What I learned from a failed relationship

Five lessons men can apply to strengthen their relationships with women.

When you come home and your girl isn’t there, that’s not typically a good sign. It was my fault, and not unexpected, but coming home to an empty house makes you feel, well, empty.

Things had been rocky for a while: both of us were unhappy, our sex life had become stale and mechanical, and she was constantly complaining about being tired, not getting enough attention from me, and feeling like we never did anything fun. The irony was that two weeks prior we’d gone on a week long skiing vacation! We had nice dinners out almost every night, spa days for her, hitting the slopes, staying and traveling in some of the most beautiful country you’ll ever see.

Her complaint about attention is still baffling to me—until we broke up and she moved out, we were living together, both working from home. I made her dinner almost every night and we spent several hours together every day, especially after the work day was finished. It goes to show that how a woman feels doesn’t need to match reality to still be true. That’s the first lesson here boys: whatever she experiences emotionally is her reality, not the objective facts of her circumstances. As the old PUA saying goes: change her mood, not her mind.

Meanwhile, I was doing NOTHING for myself. As you may have noticed, I wasn’t posting—I did very little writing of any kind, ever, despite this being core to my being: I’ve written all my life, whether various blogs or the two novels I’ve published. I rarely went fishing either, another hobby that makes me feel whole.

In short, the relationship wasn’t working for either of us. So while I was sad she was gone when I came home a few weeks ago, I also felt some sense of relief. It was time to move on—for both of us.

To be clear, I blame myself entirely for the fact it didn’t work. The success or failure of a relationship is on YOU, the man. Women are too emotional, too reactive, to be responsible for the condition of a relationship. Some women, obviously, are too toxic or otherwise unsuitable for any kind of relationship, and it’s our job as men to vet them in the beginning and identify that early so as to avoid. But if you find a woman who is suitable, as mine was, it’s YOUR job to make it work, not hers.

Here’s what I learned after several years in my LTR.

1. Don’t compromise your values or needs as a man

Early on, after a few months, RedQuest and Maverick advised me to break up with her. Their reasons were simple: she wasn’t willing to give me what I wanted—non-monogamy in some form or fashion—and she didn’t share the same active lifestyle I needed to thrive and stay healthy.

I don’t necessarily regret not listening, because we went on to have some beautiful experiences together, but in the end they were right. The same reasons they identified are ultimately what led to the end of our relationship—not so much the non-monogamy, although that was a factor, but the other things you’ll read more about below. In some ways you could say it was doomed from the beginning, and the only reason I rebuked them at the time was that I thought she could be my unicorn and I’d marry her. In retrospect, however, that was never going to work—or if it did, it would have been an unhappy marriage, despite the fact that she’s a great girl and we loved each other deeply.

As mentioned above, either I should have identified early that this wasn’t going to work (as RQ and Maverick noted), OR, if I was going to make a go of it, I needed to:

2. Be the leader and let her follow your good example

In the beginning of our relationship, it was pure hedonism: we fucked constantly—I tied her up, used various sex toys (paddles, vibrators, floggers, etc.), and engaged in role play and consent non-consent. We drank a ton and went out to eat all the time. It was great! And when you’re first entering into a relationship, I don’t think any of this is wrong: you should embrace and enjoy that NRE (new relationship energy) for the first two to three months.

However, there are two mistakes I made as things progressed:

1. I didn’t create enough boundaries around the things I needed to do for myself, such as writing, working out, and hanging out with my friends. Also, in fairly short order she was essentially living at my apartment—she was there when I left for work, and there when I came home. Part of me enjoyed this, but it allowed very little time for me to take care of my own needs.

2. We both started getting fat. As you can imagine, if you stop working out (I continued to lift, but not as often, and I stopped going for long walks and doing HIT workouts) and do nothing but fuck, eat delicious food—whether at restaurants or my most indulgent recipes—and get drunk together on the regular, you’re going to gain weight, and over time, I gained A LOT of weight. Maverick noted I looked like an entirely different person, and he wasn’t wrong.

I can’t even count how many times we both promised ourselves that we would clean up our act, stop drinking so much, and eat healthier, but that never happened. Throughout our relationship, we were still living that hedonistic lifestyle. Sex always becomes less exciting when you’re fucking the same person for more than six months to a year, but worse, as the pounds piled up, sex became less enjoyable for both of us because we were less attractive to each other. Also, when you’re not proud of your body, you can’t engage in sex with the same enthusiasm, because frankly, it’s embarrassing. Your mind is filled with doubts: does this person really find me attractive? Because I don’t.

I knew this, but still couldn’t get my act together, and what she needed from me was leadership. I always invited her to go to the gym when I went (she mostly declined), but if I’d gotten my act together and become super fit, either she would’ve followed my good example, or I would’ve broken up with her long ago.

I should’ve been a better leader for her.

3. Maintain frame: don’t indulge her every desire

As mentioned above, she often complained about being tired, but neither of us practiced good sleep hygiene: going to bed at the roughly the same time each night, not looking at screens before going to sleep, not eating right before bed, not drinking, etc. Sometimes I was tired, but that has never bothered me. For her, however, it was a huge impediment to living a healthy life—it was the reason she didn’t come to the gym with me, or do other things that would have been good for her overall wellbeing.

We could put this in the section above re: my not being a good leader, but I also could’ve established a frame about this: being tired isn’t an excuse, OR, if it is, then get more fucking sleep and stop complaining.

