How to Repair After a Fight (with Jayson Gaddis)

Jason Lange: All right, and welcome back. So I'm very excited today to welcome Jayson Gaddis, author of Getting to Zero: How to Work Through Conflict in Your High-Stakes Relationships, and founder of The Relationship School. Jayson has led men's groups since 2006, trained as a gestalt therapist, and today coaches married, high performing men who refuse to choose between their work and their family. He also hosts The Jayson Gaddis Podcast and writes Men and the Work. Jayson, my man. Welcome to Evolutionary Men.

Jayson Gaddis: Thank you, Jason. Great to see you and great to be here.

Jason Lange: Yeah, I've been so excited to talk to you. We bumped into each other for the first time in a while a couple months ago at a men's conference. And yeah, man, you've been on quite a trajectory since I first knew you. And you have a fantastic book, Getting to Zero. Like we said, I want to talk about today. And you just swim in all the waters I care about most deeply and certainly are someone I look up to in terms of how I see you living your life. So I'm very excited to get into it today and wanted to start with this great thing in your book. You open with this beautiful, honest introduction of yourself of, when I get triggered, I'll blame you, and then shut down for days, which kind of, you know, fantastically transparent. What brought you to introducing yourself?

Jayson Gaddis: That honestly, I have no idea. I just, I like learning from people who are honest and transparent, and that helps me learn, you know, and I just, you know, as you know, in Boulder, there's a lot of spiritual bypassing and this belief that we can be on a summit and, like, we're done with our problems kind of thing. And I have a real allergic reaction to that. So I just assume be a human that's just like everybody else, up and down here and there, in and out, you know, good days, bad days.

Jason Lange: And so, you know, I kind of want to start with that main hook in your book for guys who haven't read it yet. And I'll link to the book and everything later. What does getting to zero mean? And what does repair? Like, why is that so important?

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah, I mean, essentially, the. As you probably found out there, the book is really about repair. It's about how do we get back to zero, which is get. How do we get back to a good place after we've had a conflict or a snag, a disagreement, a silent period, how do we reconnect and feel good again together? And that's what I've been helping people with and trying to help myself with for 20 something years. And so I think that's the most important conversation in a long term relationship because we're inevitably going to get disconnected, have fights, disagree about things, go into our childhood, strategies and patterns of when we get activated. So let's find ways to get back connected again.

Jason Lange: I love the simplicity of that and in my mind how that ties to what you were talking about of, you know, kind of some of the more bolder energy sometimes of certainly what I've seen in certain couples and relationships of oh my God, you know, I love this person. And then now I'm getting triggered. They must not be the one. Right. Because at first it was so easy, but now we're getting into fights all the time and da, da, da, da. And so, okay, I'm going to move on to the next person. I'm going to move on to the next person and we'll talk a little bit about that here. But that to me, certainly in my relationship and now what I work with a lot of men on is, well, what you actually want to look for is who can do that with you, who actually has the capacity to get back to zero and is willing to lean into that because guess what, it's going to keep coming at you no matter where you go. And yeah. So obviously, you know, I work a lot with men and I know you do. And a big part of, I think the challenges of us men often starts with how we're raised. And for you, you know, you talk about this, I think it was like sixth grade fight, you got in and dad asked you this question. Did you throw the first punch? What did that mean to you? And what did you learn about being a man even that far back that influenced you in your growth and development?

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah. Don't show emotions, don't show weakness. Be tough, act tough, put on a front, don't be vulnerable. You know, strike first before someone can kind of strike your vulnerabilities. Defend yourself. Yeah, be an aggressor, Be an asshole, because that will get you. He didn't say this, but the message I learned over time was because all of that will get you belonging, status, connection with other boys, connection with other men. You will face less rejection in your life if you do it this way. And it's kind of true.

Jason Lange: Yeah. In our default kind of masculine culture for sure, unfortunately that often it takes a little while to discover the downside for certain guys as they get into a little, a little trouble later in life. And there's kind of another side of that. I wanted to ask about as well, because to me, it's maybe the other direction a lot of men often get stuck in. And you talk about early on kind of learning to keep your feelings in and inviting the back of your hand to stop crying. Yeah. What was happening for you in that? And, you know, how do you think that has influenced your journey as a man?

