nice Guy. And through that, I realized, okay, what they told us was crap. This is the core of everything, this attachment thing. We've got to get this message out. So I did what we do nowadays. I took to the internet and started screaming on Twitter.

And a few people started listening to me. I paired up with a team who helps me get my message out on every platform. And now we're everywhere teaching about attachment. And I've noticed since I've started doing that, that there's a lot of people that want to talk about attachment all of a sudden. But they have no idea what they're talking about. So now I have to set the records straight for a lot of people, unfortunately. I know. A lot of women have the same struggles, the same issues, and they don't realize.

my DMs are filled with what could be, just put into what is attachment, you know, underneath what it is. When you were struggling when you were in your 20s, because I had the same, I was anxiously attached. What were you when you were younger? Anxiously attached as well. Yeah.

How did that? With just a small amount of avoidant mixed in, by the way. Disorganized is what we would call it. Disorganized. So can you describe to me the attachments for people who've just clicked on this and they have no idea what we're talking about? I'm actually updating the field.

of attachment theory right now because the styles are no longer as effective as they could be. However, a general overview is this. If you, as a child, didn't get consistent love, attention, approval, and this sounds so in the Western world like, oh, you didn't get loved enough. But really, if you felt that love was given to you and then ripped away and given and ripped away and approval was taken away, then what happens is you get a brain chemical hormone called oxytocin that makes you feel loved and safe and cared for. And this is a crucial piece for a baby to feel safe.

And when it's then ripped away and you don't understand why you try to figure out what you did wrong. And when it's given and taken away and given and taken away, it creates a withdrawal effect and then a fear effect. And a trauma effect. You actually have trauma from this as an infant. And then it creates learned helplessness. There's something wrong with me.

I am unlovable. No one will ever accept me. I will always do things wrong. I will always get abandoned. If I become incredibly fawning and approval seeking, people will at least pity me enough to stay with me. So if I find people that have problems, I can fix them for them and they'll be grateful. Or I find someone who treats me like crap, at least they're honest. Then I can give them nice things.

And then they occasionally will pity me enough to meet my needs. This is anxious attachment style. And a lot of women fall into this category. And I've seen your work quite a lot. You're teaching women not to have zero needs, not to be silent, not to be closed off, because they look, they look like a blank cardboard cutout and real healthy men don't want that. I've seen so many of your videos where you talk about women finding their voice and being you and being that fullness because that's what men want and you're so right.

And we can break in another way, which is where we don't get any love or connection at all. And in fact, other people's needs are imposed upon us. And we feel lonely, isolated, scared from other people. And we have put up a big wall and keep everyone out. and we never get that oxytocin bonding hormone. And this is avoiding attachment. And it creates a hardcore survival state. I will survive in a world where even my parents don't care about me,

where no one cares about me. I will never let anyone take advantage of me. And this is that avoidant attachment style. And I've split it in two into manipulative avoidance, where they believe other people are evil and malicious so they can justify manipulating them and hurting them and abandoning them. And then ethical avoidance, where they don't want to hurt.

anyone, they would be horrified to know they had hurt someone, but they're very mechanical thinking. They have no oxytocin. They don't know what love feels like. They're purely dopamine-driven in relationships. And they just try to live and let live. They'll tell you the truth, but it's usually a very painful truth. And this is where a lot of women get caught is the ethical avoidant, men who are good people, have no concept of love. And when you try to share love with them, they have no needs, and they won't open up. And they have a fear response anytime you try to get close. This is avoiding attachment. This is why I say if you can help them correct that pattern, they become so loving and so devoted and so amazing, but they have to come out of that.

People ask me with my marriage, I've been married for 10 years. Oh, how did you find him? I'm sorry, he was avoidant, like ethically avoidant. It's almost like the tin man, you know, almost robotic and I was so anxious. Yes. Exactly. And then the only way we got through it is me going, do you know what? I am going to learn about this and become secure. And he was like a little snail coming out of the shell trying to, you know, get out. You did it right. You did it right. Everybody out there. She did it right. That's exactly it. The woman often, unfortunately, has to begin the process of no longer chasing. She needs to pull back, breathe, build healthy, secure friendships, maybe with her family, if appropriate, and then have that stability and then start discussing

things with him from a capacity lens and a measurability lens and a transactional lens and be very clear and direct. And again, your videos are so helpful because you're, in essence, what you're doing is you're making it more palatable, but you're telling women, look, be a little more transactional than what you're thinking so that he understands what you're asking. And then you can get your needs met. And I've seen so many of your videos where you dive on this and it's fantastic. So yes, you are very late. Can I sometimes make them controversial? Like I say be selfish or something. I love those. I love those. You know, I want it. it to land. I want it to shock the women and be like, what do you mean selfish? Because the thing that

they don't understand and let me see if you agree is that it's hard to love somebody who's just a mirror of you. People who are anxious, they just try and mirror and people please, but would you find someone like that attractive? There's nothing there to actually, you know, feel into. I have a little practice that I do that teaches those women in about four minutes why that is so unattractive. Do you want to do it? Oh my God. Tell me. Yes. Do you want to do it? Is okay if I use you as a little bit of experiment? Can I do this with you? Okay. So this is something in my coaching. I call this the good partner, bad partner practice. I'm going to have you, Margarita, close your eyes for a minute. I'm going to describe a scenario and I'm going to ask you

three questions. And I'll describe another scenario and ask you three questions. Okay. Here we go. I want you to pretend you are with the perfect partner. He's probably your husband. I bet he's amazing. Don't tell me if it's not. But you are with the perfect partner. When he wants something from you, he simply asks very directly and not stomping his feet, not demanding. But he says something like, hey, you know what, this would mean a lot to me. Could you do this for me? Would you please do this? This would be so great. He's very clear and direct about it. When you do something he doesn't like, he's also very clear and direct about it. And he tells you the first time and not angry, yelling, fussy. But hey, you know what? It was great that you did this. Here is a little change I'd like to make for next time.

It would mean a lot to me. Or, hey, I don't really like this, but this would be amazing. And thank you so much for the thought. Can we change this next time? So you know exactly what. he doesn't like. And when you do something right, he's very clear about that too. He just says, hey, this was so great. Thank you so much for this. I appreciate you so much. Maybe even, hey, this is why this meant a little more to me than you even understand. So you want to understand exactly what he liked and why. Now, if you could open your eyes for me, I'd love to ask you three questions. Give me your honest gut answers. Number one, do you feel like this person trusts you? Yes. Beautiful. I love that. Occasionally.