We also got a dog. Just like with children, a dog will DESTROY your sex life. Why? Because it’s always there. It always has to be in the same space you’re in. And that means spontaneous sex can’t happen, because you have to do something with the goddamn dog in order to fuck. Now, here’s the thing: I love dogs, and I love our dog! I wanted to get one too. But it definitely had a negative impact on our relationship—no doubt about that.¹ I should either have anticipated this, or created conditions where the dog wouldn’t be allowed to become such a burden.

The other thing is that I never returned to doing the things I loved: writing, fishing, and pursuing my ambitions. I nuked my blog and twitter account, stopped coaching, stopped engaging as much with my friends, etc. What was my purpose? Working and doing things for other people, especially my girlfriend. In short I forgot a key lesson I know to be true, which is that:

4. A man should always have a mission

For the last few years, I didn’t have one. I’m proud of what I’ve done changing careers and becoming much more successful financially, but unless your job makes your bell ring, it’s just that: a job.

Like, I can’t tell you guys how happy it makes me feel to be writing again. I’m sad to have lost my girlfriend—she’s a beautiful, wonderful person, and I’m sorry to have lost her. I’m low key jealous of the next guy who will get to enjoy her vibrant personality, the depth of her love, and her beautiful breasts! That said, I wasn’t happy, because I didn’t have anything to work on, nothing to look forward to other than the weekend, serving others, and entertaining myself. This is the malaise that is so common in our society: we go to work, and when work is over or it’s the weekend, we entertain ourselves with social media, television and movies, vacations, going out to eat, etc., as if this is what life is all about. We wonder why so many people feel depressed or anxious, get addicted to drugs or alcohol, or become political zealots—it’s because their lives are fucking meaningless. They’re just distracting themselves from that fact, as I was while in this relationship.

A man has to have a mission—something he is passionate about, whether building a business, creating content, becoming a mentor, restoring a car, renovating his home, learning new skills, or attaining knowledge and wisdom. In both of my long term relationships, I’ve forgotten this. I’ll forgive myself for the first, because I didn’t know any better when I got married, but post divorce I swallowed the red pill and knew this to be one of the primary tenets of the philosophy and being a high quality, successful man.

This time I knew better, and nevertheless, slowly slid into purposelessness.

5. Pull the rip cord when you realize it’s not going to work

We’ve both been unhappy for a while now. I forget when we first talked about breaking up, but I’m guessing it at least a year ago, if not two. We knew that how we were living was unhealthy, and I guess I’ll just go ahead and spill the beans: I’m an alcoholic.²

It’s easy not to realize or admit this, because alcohol is so ubiquitous in our society it’s easy to go out and have a bunch of drinks with your partner or friends and write it off as just having a good time. But I found myself drinking—a lot—almost every night. I would often drink alone, stopping at a bar on the way home from the store. Was part of that the fact I didn’t have a mission, and that I felt deeply unfulfilled and purposeless. 1000%. A large reason people become addicts is that the conditions of their lives and the people they surround themselves with are depressing, and there’s really nothing better to do than drown it with alcohol or drug of choice. A huge number of deaths related to the opioid crisis, fentanyl, and alcohol (for people who aren’t homeless) happen in rural areas in the south and the middle of the country. And you know what? If I lived in those places I’d probably want to kill myself too, because it’s fucking miserable and there’s nothing to do.

I’m happy to say that I’ve been sober since the breakup, I’ve lost 30lbs now, and I feel as good as I’ve felt in a long time.

However, the fact that my drinking escalated to the point of alcoholism while in this relationship should’ve been a red flag indicating it was time to be done—like, either she should’ve left me, or I should’ve realized that the conditions of my circumstances were leading me down a very dark road.³

Pull the rip cord when things start to go wrong. I don’t mean if you have an argument, or get pissed off at each other occasionally—that happens in any relationship, even with your friends or family. But if you’re in a relationship and you and your girl are talking seriously about breaking up, you probably should. It’s tempting to stay in the relationship, to try to salvage the time you’ve spent together, to avoid the loneliness that will surely follow, but 95% of the time it’s not going to work—the fact that it even comes up is a massive red flag that you can’t ignore as I did.

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I loved my girlfriend. I still do. I will always love her, and what’s crazy is that we are still basically best friends. We’ve been practicing what is called conscious uncoupling—we still hang out once or twice a week, text occasionally, and offer each other gratitude and support.

Some guys may think this is weak behavior on my part, but it’s not, and if you see that kind of advice out there in the red pill or seduction community, you probably should stop taking that dude’s advice. Because conscious uncoupling demonstrates strength and maturity. Some relationships can’t end well because someone cheated, or did something likewise unforgivable. And in those cases it’s best to cut contact. But the alternate route, if you can take it, is a far healthier way to end things. If you’re both mature adults, realizing it’s not meant to be and separating because it’s better for each individual is the right thing to do, and there’s no need for it to be mean, petty, or nasty. Highly suggest this if you find yourself in a similar situation.

I’m excited to begin this new chapter in life—and very excited to get back in the Game once I get my ass in shape. Because, as we know, there has never been a better time to be a player.

1. If you are going to get a dog, or she already has one, create space: have other people take care of it for several days at a time, crate train, and/or teach it to be OK by itself—that last part is very difficult if not impossible, but if you don’t create space and have some breaks, it will become the focus of your relationship, at the expense of your sex life, which is key to a health relationship.

2. She may be as well, but that is for her to decide. For my part, I blame myself. If I’d been a better leader, I would’ve stopped drinking, and I think she would’ve followed suit.

3. Mind you, I’m not blaming her for my addiction. Like with everything here, it’s my fault, and my responsibility to get better.