Whether you are currently married or are recently divorced, I want you to think about whether there was ever a time that you really forget that you are someone’s husband or wife. This is a really important thing that most of us don’t think about nearly enough — or at all.

We have so many different roles in our lives. Some of us are bosses, and some of us are employees. Some of us are parents, and some of us are not. For those of us who are married, though, we always have to play the role of husband or wife.

I am a firm believer that when you are married, your spouse is number one. Your kids came into your life because they were created by you and your spouse. Also, by showing your kids that your spouse is number one — someone you find amazing whom you honor — you are showing your kids how to have healthy relationships with the opposite sex as they grow older.

I think a lot of couples split up because they forget about how to be each other’s husband and wife. A mother becomes a mother and she forgets to be a wife. A man becomes a father, and maybe he becomes a workaholic who forgets to be a husband.

How To Be A Good Husband

I truly believe that there are times in relationships when couples do this to each other. When they do this, it becomes very destructive to their relationship because it makes the other person feel not wanted, not needed and not desired.

So ask yourself if you have ever made your spouse feel this way. If you and your spouse have separated, ask yourself if this might be one of the causes. Maybe you forgot how to be the other person’s husband or wife.

Today’s blog is all about taking responsibility for everything that has happened in your life (or that is happening in your life right now). Stop blaming other people — stop blaming your spouse — and start looking in the mirror.

Usually, these men like to take their women shopping, get them all dolled up and spend money on them to make them look pretty, and then take them out to dinner or to a social function. But too many times the motivation behind these actions is that they just enjoy having this woman, this “figure”, as their beautiful, dolled-up possession. They enjoy parading around the trophy.
It isn’t because he wants her to feel good, it’s because he wants to look good with her by his side. Like I always mention on the blog, I’m not judging anybody. But for me personally, I don’t want a woman as my possession. It’s just not my style. I like a woman to be her own person, with or without me. That to me is sexy.

But I do know many people and I do know men very well. I have worked with a lot of very wealthy, very successful men over the last 20 years of my life, and I know a LOT of successful guys who treat women as possessions. It’s the way they are, it’s the way they feel comfortable. To me that’s not a very deep relationship, there’s not enough quality or depth to that kind of relationship to keep me satisfied.
But once again, who am I to decide what other people want? We should all be entitled to live whatever kind of life we want to live. We’re all entitled to go down the path that we decide to choose. What may not work for me, or what may not work for you, may in fact work out just fine for somebody else.

So, today I’d like us to take some time to embrace who we really are. Are you somebody who can have a relationship rooted in that possessive outlook? It’s ok if you are. Men, are women a possession to you? Women, do you like when men see you as “theirs”? Do you enjoy being a trophy? Or we can even role reverse: women, do you see your man as your possession? Do you want a man toy or do you want a woman toy?
Let’s open this for debate today. Let’s see what you guys think.

You go to your first dinner party, and most of your friends — the ones who used to go out drinking with you a few years ago — are married and looking at you as the lone single guy. You’re like the Lone Ranger all by yourself.

It actually makes you feel like something is wrong with you. Your own mother and grandmother gang up on you and say, “When are you finally going to meet someone and settle down? We need grandchildren!”

It’s called the late pressure. It’s almost like the full-court press, or like Rex Ryan sending seven defensive backs at you when you only have three wide receivers. How are you going to find the open man?

How are you going to find that woman with whom to ‘settle down?’ You start to put pressure on yourself, and you do what I did in my late 20′s: You go on a wife hunt.

The wife hunt is very scary because what you’re doing is you’re looking for somebody with whom you can join that dinner party. You are finding someone so that you no longer have to go to those dinner parties alone.

I did this. I went on a wife hunt, and I ended up with somebody who was really one of my best friends. I was never really super sexually attracted to her. I loved her, but always looked at her at that friend. You don’t want to make that mistake.