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah, well, it. It was huge. Like, it. It was so. You know, my dad was an awesome guy and very compromised emotionally, and so that played out in his parenting with me. And, you know, he was also subordinating to a construct about how to be a man, and he just pass it down to me, you know.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Jayson Gaddis: Because what else are you going to expect? Unless he's looking in the mirror, which he wasn't doing. And it's. You know, I think for the first few decades of my life, it was fine because I was participating in boy culture and man culture very by the book. You know, acting tough, being good at sports, not showing any weakness, keeping women kind of at an arm's length, making fun of women, you know, joining a fraternity, like, doing the bro thing. And that was what I needed to do. You know, it's like. And then I really got in so much pain that. In terms of the part of your question that's like, how did that influence me? Well, it. It got me, again, a certain level of belonging and connection and status and all the things. But I felt pretty empty inside, pretty alone. Had lots of male friends, so I felt alone in those relationships because we weren't getting real. And so, yeah, when I finally was in so much pain that I got on the personal growth path, then I was like, holy shit, there's another download about how to be a man, how to be an adult person available. And I ate it up. I was ready. I was psyched to do that. And then, of course, I have a son who's 17, and so I've done my best to not send him that message that my dad sent me so that there's a lot more room for him to be emotional or have needs or be vulnerable or, you know, all that. Be sensitive and all the other things. Yeah.

Jason Lange: And be human.

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah, exactly.

Jason Lange: Yeah. I want to just double click and really highlight what you shared there about, like. I think this is one of the biggest misconceptions I often come across now in terms of the space of men and men's loneliness and stuff, is that there's often the stereotype of, well, yeah, it's a man who's alone in his bedroom on the Computer, particularly even these days, you know, but oftentimes the guys that come to me feeling the most lonely, they do have friends. Yeah, right, right. Like, this is the thing. Like, you know, one of my clients recently, he was like, yeah, you know, I just went on. Every year I go on a ski trip with my buddies I've known since fourth grade. And, you know, he's in the midst of a pretty painful breakup and divorce. And not one of them. Well, one guy asked me one sentence about it, and then no one else asked the whole weekend because we just don't talk about that. And so I came home. Came home from spending four days with men feeling more lonely than ever. And I think it's that. It's the type of connection. Right. That I think is us men, I think, are so particularly susceptible to now. And that is programmed into us in a lot of ways because of that default culture of what it means, particularly when we're young and entering our kind of socialized year, of what it takes to fit in and all the downstream consequences of that.

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah, I mean, that's a really good example. I also was working with a client recently, very similar story. And it's not only like, well, I did tell my friends about my breakup. This guy went through a nasty breakup, and they didn't really say anything. So the other thing is. So there's not a lot of permission to, number one, say something and be honest about what's actually going on in your marriage or your addictions or your porn habits or whatever. There's just not a lot of room for that. And so people keep it inside. And then when a guy finally does take a risk and share it, the rest of the guys have no idea what to do with it. And it's like, ah, dude, you'll get through it, you know, and then we move on and let's have another beer. And that's. That kind of perpetuates this holding it in thing because no one's handling the guy who's opening up very well. So why would I share if I'm not going to get any contact and none of these guys know what to do with it.

Jason Lange: Yeah, that's such a beautiful, painful. I was working with a guy in one of my groups recently, and he was talking about all this in terms of just that phrase, walk it off. I just walk it off. And it's. It just strikes me that's another version of that. Oh, you'll be fine. Just walk. Just walk it off, man. You'll get over her. It's all good. And it's like, yeah, that's not super helpful when I'm in pain. Like, it doesn't actually bring anything to me in that sense. And it's just maybe a more subtle version of that message I think so many boys particularly get when they're young, through adolescence, and even into adulthood. And then. Yeah. So to kind of tie in the pattern in relationships of, well, okay, you know, maybe it's not feeling great now, so I'm going to go find someone else. And then here's this thing again. You talk about when you were 29 in a string of relationships that were kind of ending in similar ways, and this whole it's not you, it's me thing turned out to be true. What was the insight you had at that age that really started to wake something up in you?

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah, I mean, you spoke to it earlier when you were kind of using that hypothetical example of someone who's rinse and repeat the same, you know, oh, I don't like this. I'm getting kind of activated. I want it to be easy, like the honeymoon stage, and so I'll just go find a new person. That was me. I was like, dude, you talking about me? Because I did that for about 10 years with seven different women. And I can't believe I did it that long. I mean, some people do it for decades, but I was, you know, took me about 10 years and I finally breaking up with the. The. This last woman I dated before I moved to Boulder, realizing as you. As you shared there that I was the common denominator and all those things. And it hit me like a ton of bricks. And I was like, oh, my God, if that's true, then I can do something about that because I. I was kind of doing this outside in thing. Well, she's not enough, and there's something kind of wrong with her and she's not quite right and. Which was all a ruse for me, protecting myself and not taking a risk and being vulnerable. So, yeah, when I saw that, whoa, maybe I'm the problem, then I started getting some.

