All right, so I had a chance to sit down with Karen McMahon on her Journey Beyond Divorce Podcast, and we got into some real territory about why so many relationships hit the wall.
What struck me about this conversation is how much of it comes down to emotional immaturity in men. And I don't mean that as an insult, I mean it literally. Most of us were never taught how to be relational. We got a script: work hard, provide, be tough, keep your feelings to yourself. That worked for our grandfathers' generation, but it's not working anymore. I'm seeing so many men who poured everything into their careers, thinking that was love, only to have their partners say, "I don't even know who you are anymore."
We talked about what I call the man box, this conditioning that starts when we're boys. You fall down, scrape your knee, and you're told "you're tough, get up." Translation: what's happening in your body doesn't matter. Override it with your head. That pattern continues through school, through the workplace, until we're completely disconnected from what we're actually feeling. And if you can't feel what's happening inside you, you can't communicate it to your partner. That's where relationships start to fracture.
The thing is, this isn't about men being broken. It's about not having the training. Once you start building the capacity to actually feel what's in your body, name it, and share it, everything shifts. Your partner can finally meet you. The relationship becomes a place of resource and connection instead of just another source of stress.
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Jason Lange: Their relationship itself becomes one of the single biggest points of stress versus the kind of relational work I teach is. No, actually, this is supposed to be the place where we get resourced, co regulated, connected. So together we can stand in the world when it's going to throw tons at us no matter what.
Jason Lange: Yeah. So pumped to be here. Really excited, Karen. Thank you.
Host: Yeah. So we have this audience of men and women in these dysfunctional marriages heading into divorce, dealing with a lot of fear and overwhelm, having the same relationship in their divorce that they had in their marriage. And what I would love is for you to help bring some clarity to.
Jason Lange: To.
Host: And let's just start with emotionally unavailable men, men who enter marriages, and then there's this struggle that happens. There's an imbalance in the ability to feel and communicate and support. With all of your years in men's work, what do you find? How does this problem emerge?
Jason Lange: Yeah, I would Say, it's one of the real shifts that I think is happening culturally right now. I do tend to work with a lot of men who, there's a pocket of men who we were given the script, right? And so it's not always their fault necessarily. There's some responsibility once they see it, but they were given the script. Here's what you do. You go out, you marry someone young, you get a job, you work really hard in the job so you can provide for her and she can take care of the kids, right? And so I work with a lot of men who did that. That's what they did. They poured 20, 30 years into a career doing everything they can to try to provision at least financially for their family. But then, yeah, kids start to hit 15, 16, 17, start to move out. And then oftentimes the wife is like, we don't have a relationship. I haven't been in love with you for years. I don't even know who you are. You missed our kids childhood. They're growing up and I'm done, I'm out. And then he's often left, like, what I thought I was doing what I was supposed to do. And then often, yeah, it can be divorce, right? Or it can be a split up. Sometimes something can be recovered, but sometimes there's this. With guys I work with, there's just like a little too much debt. There's just too much time that has been missed to try to recover it, even if suddenly they're like, oh my God, no, I'm in. Let's do therapy, let's do all the things. It's like the window has just moved on.
Host: I want to just highlight this because I do think that there's the situation that's so confusing on both sides. The husband feels sideswiped, like by an 18 wheeler. What the heck happened? To your point, it's, I've been doing my job, I've been doing my division of labor as well as I can. And the woman who's equally confused and is like, haven't you heard me? I have said to those who could communicate, right? And there's a lot of bad communication that happens too, where it's more blame and shame than, hey, let's sit down and fix. And so all of this kind of dysfunction comes together. And for the man, what do you hear when someone comes to you? And it's, I'm surprised, I don't know what to do. How did this happen to me?