If you go on a wife hunt, you are probably just going to accept whomever comes your way and you are not going to get exactly who you want. Marriage is really serious, though, and you need to think it through before you do it.

You need to find someone who is just like you — thinks like you, acts like you, and shares the same beliefs and interests. You need to find someone who can teach you things and help you grow as a person.

When you go on a wife hunt, there’s no way in the world you’re going to find that. You are going to find whatever is available.

It’s almost like when you go to rent a house. Just imagine if you gave yourself two years to find the perfect house to rent, and during that time you go and look at a lot of houses. Eventually, you are going to find the right one. You’re going to find the one that fits who you are. You’re going to find one in the right location and at the right price.

When you have to have something — or feel pressure to get something — within a certain time limit, then the results of what you end up getting is never as good. If you feel like you need to find a wife in six months or less, then you may find one but she likely will not be the right one. You’re not going to find the woman with whom you want to spend the rest of your life.

This is your life. So the next time someone starts asking you why you’re not married yet, realize that there is no good that comes from feeling the need to act under their pressure.

Instead you should look them in the eye and say, “I just haven’t met the right person yet. Do you have anybody you can introduce me to? I’d like to meet someone amazing. I’d like to meet somebody with whom I can spend my life, but I am not going to rush it.”

This is exactly what I used to tell people after my first wife hunt. People would look at me and sometimes you would see that look in their eyes that said that they found their wife on a wife hunt (and may or may not have found the right person).

This is your life. Take your time. Enjoy it! Find the right wife even if it takes a long time, and be sure sure to enjoy every moment and every woman you experience along the way.

You have already made a determination that they don’t understand you, that they will never understand you and that the relationship just won’t work out with them. So, all of a sudden, the incredible anger that were starting fights decrease.

You start walking away from them. You used to feel like she was busting your balls or like he was riding you and not understanding you. Now the minute you get into a fight, you just walk away from it.

The fact that you are on opposite sides of the bed, which used to bother you and keep you up at night, turns into the natural way things are and you are able to sleep with no problem. You go to your side of the bed, they go to theirs, and you both just go to sleep.

You are not up for four hours every night thinking, wondering, feeling and missing them. You just want to go to sleep.

When it hits this point, i.e., when it hits the breakup point, then you need to face the business of breaking up. You know breaking up sucks, but there is only one good way to do it.

When you think you might have hit that breakup point, you must tell the person that you’re disconnecting from them. You need to be honest and raw.

If you don’t think the relationship is going to work or you know you’ve already disconnected based on how things have been going, then you might want to consider walking away for a week. Spend a week without that person.

Go visit some friends or family. Really think about what life would be like without that person. How would you feel without them being there?

When you’re in the thick of things, they never seem to be able to work out. So take a break. Take a walk. Take a week long walk.

Take that week to ask yourself some questions. What does your life look like without them? Do you like and enjoy the way it feels?

Then, after you’ve taken this time, go back and either take a stand for the relationship or break up. Whichever decision you make, you need to be honest with yourself.

Life is too short! There are a lot of wonderful, amazing people out there whom you can meet.

When you take this time to think, be sure to think about what it was like when you first met this person. How did you feel about them before things got so frustrating? Did you feel like they were your soulmate and the two of you were meant to be? You’ve got to dial back into that.

A friend of mine said to me one time, “Pretend you just got amnesia and all of a sudden someone told you the person with whom you are living (or in a relationship) is the person you are going to marry. You would have none of the bad feelings and none of the fights. What would you do in that situation?” What you would do in that situation is try to get to know that person again without all the anger, fights, frustration and history getting in the way.

So maybe take a week to yourself and then a week with that person. Get to know them again and remember the reasons why you fell in love. If you guys can do that, then you might be able to save your relationship.

When you have a new relationship, you’re just in la-la land. I mean, it is the greatest feeling in the entire world.