Jason Lange: Yeah, I love not only how you spoke about taking responsibility for that, but I think sometimes something not all men I work with realize, but there's actually quite a bit of empowerment in that. Right. Of like, oh, wait, maybe we actually have some levers here. I have control over. So it's not just the same hamster wheel over and over and over.

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah, Yeah. I mean, if we can. This is so important in relationship work and when we're in conflict with Someone is being able to take responsibility. It's very freeing. Even though to the ego. It's also kind of humbling and not that fun. And to sort of admit that we have a part and look at it closely and some of us are over self blamers. So those people struggle because they're like, I already do take all this responsibility and it's always my fault. We're not talking about that. Of course. We're talking about just the kind of clean. I did the thing. I raised my voice, I hurt your feelings. I forgot about you. That goes a long way. It's one of the things that softens the other person the most. If we're with a willing person, you know. Absolutely.

Jason Lange: Certainly a journey I've been on having to. As a. You could talk to my wife. My initial responses were I would lawyer up. To actually become a lawyer is to defend my position and explain why what she was feeling was wrong. Like, well, if you just understood my intent and I didn't mean to. Da da da, da da. So you shouldn't be feeling that. That never worked, to say the least. Does not lead to a very open partner versus the stepping in. I kind of sometimes joke when it hit me was like, well, if I was a kid and you and I were playing and accidentally hit you in the head with a bat and it wasn't intentional, you still want to hear me say like, dude, I'm sorry I hit you in the head even if I didn't mean it right. It's like it still hurts. The impact is still the same. When I had that wake up, it was like, oh, yeah, okay. I can own that. It wasn't my intent. And I really get. I hurt you. And like, yeah, I really get raising my voice or shutting down, which is more my kind of thing. Really left you abandoned.

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah, yeah. I always tell guys to just delete. That wasn't my intention. From your hard drive. Just delete it permanently. It's going to go nowhere.

Jason Lange: Doesn't really do anything. That's great. And then. Yeah. So another thing, you know, we were talking a little bit just before we hopped on here. I work with a lot of nice guys I'm close to Dr. Glover, trained with him. A lot of his guys come to me and you have something. A frame here I think is really kind of hitting the nail on the head of you described like a trade. Every kid makes true self for belonging. And you were kind of talking about that inside yourself a little bit. Can you explain that a little more? And then in particular how have you seen that show up in grown men's relationships?

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah, totally. Yeah. When we're boys. Obviously this is true for girls too. But I'll just kind of put it in the boy language. We get the message pretty fast about what's okay and what's not okay in the family system. And we. What's okay are things that create the least amount of pain in the family and the most amount of connection. And so we double down on those behaviors and I call them strategies and we start to prune away the behaviors that create pain or distance or rejection or more upset in the system. And so for me, as an example, emotions as we talked about were hard for my dad to swallow. And even my mom, I was kind of too sensitive, too emotional, too much there. So I was like, oh, okay, this is. Yeah, let's just shut her down. You know, let's put that part of us away in exchange for behaviors that they prefer which are perform in sports, get decent grades, be funny, be charming, make me feel good as a mom. That was my mom. My dad was like, you know, suck it up and just win, you know, at whatever sports and try hard and work hard. And so I was like, oh, okay, I gotta do that. Right. But the cost was my true self, as I say, like the true feelings and the true experience underneath was totally missed. And it wasn't until this is the beauty of relationship pain and failures later in life is starts to bring up the same thing and it turns into this one manifestation is the nice guy syndrome where if I learn to make my mom feel good, that was kind of download on my mom's side was definitely a nice, more nice guy, take care of her, look after her, the expense of myself. And so nice guys, you know, later in life it becomes like a caretaker. And there's a lot of therapists and coaches of course that are like this because they, they're good at looking after others. Yeah. You know, but at often at the expense of their own well being. And. Yeah. And so that, that's what's cool about relationship is it becomes a path to see that about yourself. And often those relationships don't work that well if I'm just in my nice guy strategy and she's in her mean girl strategy or whatever, which usually there's some kind of lock and key like that. And then it plays into our attachment dynamics as well. You know, that's just hard. Yeah. But long term relationship can slowly correct it. Meaning it's an opportunity to be yourself and be authentically you. Because the nice guy will also withhold and avoid conflict. Withhold truth and avoid conflict because, oh, I don't want to rock the boat over there, because when I did that as a kid, it didn't go so well. So I'll just kind of minimize. Ah, it's not that big of a deal. And I won't bring it up because she's going to get upset and then I'm upset. And, you know, this turns into the whole birth of conflict avoidance. And you can't. I always say it's very, very hard to have a really good relationship if you're not bringing what you're actually thinking and feeling to the table. That's honest.

