Are you shouldering a burden that isn't truly yours? This dialogue uncovers the deep-rooted challenges faced by men who were primarily raised by women and the implications on their relationships. We'll discuss the damage caused by men seeking their identities in their partners, creating an expectation that can never be met and often leading to destructive behaviors. We'll unravel the importance of self-love and peace within oneself, shedding light on how to break from these harmful patterns.
Further, we'll illuminate the concept of polarity in relationships and how the pursuit of identity in a partner can be more off-putting than attractive. Delving into the power of personal growth and independence, we'll explore how stepping into our own roles can create a magnetic polarity that fosters trust and a deeper connection. Discover how focusing on individual development can foster resilience amidst the ups and downs of life and relationships. Join us in this open dialogue as we provide insights into building healthier relationships and nurturing one's own identity.
Nathan Mansfield
Instagram: @nathanmansfield
Are you shouldering a burden that isn't truly yours? This dialogue uncovers the deep-rooted challenges faced by men who were primarily raised by women and the implications on their relationships. We'll discuss the damage caused by men seeking their identities in their partners, creating an expectation that can never be met and often leading to destructive behaviors. We'll unravel the importance of self-love and peace within oneself, shedding light on how to break from these harmful patterns.
Further, we'll illuminate the concept of polarity in relationships and how the pursuit of identity in a partner can be more off-putting than attractive. Delving into the power of personal growth and independence, we'll explore how stepping into our own roles can create a magnetic polarity that fosters trust and a deeper connection. Discover how focusing on individual development can foster resilience amidst the ups and downs of life and relationships. Join us in this open dialogue as we provide insights into building healthier relationships and nurturing one's own identity.
Nathan Mansfield
Instagram: @nathanmansfield
How sad is it in your life when you keep chasing things and they feel good for a second but then they leave you empty. The way society has gone over the last 50 to 60 years has been that most men are raised solely by women. Teachers are women, moms, dads gone. I can't count how many people, how many men, I've talked to that had fatherless homes, not that dad was gone or like left, but he was not present. You know my stepdad. He would show up from work and he wouldn't want to talk to anybody. He said there's a client on Fox News and if you dare talk loud enough, that was over his TV. You got screamed at. He didn't pay attention to you, he'd acknowledge you, he didn't show you love. And it's not that every man has gone through that. But here's the really messed up thing that really screws us up Men who are raised by primarily women, when they go to start dating and get in relationships and marriage, they will find their source of identity in a woman and not in themselves.
Speaker 1:It's the most dangerous thing a man can do and I've slipped up on this nearly my whole life. I chased the identity of myself and a woman for almost my entire life and it's destroyed me, absolutely destroyed you. Here's the other issue with it. It doesn't just destroy you, it destroys a woman. Why? Because she is now the burden of you. Like you, when you find your identity in a woman, she is now responsible for you and how you feel and your happiness, and so you're constantly looking to this woman to make you happy. But she can't make you happy. That's not her job. And so it puts this burden of responsibility on the woman that she's got to do all these things and act all these ways and Give you everything you need to make you happy. That's what I did my whole life the expectation that a woman has to give me my identity. But it's also really sad. I Can't blame myself, because it's all I knew.
Speaker 1:I grew up with five sisters and my mom. I grew up, just like you all, around women, but I didn't realize how often and how desperately I was seeking the validation and the acceptance of a woman, to to be the love that I was craving. And so, when I didn't have that, what did I do? Porn, sleeping around, looking for still, like we're gonna. If you're looking for it and you don't even know you're looking for it, you're gonna find it somewhere, and if it's not in a woman who's devoted to you, or in the relationship that you're in, the marriage that you're in if the wife is not giving you what you need, you're going to start finding it somewhere else. Whether that be porn, whether that be adultery, you're going to try to start finding that that need and attention that you, that desire that you're craving inside, that can never be fulfilled. And so you start chasing all these rabbit holes and past there that are the destruction of you.