You want to tell the entire world how much in love you are. You want to tell everybody you can find that you’re in love. You even tell your friends that this is the greatest person you’ve ever met, and that you’ve never before met anybody like this person.

Everything is perfect in the beginning. You can’t believe that you’ve finally met someone that perfect.

Then, all of a sudden, you have a little problem in the relationship and a crack develops. People ask you how things are with your relationship, and start saying that it’s “okay” or “fine.”

A couple of months later, you have a few more cracks in the relationship. At this point, when friends ask you how your relationship is going, you say “Man, let me tell you how my relationship is. This person became human, and I’m not happy about it.”

At this point, all the petals are off the rose. The other person has actually become who they really are, and you’re finally seeing it for the very first time.

I’m not writing this because I’m anti-love, and you all know I’m full of love. I’m telling you this because this is what happens in a relationship.

Over time you start to see the real person, and you start to think to yourself “Can I be involved with the real person? Is the real person the same person with whom I fell in love or are they entirely different?”

It does happen. People do change over a period of time. Sometimes people don’t grow with you and don’t understand you.

I can tell you when a relationship really hits the skids. You know your relationship has really hit the skids when someone asks you how your relationship is going, and not only do you offer up everything but you also start making fun of the other person.

When you start complaining to anyone and everyone about your relationship, it means that you no longer trust the relationship. Your sacred space is broken and that relationship is on the down swing.

You decide that this is the time you are done with the other person. This other person is no longer that beautiful person you fell in love with at the beginning.

This is now the person who is driving you “up the wall” crazy, and making you feel sick to your stomach every single day. Maybe I’m getting a little ahead of myself. Maybe we’re not all feeling sick to our stomachs, but you get the gist.

Relationships have a cycle, so don’t air your dirty laundry all over the place. Realize that relationships ebb and flow.

A really bad warning sign, though, is when you start talking to strangers and telling them that you’re not happy. I see this all the time, because people send me emails like this about their relationships.

When I see emails like this, I say to myself that these people don’t need my help. They need to figure out whether they want to be in their relationship anymore.
Everyone is looking for that one answer to fix a troubled relationship, but th real answer lies within.

A lot of you have been in multiple relationships. I would say all of you have probably been in at least one relationship. No matter in how many relationships you’ve been, however, all relationships have what I call a breaking point.

You may have been in a four year relationship, but you might have hit that breakup point at year two. It’s like the television shows that “jump the shark” according to that website, meaning a good show stops being good but remains on the air for one or more seasons after that.

Every relationship has a breakup point. The breakup point is the point in the relationship where the fighting escalates to a place where you no longer feel like you’re understood by your partner. All of a sudden the sex stops, the communication stops, and you are living like roommates.

You get into that dynamic when you’re at the point in a relationship where you are trying to understand each other, but then you get so frustrated because you feel like you just don’t understand each other anymore. When that happens, you end up just kind of coexisting in that new dynamic.

It is this dynamic which leads to a lot of the parts of your relationship deteriorating. The sex decreases. The communication decreases. Maybe you stop kissing each other goodbye or stop texting each other during the day.

However it manifests itself, when you get to this place you are at the breakup point. It is the breakup point because the longer you stay in that dynamic after the sex, communication and tender moments stop, the harder it is to regain the original dynamic in that relationship and, eventually, it can’t be regained. That’s why I call this the breakup point.

I know I’ve been there in relationships. I know couples who haven’t had sex in years, and they can’t even imagine getting back to having sex with each other because they’ve hit the breakup point.

In the beginning of a relationship (which I call “the honeymoon stage”), you are learning about each other and making efforts to create romantic moods and nice evenings. When you’re in that stage, you are really working at building your relationship.

Then, at some point, you start to bump heads with each other and the dynamics change. You take away all of the nice things that you were doing the first year and a half or two years (or for however long it was), and then you move into a new dynamic moving forward. That is the breakup point.