Jason Lange: Yeah. That transparency in realness is what often creates connection. Right. When it's the real thing. And then, you know, certainly my life and often a common strategy was, well, I'm going to figure out what you need to hear to keep the peace. But then there's no real connection because it's, it's, it's made up. It's like fake. It's not authentic.

Jayson Gaddis: Right. Yeah.

Jason Lange: So just a lot of people choose to date, fortunately.

Jayson Gaddis: Totally. Yeah. I'll just put my best foot forward and I won't show you who I really am, you know.

Jason Lange: Yeah.

Jayson Gaddis: But to tweak the thing you said of like, it creates connection. It does. It creates a kind of connection. It's like a compromised connection that I'm leaving parts of myself behind. So it's, it's always going to be limited. Usually if we're really willing to bring the truth out, it creates conflict initially first, but then that becomes the doorway to a deeper, more authentic connection for us. But I can only get there if I speak up and share my real feelings. And we're not talking about dumping and judging and being a complete jerk. We always want to be sensitive to impact. Of course, we should care about the other person's feelings when we're speaking the truth. But no matter how careful or skillful we're being, the other person is likely going to still get upset. Because a lot of people want, you know, I want to be able to speak truth without you getting upset. It's like, good luck with that.

Jason Lange: Yeah. So true. Yeah, that's. I've heard that. And just the way you said it really connected a dot for me of like, oh, yeah, that's just not going to happen. You know, like, you gotta be willing to rest in that and, you know, simultaneously, certainly in, in. In my marriage. That's exactly what makes it worth it to stay in with her, though, is we can go there with each other and stay in enough connection. Right. That it's like, okay, you want something, I want something. There's conflict here, but we're not disconnecting, which was how the majority of my life was in most of my relationships before that. When I found someone who could hang in that, like, oh, this is uncomfortable space, I was like, holy shit, I've never had this before. This is special, right?

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah. Nice. Exactly. Yeah. Not everybody wants to hang in that space, and that's okay.

Jason Lange: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then kind of related to this, you talk about the two shitty choices, right? Which are kind of a frame for maybe what you just talked about of kind of. Certainly for nice guys, like speaking up and then fearing the worst kind of outcome or the betraying oneself to kind of keep the peace or the connection. What in your mind is like choice C and what does it take to actually bring it forward?

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah, exactly. So speak up. The fear is, I'm going to lose relationship. That's choice A. Choice B is don't say anything, betray myself, be quiet, business as usual. And people don't, you know, people get. Just stuck there, really stuck there. And they. They default always, pretty much to choice B. And so how do we get out of that is. Yeah, choice C, which is like, stands for conflict. You gotta be willing to go through the fire. And ultimately it's choice C is choice A, which is, I'm gonna speak up and I'm gonna do it the best I can. And we're gonna have an agreement. Like, this is where we zoom way out as a couple or as friends, where it's like, conflict is okay. And we agree that we want each other's truth. We want you to. We want both people in this relationship to be able to freely express themselves because we both. That sucked for us in our childhood, usually. So we got kind of punished or blamed or something. We're not going to do that here. We want, you know, we agree it's okay. And we also agree that if it starts to get crunchy and not okay, we can say, can we pause and come back to this later? We can hire an expert to come in and facilitate it for us. We can ask the person to slow down. You know, we can do a lot of things, but we will. We also agree that we will stay in it. No one's going to threaten the relationship. We're going to attend to it in a timely manner. Like 24 hours. We're gonna, you know, so there's some agreements in other words. Right. That can. Or act as guardrails, sort of rules of engagement that keep us tethered. Because when we're emotional and we're really triggered, we. We. We kind of have this part of us that's like all bets are off. Like. And then that's where we do and say stupid things because we're just like, well, I'm emotional and you're not caring about me, and I'm just, you know, I'm. I don't know if I can do this anymore. And that makes it worse, usually.

Jason Lange: Yeah. Yeah. Then you have double work to do. Here's the original incident, and then there's the way you just engaged with that incident. And suddenly there's two things to repair. And I just want to make this lightning clear for guys, because I think you named it. But that practice of zooming out and setting those agreements, you do that when you're not in the fight. Right. So you talk about that when you're both kind of online in a rational place at a time where there is a little bit of receptivity to each other, so that when you're in that kind of fire, there's something you can both grab onto in terms of structure.