Jason Lange: Yeah, there's often quite a bit of confusion, devastation, depending on the Context of the relationship. Often a lot of rage and anger of that was not saying it's right again, but from their script and calculus, that was me showing up loving you. I didn't want to work 80 hours a week, but I wanted to give you and the kids the opportunity, you know, da, da, da, da, da, da. And so there can be a lot of anger there sometimes. It can be a lot of grief for a lot of men as well. When the. Usually under the anger, when they get to like, oh, wow, yeah, there's no coming back. What does this mean? Many guys I've worked with, right, they haven't dated in 30, 40 years sometimes. And there's just like fear of whoa to get back out there. And then usually by the time they get to me, there's some acknowledgment of, yeah, you know what? I wasn't there. I can feel it now. And I want to make sure I don't do that again. Right? What do I have to do differently in order to be able to show up more in a relationship? And that's a lot of the work I do with men is around seeing that script for what it is. And the challenge is for not everyone, but for a lot of our parents in previous generations, that was the deal. And I had grandparents that had a lot of tumult and kind of abuse and. But the thing was, when you get married, as long as this is happening, you stay together. That was kind of the script back then. And it just. It's changed. And I think that's the edge a lot of men are having to wake up to rather painfully that it's not enough to just do that anymore. We're actually, as men, we're being asked to show up as more in our families, in our relationships, and as fathers, too. Even I was reading something, it was some stat that it was like. I think they did a poll in like 1982, and it was like 3% of dads had ever changed a diaper.
Host: Wow.
Host: Right. And so what we end up with is a relationship or a marriage that rather than it being the oasis, the place to drop your shoulders and relax and know that someone has your back and it be a safe space, it's quite the opposite. And I think that it's so important to talk about why men have a harder time relating than women. I was raised by a single mom. I have two sisters. We were four girls in a house. And it was like, I always like to say, we had an emotional Crayola color box of 64 colors. And the guys seemed to have four. It's like we can talk about all these different shades. We're raised to chat with our girlfriends, to be vulnerable. We have this superpower that I don't even think we know we have. And then for some reason, and this is what I would like you to talk about, men don't. And it's. And then in my 15 years doing this. What I've noticed is then men are raised, they become adults, they don't have a skill set. And then they're. The women get so frustrated, they're blamed, they're shamed, they're judged because of the symptom of not having developed this. And so we have a rotten root here. Can we talk about what is it that our society is not raising emotionally intelligent, available, mature men, but they are women or more so.
Jason Lange: Yeah, it's a big story. And part of it. There's many levels to this, but even just at a certain biological level, there, there's. It even starts at. In that this whole idea of men are in competition with each other, right. Even in just the traditional mate selection process, right? Like a man can impregnate hundreds of women, but only one woman can carry his child at a time. She can only carry one child at a time. So there's like something special to that if you know you're wanting to reproduce. And that creates some societal pressure. And then just the. Where I think it really starts. And this has obviously changed. And this is a overgeneralization. But in a way, because of biology, men's bodies have traditionally been more disposable. Meaning it only takes two or three men to repopulate a village if you have 30, 40 women. Right. But it doesn't work the other way around. So in that sense, we've seen it in all the major world wars, right? If men go away and you lose a generation of men, you can still kind of come back from it pretty fast. But if you lose a generation of women.
Host: No, never heard that perspective before.
Host: Just listening to you. It's like the way women are raised is so completely different, where the vast majority of women are very tuned into their bodies and what's going on and their emotions and how they're feeling. And I would love for you as I'm listening to you, so, you know, a couple meets and there's this limerence, and so there's this sense that he is all there and all of his emotions. And then as you get married, you start having kids, and it's almost like it feels like a switch was turned off. But you're saying the switch was really never on. Can you just talk about what that is?
Jason Lange: Yeah, I think something we're taught again, when you Think about just some of the basic misconceptions about men and masculinity in our culture. One of the simplest definitions I heard that men are expected to conform to for this man box is masculinity. And manhood is invulnerability.
Host: Right?