I get a no, like, no, this is too good to be true. He's trying to steal something from me. But yes, you're right. Do you, in this relationship, if you were getting constant feedback about the things you were actually doing well, the things that weren't perfect, and then feedback as you changed, and you saw the relationship get better and the feedback changed, would you feel good about yourself as a partner? Very. Beautiful. One last question. Do you think this relationship would last a long time? Yeah. Beautiful. That's what you and your husband have, right? Is it. that relationship, that's simple. Potentially now, exactly. You have a map to follow. Exactly. Yeah. I want you to close your eyes. The ladies out there, this is going to hurt a little bit.

I'm going to ask these questions, and she's going to be brave. She's going to be your adverse, your person here. I want you to pretend that you have the worst partner in the world. This partner does not ask you for things that they want. They leave it up to you to guess. They do nice things for you and hope that you'll figure it out. Everything is a hint, but it's all plausible deniability. No, no, I didn't need that. I didn't ask you for that. No, that'd be too much. You never really know what they want until it's too late and you didn't do something and you miss something. Either the event was missed or maybe they're even a little resentful that you didn't do it, but they'll never ask. Number two, when you do something they don't like, they don't tell you

right away. They might even pretend they like it. They might even say, no, that's great. No, babe, it's perfect. No, it's fine. Don't worry about it. It's awesome. No, that's fine. until they have a really bad day, six months later. And you've done it 10 times. And then they blow up. I hate this. I've always hated this. How could you do this?

Why don't you know, aren't I import? You should know by now I don't like this. Blow up. And you are always wondering when the next blowup is because you never know. You never know when they're going to have that bad day. And finally, when you do things right, they treat it like a burden. It's more like a debt. Like, you didn't have to do this for me.

Why did you do this? This is too much. Immediately, how can I pay you back? How am I going to pay back this thing for you? Why did you do this? So even your good deeds almost are punished. You never know where they're at. You never know what they want from you unless it's too late.

Now open your eyes and answer me three questions, please. Do you feel like this person trusts you? No. Do you in this relationship think that you would have high self-esteem or low self-esteem? No, you'd be just walking on eggshells all the time. I wouldn't want to be around that person, to be honest. No. Do you think this relationship would last a long time?

No. The bad news is that most of the people listen to this are probably being the bad partner in their relationship. They're probably not yelling and abusive and mean, but if you are holding everything inside and nobody ever knows what you need or want, if you are never offering any criticism at all, at all or even just feedback. And if every kind deed is a debt, then you can't accept that.

If that's who you are, people feel untrusted, uncared for, they feel bad about themselves, they tiptoe around you. You make people nervous. By trying to be a nice person, you're actually inflicting quite a lot of discomfort and even pain on people around you. However, the good news is all of this is just behavior. None of this is how you look or how you sound, your voice, your hair. of this is anything about you. It's how you choose to interact in relationships. So this is why you must start speaking up in relationships and being clear and direct. You are a high maintenance woman when you don't share. You are a low maintenance woman when you do share. Think of it that way. Yeah. Give him a map and instructions of what you want. It's when you were doing this exercise,

Adam, I was thinking the first six years of birthdays I had with my now husband and partners before that, it was almost like I was waiting for them to mess up. Because of course, they're not going to do anything for me, but I'm not going to say anything because, you know, I'm low maintenance, and so I won't say anything. And oh my God, it wasn't just him. It was every person I was with. It would explode in this mess. And I wrote it in my book recently.

Just say what you want. Last birthday was like, I want a cake. I want it to be pink or whatever it was. I want this because, you know, my kids wanted to play with it too. And he literally delivered everything. And women need to get out of the mindset that if I ask for it, it means it doesn't matter. Yes. Oh, I'm so glad you said this because what women are doing is things.

are trying to track, excuse me just a moment, excuse me, sorry, I just got my voice back after five days. Me too. Actually, it's funny. What women are trying to do is they are trying to track the oxytocin hormone levels in a man's body. They can't saliva swab you right there on the spot and take it to a lab, so they check for spontaneous displays of affection. If I ask for it, it means nothing because that's not you being spontaneous and showing me

that you care so much that you want to do it for me. That's me asking, and then you begrudgingly give it to me. Now, what women are missing is avoidant men. Oxytosin is rock bottom, like below the bottom. If it's in a grave somewhere. So his oxytocin is low, so he will not give you spontaneous displays of affection, usually past the first seven months when his novelty dopamine is dead. Instead, he's going to do what you need and what you ask for as a show of love for you.

So if you aren't asking him for anything, he assumes you are not interested in him, that you don't need him, that you don't care about him, or that you have no needs. He will not jump to try to figure it out. But when you ask an avoidant man for something and he delivers from his resources from his survival mindset and gives to you, see, does he overdeliver? Does he really take the time and thoughtfulness? It's not did it occur to him? It's did he follow through to care for you? That's really the piece that women are missing. Is there any way to have him, what women might be thinking right now is make him more normal in his reactions and to have his dopamine, like, higher or whatever it was?

Is there any way to do that? Do you want to go through the brain chemicals right now? Because I can show you how to fix an avoidant man. Oh, my God. It's a little bit. Interrupt me at any time if you need to, okay? No. Some of this is from my avoidant man course that I have on my website.

But in essence, what you need to know is this. Because in childhood he had trauma, he has a trauma to. intimate relationships with humans. So when he is close to a human being, his sympathetic nervous system is activated. That's fight or flight response. What kind of trauma would that be? Sorry to interrupt you, but if you're anxious, it's a trauma of, you know, give and take. I wanted to ask if you're avoiding, what trauma would that have been?

Like, what kind of thing? It can be anything. I have a very dear, very dear friend who was born in Moscow, and he was raised in pretty tough circumstances. And his brain, his parents were very hard edge. They did not give much love and affection. They were very angry and fighting quite often. They were arbitrary in their rules.

They ordered him about what to do. He was not comforted and coddled. He was tossed in the crib to deal with himself to get through trantantrums or crying. As he grew, rules were layered upon him instead of taught to him and guided through them. There were a lot of things that went very wrong. And he was also in some very difficult situations growing up. But in essence, what his brain learned was the people. People around me have no time for softness.

They are surviving. I must be a survivor. No one's going to comfort my needs or care for me. And when you're one year old, your brain treats this like life or death because you could be abandoned in the forest and eaten by wolves. Your mom could just toss you aside one day and leave you. Someone could take you and steal you because no one's paying attention because they don't care.

