367: ‘For some reason, I tend to attract “projects.”‘ | Dear Men

Jason Lange: Inside our own inner critic, our own self loathing, our own low self worth. Because, you know, related to these two things is another common theme we talk about is lack of boundaries. Right. That. Okay, just because you need some kind of help doesn't mean I have to come in and rescue or save.

Melanie Curtin: Hi everyone. Welcome back to another Jason Lange episode. Fan favorite. So happy to have you with us. We are talking about attracting projects today and I would say we have a. We have a pretty decent number of clients who fall into this category. This is a direct quote from one of our, one of our calls with one of our men. I tend to attract projects and of course that's great self awareness and also for a lot of men, they want to stop attracting projects which we will get into. So yeah, I would love to hear a little bit about your own experience with this pattern. What you noticed probably in your earlier days of dating, but what was it about a woman who was kind of a project that you found appealing either on a conscious or unconscious level?

Jason Lange: Yeah, totally. A lot of this goes right to the root of a lot of nice guy things we talk about, for one, and the ease at which, with which some of us nice guys can create kind of codependent relationships. I also want to distinguish here just a little bit of sometimes there's like a right amount of project and sometimes there's not. And just what I mean by that is, you know, oftentimes the relationships that last, at least for me, have been the ones where I was kind of in around the same area of life. We were maybe developmentally the same place financially or in our careers or whatever. And there wasn't too huge of a gap in, in that sense, sometimes I was a project, so I was attracting people who also hadn't completed things. So it's not always the negative. But what we're going to pinpoint more here is attracting, like we've talked about before, a certain type of volatility in a partner who's just not in a place of stability and sometimes mirrored with that is not in a place of growth. They're not growth oriented. And so for me, two of my early relationships did have some of this. And it's not that the women didn't go on and didn't have a lot of capabilities in their life and whatnot, but the places where they were at, they were not in stable places where they had a lot of resource and support around them. And it took me a while to kind of decode this and I've spoken about it a little Bit before, but with those two relationships, which were earlier in my journey, in retrospect, I can see I wanted that because it created safety for me. So kind of messed up. But, you know, in a sense it was like, well, if they're less stable than me, they need me and then they're not going to break up with me. Right. So there was an actual kind of codependency. I needed them to need me to feel safe. And that was driven by a lot of my own insecurity and experience and frankly, instability in my own life. Financial tumult, career tumult, all that kind of stuff. And so with both of those partner, one was, you know, more just a, like logistics in between work, had just moved somewhere, didn't have community or resources. And so I sweep in pretty fast and wow, I have all of these things comparatively. And so that created like a type of polarity in a sense. That's another way to think about this is that need from a project partner creates a type of polarity, right? Oh, they need me. I get to feel useful as a man. But it wasn't necessarily the healthy kind of polarity as I then discovered. And then my other partner was a little bit more in the emotional realm in that she didn't have a whole lot of resource for herself in that capacity. So I was her primary means of emotional support and regulation. And same thing, though, she needed me for that and I felt needed for that and I felt safe. So there was kind of this simultaneous. Sometimes I didn't like that and was complaining about it, but I was choosing it because it did something for me. And I think for a lot of guys we've worked with, they have some similar roots in there. That there is a type of security, safety and polarity that can come from being, as we've talked about before, that white knight. I get to be the hero, right? I get to be the hero. And if I'm the hero, I get to feel good about myself. I get to feel like I'm serving you and I in total nice guy way. Sometimes that creates some covert contracts where if I'm rescuing you, you know, I am going to have some expectations coming in return, whether that's attention, sex, intimacy, you know, who knows what that is. And that dynamic, as we have discovered, as I discovered, doesn't fix itself unless we get to the root of, okay, what it is about me that is insecure enough in myself that I have to, you know, be the hero for a project.

