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29 - What Religion Gets Wrong About Sex · Masculine Containment

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Masculine Containment Podcast.
• 0:02
  I'm Alex Sharfman and today I'm going to jump into a topic that I don't think gets talked about a lot and there's a reason I'm doing this because, and I'll let you know in a moment, I'll share a story with you that kind of tells you exactly why I'm recording this.
• 0:16
  But first, I want to just share with you, this podcast is What Religion Gets Wrong About Sex.
• 0:22
  And I want to make something very clear.
• 0:24
  This is not an attack on religion.
• 0:26
  Um...
• 0:28
  I'm not religious, but I have a lot of friends who are.
• 0:30
  I respect religion.
• 0:32
  I think religion has set a lot of people free.
• 0:34
  I have friends with lives who are going in really bad directions, found religion, and turned things around and feel a lot better about themselves.
• 0:41
  And so this is an attack on religion.
• 0:44
  But what it is, is me sharing lived experience of having a lot of friends and seeing a lot of people.
• 0:52
  And understanding some of the dogma that's out there that I believe is really damaging relationships on both sides for both men and women.
• 1:01
  I think there's a challenge when religion or the dogma around religion is used to override the body.
• 1:07
  You know, doctrine can point people towards God, but dogma can teach people to actually ignore themselves and what they're feeling and what's going on for them, both men and women.
• 1:15
  I want to make that clear.
• 1:16
  And this tragedy is that many couples are not trying to hurt each other.
• 1:21
  They're actually trying to do the right thing.
• 1:23
  They're trying to do what they were taught, what they were raised with, and still they end up disconnected.
• 1:30
  isolated, feeling like strangers in the same home, feeling each other get more distant, further away, less connection, less playfulness, less love, less intimacy.
• 1:39
  And I don't mean sex as an intimacy, but less sex as well.
• 1:43
  And they feel sexually alone, even though they might be engaging in having sex.
• 1:48
  So...
• 1:50
  First, I want to share a story, and it's interesting.
• 1:52
  This story is not just an individual story of a friend, but it's a composite of a lot of the discussion I've had around this with friends of mine that are in religions and friends of mine that were raised a certain way and raised with certain belief systems.
• 2:05
  A few months ago, I put out a Facebook post.
• 2:09
  Facebook is a place where I like to put out my latest thoughts and, you know, what content I'm thinking about right now and what things have come up for me.
• 2:16
  And, you know, I write rather long form posts and I post them there.
• 2:18
  So if you don't follow me, you might want to check it out.
• 2:21
  And I posted a argument that sex out of obligation really challenges relationships and
• 2:29
  And in the post, I spoke directly to who this podcast is for.
• 2:33
  So this podcast is for you, and so is the post, if you feel your wife slipping away.
• 2:39
  You feel like there's less intimacy, less connection, less playfulness, like she doesn't look at you like she used to, like she doesn't feel as close, she doesn't feel as cooperative.
• 2:48
  She might feel like she's disrespecting you, like you're frustrated.
• 2:53
  And that's how I started the post around obligation in a relationship.
• 2:57
  And I had a friend of mine text me and say, Alex, I read your Facebook post.
• 3:01
  Is there any way you can get on a call today or tomorrow?
• 3:03
  And it sounded urgent.
• 3:04
  So I set up some time with him for the next day and we jumped on a call and I knew something was going on because typically when we jump on a call, we talk about Formula One or we talk about what's going on in his life or his business or what's going on for me and
• 3:19
  And this time he just immediately launched into the problem.
• 3:22
  So it kind of caught me off guard and I had to like really pay attention because I wasn't expecting that.
• 3:28
  And he started with, you know, Alex, I read your Facebook post and you talked about how if you're having sex out of obligation, your wife might start feeling less playful and less fun and less intimate.
• 3:39
  He's like, Alex, all of that stuff is happening.
• 3:41
  Like, you know, she's not looking at me like she used to.
• 3:44
  And we don't have like the same type of conversations we used to have.
• 3:47
  And we don't have as much fun as we used to.
• 3:49
  And I thought everything was going great.
• 3:50
  But then I read your post and I realized I'm feeling all of those things.
• 3:55
  And I could feel his emotions.
• 3:57
  I could feel his pain.
• 3:58
  I could feel his realization that something at the foundation of his relationship was wrong.