Speaker 1:It's a very dangerous place to be. It's where I've lived most of my life. It's where I've made most of my mistakes, it's where I felt most of my pain. It's where I'd nearly ended up killing myself Was because I figured out that the women that I kept chasing, the love that I kept desiring, could not be fulfilled by a woman and it had to be fulfilled by me. Like I had to learn how to love myself, regardless of the woman in my life, regardless.
Speaker 1:Because guess what? Also, life is unpredictable. This is not to be negative, but a woman can leave you, a woman can cheat on you, like why would you place your, your trust and love and something that can leave you Hanging like that. I pray to God that that doesn't happen to you or myself, but the truth is is that it can happen, and so if I've got my entire identity in someone and they leave me, then I'm crushed. When it's gone, I Completely crushed.
Speaker 1:So we've got to move from this place and this is like the things that I advocate for in your life. That you have to do is begin to take care of yourself and respect yourself so that you can love yourself, so that you can be independent of yourself and not worry about anything in your external that has to fulfill you. You're a leaf. You're only fulfilled by the internal work of yourself and for me, the internal work of God, not anything else outside, no material thing, no woman, no amount of money, nothing can waver. That's the place. The posture, the stoicism that we have to believe in Is that I'm so good being me that I don't need anything else and, in fact, when the hurricane hits, when the storm hits, when chaos erupts around me, I'm good. That's the place to live as a man. That's the goal, that's where we should be striving towards.
Speaker 1:But it takes the acknowledgement of your actions, the acknowledgement of your day, the intentionality of taking care of you. And so if you're the kind of guy that wakes up and ensues and participates in chaos, that you don't have a plan, you don't have a structure, you don't have a routine, you're going to rely upon other things to fill you because you're not filling yourself. It's just like the airplane methodology of like you got to put the mask on first before you put it on other people, and if you're not putting your mask on every single day, it means you're relying on other people to put the mask on for you, and that's a dangerous place to live. You'll find your identity in anything that gives you attention, whether it be your kids, your wife, money, success, cars, alcohol, porn. You'll find it in something, and likely it will be the destruction of you. So find your identity in you, take care of you. It's the only answer that will give you the ultimate peace.
Speaker 1:Being that I'm 35 and I've I've not. I mean I don't think I even came to the acknowledgement that this was an issue within me. I just it was my nature. You know. It's like it's your subconscious programming, like the fear is there the fear of being left, the fear of being cheated on, the fear of all these things, it's just naturally because our identities in it, and so when our identities is something we don't want to be able to do, we don't want it to go away. It's what we're attached to, it's what we're clung to it Like it's it's, it's part of us. So we obviously, when something is a part of us, we fear it leaving, like just as I would assume, like a professional athlete would, would very much fear a major injury because their, their entire identity is, is unraveled in our sport Right. So when we have, when we really attach this identity, not only does it, it like it ends up creating problems in the relationship, obviously because they, they feel that burden.
Speaker 1:I remember my wife telling me like I think really God led me to my wife because she is the straightest shooter that I've ever met, and like she's not a mean person, she has good intentions. But what she says to me often hurts deeply, it cuts deeply, and I'm like, oh man, why are you going to be like that? But also in this place we're also when we're when we're fearing something. We're also overly sensitive, you know, and we're overly needy. But I remember my wife just being like you're so needy, you need all. I'm like. I'm like oh, you know, here's my physical or my leveling of just physical touch. All this, you're not, you're not doing this enough. And it was like, just coming from this place, and then at one point she goes you're disgusting. And I was like, and I was, and I was, of course, very offended at the beginning, but then I began to think this behavior is disgusting, like needing so much from someone I can see as being a repulsive thing to a woman, and I'm like well shoot, I don't want to be repulsive to her.