Jason Lange: Like all the things masculinity and manhood is invulnerability. And we're here in the States and it is a strong romantic impulse and notion here. I kind of talk about it in terms of the Marlboro man, right? The rugged American cowboy, lives on the range, doesn't need anybody. He's tough as nails, just survives. He's a man of his word, yada, yada. You can, like, men, idealize that. And I work with men who the cesspool of the Internet. Sometimes you start posting some stuff, and it's not even that men champion that they're, like, proud of, oh, I don't need anyone. I am totally solo and alone. Because there's this idea that kind of toughness is the pinnacle, in a sense, and it's very, very damaging. It also plays out. The other kind of version of this I talk about is the myth of the lone wolf. Oh, this is the wolf who doesn't need a pack. He just survives on his own. There's like a pride men want to have around that. But then the reality is, even in nature, right, the lone wolf was kicked out of the pack and it will die faster, period. It will not survive as long in nature without its community. And then even with men, right, the research now is pretty overwhelming. Men who strongly identify with some of these kind of least healthy, classical masculine traits, they're twice as likely to commit suicide. So men who keep it all in try to pretend to be tough. They die faster. It's just simple. Like, whether it's heart disease, whether it's suicide, like, we die faster. It's not some theoretical thing. It has a massive impact. And so unwinding that is is part of the challenge of, okay, where does this come from? And how do we start to tell a new story, right, for how we can get connected and what it means to be a healthy man.
Host: It's almost as though we train men out of their humanity.
Jason Lange: Yes, 100% right.
Host: And like, be this, whatever you call this robot, this person who does X, Y and Z. But humanity is all about being plugged into our heart and our soul and our body. And so it's almost like there's this training out of that. And then you get into intimate relationship and you're blamed for being 100% right.
Jason Lange: And not to go totally off the deep end. We live in a highly militarized country and culture where that's exactly what the military does. Because if you're in your heart, you're not an effective soldier. Like, honestly. So there's reverberations of this stuff in our culture. And not to say the military is all bad. I know actually a lot of great, amazing men who have plenty of heart in the military. But there's these old tendencies that our system is letting go of. And that, like you said, the other thing with that kind of limerence phase and then the kids in the relationship phase. One thing I've learned the hard way is in my marriage and with my kids, if I'm not resourced, I fall back to parenting how I was parented. So the default becomes, this is what was done to me, so this is what I'm going to do to you. And so we. It's challenging when you start a family and in particularly intimate relationship, kind of talk about this as the threshold moment for any romantic relationship is when you meet. Yeah. You have all the hormones powering you that there's literally chemicals trying to get you together. And you have a high level of. A lot of the work I do is around polarity. Right. Around how the masculine part of us or the feminine part of us, which doesn't have to be correlated to male or female bodies, how those relate. But when you first meet someone, what you have is hormones and a lot of polarity and polarity. The way to think about that is just difference. Actually, we have a lot of difference. We're attracted to what's different from us. And all the time, most of the time, we tend to spend with each other early in relationship. The purpose of the time together is to put our attention on each other. We're going out on a date. On the date I'm not working, I'm not doing my laundry. I'm sitting with you. My attention is on you, your attention is on me. The whole point of us being in this space is to enjoy and be with each other. So you have a high amount of polarity. You have hormones, you have very intentional relational time. Over time, what happens that starts going down. Okay, now I'm spending more time at your house. Now I'm doing a little. Some work. Calls from your place in the morning. I'm not necessarily getting dressed up. Sometimes we're just watching Netflix together. Okay, now we're committed. We're in a closed container. Maybe we move in with each other, that's all going down. What starts to go up is what we call intimacy or sameness. We're becoming more one. Right. We're actually feeling more intimate. Our lives are intermingling more and more. We're getting more attached. And there's a threshold moment where those two things inverse, where suddenly we have more intimacy and attachment then we do polarity. And that is what I theorize is the end of the honeymoon phase where suddenly all of your attachment wounding from your childhood is going to start to replay out in the relationship. And where I stand, that's actually not a problem. One of the biggest shifts we can make is realize, oh, that's actually the primary function of intimate relationship. Growing old is it creates the conditions where we