Things aren’t CHANGING, Where should I go from Here?

Intro

things aren't really changing where should I go from here what's up Tyler brandon what'sgoing on man not much i I I want to say a couple words to you see how you respond okay proWings pro Wings man we were We were at dinner um when was that last night wewere at dinner last night at mom and dad's place they're back in their house where they were gone for a couple years and while we're sitting around thedinner table dad gets up and disappears for a minute and uh he comes back i don't know why he's held on to these forso long but he comes back with a pair of pro wings and he's written in pen on the toes they're like just hammered like thetoes are all worn out the shoes are worn down anyone who remembers like back in the day Pro Wings were like Pless ShoeSourc's banner like brand and Pis was like where you'd go in and you'd it was always buy one get one free and uh theand they were like five bucks the shoes were made out of like plastic you know um and so dad pulls out these shoes andit says Tyler 1988 and it was like this it looked like a fake pair of Air Jordans with the Velcro strap on the

Making decisions

bottom and they were just hammered and it brought back so many childhoodmemories last night it was a drama it was a drama trigger for me you had atrauma trigger i looked at all the kids with like their Reebok pumps and their flights and their That's it was NikeFlight Rebot pump and Air Jordans the Air Jordans we were rolling the Pro Wings then we came on with the Pro Wingsand we we Needless to say we weren't the cool kidsbrought back a ton of tons of childhood memories it built character it built character those throw wings tons ofchildhood memories and Tyler Hammer shoes like those Pro Wings took it pretty well they took it pretty well forthe for the money i'm really hard on shoes yeah they I don't know i don't know why dad held on to those that's been what 1988 so I was 10 years oldthen and uh and he's held on to them in his garage till like 2025 that's alittle Yeah but I'm scared of what's going to happen when they die and we have to clean out their garage i know iknow but those shoes are like strapping a piece of plastic on your feet it'scrazy so anyways I was laughing saying you could slip on concrete just becausejust because it's straight plastic so yeah it's funny it's funny that asyou're talking Brandon our caller is actually like nodding his head like "Hey I know pro wings."So uh yeah so let's So let's jump into it Brandon um we have I think third timecaller now whether it's B Micah or Buzz we've got you on for the third timewe're glad to have you back um why don't you catch us up on where your life's been and then get into your questionwe'll we'll roll with it sure guys thanks again for letting me be on the show um since we spoke last time lasttime we little recap uh my wife has you know admitted that she needed someprofessional help to deal with uh my past born usage and all the goodies thatgo with that um since we last spoke she has made and not kept two appointmentswith a therapist first time one of the kids had something going on and I can kind ofexcuse that yeah the kids she didn't have enough time in the schedule to beable to make the appointment that day and have counsel second time she had adentist appointment a checkup or cleaning or something like that in the same town just across town from it andthat's about an hour away from therapist and um she got done with the with thecheckup at the dentist and she said and I just didn't feel like going so I didn't and drove back home and I askedso when are and it's like a month later or when I was checking up hey how'd that go how'd that appointment go and she waslike I haven't rescheduled it i feel like third time will be you know threestrikes and you're out and I don't want to schedule one if I don't know I can keep it and I don't know when I can keep it because you know I had a my oldestdaughter graduated last month she wanted to wait till get through the graduation my two boys are playing little leaguebaseball she wants to wait till baseball season gets over with and that wraps up this weekend with All-Star tournamentand um she has as far as the intimacy partany human affection over than just a hi good morning give her you know shoulder side hug kind of thing kiss on theforehead when I'm leaving the door walking out the door in the morning it's has not progressed at all and I beyond