The longer you stay in that dynamic and the further away you get from the dynamic you had during the honeymoon stage, the more likely it is that you’ll ever get it back (and, after a point, you won’t). You’ll never go back to the original dynamic, resentment builds and you get in your head too much.

You are no longer about feelings, and you start really punishing each other. “Well he hasn’t done this for me, so I’m not going to do this for him” are the kind of thoughts that take root.

When your relationship gets that way, you hit the critical point or you hit the breakup point. The critical is point is where one of two things will happen.

You are going to get back to the way things were by immediately forgiving, forgetting, loving and becoming aware of it, or you are going to continue the relationship with the bad dynamic in place and wait for the time years down the road when you realize you were at the breakup point years before that.

So if you are going through this right now, you need to look at your partner and think to yourself “Do I want to get back to the way we were, or do I want to realize two years down the road that we were at the breakup point now and did nothing about it?”

When you are in this place do you stay in ego, finger-point and defense mode? Look back at your last two relationships, and think about how they ended. What all of you are going to discover when you do that, is that you hit the breakup point in each of those relationships long before they actually ended.

Now, let me be clear about one thing. I am not telling you to quit a relationship simply because things get frustrating.

There comes a point, however, where the endless battle can’t be won. That is the point where neither one of you are willing to understand, fully compromise and do the things necessary to move forward.

That is when you stop caring. That is when you sleep on separate sides of the bed. That is when you reach the breakup point.

We don’t cover breakups enough here in the blog. In another blog, I am going to talk about the art of breaking up with someone.

Today’s blog was spurred by something that came up in a conversation I was having earlier. Someone used the term “I didn’t sign up for this.”

People will use this phrase about all manner of things in their life. They’ll say “I didn’t want to have a wife and three kids. I didn’t sign up for this” or “I really didn’t sign up for this job” or “How did I end up living in the frozen tundra of Wyoming. I didn’t sign up for this.”

The term “I didn’t sign up for this” almost feels like a victim term to me. Granted, life has its twists and turns and surprises. Aren’t we in control of our lives though? The term “I didn’t sign up for this” almost makes me feel like we are all just victims in our lives, and have no control over what happens to us.

People will sometimes use that term when they are in a relationship that is going sour. They will say “I didn’t sign up for this.” The truth is, though, that they did sign up for it.

You are a willful and willing participant in any relationship. You are also 50% the cause of that relationship going in the sour direction it is going.

So if you find yourself stuck in a life for which you think you didn’t sign up, you need to remember that you actually did sign up for it. You actually made the decisions that have guided your life. You make the moves that got you to where you are in your life.

Nobody forced you. Nobody dragged you kicking and screaming. So, in reality, you did sign up for whatever situation you find yourself in that is unsatisfying to you.

The real challenge is figuring out how you get out of these situations. Do you have the guts to get out of what you supposedly didn’t sign up for, or are you going to live your life in the “I didn’t sign up for this” victim mentality?

We have choices in life. To get out of a bad situation for which you didn’t sign up, it takes guts, strength and a lot of perseverance.

Do you have the strength to get out of situations of which you no longer want to be a part? We all have only one life to live, and we don’t know how long that life is going to be or when it will end.

So why remain in a situation for which you didn’t sign up (even though we know you actually did sign up for it)? The real question you should be asking yourself is, “Why am I signing up and staying in a situation in which I have no desire to be?”

Life is a gift. Time goes by really fast.

I can’t believe I will be 48 years old this year. If someone told me I’d be close to 50 years old, I’d say “I didn’t sign up for that!” I didn’t sign up for being close to 50 years old. How did that happen?

You draw battles into relationships due to ego and expectations. So many things can go wrong in a relationship due, very often, to the way you communicate your needs, wants and desires to each other.