can re pattern all this attachment wounding we had as kids. As long as both partners are aware of it and willing to work on it. That's the key. Aware of it and willing to work on it. Host: Yeah, a hundred percent. And, Jason, I'm so excited to have met you and the other men in the big tent because for years now, my men will be like, hey, Karen, do you have any guys that you can introduce me to? It's like, they have no men. And it's not like they don't have friends. They're friends totally. And they're talking about the football stats and they're talking about golf and that whole, like, that's what happens. But even though they may have friends from college for decades, they're not safe. And so now they're going through this thing and they're like, do you have another guy who would be. And I've actually matched up my guys. And I want you to, I want to talk about one more thing, but before we're done, I want you to talk about your groups and how our male listeners can tap into a community that can really help them heal. I love everything you're saying. Jason, before we go there, please speak to my single moms I raised. My son just turned 29 last week. And I remember at one point he came to me and he's like, how the hell am I supposed to figure out how to be a man mom? And very dysfunctional relationship with dad. Dad. At one point he said to his father, thank you, you've shown me at least what not to do. And so for me as a single mom, I was reaching out to my brother in law. My son was a skateboarder. And I like spoke to the manager of the skateboarding facility and I was like, can I pay you to pay him so that he can be mentored? I was just so starving. I'm a girl. I was raised with a mom and two sisters. I need something that I don't have to give him. Talk to my single moms who are raising young boys and just they need something and they don't know where to go for it.
Jason Lange: Yeah, well, just first off, shout out to you for the awareness you brought there. Just my heart melts. You told me that story before and I was just like, wow, that is such a deep love. And shout out to all the moms who are doing such heavy lifting, trying to fulfill both roles and that there is an energetic cost to that that I really want to acknowledge. And that is most of the labor of that is falling on moms these days. That's just how it plays out. But that I think it starts with just acknowledging that, yeah, actually there's a lot of gifts I have to give my children. And it's different. It's just different. Right? Doesn't mean one's better than the other. It doesn't mean just because you're a female or male, you have to be certain ways. But there is a certain energy that boys being around other males has that it's a different way to relate hormonally in our bodies. There is a difference there. And so acknowledging that my hope is just also liberating moms from it. You're not doing a bad job, you're doing a kick ass job. And you just need some other resources on your team that are kind of more in the Space. And I think what you named is one cool thing I saw. I have to dig up the exact research study, but it blew my mind in that one of the differences in an interesting way between, like, male mentorship for boys and even female is it doesn't even have to be a super long term, forever thing, right? There's all these research studies around, like a single intervention, meaning an older, mature, caring man puts his attention on a young boy and just puts his attention on him. Hey, I care. What are you doing? Where do you want to go? Where are you stuck? Like, even just a couple of interactions like that can completely change the trajectory of a boy's life, let alone more persistent like you set up. But the idea is to get boys around other healthy older men, right? Back in the day, the way society was set up, we would spend time with uncles and neighbors and people in the shop, and you would learn the ways of being a man in terms of your culture or family or community. And a lot of that has been eradicated, which leaves boys, like, with this huge vacuum that right now is just being filled by just total awfulness on the Internet, truth be told. So getting boys mentorship, whether it's sports or martial arts or trades or crafts or just any passion, right? One thing you can do is a mom, is notice what lights up your kid and then try to get him in an environment with someone who can guide him through that, particularly a man, if possible. And that's like a huge gift, right? That's a huge gift. Most men and boys, we want to win, we want to do good, we want to grow and. But sometimes we don't know how to do it or where to start. And that's where mentorship and guidance is so important at a very individual level. Finding those opportunities like you did, and then we're just starting to see the openings of, okay, there is a vacuum here, and it is having massive consequences on our culture. So there's a. You and I met some people at this men's conference around rites of passage. Work is starting to come online again of, okay, where do I send my boy? Where can he literally just spend time with older men? And so we're starting to see a lot of rites of passage stuff like sacred sons, father, son things where fathers can go out and be with their sons on these kind of rites of passage and