Relationship Radio: Marriage, Sex, Limerence & Avoiding Divorce
Relationship Radio: Marriage, Sex, Limerence & Avoiding Divorce
He Thought He Did Everything Right... Until She Left
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What happens when a well-meaning husband provides, protects, and leads—yet still finds himself blindsided by his wife's decision to walk away? In this powerful episode, Dr. Joe Beam and Nathan McIntyre unpack a real-life story of a man who thought he was doing everything “right” in his marriage… until it all fell apart.
You'll hear:
✔ Why many spouses feel emotionally abandoned even when their physical needs are met
✔ How "doing the right thing" can still create emotional distance
✔ What pushes and pulls are—and how they impact your relationship
✔ The silent warning signs your spouse may be reaching their limit
If you’ve ever wondered “Why did my spouse leave when I was giving so much?” - this episode is for you. Nathan shares practical insights from hundreds of conversations with men and women in marriage crisis, and offers real hope for those ready to change, reconnect, and rebuild.
If you're struggling in your marriage, don’t wait. Get our FREE resource: The 7 Steps to Rescue Your Marriage 👉 https://marriagehelper.com/free
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You might be wondering sometimes what is it at Marriage Helper that people want to come and get your help and yet other people who need your help may decide not to, for whatever reason. Or it may be that you yourself, on occasion, have thought I really would like to get the help I need for my marriage, but I have this obstacle, that problem, that difficulty. Well, we hear about those things every day. I want to give you a couple of stories, not from me, but from my friend I have with me today. This is Nathan McIntyre.
Speaker 1:Nathan talks to people on the phone pretty much 36 hours a day, about 72 hours a day, yeah, and these are people that call in and really need help for their marriages, and he listens to get their information, their stories, and I want him to tell a couple Now a couple of things here On this episode. As we talk about that, we will disguise personalities, identities, because when we tell stories about people, we're careful to make sure that you, nor they, nor anybody else, can know exactly who we're talking about, and so some of the facts will get modified a little bit, but the truths are absolutely true, and so let's talk about it Now. Let's talk about a guy, for example. So you have a husband that has called you and you can tell that he needs help for his marriage. Give me an idea about how a conversation went.
Speaker 2:Of course, disguise a little bit how a conversation went. Yeah, I'm reminded of a conversation recently with someone, a firefighter, okay, okay, and you know, just really engaging person, super guy, right, you could talk to him very easily, great conversationalist, really quick to it, very, you know, bulleted when you talk, just da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. So what was his difficulty? Well, his wife had left. She's gone out the door. Is she with another guy? Yeah, with another man, blindsided with someone that she? He was blindsided with someone that she had met from work. Okay, and he was calling to basically try and figure out what happened, what to do, how could she do this? He was having a really hard time just emoting. You know, emoting meaning what Meaning? You could tell that he wasn't necessarily enjoying processing outwardly how he felt, so he was in pain.
Speaker 2:He didn't say this, but if he could have just came out and said Nathan, will you please fix this, I've got other things to do.
Speaker 1:I say, okay Now, unless I'm going to mess up the flow here, yeah, how is he blindsided?
Speaker 2:Well, that's interesting. You'd be amazed how many people that I talked to that are blindsided by problems that they've been experiencing for 25 years.
Speaker 1:So he shouldn't have been blindsided.
Speaker 2:Well, I explored that with him for a while.
Speaker 1:As I'd love to hear about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, asking a lot of questions. And you know, without going into details, because we always want to protect identity and we started asking about what it was like. You know, just kind of the story of their marriage, and the first thing that I identified very quickly and very clearly was that he obviously adored his wife. Okay, he truly did. He's a great guy, great heart. I very rarely meet bad people on these calls.
Speaker 1:Okay, so most of the people you talk to on the phone actually are good people, even if they've done bad things. Yeah, yeah, even if they're bad messes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, good people that are train wrecks, that's okay. You know beautiful train wrecks? No, they're absolutely good-hearted people and he was one of those good-hearted people, okay, but he would say subtle comments over time, things about. Well, I've worked hard, I've done this. This is something I did. I've given her this, I provided this. You know, I made sure that I fulfilled all my duties. Everything was in terms of the things that he expected a man to do.