There are ways to be sure that relationship battles don’t cause permanent damage. Here are seven ways to avoid relationship disasters (which will also help you take your relationship to an even better place):

1.Have Sex On The Brain?: How much do you think about sex in your relationship? Do you feel like the other person doesn’t do the things you like to do (or doesn’t do them enough)? We all get lazy sexually in our relationships at times. So how do you get the other person to do these things (or to do more of those things)? Well, you don’t look at them and tell them they are doing what you like (or aren’t doing enough of it).

Instead, when they do things you like you need to really let them know. Say things like, “Oh babe, I love the way you kiss me and touch me. It makes me feel good…” Describe the emotions you have and how you feel when they do those things. Doing this will turn the other person on and make them want to do those things to you all night long. Whenever you come from a place of abundance like that, you will always bring you more of what you need.

2.Never Nag: Nagging doesn’t work. Nagging to get the dishes washed, the garbage taken out and the dog walked doesn’t work. Instead of nagging, ask out of love. Say something like, “Hey babe, I’m running late today. Do you mind walking the dog? That would be awesome and would help me out a lot!”

Asking this way is a lot better than asking by saying something like “You know, you never walk the dog. I’m always walking the dog, and I’m running late right now and don’t have time to do it” or “Can you please empty the dishwasher for once? I said I can’t do it right now. Why are you so lazy?” Asking nicely always gets you better results.

3.Learn The Art Of Compromise: Learning how to compromise in your relationship is essential. When you go on vacation, for example, make sure you split up the things you do 50/50 between things you like to do and things your partner likes to do. That way, one of you never feels like you are being dragged around the whole trip. Neither person will feel about the other that “it’s just about you.”

The best way to have real compromise is to find out what each other really wants. In this vacation example, you could say something like “Today I’d love to do this. What would you like to do tomorrow? How about if we make today my day and tomorrow your day (or make half of each day be yours)? That way we can both do things we enjoy.” Real compromise is about coming to an arrangement that makes both parties happy.

4.Be Forgiving Of Family: When dealing with each other’s family, it can be very stressful. You may have old things to mend with your mother or brother or sister which get you tense or upset. Because of this tense feeling, many of us will pick fights with our significant other — the person who are there with us to support us on this tense visit — because we don’t want to act out with our family. So we take out our frustrations on our partner instead.

So the next time you go with your partner to visit your family, write down ahead of time the things you need to do or work through with your family while you’re there. Let your partner help you and see them as being there with you (and for you). You will avoid so many unnecessary arguments.

5.Avoid The Passive-Aggressive Approach: In relationships, one person will sometimes drag their significant other with them when they are going out to meet friends. Then that person will spend the entire night not reminiscing, but bringing up personal things about the relationship in front of the friends. Your personal life is your personal life, and your friends do not need to be privy to all of it.

The way this happens sometimes, is that one person will take passive-aggressive jabs at the other. They will start hinting to the friends about the things they would really love to have in their relationship. This is a very passive-aggressive (and ineffective) way to raise these items.

If you have any personal needs or desires about which you want your partner to know, don’t bring those things up in public and in a passive-aggressive manner. You need to bring these things up with your partner in person and face-to-face. If you want your partner to do more of something, then tell them how much you would love it. Don’t bring it up in front of friends.

6.Don’t Air Your Dirty Laundry: When you get into a fight with your partner, do not tell your family and friends every little detail about it. When you do this, you are actually hurting your relationship. The reason is that even though your family and friends only want to support you, by knowing you had conflict they will judge your relationship and your partner after that.

They will judge your partner based on things you’ve said about them while you were upset or angry. Whenever you are speaking out of anger you will speak with disdain and venom, and often not tell all sides of the story. So keep your personal life between the two of you. It could save your relationship a great deal of unnecessary strain.

7.Do Something Special: In the midst of all these “don’ts,” I also have one “do” that you should do in helping to avoid relationship disaster. Every day, I want you to do at least three special things for your partner. Make them breakfast, walk the dog for them, rub their head, light candles or whatever you know they would really appreciate. Pick things that will make them feel wonderful, needed and warm.