• 4:05
  And then he told me, he said, you know, he and his wife are both religious.
• 4:10
  And he said, you know, I thought I was doing great because I talked to other guys at church and they don't have sex with their wives.
• 4:16
  And my wife, like once or twice a week, she is just ready for me to have sex with her.
• 4:21
  I walk in the room and she's laying in the bed and she doesn't have clothes on.
• 4:24
  And she's like, I'm ready.
• 4:25
  And we would have sex and it would feel good.
• 4:27
  But...
• 4:29
  there's something missing.
• 4:30
  And when I read your post, I realized what was missing.
• 4:32
  It's like, I don't feel connected and I don't feel close to her and she doesn't feel close to me.
• 4:35
  And it feels like she's doing it for me, not for her, not for us.
• 4:39
  And it feels empty and frustrating.
• 4:41
  And sometimes we have sex.
• 4:43
  And the only thing I think can think about is I never want to do it again, or I want to do it again immediately.
• 4:47
  And it just doesn't feel like it used to feel.
• 4:51
  And
• 4:52
  As he was explaining it to me, he started crying.
• 4:55
  And I had to, like, slow things down and have him, like, really feel his emotions and feel his feelings around this.
• 5:01
  Because...
• 5:03
  As a man, when you think you're doing the right things and you think you are doing what you should be doing and you start to realize that something feels wrong, not in your mind, not in the intellectual part that's been taught these things, not in the, you know, I think I'm doing the right thing because I'm following the rules, but in your body where it starts feeling wrong.
• 5:26
  where it starts feeling like it's not connected, when it starts feeling like it's not for her, when it starts feeling like obligation, it feels wrong.
• 5:34
  It feels challenging.
• 5:35
  Now, if you are in a religion and you're having great sex with your wife and, you know, there's nothing wrong, then this podcast probably isn't going to mean a lot to you.
• 5:44
  But if you've started to feel that disconnection in your body and...
• 5:49
  you've started to feel like she's not as close to you and maybe you feel her slipping away and maybe outside of sex and intimacy, you don't have the connection that you want and she's not as close as she used to feel, then I think this podcast might be able to help you because...
• 6:04
  My friend followed doctrine, but his body knew the truth.
• 6:06
  And leadership was like what was promised in his faith, in his religion, but what he felt like was the erosion of his relationship.
• 6:14
  And he was getting intimacy in form, like in function, but not in the actual experience.
• 6:19
  He wasn't feeling it.
• 6:21
  And here's the challenge.
• 6:22
  His wife was saying yes, but her body over time was learning to close.
• 6:25
  Her nervous system over time was learning to close.
• 6:28
  And when that happens over and over again in a relationship, it's going to affect you not just in the bedroom, but everywhere.
• 6:33
  And so what I told him, like what feels like is lost, what feels like you used to have is it might just be inaccessible.
• 6:40
  And if it's inaccessible, it can be regained, but not through demand, not through doctrine, not through rules, not through some obligation, but through creating emotional safety and security for your wife.
• 6:53
  I'll get to how you do that in a bit.
• 6:55
  But first, and, you know, that's definitely, I'm going to explain that in as much detail as I can because I want this podcast to help you.
• 7:02
  I want this information to help you if this is what you're going through.
• 7:05
  Because here's the big issue.
• 7:07
  When sex is obligation instead of chosen union, you know,
• 7:12
  things start changing.
• 7:14
  Obligation is not intimacy.
• 7:16
  When a woman is obligated to have sex, when she feels like she has to, not because she wants to, when she doesn't feel safe, when she doesn't feel secure, and you're having sex anyway,
• 7:28
  Duty sex may satisfy like doctrine.
• 7:30
  It may satisfy this covenant that, you know, some men talk about, but it starves the relationship.
• 7:36
  And a woman saying yes when her body says no is not sacred union.
• 7:39
  That's actually a violation.
• 7:41
  That's like consent is so important and desire is so important.
• 7:45
  And her wanting you is so important.
• 7:47
  Like as men, when we have sex with somebody who doesn't want to have sex with us, when they're doing it out of obligation, there's a part of us that knows.
• 7:54
  Right.
• 7:55
  There's a part of us that's unsettled, that feels wrong about it, that feels like maybe we shouldn't have done it.
• 8:01
  You know, I know.
• 8:02
  I know.