The role of resentment in stuckness

anything that she would give one of her brothers and I know that it's going tokeep going like this until I put my foot down make a standard say and and saythis has got to change even my my two older kids at 18 and 15 are like "Whyare you why are you letting her do you this way why are you sitting here taking this?" My older daughter says she knowsthat she just straight up says that she knows that divorce is down the pipe if things don't change and she's alreadymade peace with that being the best thing there the best thing there is my son is like "You know how to fix thisdon't you?" You know just you need to end this he straight up told his mom theother day she said "I'm a I'm going to grow up being one of these men that hates women and guess who's going to beresponsible for that?" Straight to her face geez yeah and it'sjust I at some point I know I'm going to have to just say "Look you're going tohave to make a commitment to doing some work on thisrelationship if you want this thing to go because I can't just sit here and keep taking it and taking it and takingit and sit back like the you know your little personal emotional punching bag to and I've kind of been that I was thebetrayer in the relationship with you know with pornography addiction i've kind of gotten in my mindset that it'sall my fault so I just have to take what comes but I've kind of gotten past pastthat and I'm in I'm in a healthy place now and I've II deserve love i know that and at some point I've gotto say you need to you need some accountability and some responsibilityhere and that you need to make a commitment to go get some help if you want this to go forward and if not youneed to tell me so I can make some steps go forward and I just need to know how tohave this conversation and if things go forward the way I think they're going togo how do I need to take those stepsstart yeah it's kind of an interesting thing just uh before we dive into the subject too much we've seen you a fewtimes now and your energy today is way different than the energy the other twotimes you've been on the show what's that all What's that all abouti think it um if I can read it the best it's kind of more of aembraced kind of I've I've embraced the suck a little bit so to speak[Music]um instead of I guess you say I've I've lost a degree of hope that the marriagecan come back to be what it means to what I hope it can be and I've realizedthat a lot is going to change and I think I'm asking too muchokay so yeah there's been a lot of times that I'm I like myself as I'm I'm still doing internal work learning that and inin a lot of a lot of my past cuz I had a past betrayal happen to me andum my addiction was not always about mel about a lust problem it was a coping problem it was me it was a solution not

Acceptance vs. giving up

a problem is what I was using to cope with with the the feelings of unwantedness and unacceptable and evennow I I do other little things that are not necessarily bad you mentioned I play guitar i I use guitar a lot of time as acoping me mechanism i'm an avid fly fisherman i recently took up fly tyingand I think I use that sometimes after a long day as a to go put my mind inanother place to forget my problems and I and I do that i'm finding that eveneven my eating habits reflect how my day went and I'm I'm starting to identifythese things inside and like you said back on what the what my energy is and right now is awhole bunch of just kind of accepted the way things are way the way this what road I'm onright now and there's a sadness there because I'mgoing to lose what's been so valuable what I wanted for so long was you know awife and kids and a family i'm not going to lose my family because my kids are still be there but basically I'm goingto choose to blow my family blow my marriage up if I keep going okay becausebecause I'm making it because I'm going to have to make a stand to either pursue some happiness or stay where I'm at okayso So that's I just there's a couple things I want to say before we get into this is that you know Brandon and Iyou're probably going to leave here having been pressed on a little bit and before we before we do the pressing Ijust want to acknowledge that I see the pain you're in i see and feel a sense of dejection i feel a sense of sort of likealmost like being resigned um I do sense a little bit of uh resentment towardsyour wife and uh I just want to acknowledge that if any of those things are true I see it and and those feelingsare different than the feeling of actual surrender and acceptance even though they might be apart of the pathway to get there okay so um so if you're making your decisionsfrom this dejected hopeless resigned place that's not necessarily acceptanceyet okay your heart's going to have to get to a place of peace to make thatdecision with confidence i don't have the confidence that's if Ihad the confidence that yeah I'm doing I'm doing the right thing what's best for the relation for my kids for me thenthis would be a whole lot easier i mean I could I could move forward but right now that's there's not piece it'spretty much a lot of turmoil that Sure well the situation is turultuous micah II was going to say exactly what Tyler just said um does your wife need to be the badperson for you to move forwardplace it that way in those terms um I would never acknowledge that she is butis somewhat if I want to sit here and be honest with myself I think I'vekind of put her not necessarily as being a bad person but being a selfish personkind of doing what's best for her singularly and what she claims is bestfor her kids but I think is really what's best for her regardless of what is happening to