go deep. But really, whether it's an uncle, a friend, a co worker, someone who can just spend time with the young boy and give him a little guidance and presence is so key. I wish I had more like discrete resources. But it's an actual vacuum. Right. It's a vacuum. Or a friend's dad sometimes is a great place where sometimes other men can step in and just. Yeah, like send him out camping with us this weekend. And that can totally change the course. Whatever people's politics are aside, it was maybe just a week or two in California. They just created a whole kind of. I don't know, it's not an institute, but there's now a push for mentorship for young boys. So they literally put out the call to, if you are a man or a boy, it is time to step up and get involved. And here's some infrastructure and stuff to do this, because without it, we suffer and bad things happen. As a mom, there are starting to be men's work communities. And this. I think the biggest place this might. The biggest edge for this would be getting it into schools, is actually creating some spaces in schools where boys are already at. Where a teacher or a coach creates something like a men's group where boys can sit in circle with each other and be real and have that modeled by an older man that they actually admire. That's, I think, the key thing that is so missing. And I got really lucky. I was like 20, 25. And I remember I was in my first kind of men's work men's group weekend, and there was an older facilitator I ended up training with. But even before I knew I was going to train with him, I remember walking in the room and seeing him, feeling him, how he was interacting with people, how he led, how he interacted with his wife. And it sounds so ridiculous now, but I had the felt body experience of that's what I want to be when I grow up. And it wasn't what he was doing, it was how he was being. I was like, wow, that guy is settled. He's direct, he's firm, but he's quite gentle at the same time. And just being around him, I feel more relaxed. My nervous system feels more relaxed in his presence. And so that kind of kickstarted this. What is he? What did he do? How. And for me, that was that trajectory. But that transmission is so important for boys in particular. But I even also see it, Karen, with men. And some of the groups, like we said of a lot of men, just don't even know that it's possible, right when they actually see another man step into his grief, but not collapse in it. Not posture, but just like tears not flowing, but he's fucking there. He's right with the pain. And they're like, whoa, Nobody told me that was an option. That doesn't feel weak like you. Holy sh. You're strong. Yeah, I feel your courage. Or for the more nice guys, sometimes on the other end, when they see a man fully connected to his anger and rage, but he feels completely safe, they're like, whoa, I didn't know that was possible. All I ever had modeled for me was, was aggression. That was really dangerous and quite volatile. I didn't know that it was possible to hold both. And it's that kind of anger.
Host: I mean, safe anger.
Jason Lange: Yes.
Host: It sounds like an oxymoron, because one is not used to that. And you just described it. It's like to be able to be in the presence of someone who is really struggling with a lot of anger or frustration, but it's. It's controlled, it's composed, it's safe. That would. That in and of itself would change the world, wouldn't it?
Jason Lange: 100. Yeah, totally. And the hard thing I've earned. It's not hard, but I guess the sobering reality I've been coming more into contact with is it's really just one man at a time, one boy at a time. Like, it's a direct transmission that if you've never experienced it, you just don't know. But once you felt it, it's like, oh, okay, now there's a model of something for me to grow towards. And that's what this kind of mentorship in getting boys around, any kind of mature older man can start to do. And we're just. It's just starting. I just feel so much for moms out there who see the problem. But then it's like, where are the resources for this? And it's a place. I really think us men need to step up, become big brothers, get involved. You got a nephew. Like it matters. It really matters to reach out and make that connection and say, hey, I'm tracking you. Just, I see you, I'm tracking you in your life, and I care about where you're going. Where do you feel stuck? What do you need help with? That's often all us boys are aching for. It's just, oh, my God, someone's paying attention and tracking me and wants me to grow into my full potential as a man. And there's just a way it comes from. Comes through a male body differently than a female body. Like, again, they're not a replacement for each other. And a lot of women are actually pretty good at bringing as much of that energy as they can. But it does. It seems like it sometimes has an energetic cost in. In a way it doesn't sometimes to another man who's just like, yeah, come do this thing with me. And it's fun, and you get connected. And they're like. Some of the most memorable experiences we often have as boys is when we were allowed to hang out with the men. And it's like, whoa. Like, I'm with the adults. I remember those moments around the fire or camping or whatever that might be.
