Redefining Manhood in Relationships | with Bryan Reeves

Michael Unbroken: Bryan Reeves. Welcome to the show, brother. You are a relationship coach and the author of choose her every day or leave her. And I'm very excited about this conversation. There is not enough discussion around, especially men's journey into intimacy, vulnerability, openness, and love, especially after trauma and chaos and bad relationships and bullshit. And so brother, I am super excited for today.

Bryan Reeves: Thanks, man. Michael, I'm glad to be here. That is a fact. Men, we don't get enough support in this domain and the support that we tend to do get tends to, we feel beat up by a lot. So I'm excited for this conversation as well, man. Thank you for having me.

Michael Unbroken: And of course, and we're going to go deep into that today. And I'll say this as preface to like women should a hundred percent listen to this episode as well, because you're going to get a little bit of insider trading into the mind of men. And if you know anything like I do, which is not a lot, Bryan, it's that we're not mind readers. And so, this is going to be powerful.

Bryan Reeves: So, I think I want to say also to women listening that. You're going to also hear a conversation between two men who are leaning into relationship, who lean into relationship, who don't, I know there's a lot of, there's a vein in our culture of the hyper independent man, the hyper masculine man, the dominating conquering, man who leads and expects women to just submit to his leadership. That's not the conversation that we're having today. I think we're going to have a far more nuanced, mature, and again, relational use that word, relational conversation about how do you lean into relationship with another human? So, I think this is going to be valuable for everybody listening.

Michael Unbroken: important. Let's start at the beginning. What was childhood like for Bryan?

Bryan Reeves: Yeah, of divorce, so parents split when I was four. So right off the bat my imprint of relationship is you can't trust it. You can't trust it. Dad left when I was four and I didn't really get to know him until my twenties. But they both got married and had long term, I guess now they've been married 40 years, each of them. Got married when I was 10, I'm 50. But this was my imprint. In fact, I wrote a blog before blogging was a thing. Michael, I was in the Air Force. I was in the military and I was already interested in relationships and in human behavior. I had gotten a master's degree in human relations from the University of Oklahoma. Like I wanted to study this stuff, but I'm in the military and I think it was 1999. There was no blogosphere. There was just email basically. And I, but I wrote an email to all of my like colleagues friends, and it was my first blog and it was the first title. I'm sorry. The first sentence of that blog was seven divorces for parents Seven divorces. This is why I don't believe in marriage So I was probably 25 at the time, right? And didn't believe in marriage. And I, and this is his first essay, this first blog, I laid out all my ideas and all my thoughts. And now, here I am 25, 26 years later I'm about to turn 50. I'm married for eight years. What a turnaround, now I've written a book called choose her every day or leave her. I am all in on not just commitment, but devotion. Relationship, but boy, I had to overcome a lot of obstacles to get there. A lot of programming as a boy as a boy in this culture, right? Taught to not feel my feelings taught to. Nobody really ever tending to my feelings, checking in with how I'm feeling. Look, I was bullied. I had a cousin and friends commit suicide multiple times, multiple suicides in my youth. I lost dogs, that I cared for and nobody really ever tended. To me, nobody really ever checked in. How are you feeling? A child of divorce, I don't remember getting any kind of therapy or mental health support around that. And then I went into a fraternity in college went into the military. I was in ROTC in college, went into active-duty air force. Like just everything was teaching me to sever my head from my body. All right. Terry real the psychologist, Terry real has this beautiful observation and tragic observation about the original wound of, for men in our culture is disconnection, right? That's the original wound for men is disconnection. We're taught, again, I, if you're watching this on video, you're seeing me, basically chop my head off with my hands because that's what I learned to just be in my head and not feel my body. And the military just doubled down on that, what culture does naturally what culture does in its through movies, pop culture through just the conversations guys have in bars on the playing field on the playground right? Don't be a girl. Don't be a don't be a sissy. Don't be a wussy, and we say far worse things than those. Again, just disconnection. That's the original wound for men. Disconnection. And I was the epitome of that. And, spat out of the military at 26 years old, completely unable to feel anything. And from that place, I tried to do intimate relationships with women and it was just one disaster after the next.

Michael Unbroken: Predictable. Say the least, which is like not a thing that I'm saying to be dismissive or nonchalant, but it's dude, you're, you talk about devotion being so important and yet from the youngest age and People don't understand this. When you look at the research from Dr. Folletti and the California center for disease control from the mid-nineties, this thing called the adverse childhood experiences survey divorce is considered an adverse childhood experience. Think about what that did for you. That created this window in this block of love's not real. Relationships don't matter. I'm assuming you probably had a A-guilt within your own mind about what did I do, right? And then suddenly when you're thrust into both boyhood, teenage dumb, if that's even a word, and then into your 20s, it's like that is just like consummate reinforcement. Now, dude, I could not imagine. Being a child right now and you've got red pill on the Internet. You've got chaos in the media. We are so divisive and divided when it comes to love relationships, dating and intimacy. You have a bunch of narratives that are not necessarily the correct narratives being spewed out into the world. And we wonder why everything's a fucking mess right now. If I rewind you a little bit. And I sit you back in that space of childhood because my thesis is this to get to where you want to go, you have to understand how you got to where you are. And so in rewinding and sitting you back in this moment of childhood and witnessing this divorce and then eventually writing this title, what did you really take away as a boy from witnessing that divorce happen? What was the thing that probably more so than anything felt embedded in you?

