The fear of divorce is one of the fastest ways to destroy your marriage.
I see it all the time.
Men caught in limbo, walking on eggshells, doing everything they can to “fix” the relationship.
They don’t realize it’s their panic that’s pushing her further away.
The Fear of Divorce Makes You Reactive
When a marriage feels like it’s slipping, most men obsess over the worst-case scenarios:
What if I lose my kids?
What if she leaves me for someone else?
What if she already has someone else?
What if everything I built disappears overnight?
When I ran my landscaping company, I trained guys to mow stripes into a lawn, straight as an arrow.
The patterns you see on a baseball diamond!
I’d say, “Don’t look down at the mower wheel. Look straight ahead at a fence post or tree, and focus on that as you drive towards it. Perfect lines happen when you fix your eyes on the goal—not by constantly trying to steer straight in the moment.”
When you stay connected to a powerful, positive vision of your future, you’ll eventually look back and realize you created that life by refusing to live in fear right now.
Fear of Divorce Never Creates Intimacy
You can’t panic your way into a better relationship.
No one begs their way back into a woman’s heart.
Now is a time to remain deeply connected to who you really are.
Ask yourself: “What future do I want to create?How would a grounded, deliberate man behave today if he believed that future was possible?
Most relationships begin with butterflies, but warm tingles alone are not what long-term relationships are made of.
Marriages only last when two mature people align on:
A shared vision
Shared values
A common path forward
She can’t share any of that with you if you don’t know where you’re going or who you are without her.
If you’re waiting for her to choose you before you can be amazing, you’re not leading—you’re looking down at the mower wheel.
The fear of divorce makes you look at her for your sense of direction.
She can’t give you that.
Masculine Leadership comes from remaining connected to who you are even when life throws a curveball.
The Work Starts With You
This is why I coach men to build emotional clarity and masculine leadership from the inside out.
You don’t need her permission to become the man you respect.
You need a clear vision of where you’re going—and the guts to act like it’s already yours.
“Boundaries, girl! Don’t let David’s mom control you like that!” Alesha’s friend declares over coffee.
Meanwhile, David’s mother is setting her own boundaries for Alesha… and David? He’s contemplating boundaries just to keep them both from strangling each other.
This isn’t boundaries—it’s a mess.
I’m going to teach you a simple, no-BS approach to boundaries.
If your wife asks you to give her space, it didn’t come out of nowhere. By the time she gets to that point, she’s already been emotionally detaching for months—maybe even years. And most men don’t realize it until it’s too late.
Today, we’re going deeper into the three stages of detachment a woman goes through before she ends a relationship.
If you don’t catch it early, you’ll find yourself blindsided when she finally says, “I need space.”
I’m not talking about the kind of “space” where she’s just tired tonight, I’m talking about when she’s considering divorce.
1. Emotional Detachment
This is the first and most subtle stage—and also the easiest to miss.
Emotional detachment begins when she stops feeling seen, heard, or valued in the relationship.
Her emotional needs aren’t being met, and over time, her heart starts to close off.
This doesn’t happen overnight.
She used to share her thoughts, feelings, and worries with you, but now? She keeps them to herself.
Bringing up the little things no longer happens because she’s already convinced herself you won’t understand.
At this stage, you might notice:
She’s less engaged in conversations.
She stops initiating affection or spending quality time.
She’s quick to get irritated over small things.
She begins focusing more on her friends, work, or hobbies—anything but you.
Long before a woman will get naked with us in bed she needs to feel safe to get naked with us emotionally. This article shares my own experience of losing “oblivious” confidence and then gaining REAL confidence when my wife stopped being intimate. When we’re confident from being oblivious, our wife feels emotionally unsafe which triggers her to be closed off. We can easily slip into jealousy and neediness when we feel her heart withdrawing which only pushes her further away. In the video below, masculinity coach Mark Drezga and I discuss how I was faced with a choice to mature into genuine confidence when I realized marriage is not a guarantee of intimacy.