• 8:04
  Like I said, I'm not religious.
• 8:06
  But there were times in my relationship where, especially in the past, before I understood masculine containment, when my wife still didn't feel emotionally safe and insecure in our relationship, where I would want to have sex and she wouldn't, and I would just be persistent and talk to her about it and say it over and over again.
• 8:24
  Make sure she knew how much I wanted it.
• 8:26
  And then she would finally give in and have sex out of obligation.
• 8:29
  And, you know, when I look back on that now, yes, I was having sex.
• 8:34
  And, yes, we went through the act.
• 8:36
  But afterwards, it would always feel wrong.
• 8:40
  I would feel wrong.
• 8:41
  I would feel...
• 8:42
  Like I shouldn't have done it.
• 8:44
  And a lot of times it would feel like my compulsive feelings went through the roof for me and like challenging feelings went through the roof for me.
• 8:51
  And it was not calming.
• 8:52
  It was not settling.
• 8:53
  It wasn't what it is now.
• 8:56
  It wasn't as exciting and extraordinary as it is now because when you have access to her body without consent, you often have access to her body, but you lose access to her heart.
• 9:07
  And you lose access to the connection between you.
• 9:10
  And women who give obligatory sex over and over again often preserve the marriage or think they're preserving the marriage, but they're quietly disappearing inside the marriage.
• 9:22
  And here's one of the big things we have to understand.
• 9:24
  You know that whole concept that body keeps the score.
• 9:26
  You know in Tantra there's a concept called armoring where like when the body is under pressure, when the body is objectified, when the body is treated in a way it doesn't want to be, we tense.
• 9:37
  And we create armoring.
• 9:39
  We create tense areas in our bodies, harder areas in our bodies.
• 9:43
  We don't soften.
• 9:45
  This is for both men and women.
• 9:47
  But when a woman...
• 9:48
  has sex over and over again.
• 9:50
  And by the way, if these symptoms are present in your marriage, this is an opportunity for you.
• 9:53
  You know, what was happening in my marriage was over time, Katie got more sensitive, not less.
• 9:58
  She had more sensory issues, not less.
• 10:00
  There was less that she wanted to do, not more.
• 10:02
  And this is after being married for a long time and after being together for a long time and learning how to repair and learning how to make her feel safe.
• 10:10
  Sorry, learning how to repair and learning how to try and fix the situation after I made her feel unsafe.
• 10:18
  And when we were in that situation, when we were trapped in this cycle of trigger, escalation, rupture, withdrawal, and then some attempt at repair, and she was having sex out of obligation, it was like two things that were working against us in the relationship.
• 10:35
  And what I've learned by studying this and obsessing over it, because I wanted to fix it.
• 10:40
  This was like the biggest problem in my life.
• 10:42
  So much so that in 2024, I went on sabbatical.
• 10:45
  And all I did was study sex, intimacy, and relationships because I wanted this to get better.
• 10:50
  And what I found out was that...
• 10:53
  The more my wife was having sex out of obligation, and really the theory is any woman is having sex out of obligation, the less safe pleasure becomes.
• 11:03
  The more her body experiences numbness and pain and sensitivity or shutdown.
• 11:07
  And it may not be dysfunction.
• 11:09
  Like a lot of times that's seen as some sexual dysfunction.
• 11:11
  You need to get a sex therapist or you need to see somebody or see a doctor or get medications or creams or lotions or potions or all kinds of stuff that's out there.
• 11:20
  But a lot of times, if a woman has learned that sex means pressure, then safety has to be rebuilt so that pleasure can return, so that desire can return, so that she can want to actually have sex.
• 11:35
  And I know this is something that doesn't often get talked about because it's one of those things that you really have to live to understand.
• 11:46
  And so often we acquire our belief systems around what's right, right, and wrong really young before we've actually lived through understanding if they're right and wrong.
• 11:56
  And oftentimes the belief systems have distortions in them.
• 11:59
  Like one of the biggest ones is the leadership distortion that leadership, like the man is the leader of the household now.
• 12:07
  Here's what I do believe.
• 12:08
  I believe the man should be the leader of the household, but I think that's an earned position.
• 12:13
  It's a position where you eliminate that cycle of trigger, escalation, rupture, withdrawing, then repair by becoming contained, by getting in your body, by earning the title of leader, not just stepping into it because somebody told you that you are the leader of the house.