Bryan Reeves: I'm all alone in this world. Nobody really has my back, right? That's the story that I took from a young age. I've got to find my own way. My dad. wasn't there anymore to show me my way into manhood. And by the way, a lot of boys that grow up with fathers, also their fathers don't really show them the way into manhood or they show them the way into a corrupted manhood a Mount, a manhood identified by, shallow pursuits of money or just comfort or women or distraction. But that's, that was the message that I got. I'm alone in the world. Nobody has my back. I can't trust other, I can't trust older men. Women are great, but I'm not a woman, so I don't really know. I don't know how to be. I don't know what I'm supposed to be. There was a paralysis in a sense. The two models of manhood that I did grow up with through the elder men in my life was the one was the weak, impotent, pushover guy with no spine. And on the other extreme, you had the dominating tyrant, fear mongerer. Those were the two extremes. I think a lot of men grow up with one of those two or both examples. Like you're either a man by dominating everyone and everything around you, or you're the nice guy push over spineless

Michael Unbroken: Right.

Bryan Reeves: weakling. And boy, what a false choice that is. But that's the choice that can you relate to that, Michael?

Michael Unbroken: Oh, entirely. And what I think about in that is my, I'll add a third measure, which is the worthless man. The guy who's the dumb dad on television, the Homer Simpson the guy who is basically bringing no value to himself or society. And for me growing up, the thing that I witnessed most was probably more lean towards that dominant man, because my measures for manhood as a child became, hip hop stars, basketball players, football players. And so I chased money and women. And I was aggressive about it and I was very successful. And yet everything in my life was a disaster except for money and women. And you're like, okay, what kind of measurement is that? And so as a boy, and then you take this path of the military route. You're looking at this and this thing in front of you that now exponentially and compoundingly increases the understanding that you were developing into being a man, right? Were there parts of yourself that you were fighting about emotions, about intimacy, about vulnerability? And I'm asking this question because I remember these times where, for example, I was with someone for seven years. And people who listen to this podcast one time will know more about me than she knew for seven years. And I was always fighting vulnerability. And so I'm wondering if what was the narrative in your own head?

Bryan Reeves: Yeah. I wouldn't say I was fighting vulnerability. I would say that I was completely disconnected from it. just, I didn't even know, had you asked me. Are you being vulnerable or do you know what vulnerability is? I would have said, what are you talking about? I don't know. I don't understand what the question likewise, one of the things that I do, so I lead a men's groups. It's part of my work today. And one of the first things that we always do when we start a session is we do a check in right? 30 seconds. What are you feeling in your body, feeling calm, I'm feeling anxious, I'm feeling tired, I'm feeling hungry, I'm feeling bloated, I'm feeling whatever. Most men can't do that at first, right? Most men want to tell you the why. They may be feeling something, what am I feeling? Shit, I'm, man, I had a really rough day at work today and gosh, my boss is such a jerk and man, ​I had coffee this morning, so I'm wired. We're living in our from the neck up. And that was just me. That's just the world I was immersed in. I didn't know another way. And again, military training. I think just being a boy playing sports even, no pain, no gain. We're taught to ignore what the body is telling us in favor of the outcome. So I am I resisting something not really not consciously it's oh, it's so suppressed It's there's I don't even know what you're talking about. What am I? What do you mean? I'm resisting something I can't even it's like you're speaking another language, right? And I think a lot of men Maybe that's changing these days with the internet and I don't I'm not sure How true that is, but that was again, that was my teens, twenties, even a lot of my thirties until, and it was relationships with women that started to really wake me up to this as a thing it, that started to really reveal to me, okay, I am not checked into my own body. I'm clearly missing something important here. I am living so either in my head or so externally, not invulnerability, like basically projecting everything that is going on inside of me. I'm not looking at, I'm not tending to instead. It's so much easier to say you're doing this. You're the bad actor, you woman, or for me also my dad, you dad, you're the bad actor, you're the, it's your fault. That things aren't working on this side of the fence. It's just a, it's a, it's just chaos, man. It's not a good place. It's not a good foundation for relationship for healthy relationship.

Michael Unbroken: Yeah. If you're not exposed to any foundation for a healthy relationship, that's like, how can you, and the question I asked myself for years was like, how can I be a man if I've never had a measurement for manhood? And that was one of the big elements of my personal journey where it was like, dude, I was realizing I'm not getting it from books. I'm not getting it from podcasts. I'm literally going to pay other men to teach me how to be a man. And a lot of…

Bryan Reeves: And you did, but you did have a measure of manhood, Michael. You did. It's just, it was the measure of money and women.

Michael Unbroken: Not the measure of manhood. When the, and that's such a great point when the transition took place, I was like, fuck dude, you really just ruined another relationship that very similarly to you, which is where we're going to go right here. But it was me sitting literally in a room that was empty with no furniture, nothing to be shown for a seven-year relationship. And being like, you did it again. really just did this again. And what I came to realize, like in this moment of this reflection, was it was me taking this huge level of responsibility for my decisions, but also recognizing, like I was just playing into the pattern and that's not excusable, by the way, I'm not making excuses for the lying and the cheating and the stealing and the bullshit and the all of the late nights with strangers and hookups and the hiding the truth and not Telling about my vulnerable self and the experiences, not making excuses for that. But what I'm saying is I played into that and that relationship and looking at this woman who was willing to give me everything and I'm a guy in my 20s at the point, you know was well over a decade ago I'm in my 20s. I'm abandoned. I have no parents. I was homeless as a kid doing drugs at 12, I figured out a lot of things in life. But the one thing I never let in was a intimate relationship And everything was not even arm's length pole vault length, right? It was like you stay down there. And so I'm wondering like, what was that for you? What was the breaking point, right? Cause you don't become a dating relationships coach, writing blogs, writing books, coaching people. You don't do this without that rock bottom.

