Indecision Is Destroying Your Marriage (& How To Change That) l EP. 95 l

Indecision is still a decision.

And for a lot of men, it’s the decision that keeps destroying their marriage, confidence, leadership, and self-respect.

In this episode, I break down why capable men stay stuck waiting for certainty before making the decisions they already know they need to make.

Whether it’s your marriage, health, business, parenting, or identity — the decision-making framework that got you here will not get you to the man you want to become.

I cover:

•  why avoidance is a decision 
•  how indecision hands your power to your wife, life, or circumstance 
•  why waiting for certainty keeps men weak 
•  how nice guy patterns show up in decision-making 
•  the difference between clarity and control 
•  why time does not give you more information 
•  how to regulate your nervous system before making big decisions 
•  how protective parts keep you safe, small, and stuck 
•  why powerful men shorten the gap between decision and action 

Most men don’t need more time.

They need to stop outsourcing leadership.

Because if you keep avoiding the decision, don’t be surprised when life makes it for you.

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Transcript

Jun 2, 2026

decision making pod - Transcript

00:00:00

 
Harrison Orr: Decisions, decisions, decisions. The decision-making framework that got you here will get you to become the man, have the relationship, or the life that you want to have. You're listening to the Be Better Podcast. I'm Harrison and I help men to break out of the reactive, defensive, nice guy patterns that are destroying their marriage so that they can lead themselves and their marriage and their household from a place of fulfillment and authenticity. Now one of the first things that we have to break if we want to grow, if we want to change the trajectory that we are on, the things that we are looking at in life, the things that we are experiencing life is our decision-m framework. This I got taught this framework from a sales mentor a few years ago. And one of the things that keep people stuck not just on on sales calls but in in their decision- making through life is they make their decisions through the same lens that got them to this point. And the fact that you're not the fact that you're questioning your position in life, the fact that you're even on a sales call to potentially change that situation in your life, whether that's personal, marriage, business, fitness, like whatever it is, tells us that you are not happy with the way that the things are going.
 
 

00:01:27

 
Harrison Orr: So, we need to change that. Think about something that you're not happy in in life with right now. Maybe it's your business. Maybe it's your your health. Maybe it's your parenting. Maybe it's your marriage, some some area in life. And think about the way that you make decisions. Now, if you still have a lot of nice guy tendencies, that main decision-m framework is probably avoidance. You will making decisions and push that power to other people. You allow other people and life to make these decisions for you. Which to be clear, indecision is a decision. If you are refusing to make a decision and saying like, "Oh, well, it's not that that important. I'll just forget about it. I'll just numb myself out with p***, with social media, doom scrolling, with whatever your coping mechanism or distraction mechanism is." That's still a decision. You're just saying, "Well, it's not important to me right now. So, I'm going to allow life to make it for me.
 
 

00:02:31

 
Harrison Orr: I'm going to allow my wife to make it for me. I'm going to allow somebody else in life that this is a bigger priority to to make this decision for me because that's where a lot of people's marriage ends up because they see the patterns and they're like, "Ah, it's too scary to do something about it. I don't want to go see a therapist. I don't want to get a coach. I don't want to put myself in this uncomfortable position." Uh, it's it's not that bad. is just a phase. We'll get over it once I make more money, once the kids go to school, once whatever milestone you're putting in your way happens, you're saying, "Oh, well then things will get better." But what you're really doing is saying, "Well, I'm not going to make a decision. I'm going to allow someone else to make this decision." And that's how you end up in ultimatum territory where your wife is the one to make a decision and either go and goes and cheats which says, "Hey, you've got this amount of time to get your s*** together or you need to change this otherwise we're getting a divorce or whatever else it is because she's the one making a decision." And then you can go one of two ways of then either
 
 

00:03:40

 
Harrison Orr: changing, owning your s***, and then evolving or pity party of my wife doesn't love me, it's all my wife's fault, she's a narcissist, she's bad at communicating, it's all her fault, she's the one that broke up our family, she's the one that, you know, separated us and did all this. It's like, no, man. She just had standards. She made a f****** decision, one that you refused to make that you allowed her to make because you wouldn't take it for yourself. So instead of allowing life and other people to make a decision, one of the first steps, one of the most powerful things, the power generating things that you can f****** do for your life is just start making decisions. All open tabs in your mind that you've said like, "Oh, I need to do this. I need to make a decision on that." that you've just put on the back burner. Actually make a decision. Either decide that you'll do nothing about it and you'll just let it play out and close that tab because okay, I'm actively making the decision.
 