Justifying boundaries

everybody So you So I think I think I've already put her in into that not necessarily badbut kind of selfish category yeah you make you make the judgment that she's acting out of selfishnessyes yeah um your arm is twisted into having to divorce her nowand because she's the villain and now the troops are rallied the kids arerallied and saying Micah like or dad like Yeah like she sucks and I mean maybe they'renot saying that but kind of right there yeah you're justified you're validatedyou're because she's selfish and she's not willing to do her own work and whatif something else is going on what what if you're able to move forward and uh move maybe out of this marriage but nothave to see her that way or or be a victim to her is that possible i wouldlove for that to happen i would love to this to I think the healthiest thing would beto end for this to end in a friendlyseparation a one where we can agree that this is the best thing no hard feelingsshake hands and agree that we need to parent fromtwo set from two different locations but still still be on where we're notfighting every about an issue every time we see each other that's what I'd loveto see happen i mean ideally I'd love to see my wife wake up tomorrow and say"I've been a real jerk to my husband i've treated him like crap and and I'm going to change my life starting today."But I I'm not I'm not naive enough to say that's gonna happen you you should go just buy some lotto tickets becauseyou'd have a better chance of that happening i know that's that's that's what I for a while honestly prayed thatyou know God just wake up my wife let her wake up today and say oh what have I been doing and I've just kind ofrealized that that's not how people work and that's not how God works and that'sjust it's just not going to happen but but let's let's uh I'm going to beannoying here for just a second go for it yeah um you know from her standpointit's like okay I got this guy next to me who his energy is that he plays thevictim to me he He sends me messages that I'm not doing enough of my own worki'm not giving him what he wants um I'm not giving him the intimacy that hewants uh you know she's not going to roll over and be like "Hey let's let's get it on like this this is soattractive." Um she's not gonna Like you have a part in that Micah of her hersnapping her fingers and being like "I want you." To her you're probably not thatattractive right now i Do you understand why do you understand why like why I saythat well except for the fact that she's told me that she was she she straight up toldme "Yeah okay imagine yourself a third person looking on this relationship and and what would you think that you neededto be for me to be attracted to you i was like I have no earthly IBD i've been trying to figure that out for years giveme some hints she said no you're going to have to figure that out for yourself i'm not I'm not giving you the road map right so what Tyler and I are saying to

emotional honesty

you is a big one right now because we're we're trying to help you uh figure outhow to step into your power as a man and and not fall back into this place oflike victim and your trauma is saying like I need to be justified to have these boundaries i need to be justifiedto step away no you don't you what you need is is to really know yourself trustyourself and act in truth whether that's leaving her whether that's staying and that is independent of her one thingthat we're not seeing here at all is herher fear and her pain what we're seeing is selfishness orambivalence to do the work or apathy or blame back at you right but the truth isis that she's a human who is deserving of compassion who has a lot of pain andyou can connect to that pain and still choose to move forward and move out of that relationship and you can model toyour kids how to love somebody in their pain but still be a strong enough personto have your own healthy boundaries at the at the same time do do you see whatI'm saying i do you see what you're saying and I I feel that right now beingthat you know it's three and I' I've slept in the spare room for three and a half years now separately apart and it'severy night feels like a betrayal every night when I poke my head in the door say good night have a good night andtrudge up the stairs go to my room feels like I'm taking the walkof rejection every every single night so I have gotten to where I'm more I feellike I'm more in tune more empathetic with her feeling like she was betrayedwhenever I would act out how she felt as being rejected when she'd know I had actout i think I feel a little more in tune wi with that yeahand but I guess part of what it's saying right now is I mean it's been couple ofmonths since we've had the conversation and probably years since I've tried to initiate any kind of intimacy cuz I'vejust kind of like gave up on it and um since like I said 6 months since wetalked about the relationship in in that and it's just kind of I guess is meof probably what the vibe you're getting from meis these conversations go nowhere so I've just kind of gotten to the point oflike well so why why why bother with it why worryabout it and I just started what what's best for me in thisrelationship without stepping all over her feelings and her preferences like we talked aboutthe worship guitar issue um last last episode and I still do thatuh it's not like every Wednesday thing they'll send me a song list and you know the set list for Sunday and I'm like "Ohyeah I know this song." And I'll just tell her "Hey you know on on Tuesday tomorrow night I got church we'replaying this this song on church and if there's anything you need me to do before I go if there anything you need me to pick up you know while I'm outjust let me know but this is this is what's going on." And so I've respectrespectfully own owned my own self that kind of stuff and like three two and ahalf year almost three years ago just me and my two boys went on a last minute umthree-day camping trip literally it turned into a catch and cook we ate off of cardboard and we ate whatever we atetrout we caught we went a trout part and it was kind of a last minute we're leaving in two hours y'all grab yourstuff put put it in the Honda and we're going and we've talked about that for years and the week after first week of