Bryan Reeves: No, over the years, you said something that I think is really important to highlight that I think is a hallmark of maturity in a man. It's the ability to hold paradox of sorts to hold two opposites to hold, to be empathic and compassionate for what men do. For the programming that we get as children for the bad stories we're taught about what it means to be a man, or at least the unhelpful ones, the, all of that to hold space for that to hold that gently and with understanding and simultaneously acknowledge that we've made a lot of mistakes, that we've hurt people, that through our actions, we have done damage. And that we can take, we can own that. I think a lot of people struggle in this very tension. You see it across society from even just, our country trying to make sense of the history of slavery as if we, as if atoning for a bad past means we have to say I'm a shitty person in the present. Doesn't mean that at all. And I see that again in relationships. It's like I can own my part. I can own where I have acted irresponsibly, where I have hurt people and simultaneously I can have compassion for the reasons. For the story, for the programs, for the, the journey that I went on that brought me to that place. I think that is a sign of real maturity is being able to hold both. Now we can be powerful actors in our lives, right? Now we can begin to make repairs. We can begin to make mistakes, man. And I think this was, to come back to your question. Similarly, I kept getting feedback from the women that I was in relationship with that I am missing something profound. And I, but they couldn't really tell me what it was. All that they could do was give me, ‘cause they were just as equally unskillful in relationship as I was. The feedback that I would often just get is, Oh man, it was cruel sometimes. You're not a man. You're just a boy. You don't. You don't know what love is. Of course, I was saying the same thing back to them. You don't know what love is, just, I just got a, I got a lot of anger and resentment and, I had this one experience with a girlfriend. I was studying the Dowdy Ching. This ancient spiritual text I was studying at a school diving into that material. And I was very much immersed in, in a spiritual path, you could say. And I thought, I'm learning so much about oneness and how connected we are. And, the master does nothing yet leaves nothing undone. That's one of the great things about it. Lines from the dowdy ching that I love, and I'm like in the meantime though I'm in so much chaos with my girlfriend, And I but I think I'm figuring some shit out, Michael, because I'm on my spiritual path, man I'm a spiritual warrior for love, that's the I'm wearing of sorts. I remember we got into a fight one day. I had this beautiful book of the Dowdy Ching. It had this soft cover of a bamboo forest. And it was gorgeous, man. She took that book. She held it right in front of me while we were fighting and she ripped the cover. Shredded it right in front of my face, could you man what a great lesson that was for me that and this happened over and over in different moments and with different flavors and but it was the it doesn't matter what I think I know if I can't be present in the moment, if I can't skillfully communicate, if I can't attune to what is happening for this person in front of me, my knowledge ain't good for nothing, right? And that was the bottom that I had to keep hitting over and over. I think I know I got stuff figured out. Shit, why am I in front of a woman who's so angry with me again and I can't, and I don't know what to do about it? Being confronted with that over and over and over just finally led me to the place of, okay, it's time to take another approach. It's time to start really looking inside and figuring out what's my role in all this.

Michael Unbroken: Exactly. I was literally the words out of my mouth were like, yeah, you're the problem. And that's what's so interesting about this journey because, and this is relational on both sides of the coin, by the way, both men and women. I see this constantly. It's pointing the finger instead of pointing the thumb and you look at it and you're like, Hold on. You are in your fifth bad relationship, bad subjectively to whatever is bad for you. And it's okay, there's a common denominator here and I promise you it's not everybody else. One or two. Okay. Sure. Maybe not. Don't know. And then people go your picker is off. I'm like, you're this concept drives me nuts by the way. And I'm like, it's not a picking issue, it is an emotional home issue. It is a detachment issue. It is a fear of vulnerability of connection of truth of honesty issue. It's an issue of like, when are you going to start doing the work? And here's what I think, which is really fascinating is that I would argue because I'm intimate relationships require a tremendous amount of both honesty, truth, compassion, love, grace, all of the kind words that we could add here and they don't necessarily need force, right? On the occasion they do, we got to kick each other in the ass. I think that's necessary. But generally speaking, when you look at the way that women navigate the world, typically they are less forceful and yet as men were bulldozers, dude, I break shit all the time just by accident. I'm like, cause I'm giant. I'm a six foot four to 20. I'd break. I broke a glass this morning and I was like, okay, wait a second. I, you can't approach a relationship like this. And so, I'm curious, like in your study of self, ‘cause I think so much of this in the beginning is self-reflective. I was like, why as a man, am I struggling so much with intimacy? And. And what I came to realize is, there was no intimacy in my childhood. No, no hugging no I love you's, no comfort. It was just constant pain. And when I put those two together, I had an aha moment. And so I'm wondering for you, and what you see now working with men, like, why do men struggle so much in intimate relationships?