 

00:04:50

 
Harrison Orr: Do nothing about this. This is what I'm going to do. I'mes. So many men is waiting for a degree of certainty before they make a decision that guarantee their wife change. Stop being defensive. Put these in. Then she instantly be more receptive. She'll be softer. She want to be more intimate. She will just be warmer and nicer than to be around. She'll just drop all her protective parts and her and just melt into his arms again. It doesn't stand back. There is no promise that that will actually happen. If you The only way to have a 100% guarantee on anything is in hindsight is after you've made the decision after you've taken the action and then you can look back and say ah well with the information that I have now looking backwards that was a good decision. That could have been a better decision, but we now have new information. So, it's not really the same decision anymore because it's it's now a biased decision because we know the outcome.
 
 

00:06:32

 
Harrison Orr: We know the ending. One of my mentors a few years a few years ago, he used to term this create he created this term called chronological snobbery, which is the act of looking back on your past self and judging them based on information you have today. So, you know the outcome. You know what the right decision was now only because you've you've lived it. You've experienced it and looking back on past you and saying, "What a f****** idiot. Why didn't you do that sooner? Why did you do that? Why did you not do that?" Like judging them from the position that you now sit when in all reality, if you had the information you have now back then, well, you would have made a different decision. But you didn't. And so the information that you have available now is less than the information that you'll have available after you make the decision either way in the future. So true clarity, true confidence is not tied to an outcome. Like this is the most important part of this work of understanding your parts and their protective mechanisms and like everything that comes from this.
 
 

00:07:47

 
Harrison Orr: Not just in decision-m but in in your marriage in in yourself in living authentically is not tied to external outcomes. It's not tied to external guarantees or external like validation or approval. It's Ig myself to figure it out the with the information available right now. I am making this decision from you know I've I'll work you through this process in a second. so that you're not making a reactive decision or a decision from a protective part, but I'm making this decision from the man that I am becoming, from my grounded self, and I'm going to move with that. And I what happens beautiful? Well, I made the right decision that I was capable of of doing this. What's that in a not so favorable outcome and not too happy with it? I back myself to figure it out. Okay, now I've got more information to say how this pans out. That's not the right course of action to get that outcome. That outcome is no longer on the table. what am I looking at now?
 
 

00:09:15

 
Harrison Orr: And then we make another decision and then we move forward. The only way to gain more information and actually move forward is to take a step, make a decision, take action. And you might think, this is one of the the classic objections that people give on on sales calls. It's like, I just need to think about it. Okay. What are you hoping to happen over the next 24 hours, over the next week, over the next year? Time does not give you more information. And we don't need time to make decisions. We need information. have available right now will not increase over the next however long amount of time. No matter how long you give yourself, any information that you quote unquote have in that time to make that decision is not new information. It's a protective part of you or a story that you've told yourself. You've looked for evidence to make the decision that you wanted to make anyway, but you didn't want to make it in the moment.
 
 

00:10:28

 
Harrison Orr: Because we don't need more time to make decision. We need to regulate oursel. We need to understand and ask those protective parts to step aside so that we can make a decision from the place of the man that we are becoming. Like when you put yourself in the shoes of the man that you are becoming, the man that leads himself and his marriage, that is grounded, that can have hard conversations, that stays regulated, that is the the the lighthouse in the storm of the emotions and the energies at home, what decision would he make? And even more importantly, how would he make a decision? cuz I can guarantee how he makes a decision is fundamentally different from how you've been making decisions up until now. Even Jordan Peterson has been quoted to to say this like when you're like you're unsure, you're you're paralyzed, you're anxious, you're nervous, you're whatever it is and you're facing this decision, staying in the same place is the worst thing that you can do because you have no new information. If you take a little step forward, you take a little action.
 
 

00:11:45

 
Harrison Orr: Okay, now you've got access to more information. And then, okay, is it am I still aligned? Am I still on track? Take another step. Or, you know, realize like, uh, no, this wasn't the right one. We pivot. We take another step. And then we get more information. And then we keep taking step after step after step and look back and like, holy s***, I've made all this progress because I took action. Because I didn't wait for some magical percentage of certainty or like, you know, guarantee of outcome before I took action. But that's what holds so many people back. It's like, oh, well, I only want to change if my wife is not going to leave me. I only want to I only want to start this business if it's going to make me millions of dollars. I only want to do this thing if it helps me avoid this pain or if it gives me this this outcome. That is the fastest way the the the most sure way to make sure you stay exactly where you are.
 
