There's a moment in every man's life where he finds himself standing at the edge of something deeper with someone, paralyzed by the weight of what it might mean. I got to join Melanie Curtin on Dear Men to talk about this exact fear I see come up constantly with the men I work with: this terror of showing interest or going deeper in a relationship until you're 100% certain you want to commit for life. And honestly, it creates this impossible bind.
We unpacked how a lot of guys end up one foot in, one foot out because they're terrified of leading someone on or hurting her feelings. But here's the thing: you're going to hurt each other. That's just part of being human in relationship. The most successful couples I know hurt each other all the time. What matters is that you're willing to stay present through it, to be real, to keep showing up.
What really stood out in our conversation was this idea that you don't have to have your shit completely figured out before you're ready for relationship. You just need to be on the path. You need to know where you're headed, be actively working on yourself, and trust that you can get out if it's not a good fit. That capacity to trust yourself to set a boundary and leave paradoxically allows you to go all the way in and actually discover if this person is right for you.
We also talked about how not every relationship has to be "the one" to be valuable. Sometimes a three month relationship where you both grow, learn about yourselves, and leave each other better than you found each other is a huge success. Experience beats theory every time, especially for guys who haven't had a lot of relationship experience.
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Jason Lange: Why I want to highlight this is it's it's not even about is it right or wrong, but they rarely feel good about that about themselves. On the other end of it versus Wow. I took charge here of my life and I ended it has a very different energy.
Melanie Curtin: Now a client who he got out of a long marriage, difficult, long, difficult marriage, and was on the dating market. And then I think he saw a woman for around six months, something like that. And it was deeply transformative. Right? He had been pushed away a lot by his, by his spouse, by his wife. And this woman was able to come towards him in conflict. That was huge. He'd never experienced that before. It was deeply healing to feel like, I'm not always the one extending she's coming to me sometimes. And he was able to be emotionally expressive and be met in that instead of like, I think his ex wife was like, I don't want to hear it. She didn't say those words, but just energetically, like, I don't have space for that. I'm not available for that. I don't want to hear it. So he was able to essentially be in a really healthy second stage relationship. Right. We talk about everything, we process everything. We're, we're on the same, we're getting on the same page all the time. We're talking a lot. And he was able to see the value of that and also the limitations of that. So that when that relationship ended, he brought all of those skills to the one he's now in. And the one he's now in is an upgrade essentially. Right. It's a, it's a better fit, it's a better match. They're not triggering each other all the time. And I, I just have to say, I think from doing this work for a long time, there are a lot of folks that I know who have some kind of stepping stone relationship. They have some kind of relationship between, let's say the marriage that didn't work or you know, 40 years of nothing working. Right. There's a stepping stone to what becomes their committed long term relationship. Those are sacred. The stepping stone relationships are sacred. And they can only unfold if you allow them to. If you see what's there, if you do what we're talking about, which is kind of really allow what is there to become what it is. It's almost like letting a flower bloom and then sometimes the flower dies. Right. It's not always a long term thing, but it can be deeply transformative in that middle stage. So if you are interested in working with us, particularly around coaching, you can go to Evolutionary Men. And we also have three spots left for our live retreat at the end of this month. Also go to Evolutionary Men for information on that. It's in Northern California. We will both be there live coming at you. And that's just a few weeks away. So get in touch if you want those spots. D.