Tell them that you love them. Send them ‘I love you’ texts, or something like that. Understand that the more you reach out to your partner and the more you express your love to your partner, the more intimacy you will have. You also make your relationship stronger each time you do things like this.

So, look at the above list and then at your own relationship. Ask yourself in how many of the relationship-destroying behaviors you and your partner engage. Ask yourself in how many of the relationship-building behaviors you and your partner engage. Then as to any areas you’re falling short, start making changes right away.

Having a great relationship takes work, patience and a lot of understanding. Don’t just give up on one before you work on it. If you do work on it and it still doesn’t work out, then at least you know you did everything you could to not only keep it from falling apart but to make it amazing.

I am not talking about a case of the swine flu. I am talking about heartache. We don’t ever really talk about heartache.

Do you ever get into a huge fight with your significant other, and you just feel like it’s the end of the world? How about if your significant other breaks up with you, or you break up with them?

You get that deep, heavy heartache feeling. You experience that wave of emotion where you feel like nothing in the world is going to snap you out of it.

That is really hard. Heartache is tough.

Heartache, however, also makes you grow. It makes you stronger as a person. Let me explain why.

You went through a tough time with a relationship. Your heart aches and your heart hurts.

That means that you are actually fighting for something you believe in. It means that you are fighting for the sake of the relationship, because love takes time and it hurts at times.

Heartache is tough. Nobody wants to feel it.

I remember when I was 17 years old and my high school girlfriend broke up with me. It felt like the end of the world. I felt like I was going to just keel over and die. I couldn’t eat or sleep for days, and every breath I took hurt.

So here is a word of advice I want to give everyone who has ever suffered from this type of heartache or who is suffering from it right now. It is actually some of the best advice (and maybe the only good advice) my Mom ever gave me.

She looked at me when I was 17 years old and my girlfriend had just broken up with me and said, “Remember how much you loved this person today. She is not the person for you. All the pain and suffering you are feeling right now is just temporary. It is growth. It is you learning and processing the relationship. It is okay to grieve a relationship. When you are finished grieving it, make sure you learn each lesson from that relationship so you learn more about yourself and don’t repeat things.”

We never talk about heartache here in the blog, but I know a lot of you have emailed me over and over again about relationships ending and about the pain that you feel associated with that. So to all of you, you need to know that the heartache you are feeling is just growth.

Keep you heart open. The longer you keep your heart open in life, the less your heart is going to ache.

You are going to grow, so push yourself through that heartache when you feel it. Realize that amazing thing will come through you if you remain strong.

One of the best ways to get through the pain of heartache is to take time to really reconnect with yourself and who you are as a person. I recorded my own personal journey through this process. CLICK HERE if you’re a man and CLICK HERE if you’re a woman to listen to this.

It takes understanding each other’s communication style and the way you each express yourself. It takes understanding each other’s needs and desires. It takes really being able to listen to someone without judgment, ego and commentary. It takes being able to work on yourself on a daily basis.

Falling in love is easy. Staying in love is hard. It takes dedication and work by both partners.

I had an interesting lunch with a friend of mine the other day. He told me that his parents have been together for fifty years, and that there were times in their relationship — maybe years — in which they really didn’t like each other. He said that the one thing they always did that kept them together, though, was to stand up for each other.

No one is asking you to change. You are just being asked to grow.

Growing is what life is all about. The person who probably frustrates you and drives you crazy the most is the person with whom you have do the most growing.

So if you’re in love, drop the ego and think to yourself “How does my partner communicate? How can I understand them better? How can we find the peace again in the relationship?”

Relationships are always going to be a challenge, but if you’ve got a great one then you had better figure out how to keep it. Keeping the great ones are a battle, but think about the battle you went through to find it and this person with whom you fell in love.

They always say that everything is great as long as you are in control. It’s when you stop being in control, though, that all the work needs to be done.