 

00:12:53

 
Harrison Orr: And now look at how long you've been wanting that certainty or that guarantee or that proof or somebody else to make this decision for you. And how long's that been how long how has that been working out for you? Like how long have you you this decision that you're sitting with whether it's about your marriage or your health or your business, whatever. How long have you noticed or known that that is something that needs to change? probably noticed it for for a lot of guys it's a couple years at least a few months and it hasn't gotten better. So what are you really waiting for? You are the one that's in control of your life. You are the gets to decide how you live your life. The relationships that you have and the ones that you don't have. the business that you run and the ones that you don't run. Like you are the one that has power over this. You are the one that gets to to live this out.
 
 

00:13:59

 
Harrison Orr: Like when you deathbed, what decisions are you going to be proud that you made? Actions that you took, stories that you have. Would you be proud to be, you know, hooked up to all these machines, lying in the hospital, taking your last breath, talking, you know, maybe sharing any last stories with your your your kids or your grandkids, and you should have done something sooner to save your marriage. You didn't. So, you lived in a stale roommate style relationship for years or your wife left you because you didn't change and you just kept putting it on the back burner and told yourself it's not that it's not that big a deal just till we get to that next milestone. Just wait a little longer. Like, how many of those decisions have you let draw out instead of just making them? And that that can really hurt. Like I really want you to just actually stick with that. Decision making is one of the most meta skills that we can have as a man and as a leader.
 
 

00:15:28

 
Harrison Orr: The ability to make decisions from the man that we want to be, from the place that we want to be. despite uncertainty, despite being uncomfortable, right? It's doesn't matter how much quote unquote clarity you think you need to make a decision, it's not it's not going to remove the discomfort. It's not going to remove the un it's not going to make things more certain. The only thing that you get more certain on is your ability to figure it the f*** out. Like one of my actually before we go into that Alex Horosi has a beautiful quote uh phrasing of of power. It's like how would you define power and he says if we look at power like you know the omn omnipotent being you know god or the creator or whoever you believe in is being the most powerful entity on this planet. He or he or it they however you term them thinks and then things and it becomes he thought the world into existence and then there was the world. There was zero gap between his thought and the creation of the world.
 
 

00:16:40

 
Harrison Orr: So power then is the gap between the decision to be made and then the action you take. So what's that gap? If that gap is months and and years, we could argue that you're not a very powerful man because you're sitting on decisions that you know you need to make, but you're kicking that can down the road. So, shorten that gap. Shorten that gap and make those decisions instead of allowing yourself to live in limbo. Now, my client sent me this uh this real on Instagram the other day, which I thought was really interesting about decision-m and they showed that taking slow breaths, so in through the nose and longer, slower exhales, so activating your parasympathetic nervous system, reducing that reactivity or that survival mode from your nervous system. allowed people or the sorry the decisions that they made after doing that were naturally more risk averse. So they they made you know riskier decisions off the back of that and I don't like that wording because I think there's something more to it than just riskier.
 
 

00:18:06

 
Harrison Orr: What we actually do when we take slow breaths, you know, the 4 seconds in your nose, the 6 seconds out of your mouth, we arm our nervous system and we get out of that fight or flight mode because in fight or flight mode is where we're focused on survival and the worst case scenario. So we are going to always be making decisions be and be focused on avoiding pain, avoiding the worst case scenario. When we're making decisions from that place, when we take those slow breaths and we slow things down, we get to make decisions from a place of calm, with more clarity and then instead of risk averse, I would say with more confidence to back yourself like you get to make a decision from this feels right rather than this looks good or this you know Sounds good, right? The decision instead of being from our head about being logistical, it comes from a body of, okay, I feel like I can make that work, but this feels right. Because human beings make emotional decisions and then justify it with logic.
 
 

00:19:27

 
Harrison Orr: I don't care how logical you think you are. We make decisions that are emotional and justify it with logic. As soon as we've made a decision, that part of our brain looks for quote unquote proof for story to reaffirm that that is the right decision because we don't want to be wrong. As soon as I make a decision that this is what I'm going to do, I naturally start to see all the positives and make that to that decision. I start to see less of of the trade-offs. I start to create this subconscious story of why the other decision never would have worked. they weren't the right person, it wasn't the right fit, or whatever it's related to. And it just reaffirms my decision. That none of that has been based off new information. It's been based off the alignment to our story, the alignment to our decision. And so here's a way that you can discern between are you making a decision out of reaction out of I'm sorry. Here's a here's a way to not make a decision out of reaction or out of this protective part and being able to make it from the man that you want to be who has the life and the marriage that he wants to have.
 