Bryan Reeves: Yeah. Great question. I'll come back to what Terry real said about the original wound in men in our culture is disconnection. If I can't feel my own body, if I can't feel my feelings, if I don't really know what's going on inside of me, if I'm not connected to that, how the heck am I going to be able to be present for what's going on with my partner? If I'm living in my stories of what I think is going on in my conclusions and my certainties and all I'm going to do is hear her experience. I'm, heterosexually speaking, I'm going to hit I'll hear my partner's experience. I'm going to hear their feedback, whether it's their upset, frustrations, we'd like to use this word complaints, whatever. I'm only going to hear that through my, through the filter of my stories. So I'm living in a fantasy land endlessly. I know intimacy doesn't happen in a fantasy land. There's this beautiful definition of intimacy that one of my teachers gave to me, Steve James intimacy is feeling what is there to be felt and seeing what is there to be seen is a beautiful and profound and simple definition of intimacy and notice there's nothing mystical about it. There's, people will talk about intimacy is into me. I see and all that. And yeah, that's fine. That's fun, I get it. And I'm in, it's like a intimacy is a mirror. It's a way of seeing myself through the expression of another. Sure. But just yeah. Feeling what is there to be felt being that. That calls us into presence that calls us into being attuned to this moment, not to my stories about this moment, not to the fantasies that I'm living in about what I think should be happening in this moment or why I'm pissed off that something isn't happening that I wish was at whatever, but rather just tuning in to this moment that is intimacy. And we men don't know how to do that. We don't know how to do it with ourselves. We don't know how, and we certainly don't know how to do it overwhelmingly with our partners. We're until we learn that skill and the way that I tend to approach it is just starting with self, right? As I said, like the check ins, what am I feeling in this moment? Oh, I'm noticing I'm a little shortness of breath. Ooh I'm, my hands are feeling sweaty. I'm feeling I'm feeling excitement. I'm feeling anxiousness. Like, all of a sudden all, there's all this stuff going on. When you get ten guys in a room and you do this check in and you start to, and men start to learn how to check in and check into their bodies. Man, we're carrying everything. You go through a room of men and there's anxiety. Calm, fatigue, frustration, resentment anger joy, all of it. And oftentimes, Michael, it's all in just one guy has all of those things going on right now there's a whole aliveness that starts to that this man starts to wake up to, and as he's waking up to this aliveness in himself, now he's able to start also seeing it in his partner as a man is able to start embracing his own sadness. His own anger, his own frustration as he's starting to feel it, see it, allow it to be there rather than what we tend to want to do is, Oh, I feel something. Get it out of me. I'm feeling angry. I do something to get it out of me. Punch somebody, kick something, break something, go jerk off to porn, whatever. Just, I don't want to feel this. Again, it's not a conscious thought, but that's our, that is our, that's our program. Get it out of me as quickly as possible. I don't want to feel this. And so, once we start to learn to allow those things, just be a part of our experience, holy moly, that opens up a whole new world of what we can now be within the person we're choosing to be in daily relationship with a whole new world of possibility opens.

Michael Unbroken: I would have to imagine that one of the difficulties in that willingness to be open is reconciling a really inherent truth about the human experience. You still might get hurt. And I think we are so unbelievably avoidant of that, where we will do anything. And that's what it was for me. And this is full transparency. I kept people not even just intimate relationships with women, but friendships at such a long distance away from me because of all of the hurt. And we talk about this emotional home and this space in which we grow and what we come from. And if we're taught these protective mechanisms that then inherently become autonomic to shut down, to not be honest, to not tell the truth, to not share when we are in pain, when we are sad, when this or that, and that will transfer over into everything in life and what it really is. And I don't think people understand this. They're disconnection in my opinion. And this is why I'm having you here. ‘cause I want your opinion, my opinion that the disconnection and intimate relationships in adulthood comes because a, you've been taught to be disconnected since childhood and be the idea of connection sparks fear. And the number one thing we want to do as human beings is survive. And when fear comes into play in intimacy, we revert back to what it is that we know in our human biology to survive by any means and surviving by any means I need to keep you so far away from me. And then what happens is we believe that connection Is sex, is trauma dumping, is sharing our negativity with each other, and we don't understand that's not connection. What are we getting wrong about? First, am I anywhere in the ballpark on that? And then secondly, what are we getting wrong about connection?

Bryan Reeves: I think you're right on the money in so many ways, man. It's, so I've been with my partner, we're coming up on nine years and she and I, we've talked about this, but I didn't, I don't think I fully trusted her presence until two years ago and I spent the first seven years of our life together, not fully trusting in the relationship, not fully trusting in the connection, to your point, part of me, she used to make these jokes early in our relationship that she was going to die long before I did. And it was, she was just joking, she's going to die in her forties or something like this. And it was a kind of a joke. I didn't like it, and I asked her after she did that a number of times, I said, baby, you got to stop doing that because that actually does trigger a very deep fear in me, not even a fear, like a knowing that I can't trust in your presence, that you're going to leave me. And it was just through humor that that, twang to that cord inside of me. And I'm a guy, I study this stuff. I teach this stuff. I write about this stuff. I, my ideal, my the ideal that I live into is devotion in relationship and took me seven years with an amazing woman who never gave me any reason, not really to doubt in her presence and her love and her, all of that. Yeah, the stakes are so high in committed relationship. They're so high. And so fear, this is something, so much of what I do. So, when I work with couples, so much of what I'm doing is helping them create, and they never think about this, but I'm helping them create safety with each other safety. Few couples really think about that word because most of us just default to, especially men, we tend to default to look, I'm not beating her. Nobody's cheating on anybody. Some guys even think even if I am cheating, it's not, I'm not doing anything that makes her unsafe. But the point is nobody really thinks in terms of creating safety with each other and especially men don't really get to talk about feeling safe in the relationship. We're just expected to feel safe because we're men. We're stronger, typically bigger like we're the danger here, not her. That's not true at all. Maybe from a physical violence standpoint, it tends to be true. But from an emotional perspective, no, it's not. Men feel incredibly unsafe regularly in relationships. I'll often do this exercise where, When I'm working with a couple, I'll have them, I'll put them into a conversation about a, about an argument or a disagreement that they've had in the last month. And it won't be, level 10 nuclear argument, some level four, level five, argument about loading the dishwasher or something like that.

Michael Unbroken: And I'll have about the dishwasher.