Melanie Curtin: I'm really appreciating all the language that you're using around this. It feels apropos. One thing I wanted to go back to was the two different kinds of projects because I think this is a pattern that we've seen in our work repeatedly, which is, you know, there's the kind that you mentioned. Basically, I sort of see this as physical needs versus emotional needs. So a physical needs project is probably going to be a woman who is financially unstable in some way. She could be between jobs or she could have a really difficult or dangerous ex partner who is draining her financially. And I want to be sort of clear that we're not. We're not saying that there's something wrong or shaming this person that's having financial difficulties or issues. That's not what we're saying here. We're pointing to a particular kind of pattern and a particular set of interactions that happens. We all go through difficult moments in our lives. This is not about, you know, this person is bad because their project. That's not what we're saying. But there are kind of those two categories, right? So the first one is physical instability of some kind. Often financially related, not always, but often financial or career or housing or otherwise. Sort of like physical. Physical needs. Physical instability. And in that case, you know, yeah, there's a way of providing, right. There's a satisfaction, I think, that comes for a lot of men in the ability to provide something that is needed. And again, that drive in and of itself is not unhealthy. It's not bad to want to provide. That's a natural, normal, wonderful part of all of our. The healthy, masculine in all of us. We want to provide. Again, that's not what we're saying. But there's an imbalance. There's an out of wackness that we're talking about here in this particular pattern. And so that's going to look like if you're paying for a lot of things, right? If you're with a partner where you're paying for an outsized number of things again over time, things like that. And then the other one that you pointed to was emotional instability, which doesn't always look. Which doesn't look the same, right? This person might be financially, okay, they might have a steady job, but there's a certain kind of emotional neediness, a certain kind of emotional instability that, that you can again, as you so eloquently put it, sweep in and, and I don't know, provide again, kind of, I think of it sort of like scaffolding, like, oh, you're falling down I'll provide the scaffolding to hold you up. Right. And that is, that is what we're talking about here. That is the pattern that we're pointing to here is one person's falling over and the other person's sort of holding them up. And that is distinct from a healthy dynamic where both people are standing up. So again, it's not like we don't all go through difficulty parts of our lives, but what we're talking about is, is essentially a codependent dynamic. And what you said, I think, is what we kind of want to highlight, which is I need them to need me in order for me to feel safe. And that's the part that I think is often missed when men go through this pattern because they keep attracting women who are projects and they don't understand why. They don't have a lot of insight, they don't have a lot of clarity on why does this keep happening? I don't, I don't get it. And perhaps consciously they wish that they were attracting a different kind of partner. They, they know something's wrong, but they don't really know what it is and they don't really know why it's happening. And that's part of why we're, we're bringing some light to this subject. So, yeah, I was wondering if you could speak a little bit to that, you know, that question of why, why, why does a man attract projects?

Jason Lange: Yeah. You know, I think another way to tie this all together is something we were talking about in one of our recent group calls of another, you know, real thing with nice guys in particular and people that lean towards codependency is external validation. Right. So if I'm doing stuff for you and you appreciate me for that, I get to feel good about myself. Right. So as long as I'm winning your favorite and you approve of me, I feel better about myself. And that whole paradigm only works when inside I'm not feeling good about myself, right? Where I don't give myself that approval or validation of, no, I know who I am, I know what I like, I know what, you know, what I have to offer some of the deep work we do with guys, and instead I'm seeking that outside. And then I get with a partner who's a project who needs some support. I get to do these things for you, you appreciate me for them, I get to feel good. Right. I think that's one of the big pathways here. That again, really just points to inside our own inner critic, our own self loathing, our own Low self worth. Because you know, related to these two things is another common theme we talk about is lack of boundaries. Right. That okay, just because you need some kind of help doesn't mean I have to come in and rescue or save or dive in. You know, some of the ways we see this show up are also with guys who get into relationships really fast. Potentially with a partner who's not even done with or still in the process, let's say of a divorce or split up. And suddenly, you know, we, we had one guy that got into a relationship really fast and I don't know, within six months basically found himself a stepfather of a kid that he was taking care of most of the day that he hadn't really been a full yes to in the sense of gone into that with intention. But there was this kind of dynamic of she needed that and he liked her so he stepped in and, and was able to provide that. And you know, I think there is often a correlation with speed here of how fast guys get into things. Right. Someone is, oh my God, she had to move out of her apartment. I let her move in with me really quick or I cover her tuition for this thing or a certain bill, you know, and it starts small, but then it builds pretty fast and suddenly you are quite literally taking care of someone. And you know, another sign of this is again, it's not always this case but in the more extreme examples we might it's more like a parental relationship. I'm co regulating this person constantly and I'm bringing the structure of stability to their life that they can't necessarily do now in the short term, is that always going to happen in any natural relationship where sometimes one partner's going to be up, another partner is going to be down? That's totally fine. What we're talking about here isn't that this is a more chronic thing where wow, if I removed myself from the equation, I. I don't know how my partner would survive right now. Like they would be in a stronger state of duress which then that this we've had many guys get stuck in this, then they're afraid to leave because they're like, I do care about this person. I don't think they're my life partner now because I'm putting all this energy in and they don't have the capacity to give anything back. But I'm afraid if I go they're going to hurt themselves or end up homeless or whatever that might be in. And this is where we see a lot of these guys get into these projects that they don't feel like they can get out of.