 

00:20:42

 
Harrison Orr: So the first step is you got to regulate yourself, man. You've got to slow down. And you got to take a f****** breath. Because as long as we are reactive, as long as we are over stimulated, we will make decisions based off that state, we will make fast decisions. We will make emotionally reactive decisions. We will make decisions from a fight orflight response, which if that's been the state that you've been operating out of and making decisions out of this entire time, you're just going to get more you got. And if you're not happy with that, then we've got to change something. And this is the the hard part for a lot of people because even though they don't like what they have, there is a level of safety in the certainty that what they get. It's like I don't like what I have right now, but the safety of knowing that getting more of this is less than the fear of not knowing what I would get if I changed. So this this is Tony Robbins quote.
 
 

00:21:47

 
Harrison Orr: You will never change until the fear of staying the same outweighs the fear of change. Until the until the certainty of the same of the current situation and the fear associated with that outweighs the uncertainty of the change. Because that's what we're playing with here is really is is certainty. Humans hate f****** uncertainty. That's why we plan. That's why there's a it created the the the concept of heaven, right? You have people that are not even religious about, you know, oh, they're in a better place now. They've gone to heaven, you know, they're looking down on us. They're they're all these things even if they're not religious. Why? Because that is so much easier to mentally, you know, wrap your head around and to to to make peace with than grandma is rotting in the ground 6 ft under when we just shipped her into an oven and now she lives in an urn on the f****** um furnace, right? We hate uncertainty. But when we hack oursel and we have confidence in ourel to figure it out that uncertainty goes it dissipates massively because you need to be ready yourself whether you are confident or not in the level of certainty that you have there same amount of external variables that you cannot control regardless of how much certainty you have,
 
 

00:23:28

 
Harrison Orr: there is still the same amount of external variables that you cannot control. So you can make decision confidence and from clarity. your clients who meet with the tax man who the f*** it is outside of your control and now will you get very outcomes from the decisions that you make whether you make it from fear and anxiety or from confidence and clarity I would argue most definitely but it's not because of the external change but it's not because the external was different the external responded differently to how you showed And I would argue that we create a self-fulfilling prophecy when we make decisions based out of fear and anxiety. Because even though we don't want that certain outcome to happen, there's that self-critic or that inner judge that even though it's not desirable, likes to be able to say, "I told you that would happen. I told you you're a piece of s***. I told you she would leave you. I told you worst case scenario would happen." Because it likes to be right. It's trying to protect you in some capacity.
 
 

00:24:54

 
Harrison Orr: And I know that sounds so f****** backwards. You can finally get to a place of, "Okay, I've taken a deep breath. I've slowed myself down. And if this is a massive decision, right, this is something huge in your life. Like there is a lot of strings attached to this. There is a lot of emotional weight to this. A lot at stake and you're really struggling to actually regulate yourself right now. Go and do a brain dump. Right? A couple of my guys recently have had a lot of really intense things happen in their in in their life in their relationships. And that's the thing that has brought them back to a place of presence and regulation is just an a brain dump. Good old paper, write down everything that is in your brain and do not stop writing until you come to a place of um presence. You might be exhausted by the end of it. If it's really emotional, but as long as you get to that place, you'll then be able to navigate the next piece much much calmer because writing things out works well for a couple of reasons.
 
 

00:26:16

 
Harrison Orr: One, the the writing aspect has been scientifically proven to be hugely helpful in the processing of emotions and and events and decisions. Two, writing things down forces your brain to slow down because you cannot think. Sorry, you cannot write as fast as you can think. So it will force your brain to slow down. Not go on 20 million side tangents and have half thoughts here and half thoughts there. What about this? What about that? It's like, no. Finish the f****** thought, man. Finish the sentence. Write it out fully. Write out everything that you're thinking, everything that you're feeling, everything that you're worried about. Like everything. Cuz then when you get to that place of, okay, that's everything. My hand is cramping. The page is wet. I'm I'm exhausted, but I feel I feel neutral now. I'm back to base. Then when you reread whatever you wrote, you're reading it through a a calmer nervous system, a fresher set of eyes.
 