• 12:29
  And yes, you should.
• 12:30
  You should do everything you can to ascend to that position.
• 12:34
  But a man doesn't become a safe leader.
• 12:37
  It doesn't become the actual real leader of a household because somebody told him that he is.
• 12:43
  Leadership is an earned responsibility.
• 12:46
  And if your leadership requires your wife to override her body, then it's not leadership.
• 12:52
  It's like a dictatorship.
• 12:54
  That's not a good place to be.
• 12:56
  Entitlement dressed up as righteousness is still entitlement.
• 12:59
  If you feel entitled to your wife's body, if your belief system allows you to feel entitled to your wife's body, then that's a distortion.
• 13:08
  Right?
• 13:09
  That's a place where there's something absolutely wrong and it's going to cause challenges for both of you.
• 13:14
  Remember, a lot of men look at this and say, well, you know, it's women being defensive about doctrine.
• 13:19
  Well, I don't know about that because the person who reached out to me was a guy.
• 13:24
  And I've had more than one man talk to me about this and more than one man come clean to me and say like, man, there's got to be a better way.
• 13:30
  It's just not working.
• 13:31
  It doesn't feel right.
• 13:32
  I know I'm losing her.
• 13:33
  I know she's slipping away.
• 13:35
  Yeah.
• 13:36
  And when submission is required without safety, what we're asking for on the part of the partner who's submitting the woman in most cases, not all, but in most cases, is self-betrayal.
• 13:48
  See, our nervous system, her nervous system doesn't recognize doctrine.
• 13:54
  Her nervous system recognizes whether she feels safe or not.
• 13:59
  And a lot of people look at submission as devotion, but submission without safety, it's not devotion.
• 14:06
  It's self-betrayal.
• 14:07
  Her body is closing.
• 14:08
  Her body closing.
• 14:09
  It's not rebellion.
• 14:10
  It's a protection.
• 14:12
  If she doesn't feel safe in the relationship and she's required or obligated to have sex, her body will start closing.
• 14:19
  It'll get harder for her.
• 14:20
  It'll become more difficult.
• 14:22
  It will feel uncomfortable.
• 14:24
  And a lot of times men see this as rebellion.
• 14:26
  They see it as withholding.
• 14:27
  They see it as her not wanting to for some reason.
• 14:30
  And they feel entitled to it.
• 14:31
  But the issue is these feelings are real.
• 14:36
  Desire doesn't survive in the lack of safety.
• 14:39
  And if her no's not honored, her yes eventually disappears from the inside.
• 14:45
  Some of the most heartbreaking, challenging emails and text messages and messenger messages I get through social media these days are from women.
• 14:57
  And they go something like, uh,
• 15:01
  Alex, he's my person.
• 15:02
  I love him.
• 15:03
  I always have loved him.
• 15:05
  He's my everything.
• 15:06
  He always has been.
• 15:08
  But we've been in a relationship where I haven't felt safe.
• 15:12
  And he blows up a lot.
• 15:14
  And I'm doing everything I can to make him feel better.
• 15:16
  I'm doing everything I can to make him happy and make him feel comfortable.
• 15:19
  But when he comes close to me, my body says no and I don't understand why.
• 15:26
  And I've had women tell me I override my body and then I feel terrible afterwards.
• 15:29
  And sometimes I feel sick.
• 15:31
  I've had women tell me I've been doing this for a long time and now I have, you know, I have the symptoms of autoimmune disorder or I have been diagnosed with something.
• 15:39
  And it makes sense to me because central nervous system dysfunction affects our body across the board in all ways.
• 15:45
  It affects hormone production.
• 15:47
  It affects dopamine production.
• 15:48
  Serotonin affects just about everything.
• 15:51
  The HPA axis in the body, the ability for us to regulate ourselves.
• 15:55
  The nervous system literally runs the body.
• 15:57
  It affects our digestion, our ability to breathe, our ability to see literally.
• 16:02
  If you are really stressed, if you have a migraine, there's too much going on, people get double vision and their eyes go blurry.
• 16:08
  So the nervous system controls everything in the body.
• 16:11
  And if a woman repeatedly feels unsafe and repeatedly is doing things out of obligation and feels like she's in fight, flight, fawn, or freeze all the time and then we add sex on top of it, it just makes everything worse.