Speaker 1:Okay, were these like giving her necessities or giving her beyond?
Speaker 2:A great home. Beyond that, you know, make her comfortable. He referred to what little she had to do in terms of employment, outside employment, all of those things. Okay, he in his mind, he was doing what we would, you know, some would consider like a traditional husband role in providing for his wife, right, okay? And then, over time, he said and I did this, and I told her that this is what I was going to do, and I told her this. And then I started hearing the phrases I told her this and all she had to do was this and she had to do this. And I told her that and she did this. And can you believe she left me.
Speaker 1:And so what were you inferring from that, with your great alacrity of mind?
Speaker 2:well, yeah, I I appreciate your poor judgment um the um. I was beginning to think how does this wife feel throughout this?
Speaker 2:now the once again he's a great guy with a great heart but I asked him, you know, because you can't tell people these things. I asked him. I said were you truly blindsided by this? He said what do you mean? I said, well, is it possible that because he's a person with great authority right In his daily life and he referred to his home running efficiently and all of these he you know? Basically, you could have just referred to it as his day job.
Speaker 1:Okay. So he was, like a matter of fact, kind of guy boom, boom boom, boom, boom.
Speaker 2:tasks, kpis, let's get it done. I said is it possible that, with just the things that you gave to your wife to get accomplished, the things that you told her that needed to be done in return of the things that you done, you delivered these? Now she needs to deliver this. Is it possible that she didn't leave you, she just quit her job.
Speaker 1:Now help me understand what you were thinking when you said that.
Speaker 2:In my mind, you know we talk a lot about pushes and pulls my mind, you know we talk a lot about pushes and pulls, and a push, as we define it here, is anything that you do, intentionally or unintentionally, that causes a negative reaction in your spouse right, especially a negative emotional emotion.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a negative emotional reaction correct.
Speaker 2:Thank you for that. And I keep thinking of how the wife would respond if she's never asked anything but told. And there are these assumptions of what she needs and what I need to do and what I'm expected to do and what I'm going to do and what she needs to do in return. And I'm giving her this. Therefore, she needs to do this, this and this.
Speaker 1:Almost like the military is saying Completely transactional, okay, right, here's the sergeant telling you what you need, right, and what you're going to do Therefore.
Speaker 2:So what's the difference between that and an employment contract? Did he see that he did? It was a really cool moment. How did he react? What did he say? He dropped a couple four-letter words Okay.
Speaker 1:We'll leave those off the air.
Speaker 2:But it was an introspective moment where he realized he had a choice to make, because what I love about people like this and it's not just a male thing, it's men or women who are very task-oriented and driven he realized that his next thing to accomplish, his next task, was now changing his mindset and turning those pushes into pulls.
Speaker 1:All right, so let me kind of veer off to the side and tell you if this is going to mess up the story. Did you get any kind of idea what type of personality she might have based on what he said about her?
Speaker 2:Based upon his, you know, are we talking in terms of the disc profile?
Speaker 1:Yeah, like was she a completer, in the sense that she just didn't fight back, she just took it, took it.
Speaker 2:She was very. She came across now once again, this is anecdotal. You know through how I'm discovering her? Through him, gotcha, okay, I'm qualified to diagnose. Discovering her through him, gotcha, okay, um, I'm qualified to diagnose no one with anything, okay, um, but uh, I experienced her as someone who's very avoidant, uh, um, who has a muscle memory of being very compliant.
Speaker 1:And so if he says you're going to get this, you're going to do that. She just accepts, even if she doesn't want it. Correct?
Speaker 2:But over time, everyone reaches their limit. And what do you mean by limit? There's a case, there's a point at which everyone in my experience, when I speak with any of these clients, any number of clients, I find that there's a point at which everyone says I'm worth something.
Speaker 1:So you're telling me that if a person is being given all kinds of things that they don't ask for, they don't work for, they just keep coming, that it actually negatively affects their sense of self-worth? It can, and in this particular case you believe that it.
Speaker 2:I believe in this case, I believe in this case he was answering questions that she wasn't asking. He was addressing needs that she didn't have asking he was addressing needs that she didn't have it was is. I mean, I asked this gentleman is it possible that all of these things that you're trying to fulfill are things that she all, that she had no need for, when, in fact, she didn't need somebody to shower her with gifts and a lavish home. She would rather have someone that looked at her as a partner and not an employee. She just wanted to be a partner, she wanted to be equal, she wanted to be liked, loved and respected, and eventually that broke.