Host: You know, a funny story comes to mind. And then we're going to wrap up. I was teaching my son I can drive a stick shift. So I was like, yeah, I'll teach you how to drive. And he was like, you suck at this. Could you explain to me what's happening with the clutch and the. And I was like, no, you're going to feel with your feet, and if you just do this. He was so mad at me. I called my girlfriend. I was like, could your husband please take Chris out? He came back, like, two hours later, and he was like, I don't know what your problem was. I totally have it. And this guy was talking to him about the mechanics and whatever they were doing.
Jason Lange: Oh, that's so fun.
Host: It was such an incredibly different experience. And it was one of those moments where I was like, okay, he just needed a guy. I just think differently, I speak differently, I feel the clutch differently. And it changed everything for him. And he's like, I got it.
Jason Lange: I'm good.
Host: So funny. Thank you.
Jason Lange: Great story.
Host: You have so much brilliance to share. I think that this is going to just bless everyone who listens. How can our listeners find you? And I know you have a gift as well.
Jason Lange: Yeah, yeah, totally. So the best way, if you know any of this sparks, curiosity or interest, is you can go to my website, which is Evolutionary Men. So not dot com, but men. And I have a podcast on there, and I have a number of different ways to get involved, so to speak, particularly with men's groups. I have a whole range of. You just want to have an experience online. You want to do some deep inner shadow work with each other in person. You're trying to figure out the dating relationships thing in terms of your marriage or you're divorced. And okay, what, like you said, what, do I have responsibility over on my side that I can change? I have a men's group for that as well. And I do some live retreats and stuff because, yeah, there is just something so nourishing about us, particularly us Men going offline in some nature and just being with each other, it's like one of the greatest medicines I've experienced and I've seen really change things for men. So all that information is on there. And if you're just not sure where to start, like often again, sometimes there's this intuition as men, like, yeah, I don't know, what do I need? You can book a free call with me. So, yeah, if you go to Evolutionary Men slash talk, I'll hop on the phone for you an hour and just get a lay of the land of your life. And I'm honestly so passionate in particular about the men's group thing. Karen, you don't even have to work with me. If I'm very well resourced now in the communities in the world of. I can at least point you to something that's close to you geographically or that's in alignment with just your interests or values or where you're at. Because to me that's. This is the biggest needle I can help move right now is getting men connected to other men.
Host: Yeah, I may have you on my bat line and just a quick call whenever this need comes up. What is the name of your podcast?
Jason Lange: Same thing, Evolutionary Men.
Host: Okay, just because we've got podcast listeners and we're doing a pod swap, everyone, you will hear me on Jason's podcast as well. So check out the website, everything, all of these links are in the show notes. Book that discovery call if that's a good place for you to start. And mom to if you've got, if you've got emerging adults or teen sons or what have you that you're looking for something for Jason. Thank you so much for coming and joining us and chatting with me and the listener. This has been brilliant. So helpful.
Jason Lange: Yeah, so great to be here. Thank you for the work you do in supporting so many men.
Host: Thank you. And we'll be back again real soon. You guys have a great day. Thanks for joining us on the Journey Beyond Divorce podcast. I hope you found guidance and encouragement to help you along your journey. If you like my podcast, please take a minute to subscribe and leave a review on itunes. You can also Visit us at jbd divorcesupport.com where our team of coaches support both men and women through our one on one coaching group programs, online courses and free resources. Stay tuned for our next episode and I'll talk to you soon.