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah, really well said. Exactly.

Jason Lange: And that's certainly, certainly something I never had modeled for me in my family of, like, having those kinds of conversations. And it's like, oh, yeah, like, if you don't do it, it doesn't happen. You know, you have to actually like. And I think, particularly as men, like, no, I'm going to schedule a time and we're going to sit down and we're going to actually talk about this because if we don't, then we keep getting into these fires and, you know, that's not the time to be building the agreement, so to speak. And yeah, so this kind of comes into the next thing I was curious about. So, you know, let's say there's a rupture in relationship and I do need to apologize, but maybe I'm a guy who apologizes all the time and is a little bit more like that man you were talking about. This was certainly me, maybe kind of. So I would say I'd kind of fall on the sword of shame. Would just basically end any conversation with my wife. Like, just, oh, I'm such a piece of shit. You're right. It's a just like, done. And then there was. There was actually no room, nowhere to go for me to receive any feedback for anything to happen. What makes, like, a useful apology and you know, how do you work with clients around this?

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah. I think the apology should be the period at the end of the sentence if you're going to apologize. Not every nervous system needs an apology. You have to know your partner here. For example, I never need my wife to say, I'm sorry. It doesn't do much for my nervous system, but she really likes. I'm sorry. It does a lot for her nervous system. So we. We do that in our marriage. Right. Best we can. But it has. There's a few things that have to happen before, in my experience. Right. Because here's. I'll just give you the example. You and I got into a snag. Jason, hey. Hey, man, I'm sorry. Okay? That's what most people do. Or you could say, hey, Jason, I just want to take responsibility for the fact that I was late for our meeting. I can imagine the impact on you was that you felt kind of frustrated and annoyed because your time is valuable. And it was almost like I kind of disrespected your time. And, man, I'm just feeling the heaviness of that. And I feel some shame about how I treated you there, and I'm really sorry. Like, which one do you like better, you know, A or B? Most people prefer, like, the whole thing before, Right?

Jason Lange: Yeah, totally. My whole nervous system just relaxed. Even theoretically getting that from me, I was like, oh, wow. I feel so respected and, like, seen and known.

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah.

Jason Lange: That's super powerful. And you just named again. I think that's a great example of taking the time to actually discover what does my partner's nervous system actually respond to? Like, yeah, does she need the apology? Do I need the apology? Like, let's talk about that instead of just, I don't know, habitually falling into what we're supposed to do. Right. Oh, my God, I heard her. I'm supposed to apologize, et cetera, but actually, like, find out what. What's the thing that feels really good.

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah. And if I was recommending a kind of a. The framework is there's three things I did there with Jason that I want to underscore in case people are wondering. It's. The first thing I did was own. Right. So ownership's step one. Second thing I did was validate your feelings. Makes sense. You felt frustrated. Right. I said something like, I can imagine you felt that because we didn't actually have a dialogue, a conversation, but I'm guessing you would have expressed some frustration. Right. So let's say you did. I'd say, yeah, it makes Sense you're frustrated. So those three words that makes sense are validation. And then the third thing was ownership. Validation. No, no, sorry. I would reflect back. So these can be done in any step. Okay. But there's three things reflecting back. The essence of what the person is upset about, getting their world a little bit, validating the feelings and owning. So it's just three things. No matter how you slice them up, this will help immensely with repair. And it moves the needle big time. And most people, most nervous systems like those three things.

Jason Lange: That's a great simple three legged stool there. Yeah, nice three legged stool put on my refrigerator. Just, hey, honey, this is my cheat sheet. But it works. And so this is kind of hot off the press. I'll link to this in the show notes. But you recently did this episode, Men who Do Therapy But Their Situation Doesn't Change. And it strikes me you're pretty unique in the space of people. I talk about both having a therapeutic background and a men's work background. Sometimes it's kind of like either or in a lot of guys I work with. Yeah, just kind of give us the headline, you know, I'll refer people to the full episode. But who's that man? And yeah, what have you seen? Like what's missing for him?