Melanie Curtin: Yes. I want to emphasize that part of feeling like you can't leave, like you can't escape or you can't walk away because of what will happen to the other person. And, and this is a point in the conversation when I want to talk about social isolation. So social isolation, I think comes in here in two ways. One is your own social isolation as a, as a man, but the other is your partner's social isolation. Right. We're not, we're not. It's not optimal or ideal to have one human being, only one human being on whom you are relying for either physical or emotional support. Right. Ideally you have a network, you have a web, you have a group, you have multiple points of contact that can offer real support. And that is part of what stabilizes us as human beings. We are social animals. We are supposed to live in communities and have social support. When you're with a partner who doesn't have any other social support, that person doesn't have close friends, they don't have any other points of connection. That is a red flag. It is a red flag if someone doesn't have other points of connection in their lives. And that is true for you as well. If you don't have any other strong points of connection, then you're more vulnerable, you're more susceptible to codependence. That's the truth. And so what I've seen, which is interesting, is that in, in the growth of a lot of our clients, what I've witnessed is that as they become more aware of this pattern, they become a lot more immune to it. So as they understand and they can see it, they're much more aware of it. And they also start to have other meaningful connections in their lives where they are getting a sense of essentially love. Right? Love, which is approval, acceptance. And there's a positive feedback loop that I witness where as they are getting that support from mentors, friends, other people, they, they are building their own sense of self esteem. And that is really a lot of what we're talk, talking about here. When you have lower self esteem, then you're more likely to get into these kinds of codependent dynamics. When you have a stronger self sense of self esteem, you're much less likely to get into those and you're more likely to attract a reciprocal. Right. A partner who has a similar level of value in themselves. And that's where you're going to see healthy growth dynamics. And one thing that I've Been consistently impressed. Surprised. I'm not sure what the word is by, is how quickly we have seen men transform this pattern and then attract healthy partners. I mean, sometimes it happens within four months, six months, eight months, like very quickly in the grand scheme of things. It doesn't have to take forever. And I've seen, yeah, like drastic upgrades in the quality of. I don't want to say the quality of the partner, but sort of like the quality of self esteem of partners that these men have attracted. And across the board, a lot of them have said things like, wow, this is a lot easier. Like it's a lot easier dating someone who has a support network outside of me.

Jason Lange: Right.

Melanie Curtin: Like, it's like it doesn't all fall on my shoulders all the time. And so I'm curious if you can share a little bit about your personal experience in that realm of sort of the contrast between dating a project versus dating a woman who has more, more going on, more, more support around herself.