Any kind of thing could happen. So your brain treats this like life or death trauma. No one will care for me. Even at one year old, I will never, ever be. be in a situation where anyone ever has to take care of me again. So they get independent as fast as humanly possible. Avoidant men are some of the best people on the planet for making money, building companies, schmoozing in business, learning about finance or law, and managing those

things so that they never, ever financially dependent on another human being ever again. They're very good at this. This is what their brain is for. So hypervigilance, sympathetic nervous system turned on all the time, blocks his oxytocin receptors because you are not supposed to bond emotionally when you're in life or death circumstances and a fight for survival. Because his oxytocin is blocked, his GABA is low, gamma amino butyric acid, which suppresses cortisol. So now his GABA is low.

His cortisol is fluctuating wildly through his brain all the time. It's not supposed to be, but it is. So he has to discipline himself. This is why avoid and say, I'm the most disciplined man on the planet. They have to white knuckle their discipline all the time to bring down the ardent, unregulated cortisol. Now, because they are not willing. working with other people to solve problems, they don't release the vasopress and bonding hormone either. So their brain does not feel safe or connected. Because they can never enter their

parasympathetic nervous system, the rest and digest mode, they can't really build much human growth hormone to get wound healing. You'll notice that avoid and their wounds heal very slow. They have a hard time gaining muscle in the gym or keeping it from that. They cannot use GABA to synthesize melatonin to sleep at night. So they're chronic insomniacs, quite often. often. And their immune systems are massively suppressed, so they're at high risk of early cancer, early stroke, early heart disease, early death, which is why it's correlated with a 55 to 65 year life expectancy for most avoidant men. Many of them die at 5560 because of these impacts and horrible, painful deaths. So all of that ties together. Their testosterone crushes down into the

ground. They have a midlife crisis. But they're just generally depressed most of their lives, but they would never call it that because depression is for weaklings. And they're anxious most of their lives, but they never call it that because fear and anxiety is for weaklings. And so they are just endlessly surviving. He's sitting with you on the couch. You're holding his hand and he's grinding his teeth, thinking about work tomorrow. And you're wondering why he's so stiff when you try to hug him and why he doesn't want to talk about his day and why he doesn't open up to you or share his feelings because he doesn't have them in his eyes. Avoidant men dissociate from their emotions quite often.

they turn them off because they're so overwhelming, they can't manage that level of overwhelming cortisol all the time. So this is the problem. Is this making sense? Was this maybe your husband when you married him? Yeah. Well, yeah, when I married him and like the not sleeping, the just reactions and frustration, like if he's doing something and you talk to him, God forbid, when he's in the middle of something, like chaos. Yeah, it's like, yeah, rulebook. How is he now compared to those things? Is he sleeping better at night? It's wildly different. And this is why I say to women, like, I know it's unfair.

You're going to write in the comments, it's not fair. Why should I have to do it and not him? Because you can and you have the ability to do it because you see the problem. I feel like they don't see the problem. So how can they fix it? To him, this is survival mode. There is no alternative. And he hasn't experienced oxytocin like you have.

So you know that there's another way he can be living. To him, that sounds like. You're talking about a magic fairy world where he can ride a unicorn and fly over a rainbow. And to him, none of that makes sense. He thinks that you're trying to get your both, both of you killed in essence. Yes. He lives in a war zone and you're talking about picking flowers. And that's really the problem here.

So your husband now, when you spend time with him now, is he able to relax into the moment with you and bond with you? If there is nothing imminently pressing happening, but he does fluctuate into, you know, survival mode and we've got to do this and we've got to do that but you know since i stepped back and it's not a pressure i think he doesn't see me and i know this is a really weird thing to say but i see that in most avoided men as like a danger to their survival like they see these women with their needs as this chaotic energy that cannot you know it's it's quite dangerous to have you around they try and avoid you when you're secure and have your own abilities and have your own routines

in life they kind of come closer you know well it's imagine for a moment if you're an avoidant man and you're dating a woman who is more emotional, maybe even anxiously attached, and you're in a middle of a war zone and she just wants to sit there crying for a while and telling you what she needs, you have to strap her to your back and run across the battlefield, gun in hand, fighting to survive while she's yelling, I'm tired, I want a cookie, I want a hug, and you're trying to survive with this upset woman strapped to your back. That's what avoidant men feel like. And in the beginnings of a relationship, because they don't get oxytocin or serotonin,

the first five to seven months, they have novelty dopamine. You're new, those are new. That's a new car smell. All of that is fresh, and that dies at five to seven months. So now he gets almost no pleasure from the relationship ever again

unless he fixes it with oxytocin. So now he has no pleasure. He's fighting to survive and keep you alive. It's everything's an obligation, and you're talking to him about unicorns and rainbows. And none of this makes sense to him, which is why avoidant men dismiss women when they talk about their emotions because to him this is going to get both of you killed.

So yes, there's a way to fix this for everybody out there who's like right now I can hear them seething. It's totally fine. There's a way to fix this. Is he supposed to have a new woman like every seven months? Like surely that's not sustainable, right? That's what most of them come to me when they're 45. They say, Adam, I've had a new woman every seven months and by what I want to get married and have kids and I can't do that. What's wrong with me? And then I teach them what's wrong with them. So no, he's not supposed to. He's supposed to. He's supposed to be building a monogamous, loving, intimate relationship with his wife and then building a family and integrating with them and bonding hormonally with them. He needs that oxytocin,

or he will die a painful medical death early and destroy his legacy in the process. He needs that vasopressin bonding hormone with you, his wife, so that he feels like he has a teammate on his side and someone he can trust. He needs that serotonin so he's not scraping the bottom of the barrel working out for two hours a day five times a week at the gym or he's a disaster that day. He needs to not be dopamine binging and focused on that so he can actually be calm and productive. He needs to come out of his sympathetic fight or flight nervous system. And men can do that. It's hard, but we cannot really enter our parasympathetic nervous system.

The rest are digest without integrating with a female partner. And when men say, what does a woman bring to the table? is what I say is you have to be ready to receive her and she has to be calm and steady and tell you what she needs. But then she immerses with you and connects with you and she pulls you into your parasympathetic nervous system like you do for your husband. And she touches your body, releases that oxytocin stimulates your vagus nerve in your chest. You actually digest food differently. You produce more testosterone, more human growth hormone, more serotonin. You rest deeper at night like your husband does now, and you sleep better and you heal and you're more productive the next day.