When fear drives our decisions

July my dad was like "Y'all do that again i'd love to make this a three generation trip." So I talked to him wescheduled the date he's the senior citizen so he gets the discount so he made all the reservations for the campground and agreed to bring his RVthis time so we don't have to bring the tent and and I he made the reservations and I walked in and said "Hey this iswhat's happening a month from now um if there's anything that youwould like to see happen before we do this you know let's talk about it andbut I just I'm just letting you know ahead of time that uh me and the boys are gone on July the 7th and yeah she Igot some resistance well what about this what about that what you know when do we get to I'm like you just tell me whenyou want when you guys want a girls trip and I'll make it happen i've never told you no if you want to go somewhere sodon't come to me saying what about this whenever you've never you've never asked i mean so I am stepping out owning youknow making some some moves to say this is this is real for me this is what mewhat I want to do or this is what the boys and I want to dobut Micah I don't know at the same time I'm trying not to step on everybody's FIFA and be empathetic but at the sametime I've gotten to the point right now that I've kind of got more of the whatdo I want to do with my life kind of stage okay that that's okay so so the energythat you're approaching this with is is still got a little bit of a heart at war to it even though you're doing somereally decent things with your own recovery yeah um and and would you bewilling to just kind of do a little little exercise with me just for a second absolutely go for it okay umfirst let's set the baseline that the decision that's being made is whether or not to stay or to go okay let's say thedecision is already made that it's right for you to go okay we're not even going to try to change that decision right nowright okay so you're going to be leaving no matter what your wife has a therapysession in the same town as the other doctor's appointment and she misses itwhat does that mean to me yeah what does it mean what doesit What did it feel like to me whenever I It meant to me that even though she wastired from going getting her teeth cleaned I guess because I do things a little differently as a man i've gotsomething that needs to be done i dig down deep and I find the energy to go do what needs to be done but to me it feltlike the relationship that she and doing the work that she has admittedly out ofherself out of her own mouth needs to be done for our relationship to move forward wasn't important enoughto to put out the effort that day that it needed to be even even though she did not feel like it okay that's your storyboom there it is what's her story come up with three differentstories that would be her stories if you were in hershoes i drove an hour to get to this this dental appointment had to sit inthe dentist office for an hour to wait for the dentist to wait for my turn went in got my teeth adjusted my implant shehad an implant she had to go get adjusted i got my implant adjusted by the time it was over I was already been