• 16:26
  And I've seen it too many times, you know, and I think as men, if we can understand this and slow things down and stop creating the lack of safety, things radically change.
• 16:39
  I'm going to share in a moment with you how we change those things radically, but I want to just go a little bit deeper into the issue and what people are dealing with and what the issue actually is.
• 16:45
  Because here's the distortion, another one.
• 16:46
  When pleasure becomes dangerous instead of sacred, it's, you know, it's, you know, it's, you know, it's, you know, it's, you know, it's, you know, it's, you know, it's, you know, it's, you know, it's, you know, it's, you know, it's, you know, it's, you know, it's, you know, it's, you know, it's, you know, it's, you know, it's, you know, it's, you know, it's, you
• 16:55
  it actually creates like an added pressure on both parties in a relationship.
• 17:00
  And my friend actually talked about this.
• 17:02
  He said, you know, um, I'm doing all the right things and I'm following what they said in church and, you know, she's doing the right things and she's following what she's, we're supposed to do in church.
• 17:13
  But, um,
• 17:13
  uh, what we were told to do in church, but she doesn't feel it.
• 17:16
  I can tell she doesn't feel it.
• 17:17
  I can tell she it's getting worse and worse.
• 17:19
  And I don't really feel it.
• 17:20
  I feel like it's getting worse and worse too.
• 17:22
  And it doesn't feel like it used to.
• 17:23
  It's not as fun as it used to be.
• 17:24
  And sometimes when I come in and she says, I'm ready, he's, he was like, you know, I have a hard time.
• 17:29
  I have a hard time with it.
• 17:30
  Like sometimes I'm not able to do it.
• 17:32
  I'm not ready to do it.
• 17:34
  And, uh,
• 17:35
  Here's what I think is going on in both the male and female nervous systems.
• 17:38
  Like when we don't feel safe, when we feel off, when we don't feel intimately connected, when we don't feel like, you know, this is real, it can affect our body's ability to work.
• 17:50
  can make men can have like the symptoms of erectile dysfunction can make women sensitive and feel pain and make it so that they don't lubricate and they're not ready and this is like a big part of sexual dysfunction is actually central nervous system disruption it's not talked a lot about in medical science because there's not like a prescription or a pill or a lotion for central nervous system disruption but we can fix the symptoms
• 18:15
  But if, you know, sex is a survival mechanism for the human species and if you're having trouble with it, your central nervous system is probably in a survival mode in a place where it's shutting down faculties in order for you to survive.
• 18:30
  And when we understand this and we start to slow things down and we stop like looking at sex this way and we start really understanding how to connect with our partners, everything can change.
• 18:41
  Like erectile dysfunction can literally go away.
• 18:44
  And women who have a hard time getting ready for sex and have to use lubrication and have to do other things, that can go away.
• 18:51
  Women who are having hormone issues and men who are having hormone issues can actually be resolved through creating real intimacy and calming our nervous system.
• 19:00
  Because here's the common dynamic in this belief around sex as obligation is that both people think they're doing the right thing.
• 19:08
  Like I just said, he thinks he's receiving intimacy, but he's feeling more alone.
• 19:14
  It's exactly what my friend conveyed.
• 19:16
  She thinks she's giving intimacy while feeling less connected to herself, which is so confusing and really causes disruption in the body.
• 19:24
  And neither one of them have to actually be malicious or trying to harm in order for this to cause harm.
• 19:30
  Now, there are cases where men are like using this to control their wives.
• 19:33
  There's cases where men are using this to manipulate and to force their wives into things.
• 19:38
  And that's even worse.
• 19:40
  That causes so much challenge in the male and female nervous system.
• 19:45
  But in the cases where they both think they're doing the right thing and they're trying really hard, a relationship can be eroding even while people are being faithful and believe that they're doing the right thing.
• 19:57
  And like I said, this damages women, but it also robs men.
• 20:02
  See, I believe our relationship is the most important initiation in our lives.
• 20:07
  As men, when we lean into that connection with the person that we love, with the person that we care for, with the person that we want to connect with and be with, we change ourselves.
• 20:19
  We see our trauma.
• 20:20
  We see our wounding.
• 20:22
  We understand what's going on with us.
• 20:23
  We slow things down.
• 20:25
  And we can actually start working on those things.
• 20:28
  You know, trigger, escalation, rupture, withdraw, and repair.