And so your life quality improves, but so does your productivity. And instead of surviving, you're thriving. And that's only possible with a good wife by your side. A man can't do this by himself. Is that why men do better in business? They say when they're married and there's some statistics on that. So how, as a woman, how can you give him that effect? So it's been a year together. he's losing interest, he's doing all these avoidance techniques. What are we doing? What are we advising women to do? It's quite a lot of what you teach, actually, is being very clear, direct, measurable,

obvious, exact. It's being able to go to him, and I teach this in my course. It's going to him and say, hello, I would like to give you high quality of life and love. I would love to give you peace. Peace is the number one thing these men are looking for. they've never felt it. They don't think they can. I would love to give you peace as many times a day or a week as I can. I want to give you peace with my mind, with my body, with my heart in every way, give you total peace. For me to have capacity to do that, I need a couple of clear, specific things

from you. I also need us to talk a little bit about your stress level and how we can manage that together so that your stress can come down and I feel taking care of and loved so I can relax and open up to you. And then when I do that, I will pull you into peace. I will help you with that. That's what you need me for. And I want to give this to you with everything that I am. But I have to have capacity for that. Here are the three things I need. It's being able to be that transactional with him, that measurable with him, to be very calm and self-regulated. A woman cannot go to an avoidant man dysregulated because then you are a disaster and he's he's going to be frustrated he has to deal with it because he's exhausted already not that you can't co-regulate you should

but not you have to regulate as much as you can self-regulate and then be able to tell him exactly what you need to that extent there's some risk involved because he could get up and walk away but most ethically avoidant men I bet your husband does this ethically avoidant men manipulative men will use manipulation tactics and shut you down and shame you and guilt you ethically avoidant men will get very stiff. They go like this, and their spine gets stiff, and their nostrils flare, and then they turn to the side, and they watch you through one fish eye, and it's their peripheral, and they're stiff, but they're listening the whole time.

You're laughing because you've seen your husband do this probably. I've seen it. Yes, and it's this peripheral, like, if you attack me, then I'm going to be okay. I'll fight back, but I can also jump out the window, and he's thinking about it right there. But he's listening, and as you have this conversation with him, you make it, clear and transactional and measurable. And now he understands the investment required. Most avoidant men were raised with people who put such massive arbitrary expectations on them

that they now think if you don't state your expectations for your birthday, you said, I want a cake, I want a pink, and I want this thing for me and the kids to play with. Beautiful. If you hadn't said that, he would think she expects a $5,000 diamond tiara. She wants a pony named Sparkles. She wants me to take her out to a vacation in Mexico right now, and she wants all of it to cost a minimum of 10,000, or she's not happy because she's not a princess. And that's not your expectation. He thinks it's here.

You clarified that it's here. And now he could say, really? That's it? And you say, yes. And if you do this for me, here's what I will also do in return for you. And he says, really? I invest this much and I get this much back. And that appeals to his financial brain.

and you say yes and you appeal to his financial sense you appeal to his logic and you show him the investment and the return when you speak to an avoidant man this way they fall in love with you because you give them so much relaxation their nervous system comes down in your presence then you can begin bonding with him and touching him scratching your fingers on his scalp rubbing gently on his arm or his chest while you're sitting with him that pink rhythm biarrhythm that releases oxytocin you can connect with them in the bedroom. There's certain things you can do in the bedroom to release more oxytocin. And then he starts saying things like your husband probably does like, wow, I just sleep so much better when you're here. Or wow, you know, I feel really relaxed today. And I don't know why.

And he's just so soothed and connected to you. And now he's, I hesitate to say this word because the avoidant men that might be listening are probably like, ugh. But he's addicted to you. He's biochemically addicted to you on purpose because you're keeping him up. him addicted, yeah, because it's a whole mental thing. Exactly. He gets rewarded as a mammal for being socially connected. It's like one mouse. There's all the mice, happy, snuggling, talking, you know, licking each other's ears, playing, and then there's one mouse off in the corner. Looking stoic, I'm a lone mouse.

I'm a lone wolf mouse. I don't need anybody. And that's not a healthy mouse. He degrades and dies over time. You're integrating him back. You're licking his ears. You're snuggling him and you're teaching him how to be a mouse and now he can be a healthy mouse with you he gets the brain chemicals that say this is good do more of this and he starts releasing serotonin which makes him feel content and fulfilled and all of that gets associated with you now instead of a dopamine fix of some some hot girl every six months it's i have a deep fulfilling enriching monogamous relationship with you and i don't want to screw that up. And what's fascinating is oxytocin. Can I get a little bit crude just for a moment, talk bedroom? Oxytocin. Oxytocin is one of the biggest drivers of male erection and quality of

male orgasm and female orgasm. But male erection is driven after the first seven months, largely by oxytocin, which is why a lot of these avoidant men and men in their 20s and 30s now have massive erectile dysfunction, partly from porn, but largely because of this, they're lacking oxytocin. And can't perform because they are not optimally bonded to the woman. But when they do, it is stronger and more robust and faster and more responsive and a bigger finish. And everything is so much better. So much so that they're talking in the medical industry right now about replacing Viagra with shots of oxytocin up the nose because it is so much more powerful for men in the bedroom.

If you give him this stimulation, he will give you stimulation. That's how this is supposed to. There you go. Can I ask you about the whole porn conversation because that's probably my second ask question on DM. He's watching porn. What do I do? Do I forbid him? Do I?

And it's a really difficult thing to answer because I feel like forbidding someone to do something that they're doing is a tricky thing to do. I don't feel it's right. It doesn't sit right as somebody that is with a partner to be forbidding them a behavior. But what would you do if or do you think it's wrong or what are your feelings on it as a man? Yeah. So my training as a licensed marriage or family therapist back in the day, one of my mentors taught me. He said, Adam, everybody that comes to you with a problem is used to everybody and themselves yelling at themselves for having that problem. So if they come in with an addiction or a behavior, they're already ashamed of it and they already feel bad about it.

The worst thing you could do is yell at them for it. So a lot of women, they feel hurt and scared and it feels like a betrayal. And that's not wrong. It's not a good behavior. But yelling at him or being mad at him is not good. forbidding him is not necessarily good either because why is he doing it? And that's what I really want most women to do is stop and ask him, what is this doing for you? Just like I was trained in addictions, what is this doing for you?

What are the good parts of it? What are the good about it? What do you like about it? And then what do you also not like about it? And what if we could get all those features without any of those negatives? What could we replace and enhance? Now, porn use in particular fulfills a couple of roles. Number one, it's a coping mechanism for stress.

It's a big influx purely of dopamine. And it's massively available with crazy escalating situations that probably could never be duplicated in real life. Never, never, never, never. But what most people find is that men who dive into that, again, are looking for dopamine fixes because that's all they know. Dopamine is not supposed to be that prevalent in our brain. We're not supposed to be craving it that much. We actually need to crave oxytocin if we're getting it and know how to get it. We need to be craving serotonin.