Letting go of the need for a villain

away from the house for three hours and all I could think about is I need to get home i need to get supper on okay I gotthings I got things to do and right now trying to go talk to somebody about my problems and about my hurts and myfeelings is the last thing I feel like doing okay what I would imagine it felt like that'sthat's possible that that could be the case could I throw another one in there that could be the case go for itman I am clinging by a thread to this relationship i know that I got to dosome healing but I'm afraid that if I go in and start opening up my feelings number one I won't be able to be as goodof a mom as I try to be i I'm really afraid that what I'll find is is that I probably need to cut ties and I don'treally want to lose that relationship yet and I don't even know if I have the emotional energy and it's not even myfault i shouldn't be having to go to therapy in the first place and so now I've got all this on myplate all this pressure to try to figure out how to save my marriage with problems that I now have that I can't seem to find the bottom of and I can'tfeel safe enough to even go look at doing that work because I feel this pressure for my husband all the time and he doesn't even realize that I'm tryingto stay in the relationship so the way I stay in the relationship is by not looking at thehell he's put me through because I don't know if I can tolerate itis it possible that she feels any of that i know she has felt that so I'm fightingfor my marriage by avoiding the pain that I know I have to go through now I'm not saying that'sright but it's possible that she's looking at it from such a different lens than you that you're feeling resentmentwhen she might have good intentions and what would happen if you were to step in even though you're goingto leave her because we've already decided that's going to be the case but you were able to step in with a ton oflove and patience and the next time she missed her therapy appointment you were able to say "Oh man I see so much painand I realize that I'm still in the way because I've put all this pressure on you and because the focus is always onme and because your healing will probably never take place while I'm in the picture here." Like dang it like I'msad this is going to be really rough on both of us but I love you and I want you to get the healing you need and if I need to get out of the way Iwill what What if your heart was at peace and you could love her as you made the decision instead of need her to bethe problem because you're not getting enough and because you're gettingrejected what would it take to cultivate your heart into a space where you could see that and still follow through onwhatever is right to do i can see Brandon squirming by the way he probably wants to go a differentdirection than I just did so Brandon feel free to chime in too no I I agree with you i see it um I I think that'swhat I was saying earlier that exact same thing um but but there both are true here here you go Tyler here's thedialectic right both both can be true Micah that like you're sick and tired ofbetraying yourself like you betray your own truths and you you settle for scraps in thatrelationship this is what we talked about last time you were on I believe um where you know how how long are yougoing to go and not have good connection and intimacy in your life how long areyou going to go and have an unhealthy relationship you know inside your heart you're not living your full life becauseyou keep betraying yourself because you've been protecting this relationship right and so you're sick and tired ofthat and and and I'm glad that you're feeling that and that you're you're feeling like hey things have to change

Creating clarity without control

and I'm I'm going to be willing to do the hard things to have this change happen that's a good thing Micah yesright so on one hand we have that um uh what Tyler and I are trying to get youto see is that if you take this pattern of giving up your power and then needingto play the victim in order to justify your behaviors if you take that out of thisrelationship you'll take it right into your next relationships yeah no I don't want to do that youdon't want to do that right you want to stay as a powerful man a powerful partner who can step into his truths butstill practice love and compassion and so if you can both behonest with yourself about what your truths are but be compassionate towardher and her pain and not make up stories to be the victim then you canabsolutely step forward and move forward um there there's some type offear that says if I soften my heart and I love her for where she's at there'ssomething there that I don't know if it's then I might have to stay or you know like I don't know why that'shard um but there's something there what do you think Micahi I don't know i I at one pointsaw that in her and I'm sure it's still there tosome degree i I've saw the we're working doing this stuff being on the otherum online rep live recovery programs we used to be on a subscribe live one wherewe did podcast I mean live sessions three days a week and I would come homeafter she'd been on one of those and just see the agitation see the pain with having to look at thethings but I also saw the part that I also very much remember the partwhere that show hardened and it got towhere she she confessed to me one time that she was gone to her grandma brothers for two weeks and she saidduring that two weeks I had to make a decision to emotionally cut you out of my life mhmand and that I I I that hurts me so bad to this day to torealize that I'd put my wife in a point that the only way she could survive in the relationship was emotionally cut meout to where she did not care anymore and she even even to this time even right now I was I share we share a TVsubscription with with with several family members got a family plan outside of our home and she asked me the otherday are you watching this show or is so and so else watching this show and I was like well I'm not watching that one shewell it's got some content and I just wanted to make sure because right now honestly I don't give I don't give a[ __ ] what you watch just if you watch something like that watch it on under another user So the kids don't see it