Bryan Reeves: It's never about the dishwasher and I'll have them though, before we start, I'll say, okay, how safe do you feel with each other right now? Silently give yourselves a number one to 10 and typically they'll say, yeah, I'm, seven or eight. Okay, great. Seven or eight. When I asked him to share. They're at a level of a seven or eight of safety in the moment. Okay, great. Begin the conversation. It doesn't matter who starts, okay. One person. They just say one sentence, Michael, and I'll stop them, okay. Now, how safe do you feel with each other? Grade yourselves one to 10 dude, every time it only takes one sentence, that number crashes from a seven or an eight to a one or a two. Because they know this is not going to go well danger threat. Our primal brain, our lizard brain, the amygdala, the part of us that is that is survival oriented. The ancient part of us is asking every single second one question. Am I safe right now or am I not safe? We're sitting here doing this podcast. If all of a sudden someone burst through the door with a gun, like my brain has got to be checking in everything cool, okay. Nobody's outside. No threat here. No threat there. Like we're not conscious of it, but that's happening. It's happening with my wife too. Every single second. What is her tone of voice communicating to me? What is my tone of voice communicating to her? Am I on her side or am all of a sudden that I've just put my dukes up, energetically not physically necessarily, but just energetically. Did I just take an adversarial stance? Did I just become her critical father, for example, or her, dominating mother? This isn't my wife's parents, but just as an example, right? Did I what position did I just take? That in this moment is communicating. I'm not on her side. Like those are the questions that we need to learn how to ask each other you ask another question. What did what do we get wrong about connection? So, this is this is always a fun answer for me because I think it illuminates the setup that we men live So most of us men tend to think as long as the bills are paid the house ain't on fire Don't have to call a lawyer or the cops, nobody's starving bleeding dying in the living room. We're good We got no problems. What do you mean? You don't feel connected to me. What does that even mean? We don't have any problems. Why are you so upset? Why are you not just throwing your body at me and giving in happy right? Functionally, we're great connection has nothing to do with function, connection has nothing to do with function.

Michael Unbroken: Which is why women initiate 80 percent of divorce.

Bryan Reeves: Correct. I've worked with so many guys whose wives gave them either that ultimatum or they delivered the paperwork who had no idea it was coming. They had no idea it was coming because functionally were great. What do you mean? What? What do you mean? You don't feel connected to me? You don't what? Out of left field. So yeah we and now to take it just that final step. So what does it mean to then connect? This is, I think, as a, as an inquiry that every couple needs to live in daily. What does it mean to connect? In my relationship, my wife is more the, every relationship, one person tends to be a little more attuned to the state of connection of the relationship, right? What, or at least one person maybe is more checked in to that experience. And in my relationship, it's my wife, not that I checked out of it. I can tell when we're not connected, but she can usually tell a lot quicker than I can, she, she's usually the canary in the coal mine saying, Hey, we haven't, I haven't really felt connected with you for a week or so. Oh, for me, that's Oh, okay, got it. All right. What do we need to do to come back into connection? What ritual are we not working at? That helps us stay connected on a daily basis, really, right? So no couple is going to feel connected every day, but when you have daily rituals or consistent rituals, daily, weekly, monthly rituals of connection, at least you're creating a reality where you've at least both feel more connect, or as I should say, you feel connected on more days than you don't. And every couple has to find their own way with that.

Michael Unbroken: Yeah. That's such a great point. What's so fascinating to me about this conversation is that connection is individual, right? Because I'm sure the way that I connect intimately when dating or in a relationship is probably different than the next guy. And one of the hard parts about that is you've got to be willing to put that out there. And in one of the things, and I wrote this question, it wasn't initially on my questions, but I want to go into this cause. You sparked something that changed my life forever. I felt that the idea that I could ever voice to a woman and maybe safety wouldn't have been my word initially, but like I, if I were to voice anything in my scope of what I would consider a vulnerability, I would feel weak, and because of that. I tended to always be the functionally strong guy, right? I got it. Don't worry about it. You're not going to ever see me cry. I got my men over here to talk about my things and what I realized in this journey for the vast majority of women, at least the ones that I've been with over the course of my life, is that. Connection is sometimes just holding space for each other and just having the hard conversation and doing the check in thing and letting go of the fear of weakness because you're this is where the conundrum of masculine and feminine energy really comes into play because you're as a, and this is my opinion as a man, I'm going to have to be in my masculine energy. 80 percent of the time, maybe even 85, but I'm also going to have to be able to tap into that other resource as well. And know that dichotomy exists because without that, then you're again, what I was referring to earlier, you're the bull in the China shop. And so when I would be in these relationships and women would tell me, I'm not connected to you. My thing would be like, I just paid for dinner. Again, I, the one who fixed the car, I'm the one who did this thing over here. I'm doing the things like, what do you want from me? Here's the problem. Here's the problem though, Bryan, because I'd say, what do you want from me? And they'd be like, I want to talk to you. I'm like, what are you talking.

Bryan Reeves: We are talking. We're doing the thing.

Michael Unbroken: Let's go into this. I think this is so important. How do we, as men break this feeling of weakness? To have connection.

Bryan Reeves: Yeah. That's a great question. I teach vulnerability as a superpower, not as a weakness, as a fricking superpower. Real vulnerability because what real vulnerability is the way that the language I use, and this is like one of the agreements that we, that when I have, when I put a group of men together, we stand for this agreement that we are willing to reveal what is hidden to bridge connection. In the end, that's vulnerability is the willingness to reveal what is hidden for the sake of bridging connection. Now it may or may not, true vulnerability is detached from an outcome. Otherwise it's just marketing. If I'm being vulnerable to get a certain outcome.

Michael Unbroken: That's just a great point.