How To Gain REAL Confidence When She Stops Being Intimate
“Oblivious” Confidence Has An Expiration Date
When I’m coaching guys around session 2 of my masculine confidence framework, there’s a hard dose of reality to swallow: The security we thought marriage gave us never existed.
If we compare marriage to a pond, and lack of intimacy to an alligator, the alligator was there the whole time.
We think pretty highly of ourselves when obliviously basking in the sun by an alligator-filled pond.
We’ll issue commands, dismiss her feelings, and insist that her hesitation to be intimate near the alligator pond is completely unreasonable
When we’re “obviously” confident, we’re not aware of the “alligators” were inviting to bite each time we lash out, “fix” or abandon our wife’s emotional world.
But hey, we didn’t know what we didn’t know…
Eventually, the clock runs out, alligators crawl out of the water, and we’re faced with reality that intimacy is gone.
When I teach guys how I gained REAL confidence when my wife stopped being intimate, I’m teaching CONSCIOUS, confidence.
Conscious, REAL Confidence Is Only Born Through Suffering
I grew up in a very conservative Mennonite (Form of Amish) church with a 0% divorce rate.
We were a private community completely separate from society.
We didn’t have TVs or radios and we were only permitted to marry within the Mennonite community.
Courtship was practiced instead of dating (think of courting akin to only dating someone you’ve already decided you will marry).
My happy, self-assured, cocky-self crumbled when I first asked a girl for courtship and she refused my offer.
This was a point where I could have developed conscious confidence, but I didn’t.
With my mojo in the toilet, I repressed into victimhood.
Needless to say, I attracted zero lovers for several years.
Eventually, I got enough spark back that it caught my future wife’s eye.
Since divorce was unheard of in ultra-conservative Mennonite churches nationwide, the thought never crossed my mind that I could be divorced.
Fast forward 10 years later.
My wife and I were no longer part of the Mennonite community.
I found myself holding divorce papers that I didn’t want to sign.
My suffering this time was rock bottom for me.
It’s only from this place of deflated ego and clarity of reality that “conscious” confidence Is born.
How I Gained REAL Confidence
The way I developed conscious, REAL confidence was by spending time around men who already had what I wanted while continuing to FACE my pain.
Every time I had a victim mindset or a resentful rant these men would challenge me, call me out on my BS, and show me the love and acceptance I had been chasing women for.
In time, I learned to face “alligators” knowing they’ve always been there.
I was ok when I obliviously faced them, and I’ll be more than okay when I consciously face them.
Having this type of relaxed, trustable confidence as a leader is the secret to making a marriage work.
At face value, the Mennonites appear to have cracked the code, but their approach brings on a whole other list of issues we’ll discuss another time.
My time as a Mennonite let me see firsthand how when a man leads with confidence, the right woman will follow, and the relationship thrives like it’s supposed to.
How You Can Stop Being Oblivious
My masculine confidence coaching program is your ticket to a better, stronger, more intimate marriage.
The value you’ll gain is a culmination of experienced men who have been in your shoes.
We men tend to hang onto the last shred of our ego before finally reaching out for help.
Don’t wait until all hope is lost to turn your marriage around by taking action for your self-development NOW.
I’m the perfect example of stubbornly holding out to save a dollar only to save nothing.
fill out my “Get Grounded Now” consultation form and I’ll help you get clear on your next step to being the great man you want to be.
Secret# 5: Masculine Leadership Is Sexy (Even to Strong Independent Women) This is the fifth in my series of 6 dangerously effective marriage-saving secrets. I help extraordinary men create long-lasting love, deeper connection, intimacy, respect, and authentic affection through personalized masculine confidence coaching. These secrets are field-tested. They’ll bring lasting positive change in your relationships.
This article is not for the controlling jackass who bosses his wife around or treats women with disrespect. Quite opposite. The pointers you’re about to learn ARE for the man who mistakenly thought letting his wife wear the pants in the relationship would make her happy. Even if your wife has a stubborn streak, deep down, she feels leadership is sexy.
Masculine Leadership Is Sexy (Even to Strong Independent Women)
Married Life Without Masculine Leadership
Kate looked up from her phone and asked, “What do you want for dinner?”
