As someone who's coached hundreds of men through relationship patterns, I knew I had to get on Dear Men with Melanie Curtin to address something I see destroying good men every single day: the unconscious addiction to being needed. This isn't just about "nice guys" or rescuing tendencies. It's about why so many evolved, capable men keep finding themselves in relationships where they're doing all the emotional labor, constantly fixing, constantly proving their worth through what they can provide rather than who they are.
What I shared from my own experience is how messed up this can be. In my earlier relationships, I realized I was actually choosing less stable partners because it felt safer. If they needed me, they wouldn't leave me. That's codependency in action. I needed them to need me, and it created this false sense of polarity and security.
We dug into how this ties to nice guy patterns, external validation, and lack of boundaries. When you're constantly overextending for a partner who can't reciprocate, resentment builds like crazy. You feel used, angry, stuck. And here's the thing, a lot of us aren't even asking for what we need because we're terrified our partner can't handle it or will leave if we're not constantly winning and doing.
The shift for me came when I got resourced with other men, learned to set real boundaries, and started attracting partners who could actually meet me. My wife Violet is a badass who handles herself. We both bring abundance to the relationship instead of me just pulling the cart the whole time. That creates real polarity and freedom.
I talked about how men's groups and community are like shock absorbers for your life. When you're getting validation and support from men who know your patterns, you stop needing to find that security through rescuing partners. Your discernment goes way up.
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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?
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.