Bryan Reeves: Right? True vulnerability is, you said something earlier that again, it's one of the cornerstones of, I think of healthy relationship work is it is the willingness to be hurt. I don't encourage anyone to be genuinely vulnerable with someone that you can't trust to hold your vulnerability. And maybe you have to get hurt by someone one time to realize, oh, okay, they can't hold my vulnerability. I'm not gonna go back there to that person with what's really going on for me. Got it. We're gonna have limits on our relationship, but in an intimate relationship, the couple that is not having the hard conversations, that is not practicing. Consistent vulnerability, not just, they were Voldemort with each other once five years ago and everything's great that's not a real thing, but the couple who is, a couple who is not practicing consistent vulnerability is a couple that is going to be chronically disconnected. And couples can stay like that for decades. I've worked with couples that didn't start doing the work until they were married 40 plus years, but boy, what a thing to untangle when you haven't been having the hard conversations for 40 plus years. Vulnerability is a superpower. Vulnerability is the is, and again, it is a skill, I'm, it's not vomiting, whatever I Think is in my brain onto the table just because that I want to be vulnerable. That's not vulnerability, that's just vomiting thoughts, right? Real vulnerability requires again, the practice of attuning. What is happening here? Sometimes real vulnerability just sounds you know what? I'm really angry right now. I'm really fricking angry right now.

Michael Unbroken: Right.

Bryan Reeves: That's fault. That's being vulnerable. That, the willingness to just, or I feel really sad right now, I feel really hurt. I frustrated.

Michael Unbroken: Bryan, how do we erase the feeling of the weakness in that though?

Bryan Reeves: We have to tell ourselves a new story. We have to tell ourselves a new story.

Michael Unbroken: Let's go into this. Because this was my biggest struggle. No doubt. I spent a lot of I don't think I've ever talked about this on this show I spent a lot of time in my fucking therapist's office being like I am so terrified that a woman's gonna see me weak if I tell her how incredibly hard my life has been.

Bryan Reeves: Yeah.

Michael Unbroken: How do you bridge that?

Bryan Reeves: I think it starts with getting clear about what do you want, man? Who do you, what kind of partner do you want to be with? Do you want to be with someone who requires you to be invincible? Yeah. Yeah. Who requires you to, live in a facade. If you want that, then yeah please keep playing that game. But if you want a partner, if you really want a relationship with someone who loves you for you, and a lot of us will use that language, I just want to be loved for who I am, but then we don't show up in ways that will elicit that we give people the facade. And then we're pissed off that we don't feel loved for who we are.

Michael Unbroken: Truth.

Bryan Reeves: We're creating the very thing we fear. I'm afraid I won't be loved for who I am. So I'm going to show up as not who I am. And then, but now I'm just not going to be loved for who I am. We're creating our own debacle here. We're creating our own downfall. It takes courage. That's why, man, this idea that vulnerability is weakness is such a load of horseshit. Vulnerability is fucking the most courageous thing we could possibly ever do. I'll use this sloppy language, but you want to be a real man? Practice fucking vulnerability. That takes courage because that takes the willingness to put your to lay it on the line But you're doing it again not for marketing not to just vomit your shit onto someone else But you're doing it because you're a stand for something you're a stand for love. You're a stand for truth you're a stand for connection. You're a stand for what is real. That, my friend, that is fucking manhood right there. And that is the most courageous stance we could take.

Michael Unbroken: Yeah, and here's the…

Bryan Reeves: It's a mindset shift. It's a, it's learning to see, it's like turning this idea of vulnerability on its head.

Michael Unbroken: Yes. And what that is you know, I have these four pillars In my life, these four pillars, I teach people and think unbroken. The four pillars I teach people when I'm coaching, when I'm on stage, when I'm a guest on a podcast, I've said it a million times here. The number one fucking pillar that I share is courage in the healing journey and fixing your health, your wealth, your relationships. It's everything. And to not take the required actions to have the life that you want makes you a coward. And I know that's hard language for people, dude, because people have told me, man, that's so hard for you to call me a coward, but you know what, Bryan, sometimes it has to be. You and I both know we didn't grow up in environments were come on little Bryan, it's okay. Go be a big tough guy. That shit does not work. But when you're staring down the reality of a life unlived because of your choices to continue to show cowardice in the fate in the face of the one moment you're supposed to rise up. Dude, that's a life unlived to me. And I will tell you this. And the reason why I know this more than I know anything, because I was a coward, I was a coward for a long time, living in that weak victim mind hood and the emotional games that I played with myself and feeling dude, it was always somebody else's fault. And if you play victim games, you get victim prizes. And it was just this consummate battle of looking at my life and dude, it was just like, this is your fault. This is your fault. This is your fault. This is your fault. If you want to be a man of honor, of love, of strength, of courage, which are my four pillars, you have to do the hard thing. And sometimes I wrote a note here. If you are not having hard conversations with your intimate partner, you're doomed. You're doomed. How do I know? Because when everything was sunny and bright and chippery and the white picket fence and the sun is shining, the birds are chirping every single day in a relationship that I had for multiple years, when it exploded, dude, it exploded because we never had the hard conversations. I want to tap into that a little bit here again, because you're talking about vulnerability. You're talking about courage. I think that is that the hard conversation is the pillar of that. But how do you have the card conversation when in your head? Because I've been here. It's shame, guilt, judgment, self criticism, ridicule. Like, how do you have hard conversation?

Bryan Reeves: Great question, man. Look I am a huge fan of getting professional support, working with a therapist, working with a coach, work with a third party, someone who can help facilitate these things because they are skills. It is skills and we're not practiced. Most of us are not practiced at having difficult conversations in skillful ways. We're not practiced again. We can vomit whatever we think we need to be. We need to say, boy, that tends to not go well. That was probably more my approach in the past. Or we can swallow it because we're afraid. If I say this, it's going to blow things up. Neither of those are helpful, but that's all we know. Man, when I was 36 and my five year relationship that was so important to me was imploding and it was just, it brought me to my knees. Michael that's when I resolved. to not, I can't suck at this for the rest of my life. I refuse. And that's when I started studying. How do you do communication? What does that look like? How do I skillfully communicate what's going on for me? To my to, to a woman, right? In my case, right? That's a skill. I had to learn that. Nobody taught me that. I definitely didn't see my parents model that ever affect the opposite, right? So, I had to learn it. It's a, it's, I had to learn it and I had to practice it. I had to study it and I took more of that route, but I studied with teachers. I was single at the time when I was learning a lot of these skills and these insights and the things that I teach today, but it wasn't until I was in relationship with my wife. And by the way, my wife and I have a therapist. We worked with coaches like we, we have someone that we go to when something is too big for us to navigate with each other. And my wife is a. She's a marriage and family therapist herself. I'm a relationship coach. She's a marriage. Like we have someone that we can go to when it's too big for us.