Jason Lange: Yeah, I'd say it's the big shift was when I wasn't resourced. I could say I'm not available or no in my partner could go get support elsewhere and come back and we could just reconnect. It's kind of, that is easier. Or when, you know, my wife Violet has something big and I can get a sense and maybe she mentions it and then by the time we have time to connect, she's just already worked it. It's already handled with her friends, her resources, her tools, whatever that might be. It's a huge, huge shift. And it's also, you know, goes hand in hand with my capacity to set boundaries was part of what allowed me to attract a partner who honored them. Right then it's kind of an interesting correlation there, but part of what we're also talking about is when we overextend, which is another way of we choose, we pick partners who need a lot from us and we're constantly overextending, meaning we're not setting boundaries for ourselves. The polarity of that is we attract partners who don't have a sense of boundaries and will just ask in, receive and take. Sometimes frankly that they're kind of, you know, some, not all again, but some have like an entitlement. Just like, yeah, no, you told me to leave me this, give me this, whatever that might be. So for me, the shift was that not being the case. Right. I'm resourced, my partner's resourced. Sometimes we need to get resourced together, sometimes we need to get resourced apart. But we have language, we have fluency around that. I know and trust she can handle herself like just in the world quite. She's badass and she knows and trusts I can handle myself. And that actually creates a certain energy of okay, great, we are co creating together then, right? Where whereas it's not just one of us pulling the cart the whole time. We, we can take breaks, we can pass it back and forth, we can pull at the same time. Oftentimes that's the energy of a resource partner who has taken responsibility for herself in her life and her wounding and her finances and her career and all of that. And it frees up a lot. You know, for me initially though, it was, it, it felt scarier. Right. It actually was a more vulnerable relationship because she didn't need that kind of low hanging fruit, security stuff for me. She needed like something more like real leadership, real presence, my ability to take care of myself. All these different things that I hadn't really had to step into so much in my previous relationships because there was kind of this unevenness in. That unevenness meant that I didn't really have to be growing in the same way because there was no threat of my partner like really calling me out and saying, hey, this isn't working for me, I'm out. Because they just weren't in a place at that moment in time where that was on the table for them in quite the same way.

Melanie Curtin: I really appreciate you speaking to that. The, the vulnerability on your side of being with a partner that has the kind of self esteem and the kind of self, self valuing that says I'm in this relationship to grow, I want to grow with you and if that's not available here, then I'm going to leave. And not in a threatening way, but just in a this is, this is how it is kind of way. And that's part of what isn't there in a codependent dynamic, right? In a codependent dynamic, it's like I'm relying on you for something. So I can't quote unquote, can't leave or won't leave and vice versa. And so to your point, there is, there is security, a certain kind of security in that of knowing, yeah, this woman is not going to leave me because I'm paying the bills or I'm providing all of the emotional, I'm her safety blanket. Of course she's not going to leave me. I'm kind of concerned if I leave her that she would, you know, she'd kill herself like that. That level of dependence does not foster healthy growth. Right. There's a. There's a co dependent dynamic there versus an interdependent dynamic, which is, I think part of what we're pointing to is that in healthy couples, I really liked the cart analogy. Or co creating rather than one of us pulling the cart the whole time. Right. If you're in a dynamic where you feel, particularly if you're in a dynamic where you feel used, there's often a codependent element there. If you're feeling used in your relationship, it's usually codependent. And that's partly because it's not an even exchange. It's. There's one person is pulling the cart, right? And there's a reason they're doing that because they feel like they're valuable because they pull the cart. But in an interdependent relationship, I'm pulling the cart. Sometimes you're pulling the cart, sometimes we're pulling the cart together. Sometimes the relationship is an entity and we are both putting energy into it. And then whatever's happening in the moment, right. You know, if a woman is postpartum, she's going to need more support in that moment. If a man is going through a cancer treatment, he's going to need more support in that moment. And you're both going to need support from your community in those moments too, right. The, the point is not that you are the only two people in the relationship. You're supposed to be part of a wider community, but within that, the ball is kind of passed back and forth. When you're in a codependent dynamic, there's not that same kind of passing of the ball back and forth. Because, you know, I really liked what you said, Jason, about you can trust that your woman can handle herself and your woman can trust that you can handle yourself. And when I say handle oneself, part of what I mean is if you weren't in her life, she would still have her life handled and vice versa. If you know, both of you have a lot of support, both within your relationship and without your relationship. You have close friends, you have close colleagues, you have community members, you have mentors, you have support outside of this relationship. That's part of what makes it strong and interdependent. So I think when we're talking about codependence, I guess what I want to kind of impress upon everyone is that it's not when you outgrow codependence, you don't grow into independence. I take care of everything myself. I'm an island. I Don't need anyone. That's actually not healthy either. Independence is not healthy. Interdependence is, is healthy and it is the way that we are all living on this planet. We are interdependent with the planet. If we didn't have the sunlight and the water and the planet plants, we would die. All of the animals would die. We are dependent. We are interdependent. We would die without these resources in our lives. We are not independent. That's not a thing. Actually. It's sort of an illusion where no one is, is independent. We are interdependent. But that ability, that capacity to know how to resource oneself. I really loved what you said about sometimes, you know, your woman will have something going on and need support, but then by the time you two connect about it, right, because you're busy, you've got lives, you've got things going on, you know, the next day or whenever she's like, oh yeah, I kind of, I kind of handled that. You know, I talked to my friends or I talked to my therapist or you know, I, I, I worked that on my own. I did an inner child dialogue and I'm feeling better be like I don't, I don't have that same need in that same way. That's a good, that's a good example of getting resourced. Like two people who know how to get resourced themselves are going to make for a very strong couple. When a couple where one or both people are dependent on this is the only source of support in my life is my, is my man and I need him, then that's a very vulnerable system. If he's not available or something happens that there's nothing else available that's going to be, that's going to be really vulnerable. So I'm wondering if you can speak a little bit to that part that I just shared and in particular that sense of feeling used. Because I do think that that comes up in a lot of our clients.