Speaker 1:So since there was somebody else involved, you said earlier, apparently somebody came into her life that fulfilled those needs.
Speaker 2:Typically in these experiences, it's always wrong person, wrong time and and need meets opportunity, um. I'm not condoning it at all, obviously, just trying to understand. I'm just trying to understand it, um, and and I tell all of my clients, all of them, when I'm, when I'm challenging them like this on on the phone, I'm never excusing what your spouse did Just look like. I believe that you're responsible for your actions and what you do to address the need. They are also responsible for their actions in in causing those, those problems, um, that need and those issues are on are on her. In this case it was. It was wrong person, wrong time, exact, right match in the worst possible way.
Speaker 1:Okay, now I want to ask you a couple of more questions about that, but I want to make sure you guys understand Nathan is an extremely intelligent person. Just understand that. He really is very, very smart. But he wasn't doing counseling, he wasn't doing therapy, he wasn't doing coaching. What he was doing was trying to understand the problem so he could guide this gentleman and his wife, hopefully, to the right thing that we can help them with. And I guess, if we don't have it, somebody else could help them with this. And so, as you were guiding him, what did you recommend to him and how did he respond to that?
Speaker 2:Now, in this case, based upon what he told me, especially about her mindset, as I'm talking about their amount of communication, they were in communication, it was very factual, it was very tenuous, but it was very, you know. But it happened. It's not like she went no contact and she's run off to Tahiti, right.
Speaker 1:I'd like to run off to Tahiti. You know what I'm in. Let me know.
Speaker 2:We'll jump on your private jet yeah.
Speaker 2:When I get it Exactly the in this case, because he had a lot of rewiring that he needed to do to be able to understand how to approach her in a way that was going to turn those pushes that he was committing into pulls. Help her to feel like she could approach him. Because, think about it, if you're this, if you're this wife right, and your, your experience of your partner for the multiple decades has been, that person doesn't look at me as equal. That person does not listen to me. He's my dad, he's my boss, my dad, I'm not safe. Got it Right.
Speaker 1:So that's that spouse's experience, and so what you're saying is that, no matter how, many things are given you? How is his money, jewels, whatever, unless you feel understood that, that those things are not enough?
Speaker 2:Right, you have to make. You do have it it. There is a part of yourself that needs to be able to know how to express your needs. Yes, so you're not blaming it all on him? No, of course not. It's not all his fault. It's always 50-50. There's always halfway. There's always a place that both have responsibility. But in this case, she had not expressed her need. Maybe she didn't understand it partially. Is there a possibility?
Speaker 1:that maybe she did, but she did it so meekly he didn't get it.
Speaker 2:In many cases when I deal with my avoidant clients, that's very likely, you know, and their muscle memory says even why try now, he's not going to listen again.
Speaker 1:Okay, Explain to me a non-athlete what muscle memory is. It's you know.
Speaker 2:Okay, explain to me a non-athlete what muscle memory is. It's that phrase of after a while you just get in the habit of If you've been not listened to for so long, then after a while you're just not going to talk. Okay, so it's more of a defense mechanism where why try again when I'm going to be disappointed again? That makes a lot of sense. So what did you recommend to the guy? I recommended for him in this case, because we had a lot of work to do that he enroll in the solo program, our solo spouse workshop program, because in that program the first thing that we need to do is to be able to help him partner with our coaching team and with our staff and our workshop to be able to start working on the behaviors that helped him to misunderstand what she's looking for.
Speaker 1:Okay, and we have two different kinds of solo programs. I'm going to ask you which one One is we do online, and that's both men and women. We don't put mixed genders in the same room for three days because of the pain and the temptations that could create. So were you recommending the online, where they're both males and females, or were you recommending the in-person we do here, where it's just men? In his case, which one do you think was the better rate?