Navigating painful emotions

but I really don't care what you do with your life anymore and there's part of me goes "Yes you do." But then there'sanother part of me goes "No you really don't." So are you are you okay being married toto somebody or or to be in a relationship like that no I'm not that'spretty clear right okay i guess that's the part I want how doI say that this has got to change even Even mydaughter told me the other day she said "I feel like mama would be happy if this just rocked on until every one of thekids was out of the house and now you guys are two empty nesters and then you have the time to go okay now what?" Andin the meantime just things to go happily alone like they are with no change at all she said "I feel like mamawould be absolutely fine with that but so Buzz you you're getting some datain what she said when she said "I've had to learn how to just shut myself off from you." Now that hurts man like itnobody likes to be told that in a relationship that's going to be like a gut punch that knocks the emotional windout of you right oh it will yeah 100% i don't think anybody who's human couldavoid some of that happening and that's going to hit all of your shame that's going to hit all of your doubts that's going to hit all of your rejection andit's going to hit all of that stuff right of course it did and now what you have on your plate because of that is you'vegot to go take care of that shame through your shame resiliency work reaching out to other people on your team getting perspective practicingself-compassion getting yourself strong again but then what if you could come back and revisit what she said from ashame resilient place where you're no longer in your shame what is the data that she just gave youit's not about your shame well excuse me i understand that um that was like seven years ago that thathappened and um what I have since reinterpreted that is and I keep gettinghurt enough by you that the only way I can protect myself is toemotionally not be attached to you yeah okay okay so so if that's the case nowyou've come to this spot where she's given you that data point time and time again you're going to be in a shameresilient place and you can see that do you see that you're actually agreeing with her now mhm that it's like dang itlike I've gone and done some things and caused a ton of pain so much so that youdon't even know how to go about getting started and now I'm the one who's keeping you closed off which means I'mnot getting what I want which is a healing process together you're not getting what you want because for somereason my presence shuts you down so for my sake and for yoursake this guts me to say this but I think it's time for us to look at something differentand I kind of I see that very much i kind of I was in denial you know we can make this work i think what's whatyou're talking about you'd see a different energy well since then we had a weekwhere just myself and my older son stayed home while she went on a trip with the rest of the kids and he'salmost 16 so it's just kind of like two dudes hanging out all week and it took

Self-trust in the decision-making process

us two days to come to an understanding what was expected between the two of us and the rest of the week was just liketwo best friends you know living together in a house you I mean it was we had a great time and during that timeall of a sudden I was responsible for everything i was responsible for cooking the meals i was responsible for doingthe laundry keeping the house clean going to work um Iwas I don't know how to say it but it was just kind of like I was all of a sudden findingmyself at a liberty to make choices makedecisions myself instead of having to make decisions based on what somebodyelse you know what's how this going to affect what she going to think about thisAnd there was a piece of me that matured that became a man that week while I wasby myself and I that that that blew apart 30 secondsafter she walked in the door and I became that inner child again and cuz wehad to run in before she five steps in the door she looked around said "What would y'all do all week just sitaround?" Cuz the house wasn't ready for company and all that besides the pointum that's kind of got me with the place because that one week of me just growing andmaturing by myself without interference I realized that no this is the man thatI want to be inside somebody who can think for himself who has this strongsecure place but I realize I'm not going to do that unless I'm by myself which isthe last thing I want to do is be by myself because I'm terrified of being aloneuh I want to tell you a story real quick um go for it so I was working with aclient years ago um they had a bunch of kids this married couple bunch of kidsand um he he same thing happened his wifecame to him and said "I'm done with emotional connection with you um youknow move down to the basement um basically pay the bills um and takecare of things and I don't want to divorce you because we got these kids but there's no real relationship hereright so exactly where we're at we we've had that we've had that that very talkso there was like 10 guys in the group and he'd come and he'd talk about his situation and the group eventually juststarted like really pushing like what are you doing like what you know how long cuz he was full of he was full ofresentment sadness rejection um just feel just felt used felt taken advantageof is is how he felt um and this went on for probably a year in group and and thegroup would push back like know knowing full well that he was he was definitelynot stepping up in his truths at home and modeling to his kids a weak man whowas getting taken advantage of finally he got the guts to step upand to make some hard decisions and he was he was reading Michael Singer at the time and like doing a lot of his ownwork to try to let go of victim and try to have some compassion for her andum finally divorced her and you know what happenedum she amped up tenfold with attacking him as a horrible human being shestarted manipulating things with the kids started turning all the kids against him every like so here's mypoint um he did Oh but guess whatMicah he's absolutely happier now he's absolutely at more peace now with