• 20:31
  Every trigger is an opportunity.
• 20:34
  It's not an opportunity to explode or implode.
• 20:37
  It's actually an opportunity to understand what's going on with you and to slow things down and to become more calm and more present and aware and more curious and lead with curiosity, not just in your relationship.
• 20:50
  Your relationship is like the training ground where you can become calm and more present and more curious and more aware everywhere in your life.
• 20:59
  One of the things that happens when men start doing this is their businesses start growing.
• 21:02
  You know, in the brotherhood that I lead, we teach men the strategies that I'm about to discuss with you.
• 21:08
  And we show them masculine containment, which is a way to override all of this.
• 21:12
  It's a way to keep your faith, live the doctrine, understand your partner way better, and also live just a better life.
• 21:22
  And open the door to the type of intimacy you've always wanted.
• 21:29
  Being owed her body and being welcomed by her body are not the same thing.
• 21:34
  When you become the man that is welcomed by her body, when you become the man who instead of compliance creates connection, when you become the man who instead of getting access, you feel chosen, it changes everything.
• 21:48
  I know.
• 21:49
  I know because I've done that.
• 21:51
  Like take a minute and don't hear what I'm saying alone.
• 21:54
  Feel what I'm saying.
• 21:57
  I've been there.
• 21:58
  I've been in the place where I felt like I needed more sex because I wasn't having enough.
• 22:03
  I've been in the place where my wife was having sex out of obligation to create, you know, some type of compliance with me.
• 22:10
  I've been in the place where I felt her slipping away and I felt her being less playful and I felt her being less close and less connected.
• 22:16
  And it was horrible.
• 22:18
  It was horrible.
• 22:20
  I look back at those days in our marriage and everything in my entire life was more challenging.
• 22:25
  Every workout I did was more challenging.
• 22:27
  My work was more challenging.
• 22:28
  The business I ran was more challenging.
• 22:30
  Staying in my body was more challenging.
• 22:32
  Showing up for meetings was more challenging.
• 22:34
  Showing up for myself was more challenging because I had this constant reflection that something was wrong in my relationship.
• 22:42
  And since I've learned how to contain myself, since I've understood the martial art-like trainable discipline of masculine containment, everything's changed.
• 22:51
  It's the initiation that we as men have always been looking for.
• 22:54
  Here's how you take this from one of the most challenging situations we can experience as men to one of the most glorious, amazing, life-giving, validating, life-improving situations we can understand as men.
• 23:09
  See, leadership is not authority over your partner.
• 23:13
  Leadership's responsibility for yourself.
• 23:16
  Where you show up in a way where when there's a trigger, you breathe.
• 23:20
  You don't suppress your feelings.
• 23:22
  Suppression of feelings, suppression of desire, that causes all types of problems.
• 23:26
  You don't repress your feelings, you breathe.
• 23:28
  You feel the feelings that are coming up for you.
• 23:29
  You show yourself that you're safe.
• 23:30
  You show yourself that you're safe.
• 23:32
  You know, when there's a trigger and we as men explode or implode, we're acting as though we're actually under physical threat.
• 23:38
  Explosion or implosion, like pulling all the energy and sucking it in or exploding it all out by bringing too much energy to the situation.
• 23:48
  Those are reactions like we're under physical threat.
• 23:51
  But what's really going on is there's a trigger present.
• 23:54
  There's something emotional happening.
• 23:56
  And we have learned how to suppress our feelings and implode or explode.
• 23:59
  So instead we feel our feelings.
• 24:00
  We slow things down.
• 24:01
  We breathe.
• 24:02
  We understand what's going on for us in the moment.
• 24:04
  We show ourselves we can stay.
• 24:06
  We show ourselves that we can create safety instead of demanding submission.
• 24:11
  Because here's what happens.
• 24:13
  When you lead yourself first as a man, when there's conflict in the relationship, when she's upset, when something's going on and you slow things down and you lead yourself first and you see her and hear her and validate her, you create emotional safety and security.
• 24:29
  And when you create emotional safety and security, you won't have to demand access to your wife's body.
• 24:35
  When you create emotional safety and security, you will be invited back.
• 24:40
  When you become safe, you will be invited because she will feel close to you.
• 24:43
  She'll feel connected to you.
• 24:45
  You know, the goal is not to get her to comply.
• 24:47
  The goal is to become somebody her body and her nervous system can trust.