Jason Lange: Yeah, right. I've done a lot of work and studying with Dr. Glover and he, he points to this as reciprocity. Right. Reciprocal relationships, meaning I put energy in, I get energy back. And a well balanced relationship, it's not going to be perfectly even. It's not about it always being 50, 50, but there is this sense that when I'm resourced, I have something to give to the relational unit and when I'm under resourced, I'm allowed to receive from the relational unit. Right. Quite simply, when we're not getting that energy back as men Resentment builds like crazy. And that's where men get angry. They feel used. You know, it's not always the case, but we've definitely talked to and worked with guys who, you know, their guard is up because they go online dating. And you know, there was a guy I was just talking to recently, he's like, the woman said she would only meet me at one of these three restaurants and they were really high end restaurants in a very affluent part of town, right? And he had had enough of those experiences where he just felt used. It's like these, these women are just getting dinners with me. Not all women are like that, but some right, Are, are, are in that. And so he felt that resentment because there wasn't a certain type of reciprocity there. It was more about the context of where they were meeting than the connection of them getting to know each other. And this is a huge one for nice guys because again, it all swirls together in that some of this could be on our partner and some is on us in terms of. Because, you know, when I would feel insecure, I would feel afraid to ask for things that I wanted because what if my partner didn't want to give it back or dysregulated them or whatever. And so then we, we start to run these covert contracts, right? Of okay, I'll keep doing all this stuff for you, but I do need this back. But I'm never actually going to ask you for it. And then when I don't get it, I'm going to be resentful or angry or pissed off about that. And you know, this is a thing for all men. Not even one that's ones that just pick projects. But the feeling of burden and putting out so much energy and care and time and just not getting enough back. Like everybody always wants or needs something from me. I know women experience that too. But for, for a lot of guys. So this stuff just stacks. And if we're not, you know, even if we're not getting reciprocity for a lot of guys, if we're not even getting appreciation, it hurts. And that's where guys get really resentful, really angry, really sad sometimes about, yeah, I feel stuck in this thing. I do all these things for my partner and they won't even acknowledge me or say thank you or appreciate how much effort I went into to go pick up the kids and do this thing and do this thing while I was working, you know, just so they could have a little extra time or, you know, whatever that is. So it's painful it really hurts guys and it will start to come out right. His edginess, his testiness, his resentment, his frustration as we've talked about, that's not super pleasant for, for men to be around when they're not getting that reciprocity, that reciprocal energy. And for guys that really get it and stuck it stuck in it, you know, if they feel really trapped and they're not a they're with a partner that they can't get that back, they'll try to find it elsewhere. Right. This is where affairs come online and leaky energy in the container. Because sometimes it's just too hard to know how to ask our partner for it or our partner can't give it reciprocate in those ways. And you know, this, like you said, this isn't just external stuff, this is internal stuff too. Right. We work with a lot of guys who listen to us and we talk all about vulnerability and leadership and sometimes they'll stretch and they'll go for it and their partner has no idea how to hold them in their vulnerability. Right. And then it's like this double wounding of oh I, I did ask for emotional support and you clearly didn't feel safe with that. And so now I feel hurt around that. So sometimes we just need ourselves to be with partners that I heard this great term from a psychotherapist of Every partner has to be able to regress into vulnerability and their young selves at different times and the other partner holds them, but it can't be the only person holding them and it can't be all the time. But as men we have to be able to do that too. And if we can't and don't, we will get feel used and then we're not going to want to put as much like real energy into the relationship. And we have a lot of responsibility to, you know, take around that in terms of this is why we really encourage guys to early on be authentic, set boundaries, ask for what you want to need. See, is this partner capable and aligned with bringing back the type of energy I need to be able to keep showing up resourced in this relationship.