A man who is full of oxytocin and serotonin, dopamine is a small little thing. It's like a candy, right? If you are starving and haven't eaten in three days, a candy bar looks amazing. You'd eat it out of the gutter if you had to after three days, which is porn. That's what porn is. I will eat this candy bar out of the gutter because I'm starving. Instead, when you're full of oxytocin and serotonin, it's like you just ate a, a beautiful steak from a steakhouse with mashed potatoes and you wash it all down with like pure

clean water. You feel amazing. You feel pumped and you see a candy bar lying in the gutter. You're not going to go, ooh, free candy and snatch it up and eat it. You're going to go, I don't want that. No, thank you. And that's how we build resilience against porn use is build resilience against the need for dopamine binges. This does not mean the woman is not doing enough. It does not mean that she's not offering her body or having enough sex or bad at sex. It means that this man does not know how to oxytocin bond appropriately. Probably doesn't know he can ask for sex. Probably doesn't know that sex should be the man going and saying,

hey, wife, I love you. I would really like to get frisky with you tonight. Can we do that? And she says, hey, I would love to. And I don't really feel connected to you lately. So could we go on a date first or spend 20 minutes talking? Can we build some connection, oxytocin? And then do some foreplay, oxytocin.

And then have sex so that we both really enjoy. He goes, hell yeah, that sounds awesome. 20 minutes of talking, 20 minutes of floor play and then have sex. That's an evening. And that's how it's supposed to work. And then they saturate with oxytocin, one, two, three. And then afterward, in the aftercare, even more oxytocin, now the next time it's even easier because he goes, hey, what do you think?

And she says, yeah, I'm ready to go. We had a great day yesterday. Now it's even easier to have that sexual experience. That's how it's supposed to go. And then when he's flooding with oxytocin and serotonin, and he's actually connected to you. A lot of men who watch porn, they're so focused on body parts and actions that they forget you're in the room and they don't make eye contact. They don't kiss. They don't talk. They don't laugh or play with you. It's a very like driven performance. And that's it. When you really engage with him and

talk with him about building an interactive sex life where you pause and you laugh and you joke and you tickle and you and you kiss in funny ways and then you do all kinds of things like that with eye contact and communication, you have a sexual experience together instead of rubbing one out. And that's how you build a fulfilling sex life that makes him resilient against sex if he's willing to do this with you. It has to be cooperative. And women say they don't like the transactional feeling of being like, if you do this for me, then we can do that.

But I literally, you're so funny that you said this because I said to my husband, if you listen to me for 20 minutes about this thing that's annoying me, not about him, but about like a friend or something, then we will. And I thought that wouldn't land, but it does. And now he's like, got anything on your mind? Do you want to talk about? And I know what I mean? And that's how it works.

When you show a man how to do it, when you ask for it the first couple of times, then he's like, all right, babe, hey, anything need to be fixed around here? Do you need to wash the dishes? Do you have feelings? Any feelings that I can take right now? That's exactly the process. It's like an algorithm. You have trained him.

You filled him with oxytocin. So now not only does he give you spontaneous affection and return what women are looking for, because you filled him with that. But now he also knows what you need, and he can do that for you. And then if he needs something from you, he has an exact mechanism to do it. A lot of men feel because women aren't bringing things up, men feel like they can't. So then he feels like, well, I can't burden her with my sexual needs every day because it feels like a beggar going and begging for soup at the soup kitchen. So then he's like, well, I guess this is over. here's the porn and there's my corner.

And that's a lot of men fall into as well. So women, please ask for what you want. Yeah. What about the other side? A lot of women are feeling like their partners don't want them sexually. No matter what they do, they wear lingerie, they want this, they want that. It's coming up so much. And the guy is simply saying I'm too stressed at work.

And I don't know. There's something, I don't know odd about it. Very early on in relationships. Yes. Well, largely that's because he's stressed at work, his sympathetic nervous system up oxytocin very low and it's past the first six months of the relationships was dopamine is dead laundrae is dopamine it ain't going to do anything for him right porn is dopamine that might help but he has to watch new videos of new girls every night right it's not the same video every night ladies if you've

ever noticed or if you've ever studied what porn does it's it's got to be new new new new and that's why they push young women into it so constantly um you know doing different sexual acts is more dopamine so all the things that women do to spice up the bedroom is dopamine dopamine dopamine dopamine And that can maybe help a little bit for a little period of time. But there's a lot of frustrated women that want to have a lot more sex and their husband's like, no, I'm too stressed, babe. So what you need to do is say, okay, what are you doing to manage your stress level? Because it's starting to really impact us in a big way. How are you managing your stress?

We can't live in your stress forever. I love you. I care about you. Who are you talking to? What are you doing about it? The best question a woman can ask a man is, what are you going to do about that? right if he gives you an excuse what are you going to do about that move your man into the action phase i love i love your work because you take no prisoners and you're like that man had better be

acting right he had better be a man he had better be masculine he'd better be doing what he's supposed to do and that's what most women need to do is call men to account in a loving way what are you going to do about this you've just told me that you are too stressed to have sex and it's been that way for three months what are you going as the man what will you do about this get him to step up to the plate and then say, I want to have sex with you. What is your plan to recover your stress? Then what is your plan to rebuild this emotional connection between us so that our levels, our oxytocin levels go up? Ladies, there's so many research papers on this if you want to read those or give them to him. Oxytocin levels go up and we will both want to have

sex again and then we will have a relationship. If you are choosing not to work on your stress, you are choosing to kill our relationship. So what are you doing about it? Exactly. And you know how you mentioned there's a manipulative avoidant and then there's an ethical one. How do you know the difference and then the narcissist comes up? How do we know we're not being tricked by this manipulative person into a relationship? Can we spot the difference? Yeah, the narcissistic personality disorder is off the chart over in that direction. You have the ethical avoidant and as they gain more and more belief about other people being malicious, evil. They start really demonizing other people. Other people are bad. Other people are evil.

that will do anything they can. You even are bad. You're a bad person. You would do it if you could get away with it. I have to track your location and constantly check your phone because you would do all kinds of stuff if you could. I bet you're thinking about cheating right now, right? They start pushing back on that and they assume evil from other people all the time.

So then they can justify doing hurtful things and harmful things to other people as a basis of maintaining and managing other people. If you feel like you're being managed quite often and it's painful to you, you probably are with a manipulative avoidant. If they're bad-mouthing other human beings, they're justifying things, if you talk to them and they just degrade you and insult you and shut you down to shut you up, that usually is a manipulative avoidant trait. And they accrue more and more narcissistic traits as they go down that spectrum toward personality disorders off the chart with narcissistic personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, borderline personality disorder. All of those are off the end of the spectrum over there. So keep watch on your feelings, ladies. Your feelings are useful data.