Finding peace in the unknown

himself um but even though they got divorced itdoesn't mean that all of a sudden um like they can't take your power youcan hand them your power forever divorce won't solve that rightdo you see what I'm saying um and what really matters here and the reason the whole reason I'm telling thisstory what really matters here is you finding your own inner peace um what really matters here is youyou trusting yourself and being resilient to her in terms of handing her yourokayness do you see what I'm saying um so I I just want you to move forwarduh not from a place of anger andresentment but from a place of finally stepping up for yourself and loving yourself from a place of setting a goodexample for your kids this is all about you it's not about her Micah right doyou see what I'm saying so I'm finally trying to get it cuz I've been making itabout her and like I didn't have any right to have an opinion or feelings in this at all it was all because I was thescrew up anyway so I didn't want what what right did I have to say I wanted to be happycuz I run her happiness and I'm kind now I'm and I'm now at the point that I'mlike "Yeah I do have the I do have the right i do deserve toto to to be happy again but at the same time and what you're saying about the resentmentum yeah I I'll own that i I I'm at the point right now it's not as bad as itwas i went through a season though of being absolute just bitter with the resentmentbecause I felt stuck used taken advantage of betrayed i mean becausewhat you what you described the scenario with that guy is exactly what's going on here i'm living I'm living upstairs i'mthe single income i pay all the bills i do Ido you know I like I sat down i kind of listed off what what things am I is shedoing for me that I can't do for myself right now and I thought to myself there's nothing that she's not doingthat I couldn't do for myself and at the same time what is what am I doing for her that she can't do for herself andI'm like well everything she's got is because I gave it to her and there'spart of me that resents that she doesn't see that and I I mean and I'm I see that and I'm struggling withit that that exercise is a pathway to resentment and divorce for sureum let's let's start keeping tabs on who does what um I like where I like whereBrandon's going and I think maybe what we're seeing is is that you've gone from one end of a spectrum of well I effed upso I I can never have a voice and I can I just need to make sure she's always happy this that and the other and now all of a sudden you started doing your

Rebuilding safety within yourself

own growth into like actually I'm kind of worthy of a a good life and love and belonging and having connection andrelationships and all of that is amazing work the problem is is the stickingpoint right now is who is Micah micah is a guy who cares deeplyabout people he cares deeply about his responsibility to provide for his children he's a guy who wants to caredeeply and invest in a relationship with the woman that he's with and your sticking point right now isyou're coming to a realization that maybe your next direction is to split ways but you're not keeping your heartintact with actually caring about her as you do it and and I suspect that the trathe road you're on if you could somehow see her humanity while also sticking true to theprinciple of who Micah is then you'll be able to make those hard decisions with an added measure of peacewithout as much resentment and you may end up still having to get divorced but you'll be able to then move through thatdivorce in a way where you're not fueling more of the bitterness thatisn't you that's not that's not your natural self no it's not no not at allthat's what I was going to say is like Tyler and I are pleading to you Micah umto operate from a place of love because you're that type of man um you've beenhardened over the years you have your trauma um there's been a lot ofresentment but you are a good man who creates good things and operates from aplace of love and um and we and we want you to step into that and and andmaintain that even through something as difficult as this probably one of the most difficult things you'll ever do inyour life the next few months right um but uh you can do it in your powerand not not in your weakness your power is loving yeah not from fear so becausebecause we believe in you Micah and um I'm just really grateful that you've come today you know we haven't resolvedanything i've pushed you hard because I believe in you um we've come at youtrying to get you to see this because we think you're the man so um I'm glad tohear that you're ready to to make some steps forward that you're not okay with what things are and and you're listeningto that um so you have done a lot of good work i think there's some more togo in terms of getting your heart in the right place so Micah any last thoughtsfor us what's on your heart Micahum I can Yeah I think you guys have kind of shined a light on where I'm operating from right nowi'm operating from a s a hardened resentful placeof I've I've I've let the the abuse just bounce off me too long and I finally gotto a place where I'm just decided I'm tired of taking it but I think that's that while while standingup for myself is a good thing I think I'm doing it in the wrong spirit and attitude