Melanie Curtin: Yeah. One of the things that really touches my heart is I think what you spoke to about a man being vulnerable with a partner and not being met and just that really breaks my heart. That really makes me sad because I think it is so brave for a man to do that with anyone in our culture, to be honest, man or woman or non binary person, it doesn't matter. But just vulnerability on the part of Men is risky. And so when that's not met, I often feel very protective of men and really angry about the response that they're getting. But one of the things that I've been consistently, I guess, impressed by, again, is the men that we work with that do the work and essentially learn to set boundaries and learn how to stand up for themselves and learn how to be their authentic self. From the beginning, they attract different kinds of partners. And then what I've. What I've seen repeatedly is, you know, they'll say things like, wow, I've never been. Like, I've never. I've never had a woman respond this way. I've never been. They don't use the word held. I'm actually trying to remember what men. What word men use. Maybe you can help me with that. But, like, I've never been held by a woman this way. I've never had that experience before. And again, it just.

Jason Lange: It has.

Melanie Curtin: It doesn't always take that long. Like, one of the things that I've seen a lot. I'm actually. I'm thinking of one of our clients from a few years ago who was in a marriage for, I want to say, like 10 or 15 years, like one of those, like, long marriages where she just couldn't meet him. And he just kept trying and kept trying and kept trying and kind of banging his head against the wall, and it was just the wrong partner. It just wasn't going to happen. She just wasn't ready to grow. She didn't want to do it. She wasn't very emotionally mature. And he got out of that relationship. And the very next dating relationship, which he got into while he was in the program was vastly different. Right. The level of emotional maturity was so much higher, and he. He had this epiphany like how it wouldn't have mattered how I showed up in that last relationship. It wasn't me. It was. It was truly not me. And now I'm doing many of the same things that I was towards the end of that relationship, and I'm getting a completely different respons. And we've heard that again and again. And I just kind of want to emphasize, you know, this man did a lot of work in the program, and he had done a lot of work before the program, so it wasn't coming out of left field. But I. I'm consistently impressed by that shift, that transformation and that particularly that experience that a man finally has of being met and being held and being appreciated for his vulnerability and his capacity to show share what's actually alive for him. I felt hurt by this. I felt pain around this. You know, it's like the right woman who's done her work is going to be, is going to value that about a man rather than be scared by it, put off by it, intimidated by it, whatever all of the other like, responses are. And I'm wondering if you can. Yeah. Speak a little bit about that because I imagine that you in the, you know, in your past were probably with women who wouldn't have been able to hold you through moments like that, whereas your current partner can. And can you speak a little bit to that difference?