That's why you have them. Track how you feel when he speaks to you. Does he respect you? Is he respectful of anybody? Is he demonizing of everyone? Is he endlessly angry and suspicious? And you can't get through to him. Don't think, oh, well, he complimented my hair one time in 2017.

So he's really a good guy. And don't think, well, he's not always abusive. He can be charming when he feels like it. Yes. So can serial. killers. That's not criteria for a relationship. Really look, is he managing you like an object and hurting you when you get out of line? Or is he just a little distant because he doesn't understand love? Does he just tend to kind of pull away and run away because his stress level overloads?

Is it personal and he's hurting you on purpose to manage you? Or is he just pulling back because he's overwhelmed and maybe a little scared and he doesn't know how to talk to you? So he escapes, which one is it? And I feel like I understand as a previously anxious person why we choose avoidance because they remind us of the person who didn't give us consistent approval and love. Why do avoidance choose anxious people? I find that quite interesting and I haven't really put my finger on it. Why can't they just choose a secure person? Secure people want nothing to do with avoidant people largely, usually, in romance, because the avoidant person comes on purely intellectual in the dating process or comes on massively love bombing in the,

dating process. So they'll over stimulate you with really good feelings in the beginning, which to a secure person, they say, I don't know you. Don't, don't go that fast. I'm trying to build a lifelong relationship, step back. Or they just are purely intellectual, but won't answer any personal questions. And they say, if you're really evasive, you really don't want to talk about these things, you can't go deep. You're just intellectualizing. I don't think this is a good match. You probably should go be somewhere else. I'm going to find someone who's a little more personal. And that's why secure people don't date avoiding people. So then what's left?

Well, avoiding people don't know they're being selected out by secure people. They just assume that some people are not interested in speaking to them. They don't get why. So they go out and they love bomb people and saturate them with great feelings. They get high levels of dopamine very early because that's what they're looking for. So they're trying to rush through the dating process to get to dopamine, dopamine, dopamine, pleasure and mutual fulfillment. And then they flood you with dopamine, but they don't.

realize you're actually getting oxytocin instead. They don't realize that they're basically injecting heroin into your neck over and over and over and over. And then eventually the withdrawals are going to hit and be really ugly. They think it's a mutual exchange of dopamine that you're just both hooking up or connecting. And it's not a big deal. So to them, that's why they tend to connect with anxious people. Because anxious people who give them access to body and mind and everything very quickly. So then you could start flooding with dopamine very fast. And anxious people have very no boundaries. They don't ask for anything. It sounds like a free deal. Like, hey, have some free ice cream everybody. Oh, cool. I'll take some free ice cream. But then the bill comes due later. Well, it turns out

it wasn't free. We just pretended it was. And that's where a lot of the tension comes in. So that's why avoiding people tend to pick anxious people. And I feel like avoidance are villainized in, you know, the general conversation. Is there a dark side to anxious people? And if so, what is it? I once read a book about codependent personality disorder, and it sounds a little bit similar to anxious. I know it's different,

but there's something similar about the manipulative tactics that they use. You're going to get me in trouble with this one. You will because on my YouTube channel, I've got like a thousand videos long as and shorts, but the one mini-series I published, the people were most angry at that I get, most hate mail on. People even come in for free discovery calls only to tell me that they hate me because of those videos. So it's a series about how some anxious women are very toxic for avoidant

men and how those anxious women in particular have very toxic traits. And it is the women who are overflowing with resentment, the ones who sign no strings attached relationship contracts and then go back on them later and get angry and bitter. They're the women who go online and demonize all avoidant men. They're the women who are, yes, co-dependent and they find people with as many problems as possible, and then use that as leverage and say, you know, now you owe me. I'm so good. How could you not give to me? How dare you not give back to me after all I've done for you? Often these are moms who push this upon their children and say, I have been your mom all your life. You can't refuse me like everybody else does. and it is a very dark side, a very toxic level of control and resentment and just as much manipulation as the manipulative avoidant person.

And when you say this to anxious women who are bitter and angry and resentful, they get furious. So we're probably going to get a lot of hate mail even over this portion of the show. Absolutely, because I have that struggle exactly the same as you. I see it in my DMs and I try and be an advocate for women. But let's imagine her name is Jennifer and she's writing to me. oh he's avoiding me a little bit da-da-da i'll give her a solution the next day it will be i checked his phone i looked at his this he didn't come to my this and then my dms will start to get flooded and then she'll start why aren't you replying to me to me to me and this personality comes out by the way

jennifer's never done this if you're jennifer it wasn't you but you know and and i see this personality of somebody who's just like completely clinging to your every move every reaction then i'll say a word like maybe it's not him who was doing and she's like what do you mean it's not him. Why would you say that? And I'm thinking, oh my God, how is that man even surviving in that scenario and that relationship? It's a really toxic, like, I've done this for you. Now you do this for me. They'll even say, I've been listening to your show. Why wouldn't you reply? And it's just a really overwhelming personality to be around. I will say most of the women who are listening to us right now are probably not that. Because those women don't actually want to get better or improve.

They're not going to listen to a show like yours where you're teaching women how to improve themselves. those women want fast answers about how to manipulate this guy. I get those women, sometimes they come into my coaching, they buy one session, they come in and say, you're going to teach me how to make him love me and come back. He hasn't spoken to me in six months, but I've been stalking him. I know his address. I can go there right now. You're going to help me make him fall in love with me again.

And it's, yeah, I know exactly the type you're talking about. They are not here probably listening to this right now. So they're off somewhere else blaming them. Yeah. Exactly. So how would you, on that note, if you were with an avoidant person and you've messed up and maybe you've pressured him too much because a lot of women do want to know about this. How do you backtrack? How do you get him feeling safe around you again if you've been, you know, berating him and asking him a lot of, you know, for a lot.