Speaker 1:And so I've had to go through this journey of discovery of like, what is it that truly defines my identity? What is it that truly makes me who I am? And how can I be unshakable, to the point to where anything can happen around me and I can be hurt, I can be flustered, I can be, you know, damaged, whatever it might be, but I'm still going to be okay. Like you got to learn to be okay with, with, with, with you. You got to learn to be okay with who you are. You got to learn to be okay without anything else in the world. If you were just to strip everything in your life and be butt-naked on the side of the road, with no job, no family, that you're okay going. I'll figure this thing out by myself Like that's, that's where we got to be as men and with that we've got to really, you know, be aware. We've got to be aware of where we're trying to find these things at.
Speaker 1:For me, it was all kinds of things it was. It was primarily in women, but it was also in military success. I climbed the ladder really quickly in the military and I got significance from that. It was in money that I made. You know, had eight, grew, an eight figure business, and so I got significance from that. And then, you know, it was in the material things that I bought with all the money and I got significance from that. And I just kept getting these quick fills of like oh, that feels good, oh, this woman loves me. Oh, this amount of money, oh, people were paying attention to me. Then, oh, then it was my bodybuilding career, getting a magazine cover and being on the face of a magazine, everybody's seeing how jacked and ripped I was, and also that that filled me up and it was just like there's these quick fills of like yeah, that feels good, yeah, that feels good. But the point in which led me to near suicide is when I realized that all those things that I chased felt good for a second and then left me empty.
Speaker 1:How sad is it in your life when you keep chasing things and they feel good for a second but then they leave you empty. Everything externally, outside of you will do this to you Because you're going to lose things that you put your identity and you will. I pray to God it's not your marriage. I pray to God it's not something that's close to you. But the reality is that when you strip your identity, you actually strengthen the relationship. Strength. Strip the identity from the person. Strengthen the relationship Like.
Speaker 1:The really awesome thing about this is that your wife will be way more attracted to you when you're just you, when you're just good on your own. She wants you to be independent. She wants you to be strong. She wants you to be career driven. She wants you to be afterlife. It doesn't mean neglect her. It means care for her and love her. But when she sees you being so strong in your own, it's very attractive to a woman. When she sees you being needy upon her and desperate for her, it's very unattractive for a woman. So what gets better.
Speaker 1:When we begin to form this new identity in ourselves and not in something or someone else, especially in a relationship, the attraction grows, the intimacy gets closer, like all the things that we actually wanted is counterintuitive. You think that clinging on and holding on and searching and chasing will leave you, will give you all the feelings, but those things are actually repelling. So when you actually do the opposite and you just be good, being you and your career driven and your focus and your focus on the betterment of you and your own health and you become awesome as you are, she's incredibly attracted to you and it changes the intimacy, it changes the game, it changes everything about your relationship and it begins to give you all the things that you wanted, that you don't know have to, that you don't have to chase for anymore, that are just coming now to you as a polarization of feminine and masculine energy. When you are fully in your masculine, it's pull. There's this. This is polarity in which attracts her to you magnetically. That forms this bond and this connection that is unlike any other that you can have, and you can't have it. When you're on the same, when you're both positive, you're both repelling one another and often times too, another.
Speaker 1:Another problem with this is this this neediness and this feeling of, of needing an identity in a woman oftentimes will create the wife to be masculine. When the wife's masculine she becomes, she becomes more controlling, she becomes more authoritative. She comes, she's down to your throat more, and so we don't like this behavior, masculinity from women. Cause you're like well, I didn't want to marry a dude. Why are you acting like a dude? Well, the reason she's acting like a dude is because you're acting like a bitch. You're being a woman.
Speaker 1:Right, you're needy when women are supposed to need from the providing of the man. Right, like, not that women can't be independent, but but men are the, are the the providers in a relationship. That's what we're created to be by God. So when we're in that place, it creates this polarity and we the the stronger the polarity, the better the connection and the better the marriage. So we have to be in our masculine place in order for her to be in her feminine place. What's her feminine place? Free, flowing, beautiful, you know, like just a little bit more relaxed. If your woman is uptight, it's because you're probably playing a feminine role. So the more you step into your masculine, the more she'll trust you and step into her place of femininity and flow. And then, all of a sudden, you'll have this magnetic connection of intimacy and love.