Jason Lange: Yeah. Let me, I, I pro. I had one or two partners who I don't think could really. And, and even at times in our relationship, Violet, when I wasn't well resourced and she wasn't well resourced, like, what do you want me to do with that? Right. In a sense. But again, I mean, really, the big differentiator I can point to now is the more resourced I've become with other men in community. It just doesn't show up energetically the same way in the relationship. Right. Where, where has been an issue is when I've just literally felt frozen and stuck and terrified of like, I don't know how to fix this or what to do around this. And I had so little resource. There was no, there was nothing like, and my partners just have had no idea how to respond to that versus, you know, the energy. Now more of, I, I have this challenge, I'm working on it, I'm resourced. Doesn't freak them out because I feel a little bit more agency and control over it. So it feels different. You know, I'm not, I think the shift is on my side at least I'm not bringing it to my partner for them to fix it. I'm bringing it to my partner so they can know what's going on inside of me. It's revealing my inner world. And I've had partners who actually wanted more of that, but I just didn't have the capacity to, to bring that. And then they were left mystified as to what was going on. But it, you know, it is a skill that, you know, we teach a lot about, you know, feel her, don't fix her. Oftentimes we don't need to problem solve right away as men and sometimes we just need that a little bit too. And lo and behold, yet women don't always know how to do that for men necessarily, because I don't think it's a Skill that's necessarily taught in a lot of ways to either gender. Right. It's not even just men or women. It's just we're not really taught how to hold space and not totally collapse and get absorbed by someone else's emotional content. But if you haven't done enough work, I would say, as a woman, to understand, you know, polarity and some of the gender expectations in realities. Where I do see this hurt, really hurt, some guys is like, their partners really do get freaked out if their man doesn't know how he's going to solve something, because then they feel like it's a threat. Oh, my God. You don't. You're scared about your job. What's that going to mean for me? You know, like, there's kind of that versus just, okay, this is like a moment in time. This doesn't mean you're an inadequate man or something like that. It's going to be okay. You're going to work through it. And right now, you just need to know I love you and I care about you. Right. And I think that's often the energy men are looking for is, oh, wait, if I'm not doing, if I'm not winning, are you still going to love me? That's all I need to know is you're not going to bounce right away if I lost my job or if this health challenge comes along. Like, you still love me, right? And the hard truth for some guys, and particularly some guys that attract partners who are projects, is that's not true for the women. They're like, oh, shit. Yeah. If you can't take care of me, I'm out. Like, so I don't want to hold you in this. Like, go fix this. Go, go, go fix it. Right? That is a response we men we've worked with have had, and it is brutally painful versus, you know, again, having a more resourced partner who's had her own ups, had her own downs. We've traversed these together. Now. She's not going to lose her shit if I need her to hold some space for me or if I feel sad, right? She. It's like, okay, that's. That's okay. I know you're going to come back from this. And right now you just want to feel connection with me, and then I feel better, and then I go handle my shit. You know, It's. It's kind of that simple.

Melanie Curtin: Yeah.

Jason Lange: I'm.

Melanie Curtin: I'm wondering if you can speak a little bit to, you know, how a man overcomes this pattern, right? How Does a man go from being someone who tends to attract projects to. To being a man who attracts healthy partners that can be in healthy relationships with them?

Jason Lange: Yeah. As I say, the. The number one thing you can do is take responsibility for your wounding and your pain and get on a growth path and surround yourself by coaches, peers, therapists who know your story and know your patterns. So you out yourself around, hey, this is a thing I do. I have attracted and gotten into these problematic relationships before. I am telling you this because left to my own dev is I'll probably do it again. But I'm asking for help. Right? Like literally, can you, can you. Do you have my back? Are you going to look out for me as I go into these things? And what I found in, in our work and in men's groups I lead is, yeah, men are very good at giving that honest feedback of, you know, we see it all the time. Hey, this thing happened, I'm a little concerned about it. Is it a red flag? Because in my previous relationships and it's pretty amazing how fast other people can dial in with a couple of questions like, oh, yeah, that doesn't feel like it at all. Or wow, red alert like that. I'm concerned for you and I'm concerned for what might possibly be happening here. And once you trust those people, it really helps to make wiser decisions and discernment. And, you know, the other thing we see in all my programs is as men start to get validation from other men and, you know, it's not about, we're humans, we need other. We want other people to like us. It's not about, you go through the world and you don't give a shit what anyone ever thinks about you. You just want to be selective with who you do care because they know you and you trust their feedback and they will let you know when you're off course and they will let you know when you're on course. But the more we have those pockets, the more we don't need to strive for that so much outside of ourselves. And so again, getting into good community with men is it. I mean, it's, it's like inoculating yourself often against future projects because the, the needs you had that were driving you to those levels of volatility and project partners that it starts to go way down because you're getting nourished in other ways and your discernment can go up. So we've just seen that over and over. Guys get in community, they start taking responsibility, they feel better about themselves, they learn Some tools for setting boundaries. They get resourced and love and from coaches and men and lo and behold, they go out on a couple dates and they're like, yeah, okay, it's not even about this person's bad. It's just this clearly isn't aligned right now. Right. We're not in similar places in life or she's way earlier on her growth path or whatever that might be. And yeah, you know what? I don't want to. I don't want to do all the heavy lifting on that. Right. That was my thing. I want to meet a partner who's, who's kind of around my same level. Doesn't mean they have to be perfect, but who has resources, who has done growth and it works. Right? And again, oftentimes it also just seeing the patterns that, you know, a lot of guys kind of intuitively know there's some work we support men in doing that makes it pretty, pretty clear when we look at some of these patterns. And then once you see it, it's like, oh, I do this, I've been doing this. I can see it now. And that awareness is about, you know, it's. It's really half the battle in terms of making different choices than moving forward. So, you know, doing your healing work, learning to set boundaries, getting resourced by community can change things really fast.