Travis almost didn’t hear her.
He was lost in his laptop, pouring through new real estate listings.
“I don’t care. Whatever is easy”, Travis replied with a smile.
Kate said, “We have some leftover meatloaf. Or I could do a casserole”.
Travis’s eyes stayed on his computer.
He was more interested in the new listing he just found than what he wanted for dinner.
“Whatever you want honey. If one of those is near the front of the fridge, just warm that up”, He suggested.
“Think we could watch a nature show tonight? It’s been a while since we’ve done that. Or we could go for a drive and look at Christmas lights!”, Amy said with enthusiasm.
“Maybe”, Travis mumbled as he tried to cut and paste an address from his web browser.
Kate’s voice got serious, “I just think we need to prioritize making efforts for our relationship.”
“Huh?”, Travis said, confused.
Kate’s face got emotional.
Her throat tightened as she said, “Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one fighting for us. I always have to fight alone”.
Travis tried to make sense of where the conversation had gone.
He felt himself getting angry.
“Kate, you’re a strong independent woman. You love plowing your own way through life. The battles you fight, you bring on yourself”, he scolded disapprovingly.
Hearing this did not sit well with Kate.
Kate began walking out of the room.
In a frustrated tone, she turned around and said, “Never mind.”
Travis heard her walk into their bedroom and close the door.
About an hour later, his mind was still foggy as he tried to process his conversation with Kate.
He felt a little resentful that she didn’t make him anything to eat.
While he warmed up some meatloaf in the microwave, he could hear a nature show coming from the TV in their bedroom.
Yay!
Dinner in bed would be fun.
Travis brought his plate to bed and nestled next to Kate.
She fell asleep moments later.
He finished the episode by himself.
This wasn’t the fun, connected, sexy evening he had hoped for.
Leadership Is Sexy, Management Is Not
Each time Kate brought up a question, Travis tried to manage it by not having an opinion.
Management is a form of damage control.
An ambulance dispatch system to retrieve hikers who fall off a cliff is management.
Standing on the cliff’s edge offering direction away from the edge is leadership.
In the business world, a manager is supposed to keep completing the same tasks over and over.
When a problem arises, there is one goal: push through the problem so normal tasks can resume.
The leader of a company looks broad-range.
A leader ensures effort is spent on the right problems based on where he wants the company to go.
Without leadership, managers can end up straightening chairs on a sinking Titanic assuming effort=success.
You’ll win the battle but lose the war.
The same applies to your marriage.
Here are the replies Travis gave his wife in the story above:
“I don’t care”
Whatever is easy”
“Whatever you want honey”
“Maybe”
“Huh?”
Do those sound like words of leadership to you?
Those replies were attempts to manage “small fires” by abandoning his post as leader.
Even the strongest, most independent, business-minded woman wants to relax.
Her sexuality goes offline if she isn’t relaxed.
Leadership allows her to relax and step out of the guessing game.
Every time Kate bounced options off Travis, she was searching to know what he wanted.
Since Travis offered no solid leadership, her emotions led the conversation (which became frustrating for both of them)
Your wife wants the GOOD feeling of knowing she just gave you something you really wanted.
Saying, “Just warm up whatever happens to be the fridge” robs her of that good feeling.
It’s very selfish to not know what you want.
Masculine Leadership: How Travis Could Have Given it
Especially for guys married to strong independent women, letting her make the choices in the house feels easy.
Deep down, these men are afraid she won’t like him if he faces her strong will (or he’s just lazy).
Sexy, FUN leadership Travis could have given Kate:
“Meatloaf sounds great! Let’s have that”
“No, we can’t look at Christmas lights tonight. We will next weekend though. It will be fun!”
“You feel like you’re fighting all your battles alone? I’m sorry, that sounds exhausting. Let’s talk about it after I get out of the shower tonight when I’m not distracted.”
A unique difference between masculine leadership vs feminine leadership is that masculine leadership is CONSISTENTLY based on values, boundaries, and standards, NOT emotions.
Your leadership is still a gift even If she protests with comments like, “I don’t want meatloaf. I’d rather have a casserole.”