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah, I'm thinking of this guy, this client, former client now, who does therapy, but his life doesn't change. And so I'm always like, okay, is that there's two possibilities, three possibilities here. User error, practitioner error, or both. Right. A combo. And often people don't know what they're looking for. And so we just have to name that. Sometimes you're, you've hired a person that's not that helpful. They don't know what the fuck they're doing. They may have a ton of credentials and training, but they actually have no fucking clue how to help you change your life and move forward. That is often going on with some of these guys. Um, another subset of guys are guys who go to the good person. They find actually a decent practitioner. But they, they're deep down inside. They still have an entitled victim in there that actually doesn't want to change. And my work with those guys are to get that guy to own that. And it's hard to do because there's a lot of self protection around that ego structure and a lot of denial and defense. So it's a little tricky on how do we confront really the strategy of, no, no, I'm truly a victim here and it's other people's fault or it's my wife's fault or whatever. And those guys have a really hard time changing anything. Those people can stay in therapy for years and get nowhere. Right. And then there's the combo. Sometimes it's not only is the guy kind of victimy, but the practitioner's not helping. They're just collecting a paycheck.

Jason Lange: Sure, yeah. Yeah, totally. I've had clients mostly report that, particularly in couples work. Honest to God. Of like, I'm not a therapist. My wife and I, we work with couples sometimes. We're kind of the wild west in that sense. But they'll come to us and they'll be like, oh, my God, you're telling us things to do. Like, you're giving us things, like a structure to move through. We've been seeing this therapist for three years, and we would basically sit down and we would just complain, like, and they didn't know how to guide us. And it just strikes me that's a little bit maybe that other side. And then if one of the partners is in that place, well, it's all her fault. You got the double whammy, and nothing is going to change at all.

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah. Yeah. And men. Men get. I think I. I'm going to kind of generalize and stereotype a little bit. I do think men get a little burned in couples therapy sometimes because often they're going to a female couples therapist and because there's just way more of them on the menu and they don't know, and maybe their wife has made the choice and they're like, okay, fine, I'll go. But they tend to feel ganged up on. Even if that's not occurring right. Even if it's a really good, balanced person, they still might feel that way. Two women against me. Yeah. But again, a good practitioner would really does it. Even a female or male practitioner can really help a man feel totally welcome and safe and like, dude, I got your back here. This is a. You know, both of you have a part, and we're going to deal with it. So there's. Yeah. And there's just a lot of. Again, this is my. One of my rants. But there's just a lot of bad therapy and bad couples therapy, and same with coaching, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jason Lange: The. The credentials on either side don't necessarily represent the capacity to actually meet anyone in. In deep contact. Um, so then, yeah, kind of extended from this around the other part we were just talking about. You know, you've been around men's groups for a long time. I mean, since I was Barely like putting my toe in. You were. You were already in that water back. Back in the day when we first met. And I'm very pro therapy. You know, I send guys therapy all the time because it's different. It's just a different. It's like working out a different muscle in a different way. It's like cross training. But what have you. Yeah. Having been around men's groups for a long time and been in the therapeutic world, what do you see? And maybe in your own personal life, what have you gotten from other men that you can't or you see men get from other men that they don't necessarily get from a partner or a therapist?

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah. That's such a good question. And I'm curious what you would say too, because I don't. My first answer is, I don't know, but I know for a fact it's critical, it seems. Yeah, there's something about men helping and challenging and supporting other men, especially in a group context. That is therapy just can't touch it somehow. And so you're like the. The combo approach as kind of what you're alluding to is kind of the best. It's like, have your individual practitioner and be in a men's group. And maybe you could say group therapy could also be a replacement for a men's group, if, again, it's done really well. But group therapy, like, there's something about having women not in the space and not welcome. And it's like, guys are like, oh, sweet. They feel maybe freer to talk about their wives. If we're talking heterosexual men, mostly, there's more. There's more freedom, you know, to talk about porn and just all the things they deal with with their, quote, female partner that they're struggling with. And I don't know, it's kind of a stumper for me. The question. I've thought about it a lot, but for some reason, I don't have a great answer right now. I'm curious what you would say, how

Jason Lange: I often put it. I mean, you could probably flesh this out even more than me, is the direction of attunement. So the beautiful thing about a therapeutic relationship, if it's done well, is the purpose of that container, is the attunement is going one way. The therapist is attuning to me. I am not asking you, Jason, my therapist, how is your week? Are you doing okay? Like, you know, I'm not having to attune to you.

Jayson Gaddis: It's.

Jason Lange: I'm actually paying for the one direction where the Attention is just on me. And for, you know, so many of us who didn't necessarily have attuned caregivers, that's deeply healing.

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah.

Jason Lange: It's just, oh, my God. I get to just be.

Jayson Gaddis: It's all about me.

Jason Lange: Wow.

Jayson Gaddis: I'm getting support.