 

00:27:25

 
Harrison Orr: And if you read it out loud, you'll probably even be able to pick out your own f****** stories of, "Well, that's b*******. That's an exaggeration. I can't control that. that's not entirely true. And then you sift through everything and naturally you get to a place of I don't really know if I don't really know if this logically makes sense, but my gut is telling me this is what I have to do. And like if you can truly get to that place with without any of the the parts story like the protective parts, you'll be able to go with that with a lot more conviction moving forward. And then as we start to as a again as another meta skill, when we start to trust our intuition more, it gets stronger. we get better at listening to it at a at shorter intervals. Uh another mentor used to have this uh system called the the feather, the brick and the bus system or listening to this intuition or even decision-m, right? Whether you believe in God or the universe or like even just your own your own sense of like self and what's right, what's wrong, what's meant for you, what's not, right?
 
 

00:28:50

 
Harrison Orr: We all have that kind of sense of uh this is not right. This is a good thing. This is like needs to change whatever it is you know whether it's again your marriage, your health, your business, whatever. And so the feather is just this little tickle. It's this little inkling of man something doesn't add up. This doesn't feel right. I I can't quite put my finger on it, but I don't know. Like I it's got a big question mark on it for me. Then most people will ignore that. You ignore it long enough and then you get a brick. Right? This is a bit more in your face like, "Hey man, wake the f******." Right? This is this is not working. This is not a healthy marriage. This is not a successful business. This is not a who you say you are, who you say you want to be. Like it's not something needs to change. And if you ignore that long enough, right, you keep getting this brick in the face from your wife, from your kids, from the world, from your own internal parts, eventually you get to a bus.
 
 

00:30:01

 
Harrison Orr: is what f****** steams you. One that you can't ignore. That's your wife giving you an ultimatum. That's your wife packing her bags like, "I'm I I can't do this. I'm I'm going to go stay at mom and dad's. It's in in your health. It's you having a cardiac arrest. It's you having some other massive health scare in your business. It's, you know, all your clients leaving you. one thing fully blows up and f****** tanks you. Like it's this thing that that makes that is impossible to ignore that makes you realize this is not working. Something needs to change. And now if through life we all have to get hit by a couple of buses to start to maybe learn the signs of something's not right, something needs to change. But the goal of learning, the goal of this is listen to this intuition a little bit more. So that instead of getting hit by a bus, maybe we only take the brick to the face a couple of times before we change.
 
 

00:31:17

 
Harrison Orr: Then maybe we only take the brick once to the face till we realize that okay, there's a tickle there. So I can be more intentional about my questioning of what's not right and what needs to change. But differently, how many times do you need to go around the roundabout before you f****** change? How many times do you have to repeat the same patterns, the same cycles that when like I've been here before, we've had this fight before. I've been on the couch before. We've like I've repeated this thing so many times before you realize, oh, I haven't changed anything. So, why would I expect anything to be different? And then you look in the mirror and you're like, "f***." Because it's me. Because I've been distracted. Because I haven't been present. Because I haven't owned the decision to do something about this. I was hoping life would make it for me. I was hoping someone else would make it for me and make it better. The unfortunate thing is when we allow life or other people to make those decisions for us, it very rarely, actually, I'm I'm yet to see it work out in our favor when we don't make that decision intentionally.
 
 

00:32:35

 
Harrison Orr: So when we're not making that decision, we're basically saying, I'm going to allow the the the thing that I don't want to happen, but I'm not going to make the decision because I want to be able to blame somebody else instead of taking back the power of my life and making a decision. And think about the man that you want to be. man that leads himself, that leads his marriage, not just in the good times, but in in the tough times, that makes the decisions and is not perfect. Doesn't get it right every time, but has the capacity to take ownership of things, to navigate the not so pleasant times, to correct his wrongs, to make it work, to learn from it, to grow, to continue to move forward. Even in those times, that is what makes a true leader is a man that when s*** hits the fan, remains the leader. Remains the calst nervous system in the room and can make a decision, can regulate himself, see the information available, and make a decision. can pick a direction that is in alignment with his grounded self and who he's becoming. Not out of impulse, a disregulated nervous system, or a protective part that is just trying to keep him safe and small. So, if you're faced with a decision right now, if there's been something that's been sitting on your heart or on your mind of I need to do I need to do something about this, I hope you hear this and it gives you the motive, the inspiration to go and make that decision. Go and make that decision today. Even take a take a step in that direction to be able to make that decision. Identify what's stopping you from making that decision. Address that and go and do something about it. If you don't, don't be surprised when the exact thing that you say you don't want happens. So, go make the decision. Go make the decision. Don't be sorry. Be better. Bye.
 
 

Transcription ended after 00:35:19

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