Here’s why: She didn’t know what she wanted until you did.
Feminine energy finds her truth when contained by a strong masculine frame.
Just as a river can’t reach the ocean without river banks feminine can’t know what it wants or where it’s going until it encounters our clear choices.Â
This article gives a short outline of key differences between men’s sexual desire and women’s sexual desire for men’s eyes only. Do you have a roommate wife? Then keep reading.
Roommate Wife: How To Change (For Men’s Eyes Only)
How Men Sexually Desire Women
I’ll point out immediately that roommates don’t have sex.
The same is true when it comes to sexual attraction.
Men love when women are:
Fun
Exuberant
Full of life
Sparkly
Sweet
Soft
Receptive
Motherly towards cute things
All those attributes add warmth to our connection and relationship with her. These traits are her “inner beauty” that amplifies her outward beauty.
But what makes him feel sexual attraction for her?
The answer is quite simple: She’s pretty.
1 is not pretty…10 is drop-dead pretty.
The end.
Note: There’s highly “classified” information a king knows that doesn’t help the realm if he shares it with them.
Sharing would inflict panic and unnecessary stress.
That’s why it’s classified.
The mechanics of how most of our sexual desire towards our wife comes from her looks is best kept to yourself.
How Women Sexually Desire Men
Occasionally, I’ll ask women which movie character they find HOT or ATTRACTIVE.
The results always intrigue me.
90% of the time, it’s not the big muscular handsome-looking guy she finds as a sexual turn-on.
It’s the guy who holds a FRAME of mystery, courage, and self-control.
The rare 10% who find the big muscular guy attractive choose the muscular guy who has mystery, courage, and self-control.
A woman will call a guy “creepy” or “inappropriate” if he touches her and then daydream about a different man ripping her clothes off.
Why the contradiction to what she wants or calls creepy?
The answer is mind-numbingly simple: For the one man, she feels a sexual attraction.
Thank goodness women have a 1-100 point system for attraction.
1 is a total creep.
100 is her knight-in-shining armor.
Muscles might gain you 5 points.
A handsome face maybe 10.
Most of your attractive points come from your ENERGY Towards life.
Why Lack Of Emotional Safty Creates A “Roommate Wife”
Here’s what WON’T make your wife or girlfriend feel safe:
Big muscles
Combing your hair just right
Beating up bad guys
Working 80-hour weeks so she can have a good life
A woman feels safe when she can open herself up to you without fearing rejection, defensiveness, resentment, or pissiness. She feels safe when you dare to go to emotional depths she fears to go herself.
To sexually desire you, she needs to feel your resilience to her chaos.
She needs to feel your deep grounding in who you are and what you’re creating in life.
Getting angry at how this “game” works won’t serve you.
A hot woman will have scads of guys drooling after her.
She could have any one of them she chooses.
A man, on the other hand, has to BE something before she will notice him as a sexual partner.
Who are you BEING?
At this point, I need to warn you of a common mistake men make.
Trying to be something she likes will backfire.
Even if her mouth is telling you all the things she wants, her body wants you to be a mysterious, courageous, self-controlled man who does whatever the hell he wants to ensure his own happiness…I know, women can be hard to make sense of sometimes. But trust me, her sexuality is in her body, not her head.
Being her roommate or lover is your choice, not hers.
She is simply responding to what you’re choosing in life.
Choose confidently.
How To End The “Roommate Wife” Situation
If you think getting this stuff sorted on your own is a good idea I have news for you brother- that’s a LONG windy road.
Close male bonds with men you look up to is irreplaceable to re-calibrate your thinking.
You don’t have to waste any more time trying to figure this stuff out.
You sure as hell don’t need to spend any more time trying to figure your wife out!
We teach you how to stop playing it small, stop waiting for others to change, and start making bold decisions that will bring the spark back.
We are seeking 8 action-orientated men who are ready to get off the bench of late-night self-help binging andtake chargeof their personal development.
View our course info if you’re a man who wants more confidence, happiness, masculine charisma, and higher self-esteem.
Be grounded brother,
Garrett Prettyman
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