Melanie Curtin: I know I keep saying it, but I think that's the thing that continually strikes me in doing this work and having done this work for, you know, almost a decade or over a decade at this point, is just how quickly things can shift. I really, I think I just want to impress that upon you, whoever you are listening, that the growth journey is. It is a lifelong journey, but the kinds of leaps, the kinds of forward movement, the kinds of man, the kinds of improvements you can see in a pretty short amount of time are striking. So I guess I just want to, yeah, sort of leave. Leave the audience with that, with that truth that it can be really fast and, you know, yeah, just really fast. I do also want to mention that if you are interested in this kind of work, if you're interested in doing this kind of work, this is a really good time to get involved. Whether you do our flagship program, Pillars of Presence, or you come to our retreat, because our retreat is coming up in about just over two months at the end of August, and we've had a number of men come in, do the retreat and then do pillars or do pillars and then the retreat. And it's a pretty powerful combination. So if you are interested in doing this kind of work, getting into community, and really, we're talking about changing your life for the better, especially in the realm of dating and relationships. But I would say that it's not just dating and relationships that all of these skills, in particular, if you're a parent, if you are a father, and you want to pass on good patterns to your kids, that's another compelling reason to do the work. And one thing that I think we've seen repeatedly is how much shifts for men around parenting and around fatherhood in doing the work and how much they are then what. What they're gifting to their kids. So if you are interested in our work, you can always go to Evolutionary Men Apply. And then if you are interested in the retreat, you can also go to Evolutionary Men Retreat. Is that the right link?

Jason Lange: That's correct.

Melanie Curtin: Okay, great. And as always, if you have any feedback or questions, you can get me@dearmen podcastmail.com and any last nuggets of wisdom before we wrap up.

Jason Lange: It's. It's. It's definitely fun to build together. And, you know, when you get that feeling of, hey, we both have resource and capacity and are on the same team and we can create something together, right? It's. It's. It's really fun. And, you know, the, the magic sauce below. All this, I, I think we've talked about before is when we're already coming to the relationship resourced. I can take care of myself. You can take care of yourself. It shifts from me taking care of you and you taking care of me to, hey, I got abundance to offer you. You got abundance to offer to me. And that feels great. It feels like really generative and abundant in a way. Right. It's not so much a scarcity thing, and that's hard to do when someone's in more that project phase. So you want to. You want to find someone who's in that resourced and ready to create phase. Yes.

Melanie Curtin: And the other thing that really came up for me strongly around this was I just want to reflect how incredibly brave it is how courageous it is for men to do this work. You know, I'm. I just. I can't say it enough like it's. It's brave to ask for help, it's brave to get support, it's brave to show up. You know, I was struck last year at the retreat, you know, the opening circle. We all go. We all go around, and I was just struck by how incredibly brave it was for most of the men in that room to even be in that room to show up, to actually come to the retreat or show up to this work. I. Yeah, I just want to say I see you. I see how brave that is. I see how much courage that takes, and I see how much it pays off. It's like. It's actually really, really worth it. But it's brave. It's. It's. It's a vulnerable thing. And we live in such a. Such an individualistic culture and such a harsh culture, really. That's the truth. We live in a pretty harsh culture, especially for men around vulnerability and all of this. That. I just. Yeah, I guess I just want to say I see you. I see how brave you are. And. And I want you to know, if you're out there listening and you're considering something like coming to the retreat, we will take care of you. We are going to take care of you. You will not be alone. You will not be left out. We are extremely, very intentional about inclusivity and belonging and generating a sense of belonging and bringing everyone in. So you will be taken care of. You will not be left out into the cold. You will be taken care of. We are very committed to that. So come join us.