"I've never really seen my wife naked. Not once. Not in 20 years."
That's what he told me on our first call, five months ago.
Sex was, in his words, "more like an obligation."
Once or twice a week.
He never asked her to change, gave her an ultimatum, or brought it up with her at all.
He changed instead.
He also told me this, that same call: "We're chugging along, but I'm not happy."
There was no crisis or threats of divorce.
On the outside things looked ideal.
What pushed him to reach out wasn't a fight. It was that realization, hitting him more than 20 years in.
"Kind of felt like I was a little cheated," he said.
He'd done everything right and still ended up shortchanged.
He said they hadn't been talking. When I asked what "not talking" meant, he mentioned they'd gone two days without a real conversation. It was all logistics, kids, schedules. Never asking how the other person was doing.
The distance had become normal to him.
Seven years earlier, he spent $5,000 on a couples retreat with five other couples. He went in hoping for a breakthrough. Instead, his wife listed everything she disliked about him in front of the group, and the facilitator backed her up.
"I felt like that guy beat me down," he said. One of the worst experiences of his marriage.
The next time things got hard, he didn't go looking for another workshop or another expert. He looked for what he might be doing wrong, on his own.
He thought he was winning. A paid-off house, no debt, his wife home with their kids, only five days traveled for work in twenty years, helped with the dishes most nights, no porn, or anything else.
He wanted to be treated like a man who'd conquered for his family.
Instead he felt like an average Joe, overlooked despite everything he'd built and sacrificed to protect it.
Two weeks before he reached out, he read "No More Mr. Nice Guy" and recognized himself, performing acts of service while expecting affection or appreciation in return. He saw the pattern but seeing it didn't change it.
It was just one more thing to feel bad about.
He pulled back from the one place that felt most exposed. He stopped leading family bible studies and stopped praying with his wife altogether.
He'd been married 20-plus years, and so had the men around him. Their advice was give up on thinking it can be better. This is just how it is.
He almost took their advice.
He kept looking, but none of it touched the actual problem, because none of it got to the root.
The root is the wife a man lives with is responding to an environment.
And that environment is downstream of the man, not the other way around.
In Genesis, Adam wasn't just told to work the garden, but to guard and tend what had been entrusted to him.
Your home is the garden. That means paying attention and standing guard over what God gave you.
It's not lecturing or controlling her.
Science is still catching up to the Bible. Psychiatrist Murray Bowen called this "differentiation of self," staying calm and present under pressure without losing yourself or trying to control everyone around you.
We didn't start with her. We started with three things he could own without her permission or participation.
He traded his commute podcasts for worship time, aiming for morning time with God he could look forward to, not another duty.
He replaced talking at his family with a structure that invited them in.
And he practiced noticing what was right and saying it out loud, tying actions to character. Starting with his kids, because that felt safer than starting with his wife.
It wasn't a straight line. "I cannot compliment my wife on her character. It's literally impossible," he told me.
Then one night in the car he was singing along to one of his favorite worship songs. She told him, "You have a nice voice." Something she almost never did.
It should have felt good. Instead it left him uneasy, like he couldn't trust it.
Me: "How did it make you feel that your wife noticed something nice about you? She complimented you on your singing."
Him: "Hmm. I guess... noticed. Noticed, I guess."
Me: "But you're guarded, right? Like some part of you is already waiting for it to get pulled back. 'She said the nice thing now, but will she still feel that way in an hour?' Is that fair?"
Him: "Yeah."
Two days later, in his words, "it was like a disaster again," the same complaints, the same feeling like nothing he did was ever enough.
He kept going anyway.
Something else was changing at the same time.
In our first few weeks of calls, he was monotone and lifeless. I started digging, asking about anything in his life that wasn't the marriage, anything that felt like his. That's when he brought up a side business he barely took seriously. He called it a "joke." But talking about it, he came alive in a way he never did talking about his actual paying job.
That's common. Most men confuse their occupation with their work. Occupation is what pays the bills. Work is what God actually gave you to do. It's how you express who you are.
I told him to stop treating it like a hobby and start treating it like what it was: his Work. In one week: 11 new customers from a simple strategy. The next month became his largest collection month ever.
He later doubled his recurring customer base. All of that by being intentional and spending dedicated time on it.
For the first time in weeks, he had energy in his voice on our calls.
Me: A few hours where you get to do deals a week. Is that a big ask? Or is that reasonable?
Him: I'd love to. I could spend all day on it.
That mattered as much to what happened next as anything he did at home.
A man who feels alive is a different man to live with.
Then his wife surprised him with lingerie. There was no conversation, or lead-up. "Way, way outside of what she would ever do," he said. "I didn't even recognize this person."