Michael Unbroken: And I think sometimes you got to eat at your own table.

Bryan Reeves: It's like, you can't be the shoemaker with terrible shoes. You have nice shoes if you're going to, that's usually goes the opposite way. We want to live what we teach. I'm not teaching this because I read a book I'm teaching. I do this work because I sucked at relationships for so long and it. It ruined me, man. It wrecked me. It, all the success that I had was pointless when I couldn't sustain love when I couldn't really be in intimacy all of that. I was experienced. It was just meaningless. And, so my wife and I we just, again, not just to be examples for the world, but because she and I care, we value relationship. We want to have something special together. So again, don't be afraid to hire, to pay somebody. It's tragic. That's the world we live in, but pay somebody to get support, to have those conversations. But once you practice, learn, I have, I have a program I call the boundaries program, or we give scripts, we give language of how-to language skillfully. Boundaries, for example, right? It is a skill and it can be learned. And what's so exhilarating about it for me is that man, as a man, I felt really powerless in my relationships a lot because I didn't know how to solve the problems of the relationship, right? I felt very powerless. I felt very confused. I felt, man, I just, it was, and in my powerlessness, I would often, I would shut down, and then explode. When I couldn't take it anymore, when I was tired of feeling powerless, and I would choose women. I didn't choose shut down women. I choose women who would get angry. She's fiery women. So in the face of my lack of skill, they would just get angrier and fire. You're in all this stuff. I would take it. And then fuck this boom explode. My power would just explode again. It was so it was so harmful. It didn't help anything when we learn how to, for example, communicate skillfully right to be really powerfully present in the moment and use language in a way that both speaks to my truth but also honors my partner's sensitivities and what helps her feel connected transcribed, damn, that is powerful. That is a place of power, man. I get to feel powerful again. And yes, it also requires the willingness to be hurt. It requires a letting go of how this goes. And that can be scary. That can be frightening, but man, I am a stand for truth and for love and for kindness and for honesty and for realness. And Woo, if that isn't an exhilarating relationship to be in and my wife, by the way, is the same, she's the same stand. And we regularly have difficult conversations, when we need them and we're with each other now almost nine years. So, we had to have a lot of them for the first few years. And again, we did a lot of those in the presence of a therapist or a coach. We have a lot of skills and practices. We have a lot of safety. Come back to that word. We have built up so much safety and trust with each other. That we can get through stuff so quickly, but we, it's something that we have to tend to, we can't just rest on what we did two years ago and expect that to carry us. No, man. We have to regularly be in the dialogue about what's really going on for us. And that's magic, man. It's powerful. It's magic. It ain't easy, but boy, it keeps life interesting.

Michael Unbroken: One of the things that comes to mind is, we on a daily basis, when we are in partnerships, when we are in intimate relationships, marriage, even career, to some extent, we have to pick and choose to be there. Yeah. Every single day. And we talked about safety, trust, vulnerability, courage, love, communication, presence, commitment. We talk about all these things. You see this happen massive frequency right now. And I think this is probably a huge influence of social is that the first time something goes wrong, people hit the eject button and you see it where it's almost devastating. Where even in my clients, even though I'm not a relationship coach, relationships come up, they're a huge pillar of life. And we talk about it and people tend to want to run immediately the second anything goes wrong. And I'm like, because of my nature, I've literally given things 15 tries sometimes, and then you got to learn your boundary and where you sit and your values and things like that. That's a whole another converse. It is about balance, but most importantly, I think it's about not giving up and, to choose her every day or leave her. The key word in that is not leave it's choose. How do you continue to choose? And I think this can be a very both sided kind of conversation answer here. What is the capacity of choice in the daily basis?