How do you get back? Avoidant men find it absolutely shocking when someone starts regulating themselves, number one, starts regulating their own emotions. Number two, takes responsibility for their past behaviors, really. And then number three, presents a clear plan for how to move forward. One, two, three. So start regulating yourself. Start managing your own body work, your own, your own somatic work, maybe managing your anxiety levels. Start getting it down so that you're not obsessively over him, chasing him, begging, pleading,

because he's at work and you didn't get a response. Start really managing yourself so that you can be a calm, peaceful, feminine presence when he's around you and then he can actually be calm in your presence. Number two, actually tell him, you know what? I've realized I'm not proud of some of my past actions. I've realized I've put a lot of pressure on you. Yes, I do still want to get married, but I've realized that the way I've gone about this has been actually very wrong. And I'm very sorry for that. And I want you to know, I'm not going to be taking that approach in the future. I do want us to have conversations. And I'm not saying I'm not interested in that. But I want it to, I want to do it from a place that's

mutually fulfilling for both of us instead of dragging you in. And then number three, building a plan. So for us to do that, I'm managing myself and my own emotions. I'm telling you exactly how I feel. I am going to be putting together a list of some things I would like to see. And I'd love to sit down with you, not as a list of demands, but as a list of how can we get to this together. Are we actually aligned on the same goals and the same values? Do we want the same things? And if so, how can we get there? And I'd love to work with you on building that plan so we can both feel peaceful and calm and feel like we're getting both of us what we need from this relationship. Can we do that? Sit down and do a relationship reset like that with him.

He will be, number one, like sideways looking at you like they do, but he will be blown away. And he'll wonder what you're selling for a moment because nobody has ever done this in his life. Nobody has ever meant this in his life. And doing it once is okay. but then following through on it for the next couple of weeks and actually regulating yourself, actually building that list and actually not pressuring him anymore, having the calm conversation with him and being regulated when you have that talk and understanding his needs and asking more about what he's looking for and giving him that care and that curiosity.

As you do this consistently, you freak him out in a good way because now you're like nobody he's ever known. And now his stress system comes down in your presence. He actually is talking with you. He feels bonded to you. He's trusting you. And now he can't get away, so to speak, because now you are the one woman on the planet who has ever truly cared for him and has put her money where her mouth is. And now he doesn't want other women every six months.

There's something special about you that he's never seen before. That's how you do this process. I love it. It's so practical. How do we get him to propose and commit also without nagging him about the ring? how do you do that? I just did a video today on how women can achieve this. And what I talk about is it's kind of like makeup.

It's kind of like the makeup approach. One thing I like about your videos, you don't overdo like the crazy wild makeup. Women who are smart use makeup to enhance what is already beautiful about themselves. Instead of covering up and creating a fake face that when you wash it off later, he's like, who are you? How did you get in my house? It needs to enhance what you already have.

So enhance your own beauty by you. showing what you actually want. You are a woman who wants marriage. Why? What is the purpose of marriage to you? It's not a finish line. It's a starting line. Talk to him about co-creating a legacy together. Talk to him about co-founding a family together. Talk to him in terms of almost like co-founding a business. I want to build this with you. I want to build a family together. I want to build a generations together. I want to be financially secure together as a couple and watch each other's back. I want to help each other reach fulfillment and personal growth by being accountability partners in a good way for life and covering each other when we're hurt. I want to be trustworthy together. So at least

we have somebody together in this world who won't betray us. And as you start offering that to him and say, I want to give you all of this. And this is the reason that I need a commitment so that I can give myself 100% to you for the rest of my life. That's the commitment you're making. You need to help him understand what marriage actually is, what the benefits actually are. It's not I give her a ring. She gains a hundred pounds and takes half my stuff. It's I give her a ring. She is my devoted partner for life. She watches my back. She gives, she soothes my nervous system. She helps me live longer and better. We co-create a family together. We create children together. She is there for me at all times. And I am there for her. We can talk. We can share. We can solve problems. And I've proven

that through our engagement process and our dating and compatibility, I am ready to make that investment. You are the only woman who has ever done this for me. I will not let you get away. Here is your ring. That's how you do it. It's by showing the woman that you are and the things that you want and having those investment conversations with him. Remember that him giving you a ring and marrying you should be an investment. It shouldn't be a loss on his side. It should be an investment that both of you win together. Talk to him about it that way. And if he's saying he's not ready, how long are we waiting at him? Five years, ten years, twenty.

Well, you ask him. You go back and say, okay, what's your plan to get ready? How long does that look like? And what guarantees do I have that I'm not wasting my time? Because I want to do this with you, but my time is also precious. So what do you need and what are you doing right now? Well, I'm going to get through school and then I'm going to do this. It'll be at least five years before I can even think about it.

Then we can get engaged and that'll be at least another three years. So you're looking at eight years. Then once we get married, maybe another 10 years before we have kids. Now you're looking at 18 years. No, I'm sorry. This is not doable. Guard your time. Ladies, guard your time.

Guard your body. Guard your heart. Guard these things. They are precious and no one will guard them for you to sound a little bit like an avoidant person. Be very clear about what you're looking for. There are, and I will say it this way. And Margaret, I'm sure you know. I'm sure you know this because I've seen you teach on it.

The men who want marriage and children want to hear you talk about how you want marriage and children. And when you don't talk about marriage and children, those men assume you're not interested and they leave. And when you don't talk about marriage and children, the men who just want to free load off of you emotionally and sexually will barge in the door because it looks like free ice cream. So you get a husband by talking a lot about how you want to get married and have children in a polite, friendly, smiling kind of way. And I always say, you don't say with you, who I'm on the first date with, I want children with you, I just, that's my lifetime. You know, women are always like, well, do you want children? Do you want children? No, no, no. You're just talking about yourself and they're embarrassed, but it's an amazing thing to have children in a marriage. What are you embarrassed of?

You know what's awful? You know what's really awful. I get a lot of men in my practice come in for coaching and women do. But the men tell me, Adam, women don't even want marriage or children anymore. And then the women come in and say, Adam, men don't even want marriage or children anymore. So everybody's afraid to talk about it. And I've seen the research on this. It's fascinating that the more you talk about marriage and kids, the faster people want to bond with you and have children with you and get married with you.

Because they're interested because you're the only one talking about it. This is the thing most people actually want to talk about on the first couple of dates. And the one thing most people are not likely to talk about at all. So the more you do it, like you said, don't say, I want to have married. I want to get married now. Come on. I'll meet you under the table. It's I do want to get married.

And I do want to have children with the right partner. I'm happy to find out if that's you. So let's have a good conversation. And set boundaries also. So when I was dating my husband, he said, and then we'll move here or wherever. He wanted to move to New York at the time or something. And I said, that's great. I'll visit you.

And he said, what do you mean visit me? I said, well, you're not my husband. So I'm not going to move my life for a boyfriend. You know, that's a boundary. And I'm not being mean. But what if you decide you don't want to be my boyfriend anymore? And I'm over there. What's happening?

That's so perfect. That's so perfect. So many women are overly accommodating because they think they have to be. And all you're doing is competing with a bunch of overly accommodating women who get nothing and are miserable. Did you know 90% of women who don't have children, wanted children? and it just never happened for them because they were so overly accommodating. It's devastating. Ladies, this is not a game that you get to play twice.