• 24:51
  This is exactly what happened for me.
• 24:54
  But since I started teaching this information, since I started showing men how to train in the discipline of masculine containment, it's intense the types of stories that have come out of the brotherhood.
• 25:05
  In fact,
• 25:07
  There was one story from our second container, and I'm going to change a couple of the details because I don't ever want anybody thinking I'm sharing their private stuff, but it'll be very close to what was originally said.
• 25:16
  There was a guy who came into our group and posted this, and he said, guys, I've got to tell you this containment stuff works.
• 25:24
  Last night, my wife and I went out, and we were going to a party, and it was either on the way or once they got there, she spilled something on herself, and we had to leave and go home so she could change.
• 25:37
  We got in the car and she lost it.
• 25:39
  She was upset and she was frustrated with herself.
• 25:42
  And he said, you know, in the past when she got like that, I would tell her, hey, you don't need to be frustrated.
• 25:48
  And hey, you shouldn't be so angry.
• 25:50
  And it's OK.
• 25:51
  It's not that big a deal.
• 25:52
  And essentially what he was saying is I would have invalidated her feelings.
• 25:57
  I wouldn't have seen her.
• 25:59
  I wouldn't have understood her.
• 26:00
  I wouldn't have heard her.
• 26:02
  And so he said, you know, this time I understood containment.
• 26:04
  And when I had the urge to tell her she was wrong, I just breathed and listened to her truth and I validated her truth.
• 26:12
  And when I had the urge to tell her everything was okay, I stopped and I asked her how she was feeling instead.
• 26:19
  And I let her express herself.
• 26:21
  And he said something like, guys, it wasn't easy.
• 26:24
  The car ride home was about 30 minutes and she went on almost the whole way.
• 26:29
  Now, when I zoom out on that story, what I see is a woman in an emotional reaction.
• 26:33
  She wanted to go to a party.
• 26:34
  She felt embarrassed.
• 26:35
  She felt frustrated.
• 26:37
  And a man who's like holding containment and making her feel safe and making her feel seen and heard and validated and creating emotional safety and security and showing her that she can have a reaction to life and she can show her inner world.
• 26:52
  She can show him the chaos in her body in that moment from what happened to her with her pants and that he can hold.
• 26:59
  And he can stay and he can be there with her.
• 27:03
  And when I zoom out, what I see is he held a position of dominance of himself, not her.
• 27:09
  Not her.
• 27:09
  We don't dominate other people in the brotherhood.
• 27:11
  And masculine containment is not dominating someone else.
• 27:14
  It's holding dominion and dominance over yourself.
• 27:17
  It's showing yourself you're safe, not having to explode, not having to implode, being able to stay there, ask questions, lead with curiosity, let her feel seen, let her feel heard.
• 27:27
  And what happens is he created this energetic of dominance, which allowed her to express and be seen and be heard and get it out of her body and choose, if she wanted to, to surrender into that feeling of safety, to say everything that she needed to say without holding back.
• 27:47
  to be seen, to be heard, to be held in his energy.
• 27:52
  And the story went on.
• 27:54
  He said, when we got home, she went into the bedroom to change.
• 27:58
  And I went into the kitchen to sit down.
• 28:00
  And, you know, being on that drive for a half hour was a lot.
• 28:03
  So I was breathing and I was showing myself I was safe.
• 28:06
  And I think he might have said he put a hand on his heart and a hand on his stomach.
• 28:09
  We do that a lot in the Brotherhood.
• 28:11
  And he said, and then she came out of the bedroom.
• 28:15
  She didn't have any clothes on.
• 28:17
  She almost knocked me out of the chair and we had sex in the kitchen.
• 28:20
  And he said, guys, I want you to understand something.
• 28:23
  We don't ever have sex in the kitchen or never have.
• 28:27
  I think in like eight year marriage or something like that, we've never had sex in the kitchen.
• 28:31
  He's like, you know, I think I'm understanding this.
• 28:34
  I think I'm getting this.
• 28:36
  And I share this story not to be sensational and not to tell men like, hey, you should practice masculine containment because you'll have sex in the kitchen.
• 28:44
  But man, it's a great byproduct.
• 28:47
  But I share this because it demonstrates that when we show up as men and we are contained and we create emotional safety and security, things happen that we never thought would happen.