Jason Lange: It's all about me. And we get to develop this kind of consistent, safe relationship over time. And then in a men's group, it goes both ways. Sometimes I'm attuning to you, and sometimes you're attuning to me. And it's about a peer connection. Right. Where it's not just one person's here and one person's here. In a sense, there's a kind of relationality to it. And many guys I've worked with, two things happen. On the one hand, they're like, oh, my fucking God, it's so nice to hear about other men's pain and realize I'm not the only one who's having trouble with my wife or my finances. Like, I thought I was the only one who was uniquely fucked up and struggling in life. Because everyone else on Instagram looks so fucking great. Right. Just the exhale of, wow. Even this guy who I projected all over has it all figured out. Cause he has all this money, he's in pain just like me. It'd be different pain, and that's relieving. And also, many guys have come into my groups and they're just relieved. Swear to God, sometimes for, you know, 10, 15, 20 minutes, if we're putting the attention on someone else to not be lost in their own shit, it's just actually liberating to be focused on someone else. Right. It's just like, yeah, my life's, you know, going up, but it's just so nice to be here for you tonight. Right?

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah.

Jason Lange: And there's just something about that kind of peer, I don't know, concoction or what. What I would. I don't know what I call that, but that's seems to be different. And, you know, I often quote, there was this research study, it was like a year ago, I think, in Canada, that really shocked me because it poked a lot of my preconceptions about men and suicide, where they tracked men who attempted suicide. And it was something like actually over half had actually reached out for some kind of mental health support.

Jayson Gaddis: Hmm.

Jason Lange: But what they got back clearly didn't hit something that was going on inside of them. And I don't know what that is, but my conjecture is it's the thing that can happen in A peer group of men that you're not alone. We're, we're all in this, we're all struggling. You know, I've seen many times men who have the very tender share of, you know, they're not necessarily actually suicidal, but they've had an ideation or two and they admit it like, yeah, there's been a time in my life I just, part of me just wanted to check out. And one of the most powerful medicines I've seen is when there's a man standing right next to him and he's just like, yeah, man, I've been there, I get it. And just, just to hand around him, like I've been there and just the. Oh my God, that happens in that, that I guess could happen in a therapeutic relationship. But there's just something different about the peer version.

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah, I agree. I like everything you said. I want to underscore that last point, which you said a few different ways of. There, there is something about I'm not alone and I've been there that can't actually a therapist kind of one on one relationship can't even touch. So the group ends up doing a lot of the work for a man. It's not even the facilitator, right?

Jason Lange: Yes.

Jayson Gaddis: So the facilitator like. And there is a distinction between a peer led men's group versus a facilitated men's bias experienced facilitator. But even still in both of those, the group does a lot of the work.

Jason Lange: Yeah. And last thing, I guess I'll just share that I think is part of the secret sauce too. I'm sure you see it is the, so the, the, the kind of viral nature of vulnerability. Right. So it's like a kind of, maybe it's a new group kind of come in, everybody's defended. One man is the man who says, you know what, fuck that, I'm coming forward. Here's where I'm in pain, here's what I'm actually feeling. Here's what happened to me. Here's where I'm struggling, here's where I doubt. And then suddenly another man's like, well, fuck if Jason's gonna be that brave, well, I can share about my thing too. And then he steps in and then another man steps in and then it like creates this kind of momentum that I know for me was actually a lot harder to do in my one on one therapeutic relationships initially because I was just kind of very sophisticated in being vulnerable enough to, you know, kind of perform vulnerability for my therapist initially. And then Groups really like brought me in in a different way.

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah, agreed. Cool.

Jason Lange: And okay, so one last section and then we'll get you out of here on time, man. You had this great thing of kind of repair at home, kind of going back to that now. And I actually think it connects to men's group, at least in my life. The most resourced person goes first. Talk about that a little bit and what that might ask of a man in a marriage.

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah, interestingly, my wife and I just talked about this. We just recorded a podcast on this on our couples podcast. But yeah, so that is. I actually said it differently before I wrote the book, which was the most mature person goes first. And that didn't go well