You get one life to build a family together. And if you're not talking about it, then the men who want a family think you're not interested. If you are sitting here saying, Adam, you're insane. If I bring up marriage, men run from the table. Yeah, the men that you don't want to be around will run from the table. The men who want to get married and have babies will lean in and say, tell me more immediately. Absolutely. It's amazing how women try and placate to any man that they kind of like, and then they try and change him after.

Once they're married, they try and change him. And I heard you say 70% of divorces are initiated by women, right? It's because they found some guy who they tried to people please, and then once he doesn't want to change, once it's all done and dusted, he, you know, it's difficult. Why do you think women are the ones initiating the divorce, not the men? Oh, I've got a book right here. Exhausted wives, bewildered husbands. I was a marriage of friendly therapist. 98% of the couples who came in fit one pattern.

Say that again, the title, Exhausted wives, bewildered husbands. Exhausted wives, bewildered husbands. It's when you file for divorce at 20 years and he says, wait, I don't get it. Why are you filing? And you think of 20 years of you saying, hey, can we have a date? Hey, can I hold your hand? Hey, can we have sex? Hey, can you be nicer to the kids?

Hey, can we spend any time together? And he says, I'm too busy. I'm too stressed. Stop bothering me. It's 20 years of that. And then all of a sudden you say, okay, I'm exhausted. I've been out of this marriage mentally for three years now. I need to file for divorce because I'm so unhappy.

And the kids are miserable and everybody's miserable. And he goes, wait, why are you complaining now? And then he goes on the internet. He goes on red pill forums. He starts talking about how all women are scum and they're all just gold diggers waiting to steal from you. And that's how that spreads. And it's that pattern right there.

That's exactly what it is. That's why women are filing. without threatening divorce and I feel like it's a pattern even in my own relationships and everyone I know that a man doesn't change if you tell him he only changes if you make a huge action that is almost like you said leaving or something how do you communicate to a partner really men don't change for relationships women do women change for a relationship women will accommodate they will shift you love a woman and she becomes a better version of herself because she rises to that love and grows with that love.

Men don't do that, sadly. Men change for circumstances. Men are pain-based creatures. He needs to experience the consequences of his own choices. If he chooses certain things, then you speak to him from a lens of capacity. Like you did, that was perfect. Well, then we're going to move to New York. Well, I will visit you in New York when you move there.

Well, what do you mean? Well, you're not married to me, so I'm not going anywhere. Hmm. Then he has to stop and think about the consequences of his actions. Interesting. So my circumstances are against what I want. Well, then I need to change the circumstances. This is why when a woman has been silent almost for 20 years and applied zero consequences, all she's done is silently had sex with him and cook his dinner. All she's done for 20 years is tell him what you're doing is great. Don't change. And then at 20 years, she freaks out, says, I want a divorce. He says, Things are fine. They've been fine for 20 years. What are you talking about? Yes, she's been miserable and silently seething inside, but things have looked fine on the outside. There's been no consequences. Circumstances fine. What are you talking about? Is it selfish of him? Absolutely. Does he not understand? Also, yes. So consequences, right? Okay, he doesn't want to give you foreplay. He's just like, nope, that's stupid. I shouldn't have to hear my wife. Well, then I'm really sorry. We will not be doing that anymore. If he's not speaking to you with respect. I'm sorry. We're going to be sleeping in different bedrooms from now on because you're not acting like loving husband. I don't have capacity.

It's not a punishment. Ladies, don't punish him. Capacity. I do not have capacity to give you the fullness of my love anymore because you are choosing things that are harming me and starving me. If you choose to change, I would love to give you abundant love again. But I cannot right now because you have diminished my capacity through your choices. Let me know in the future if you decide.

to change that decision. And you give him consequences, loving, kind, polite consequences. Does that apply to like taking out the trash and just practical everyday things? Sure. Sure. This is how men change. Men only change for consequences. Sweetheart, I've asked you to take out the trash three times. And I've asked you over and over and you don't seem to care about me. I don't understand why you're not caring about me, but this is really hurting my ability to give to and even to respect you. That's one of the most painful things you can say to a man. And it's one of the most important things that a woman should be able to say to her man,

this is hurting my capacity to respect you as a man because you're telling me you will do something and you're not following through. And now you look like a liar. And I don't want to believe that of you, but it's hurting my capacity to respect you. If you say that to your man, you'd better believe he is taking that trash out three times a day for the next six years because it's a It's the most devastating thing you can say, but that's what a woman must say to a man who is falling short. It's her job.

I've been married for 16 years. I just had my 16 year wedding anniversary. I work 90 hours a week, and we have five children together. You had better believe that my wife is on top of me for things and making sure that I'm following through. And if I don't, she reminds me gently, usually, and gets in my face when I'm irritable or grouchy and talks to me when she sees that something is off. That is her job. I cannot function at the level I function at without my wife.

And she knows that. I could not deal with a wife who doesn't tell me what she wants, drops thinly veiled hints, only blows up after six months of something not going right, and then never gives me consequences for anything or doesn't change the circumstances. I need that from her. And because of that,

I give her everything, every ounce of blood in my body belongs to her, everything, every moment of the day, if necessary belongs to her, whether it's working to provide for our family, taking care and playing with our kids, or serving her, giving her time away, whatever it is, it's because she facilitates my manhood with her powerful, feminine energy. I need that from her. I can't be this man without her. So I hope every lady at home is hearing that. Wow, I'm going to clip that and send it to her for Valentine's Day as a card from you. There we go. That's amazing. Can you tell everybody who's listening where they can find you, what they can read that you've created,

and any way that they can, you know, contact you. Absolutely, yeah, thank you. I'm on Adamlaintsmith.com. Adamlainsmith.com. On there, I have the How to Love and Avoidant Man video course, which shows you really how to get him to meet your needs and take care of you by speaking his language and working with him. I have the attachment repair program on there as well

with me and my certified coaches who can show you step by step, either as an individual or as a couple, how to fix and repair your attachment. You have a full coaching program and suite on there as well. If you just want individual coaching or couples coaching, this is not therapy. This is very clear and directive to solve problems quickly. Usually in about five to eight sessions,

we can get most couples challenges resolved and get you back to loving each other and having fun together, even if you're fighting right now. I'm on Instagram and YouTube as at Attachment Adam. If you just search Adam Lane Smith, I come up everywhere. Oh my goodness. I'm going to have you back on,

but this has been my favorite conversation because we talk about the same things. I love it. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate that. Thank you for coming on, Adam.