• 29:01
  I can tell you that's exactly what's happened in my life.
• 29:04
  Over the course of our marriage, the more uncontained I was, the more lack of presence I had, the more I was still objectifying women and using pornography and doing all kinds of other things that were in my nervous system that my wife could feel in hers, she got more sensitive.
• 29:18
  She had less desire.
• 29:20
  She had more issues around sex.
• 29:21
  She had pain and numbness and all kinds of stuff.
• 29:34
  We now have an intimate life that I couldn't have dreamed of.
• 29:40
  I knew what I wanted, but what we have today is so far beyond what I wanted or what I even knew I could want.
• 29:48
  It's extraordinary.
• 29:50
  And that's why I'm sharing this with you.
• 29:52
  Because sacred intimacy is chosen intimacy.
• 29:56
  It can't be forced.
• 29:58
  And when a woman opens, she's choosing to open when she feels safe.
• 30:03
  And when she feels safe, you don't have to demand what she's naturally going to feel like she wants to do.
• 30:10
  It changes everything.
• 30:14
  And what I know now is I'm not owed my wife's body.
• 30:18
  I'm not owed intimacy.
• 30:19
  She has no obligation for it.
• 30:22
  I became the man her body can trust.
• 30:26
  And now what was an imbalance in libidos and sexual desire for most of our relationship has normalized in a way that is extraordinary.
• 30:34
  And so...
• 30:36
  I know this is a difficult topic, but if any of this landed for you and if you have any of the symptoms in your relationship, I think there's a solution here.
• 30:45
  And the solution is not using dogma, not using doctrine, not using rules, not using laws to legislate what your wife needs to do, but instead becoming the man who shows up and
• 30:59
  creates safety and leads with curiosity and becomes more contained over time.
• 31:04
  And by the way, there's no perfection here.
• 31:06
  I still lose it sometimes.
• 31:07
  I still implode.
• 31:08
  I explode much less than I used to.
• 31:10
  The intensity level is probably a two on a scale of one to 10 where it used to be an 11.
• 31:16
  So I'm not perfect and none of us ever will be.
• 31:19
  In the brotherhood, we talk about progress over perfection.
• 31:22
  But when you start moving towards containment and less implosion and explosion and less of that trigger, escalation, rupture, withdraw and repair, your wife's body is gonna feel it.
• 31:32
  And she will feel it and she will see it and understand it.
• 31:36
  And intellectually, she'll know that something has shifted and her body will actually feel that there's more safety and there's more security in the relationship.
• 31:48
  So the path here is presence because the deepest expression of masculinity is not exploding, it's not yelling, it's not fighting, it's not aggression, it's presence.
• 32:01
  It's being the man who can hold, who can stay, who can be in the room with her.
• 32:05
  And so if you've dealt with anything that I discussed in this podcast, that's how you move things in an entirely different direction.
• 32:12
  And to follow up on my friend that I talked to, we had a great conversation.
• 32:17
  He came to understand some of the things that I've shared with you.
• 32:20
  And he immediately signed up for the next Brotherhood container.
• 32:23
  And he's in it now.
• 32:25
  We're in container three.
• 32:27
  And so if you're interested in moving in the direction of containment and this resonated with you and you want to have that connection, that desire, that's,
• 32:36
  that intimacy back in your relationship so that she is more playful, more fun, more connected.
• 32:41
  And by the way, when you have it back, everything in your life will get so much easier.
• 32:45
  The stories of men in the brotherhood, having their businesses grow or getting better jobs or getting promotions or making more money.
• 32:51
  They're all over the place.
• 32:55
  And so if this is something that you want to understand more about, go to thebrotherhoodsociety.com, fill out your name on our wait list, or sign up for an interview.
• 33:05
  If we're in an interview period, it would be my honor to walk this path with you.
• 33:09
  And I appreciate you being here.
• 33:10
  I appreciate your effort to become a better man.
• 33:14
  And I appreciate your effort to reveal yourself to yourself because I don't think in this lifetime we have to radically change who we are or become something different.
• 33:22
  I think underneath the trauma that we have and the wounding and the societal conditioning is everything that we are.
• 33:28
  And I'm glad you're here revealing that to you.
• 33:31
  Thebrotherhoodsociety.com.
• 33:33
  Be honored to walk this path with you.
• 33:35
  I look forward to seeing you soon.