Speaker 2:In this case, I believe the in-person men's was better for him, and only because partial part of it was gut I've done this a lot and part of it was just gut feeling. Now, in terms of the quality of program, they're the same. We execute both very well. But I believe that with a person of that personality type, having that camaraderie, having that in-person brotherhood, that when you have one person, one gender in the room, there is that ability to be able to get real. You've walked away from your work. That's a huge thing If work has dominated somebody's life for so long. To get away from the office, to get away from home, to go to a new place in a strange place with new people, it's a huge deal. You're in a new paradigm. So in his case, I recommended the in-person.
Speaker 1:That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, so what about the fact if you decided to go to the solo with the women to get the female perspective, do you think that he would have gained as much there, or do you think it still should be the men only? Well, there's benefits to both, for sure, I'm sure.
Speaker 2:For sure. And there's also the practical nature of look, if you just can't travel here and you need help sooner than later in this case, then absolutely. If he looks at me and says it's not possible, I need help now, then let's go, let's do this. There is a benefit to that. I don't think it certainly would have hurt the situation. I made solely that decision for him based on what I thought the atmosphere would be a huge benefit for him.
Speaker 1:I see that and in our men's only workshop, which we do in person, people actually come to Middle Tennessee and these men are in a room together for three days. They don't sleep together in the same room.
Speaker 1:They have their hotel rooms, but they're in a room together for three days. Yeah, it's not camp, it's not camp, but the men get very honest with each other, like you might hear one say the other, which you would typically not hear in the mixed gender Right, and certainly probably not in the couples workshop, which is also outstanding. Each has its own need, but the men sometimes will. One man will look at the other and say you realize you're being an absolute jerk, don't you? And it works because they've all become buddies and friends. It's not their animosity, right.
Speaker 2:So it sounds to me like you made the right suggestion. So what did he say? He's on his way, wonderful. Yeah, I'm proud of him, I really am, because, um, oftentimes, in this situation, especially with my high drivers, um, your biggest obstacle to change is yourself. Uh, because, when you have to, when you, when you look yourself face to face in the mirror and you realize that, uh, that the only reason that my life is a shambles is because I did it, then there is a part of responsibility that comes with, or there's a humility that comes with, taking responsibility for your actions. And many, many times that is that it comes with that dark night of the soul which we just have to face and realize that sometimes I've just got to suck it up, buttercup and go. You know, and I'm proud of him, I really, really am, cause it was a big decision, you could. You could hear the wheels. You know, sometimes we joke, we hear the wheels turning. You could hear the wheels grinding in his mind, um, but it was really really powerful.
Speaker 1:Well, Nathan, the way you dealt with this man, I think, was very good. There are several people in our organization, such as you, that actually talk to people and help them with this, and so if somebody out there, a man or a woman and you've got stories about women as well, we'll do some more of those later. Sure, and you've got stories about couples. We'll talk about some of those later, but right now, if they wanted to talk to you or somebody like you in our organization, the way they do that is the easiest way to do it is just to jump online and go to marriagehelpercom slash call and that's slash C-A-L-L.
Speaker 2:Marriagehelpercom slash call. Fill out a little bit of information, just so we can know how to contact you, and a member of our team will reach out, have a quick conversation, be able to make sure that what we do lines up with what you need, and we go from there. Okay.
Speaker 1:Now do they get a chance to pick whom, Because we have both males and females, or it's just whoever's next in the queue?
Speaker 2:Right. Well, in this case, we have a team of men and women that'll be reaching out first and we can go from there based on scenario. If there are some very specific needs, then we can always explore that. Typically speaking, though, those needs aren't necessarily when it comes to what I do, those needs aren't something that necessarily needs to become addressed, but we can always go from there.
Speaker 1:If there's something very acute, then obviously we want to take care of our people, so we can do that for sure, okay, so if I'm understanding this correctly, there's a first level of somebody who will call them back for an assessment and then get them to you guys. Correct, okay, and it's all not about selling. It's about helping you find the right thing to help you with your specific problem, to help you with your specific problem. Now, hopefully, as you listen to Nathan on this, you understand that from the very get-go, the people you talked to to begin with, before you get into our programs whether it's a workshop, membership, whatever it might be that these are folks who genuinely care. They've been very well-trained and will do everything they can to understand you and to help guide you to what we can do for you. Now, next time, I want you to tell me about somebody who decided not to do that.
Speaker 2:Got some stories.
Speaker 1:Okay, and thank you for being with us.
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