By our fifth call, her texts had changed tone. "I can't wait to see you tonight." "I miss you." He said, "I can't not think about it all day long."
By the final call, she'd been out of town visiting one of their kids.
Her message to him: "Trying to nap before you pick me up... so we can... when I get home." "This weekend we'll be locking ourselves in our room."
Asked if she'd spoken to him like that before. "Not for a while," he said.
Can't promise your wife will respond the same way.
What's true is this: none of it was for her. He rebuilt his relationship with God because he needed to, not because it would fix her or the marriage. She was never the target. She just happened to get the benefit.
He's seen her now.
That's what it looks like when a man embraces who God made him instead of accepting "this is just how it is."
@HonitelHQ I feel women are the emotional ones at the point of making decisions on starting the dating and then very logical while deciding whether to stay or leave. (Ruthless actually)
Dear men,
Here are the some non-negotiables you must demand in your woman before marriage:
1. She must be a woman who can cook and genuinely enjoys cooking for YOU.
2. If she respects her father, she will most likely respect you when you lead her properly.
3. Test her level of accountability. When you give her money, does she account for how she spends it, or does she spend freely with no regard?
4. Look at her home. Who calls the shots, her mother or her father? A woman is largely a reflection of her mother.
5. If she supports Yahoo boys or fraud, she will eventually pressure you into stealing.
6. Confirm sexual compatibility. If she is not a virgin, verify that your sexual drives match.
7. Avoid women who live in church or jump from one religious program to another. Marry a religious woman, not an overly religious one. A truly religious woman loves and serves God. An overly religious one worships her pastor.
8. Check genotype compatibility at least twice. AA can marry anyone. AS should only marry AA. Never ignore this.
9. Scrutinize her friends. It is better for her to have no close female friends than to keep many. A woman should be reserved.
10. She must be a homely woman who puts her family first before her career. Never marry a woman who wants everything in the home outsourced.
11. Go through her social media thoroughly. Her views on marriage must align with yours. Make sure she has no nudes, semi-nudes, or overly revealing photos.
12. Reject feminists. Marry a woman who sees you as her head and willingly submits to your leadership. God has given you the authority to lead your wife. You cannot force submission, but you can choose a woman who submits.
13. Avoid female lawyers unless you are certain she rejects feminist ideology. Most are feminists by default.
14. Never consider a single mother.
15. Stay away from women with septum piercings and women who smoke. For your own good.
16. Study her family patterns. They are real. Examine the history of childbirth complications, chronic illnesses, and divorce rates in her family. Do not ignore this.
17. Watch how she treats you when angry. Does she withdraw respect, refuse to cook, or withhold sex to punish you? If she weaponizes any of these, run.
18. She must apologize when she is wrong. Reject the lie that "women don't apologize." Good women do.
19. Ensure she's a woman who involves you in her daily life. Make sure she's one who seeks your permission or guidance on important decisions.
20. Ensure she's a woman who believes in gender roles. A man provides, protects and leads. A woman supports and nurtures. Marriage is an institution with Cleary defined roles not one where you just "do whatever you like". The roles are flexible and that's where you get to assist each other not to cancel out roles.
21. If you want a virgin, still vet her using all the points above. Virginity alone is not enough. It is not a substitute for character, kindness, or respect.
Choose wisely. Your future depends to a large extent on the woman you marry, because once you choose her, you have chosen your destiny.
Above all, love God.
It's because when people say NYSC, they don't mean the three-week camp.
What's the purpose of doing a six-week entrepreneur bootcamp just to end up teaching kids in Lagelu in this sort of condition?
This is where you want to develop the AI prompting engineering you learnt in camp, when they've not had electricity in 10 years in this town when I took this picture.
@street_proff@janetfunmi I get your line of thoughts.
I just feel based on age and desire, she wants to jump that part of discussion during the preambles.
She's the one publishing, so she'll decide whether to put out her virginity status. It's now the duty of the man to find out and other things too.
@janetfunmi@street_proff Both men and women should publish their requirements without fear or pride.
However, those requirements should also be made with future projections and regards to the quality of men/women in the immediate society.
@street_proff@janetfunmi ... making in life. And I believe the lady involved doesn't want to spend her time in order to find out later.
The need to accurately note all the requirements I believe is as a result of deep-seated experience or observations in our current society.
@street_proff@janetfunmi Your generalisation of how you perceive men before they make a decision for a relationship is actually a pass mark (60-70%).
Nevertheless, there are still men that want to live off women. Being financially unstable is not a crime but can also be as a result of poor decision...
@Ryann_Agada This is not a case of being busy or servicing too many responsibilities.
This is a typical 'familiarity' that is usually experienced in marriage/relationship and that salient urge to try something new or different from the usual.