Final thoughts and encouragement

and Yeah what your but you've you've made me look across the bridge to whatthe relationship is going to be a after the splitand I think with the attitude I've got right now it's not possible to have a apositive separated relationship where the kids aren't going to get the bruntof she's a jerk he's a jerk kind of attitude and I'm going to take him foreverything he's got and she's not getting a thing from me and all that that's going to ensue i would I want itstill be a relationship where the kids feel love from both sides love it you'rethe man Micah so I just need I need to figure out now how to how to get to that place where I'mstill empathizing still caring about the people around me and at the sametime knowing what's knowing this is deep down even though this hurts this is what's going to be what's the best thingfor everybody well we uh we recommend this all the time Micah but the book The Anatomy ofPeace would be a great listen for the spot you're in right now okay um The Anatomy of Peace by the ArbingerInstitute uh it's going to it's going to speak to how to have the right kinds ofheart when you're setting your boundaries and how to help and how to help things go right even if you have tomake a hard decision um and I think that that's that's you're right there i mean I can hear it likeBrandon and I have interact with you enough to know that you got a heart of gold and it's it's kind of painful I think for me and maybe for Brandon tosee you in this other space that isn't really you most of the time and you'reyou're you're there because of some true principles that you're learning but now we've got to figure out how to get the poison out of it and merge the twotogether of who is Buzz with the new learning that he's had right and uh you're you're there you'reyou're you're moving that direction so it's been a really good discussionand uh just really appreciate you being vulnerable here with us and uh we'd loveto have you on again see how this goes moving forward this the story doesn't end here right i'm sure I'll be backlove to have you back anytime and I'll call you Micah i'll call you Buzz whatever you want when you're whenyou're back micah Micah is fine i mean or actually in light of this i mean Buzzis cool too cuz Buzz Buzz was the first nickname she ever gave me after we got married ohinteresting she gave me her f first hair my first do-it-yourself haircut you knowfrom your wife those are always epic and she forgot to put the guard on and she literally gave me a a reverse mohawk

Outro

down the middle so the barber shop had to literally cut it off at a quarter of an inch and that was that was I alwayshad this really nice hair you know all my life so that first time I I looked like a cocoa burrso and so she was like "You look buzzed." And and whenever I came home and got a kick out of itand she little notes that she found you know I cleaned out my attic this week that's the project I'm working on beforethe fishing trip and I found little little it was kind of sad cuz I foundall the little souvenirs she had saved up in the attic from our dating and we used to work at a restaurant togetheryou know so we used to get to hang out and I used to write notes on the bottom of of the styrofoam cups that she'd haveat the end of the night and I found a a bag up there with the bottom of every single cup that I'd written onwell and it just just finding that kind of stuff and I started to take them down and leave them on her pillow but I waslike "No that would be mean but I'm not going to do that." But it's just you know you know like there's part of methat just says "What do I got to do to get back to that?" But the reality part of me says you're not going to notreality thanks so much guys i gave me a lot tothink about and to work on and and until next time you know Godbless thanks Micah and to anybody listening um if this struck a chord thenjust uh just send some good energy Micah's way and uh you know come on theshow we'd love to have you too and we can we can talk through things so and until next time keep on keeping on

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