Bryan Reeves: I think the first thing is that is one has to be honest with themselves. Are you really ready for a relationship? Really? Are you ready for what that's going to require? Because the fantasy that most of us have of relationship that, I'm going to meet this person. They're just going to get me. They're going to understand me perfectly. They're going to agree with. They're going to see the world the way I see it. They're going to want all the same things that I want. If they're extroverted, if I'm extroverted, they're going to be extroverted. Oh my goodness. Just throw that out the window. That's not how relationships go. If you're being honest with each other, you're going to have conflict probably within the first 30 days, if not sooner. And when I say conflict, that just mean there's going to be a misunderstanding or some disagreement or something's going to come up. That's Whoa, that didn't feel good. If you're being honest, that's going to come up quickly. Now, a lot of couples, again, they don't want to be honest, or they'll just bury that when something happens or, yep, like you said, they'll just bounce. I'm out of here. And that's okay. Nothing wrong with it. Everyone gets to make their own choices, but are you really ready for a relationship? You got to be honest with yourself about that. If the answer is yes, like you're really ready for it. Okay, good. Know this, and have I just said it, shit's going to happen. Things are going to come up quickly, soon, within months, at the latest, that are going to be uncomfortable, that are going to be maybe hurtful, that are going to, things that you don't want to experience or that may cause you doubt or to question. Normal. So normal, totally normal. Doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the relationship. Now, is there a deal breaker? That's an important question to ask. If you want children and they don't ignore that, that matters, but if they say something, if they make a comment to the waiter or the waitress that you didn't like, maybe they were rude, maybe they were a little bit, this bring that up. You know what? That thing that you said, that didn't feel good to me. And don't bring it up in an accusing way. You shouldn't do that. Don't do that. Don't tell people how to, if someone wants to be a jerk in public, they have that right. It doesn't mean you got to hang out with them, you're not here to, you're not here to police people in that way. Certainly not the person you're dating. That's no fun. But if they do something, say something that doesn't land for you, that feels off, bring it up. And skillfully, that just sounds that thing you did or said, I didn't like that. That didn't feel good to me. And watch how they respond. Do they dismiss you? Do they tell you I, that's, you shouldn't think that way or that's not, the, do they get defensive? I'll just notice. Or are they willing to lean in a little bit and say, okay I didn't know. I'm sorry. Or let, can we talk about this? Are they willing to at least be in the dialogue of how do we find our way together in this? That's, I think the hallmark of healthy relationship is just two people who are willing to lean into the challenges that arise. That's it, really. If you've got, if you're with someone, if you're ready for a relationship and you're in the presence of someone who is likewise willing to lean in, at least more often than not, we all want to lean out sometimes. I'm no exception, man. Sometimes I just want to run for the damn hills because I'm tired of doing relationship today. It happens. But way more often than not, I lean in. There's a challenge afoot. If it's something I did or said or something happening in the world around us or our circumstances of this. All right, babe, I'm in. Let's how do we figure this out together? Leaning in. You got to be ready for that. You have to be honest with yourself about whether you're ready for that journey. Because if you're not, you're going to bounce as soon as you can. Most likely.

Michael Unbroken: Yeah. And I think you have to be cognizant and I think part of the courageousness is not wasting people's time, right? Not wasting your time, not wasting people's time having the open conversation and the willingness. I think so many people are fearful that they're going to be alone forever. I don't think that's probably true. There's 8. Billion people on planet earth. I'm sure you'll be okay. But ultimately all of this conversation and everything that it is about connecting and being present and learning to love and facing the fears and dealing with all of the things that come along with this is just being honest with yourself from the beginning. You and I both, it's not that we're sitting here from some pulpit saying, Hey, we figured everything out. We're just saying, Hey, we figured something out because we have this experience. We had to sit in the empty room. We had to deal with the book cover getting turned off, tore off. We had to look at our lives and really assess what role are we playing? And my hope is that the people who have listened to this today, We'll understand that the dichotomy of a relationship is you and someone else. And my definition of what a relationship is has been one plus one equals three. And at the end of the day, that's the game you're playing because it's you. It's them, it's us. And one of the things that you have to do, which is so difficult, is you do have to shed a little bit of you, so that you can build a bigger us. And I think that all comes with the territory. Brian, there, there's so many different avenues and leaps that we can take here together but that said, man, I want people to check out the blog, to check out the show, read the book connect with you, especially if they need a little bit of guidance here, where can everyone find you and learn more?

Bryan Reeves: Yeah, the best place, one stop. Shopping for me is Bryan Reeves. It's Bryan with a Y, B R Y A N Reeves, R E V E E S dot com (bryanreeves.com). You can find my book on there. I also, if there are men listening that, that are struggling in relationship, join me in my elevate your relationship program. It's a men's group coaching program. Like a lot of the things that Michael, you and I've been talking about here. We work with, I work with you in elevate your relationship. You can ask me about that. It's also, you can also find that on my website or go to elevate relationship. com. My book, choose her every day or leave her. It's on Amazon, all the places, man. I'm, I do, I'm doing all the things that, that people do these days. Yeah, I'm not hard. I'm not hard to find.

Michael Unbroken: Get it. I get it guys. And remember, go to thinkunbroken podcast.com. Look up this episode for all the details and more. In the show notes. Bryan, my last question for you, my friend, what does it mean to you to be unbroken?

Bryan Reeves: Yeah, I’ve been looking forward to this question as I've been reflecting on it, even in the background of my mind through this conversation, I think. What comes up for me in that question is I don't believe in being broken period. I don't believe that I don't believe that any human is broken. We all have wounds and traumas and we all go through shit and we have things that are hard to bear and we have shame and all this stuff. It's messy being human. But man, we are at the leading edge of Time of life of creation. We are, we were stardust billions of years ago, and now we're like these bodies that emerged from the earth, just walking around with eyeballs and limbs. And some of us don't have eyeballs or lint, but we're at the leading edge of billions of years of life finding its way. How can we be imperfect? Again, I'm not saying that we don't have things to work at, that there aren't things we can improve on and skills we can learn to do life better and all that. But I just being unbroken to me really is a mindset of remembering. I've never been broken. There's no way life can break me. I can buy into stressful stories about myself. I can buy into limiting beliefs. I can buy into all that shit, but doesn't mean any of it's true. I'm you and that's why you vulnerability is a superpower, comes from the awareness that there is nothing you can know about me. That will make me less worthy to be alive. That will make me less worthy of my existence. There are things in my past that I'm not proud of. There are things that I would be mortified, if they got into the public space and this. Of course, man. And what human doesn't have that? But that doesn't negate my worthiness of my life. And that, to me, is the foundation of being unbroken and unbreakable, really unfuckable with all of those things, man. That's what it means to me.

Michael Unbroken: Brilliantly said, man. And I could not agree more. And I think if I were to summarize that, just taking that in, it's what I think every day. We are the stories that we tell ourselves, Bryan. Thank you so much for being here. Unbroken Nation, thank you so much for listening. Remember, share this with people in your life, especially if they're struggling right now in relationships, because every time you do, you're helping us transform trauma to triumph breakdowns to breakthroughs and helping other people just like you become the hero of their own story.

And Until Next Time,

My Friends Be Unbroken.

I'll See Ya