Jason Lange: because then

Jayson Gaddis: it's like, I'm more mature than you, so I'm going to go first. Another way to put down your fucking bar, partner. I'm like, that's oops. I can't believe I said that. People bought it. Anyway, so I moved it to most resourced, which is kind of a partial truth here, where it is just true that when we're in a marriage and someone, you know, we did something stupid and we're in a snag now, someone's got to initiate a repair. And it's often people don't. They're not jumping up and down, raising their hand to go because we're all kind of walled up and self protective and in our childhood pattern. And it's scary and it's like I feel kind of, you know, like, mean. And I'm like, no, you go first. And you know, all that stuff happens. So it is true that whoever is more available to just be in the front part of their brain and just take a risk and say, hey, I just want to start this process. I miss you. And there's so many different ways to start. That person should go, right? And people, I've noticed over the years that often the more anxiously attached person is that person, because the more avoidant partner, we're talking about attachment now, they tend to withdraw pretty hard. And it just isn't in their nervous system because they grew up in a family where it was better to go away. There was no chance of repair. And so it was like, I'm going to disappear and withdraw and just get out of here. That person is up against more. And so it might be that it's the same person every single time going first and saying, hey, can we talk about this? Can we, you know, reconnect here? And that person, if they're not careful, will resent the other person because they'll feel. It'll feel unfair. They'll be like, well, you need to initiate, too. And I think that's just a complete waste of energy. If the two of you just get to know each other's nervous systems and agree, like, look, you're just better at this. Like, I really appreciate that you're kind of the one pulling us out of the swamp. And there's genuine appreciation, there's acknowledgement of the differences of how we're wired. That can really work for a couple where actually the person who's just always initiating that's just their jam for the team. This is my role on the team. And there's no resentment here and no bitterness and no unfairness. It's just what we both agree this kind of works for us. It's problematic when people are expecting it to be mutual and fair and. 50, 50, and I let it last time.

Jason Lange: You need to.

Jayson Gaddis: It's like, don't ask your partner to do something that is, like, almost impossible for them to do. You know, that's kind of dishonoring who they are. So this is where getting to know each other and our histories and what we're up against in ourselves really matters. And so now I would just say there is no kind of rule of thumb. It's just whatever works for the two of you should be the way forward.

Jason Lange: I love that. Just the practicality of what's actually going to bring you back to zero contact, because that's where you both actually want to be is back into some kind of connection and harmony. And if one person that comes a little easier to, what a beautiful thing to offer generously of like, yeah, okay, I got this part because I'm sure in other areas of relationship you've got other stuff, right? And this is the. The kind of maturing of. I'm. I'm happy to give this because, you know, in a way, it is some giving to get, too, because I want to get back to connection, Right? So, yeah, why wait instead of just stewing on, well, you know, yeah, I've been there. I've certainly been that guy. Okay, man. And yeah, last question. You know, this might sound familiar to you, but if you could speak to a thousand high school boys about love and conflict, what would you tell them?

Jayson Gaddis: Well, I would say you are as capable of anyone to develop deep, meaningful emotional connection, and you can have that. Don't buy into the stereotypes about your gender that boys and men are just not wired this way or can't do this. It's just not their thing. Don't buy it. You know, I just heard something from Richard Reeves that I pissed me off on Instagram. And he's a kind of a men's work guy. Like, although it's more from the sociological perspective. He was just telling this guest or this host, like, no, men don't. We just. We bond by shoulder to shoulder. We don't stare into each other's eyes over a matcha latte. I was like, I do.

Jason Lange: Totally.

Jayson Gaddis: What are you talking about? Stop perpetuating these stereotypes because you can't. You know, that's bs. So I would just tell those boys, like, whatever you hear about what boys can and can't do in relationship. Nope. It's just like, you are capable, as capable of girls and women of deep connection. It's in your wiring. It's in your DNA. It goes back hundreds of thousands of years, actually, to look after families and children and babies. You are as relational. You have just been trained to not be potent.

Jason Lange: Double click, all of that. I love that and love that. Yeah, you're speaking to that because, yeah, I have some of my things with some of the guys representing out there in the mainstream right now where it's like, well, yeah, sometimes you're confusing a cultural thing with maybe just where you haven't gone yet, because I know plenty of men who can go there lovingly, willingly, without much resistance, and I know. I fucking love it. So imagine there's other men that do, too. Well, amazing. Jayson, thank you so much for being here and your time. Where can people keep up with you and find out more about your work and getting to zero?

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah, thanks, man. JaysonGaddis.com, that's Jayson with a Y. Probably the best place. It's the same on Instagram or LinkedIn. And my wife and I do a couples podcast for the couples of the group that are listening that I think is really good.

Jason Lange: So, yeah, fantastic. I'll put all this in the show notes. And once again, thank you so much, man, for trailblazing in this space and being one of the men I look up to in terms of how you're living your life and leading family and being very present in all of it. It's really inspiring. Thank you much, man.

Jayson Gaddis: Yeah, thanks, Jason. And thanks for how you hold the interview here. You know, it's really sweet to know how much you've dug into the book and you obviously care a lot about your guests and the men you work with and. Yeah, thanks.

Jason Lange: Yeah, my pleasure. All right, till next time, everybody.