Changing for the better

So to sum things up I’m a 38 year old man and I’ve been married for almost 20 years to a woman that I absolutely adore. We have 2 smart, talented teenagers together. Our marriage has had its ups and downs, frankly anything that could happen seemingly did, but we always prevailed. By the time I was 25 all of the family support system i was raised with had passed, my mother and my step father in separate tragic circumstances. Only now am i wondering if I failed to process that part of my life in a healthy way. So fast forward to the present and I’m realizing how disconnected I am, my kids won’t come to me with their problems, I’m starting to think I’m incapable of showing my wife love outside of providing for her or sex, which is a separate issue in it’s own, just overall I feel out of touch with my families emotional needs. I’ve never been to proud to seek help just from my perspective it seemed like it snuck up even though I know it’s not the case. I’m wondering if the things that happened in my life have made me callous even though I don’t feel I was affected that much, it’s almost like I’ve lost my compassion to a degree. I can clearly see it outside of my own life take the BLM movement, I agree and sympathize but deep down I don’t care anymore. Is that how I’ve become with my family and I’m just to stubborn to acknowledge it and what would I do to change it?

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radchuck,

Dude, this is so beautiful. So courageous. Great work identifying the feelings and opening up…what you’ve done by just laying it out here is MASSIVE.

And part of the ‘massiveness’ is the weight, man, it’s brutal what you’re carrying…carrying your wife and daughters and job and /life/, but feeling like you’ve been doing it on empty, somehow, for years. Like you’re dried up, like life has lost its flavor, like…maybe you’ve lost your ability to taste…it’s a brutally scary thing to feel like you’ve just gone numb…it makes you kind of want to do something drastic because that feeling can be so imprisoning, like you’ve woken up and are somehow trapped in this life where you’ve forgotten who you are, or really why you’re even here. You try to connect with your family, but it feels like you’re trying to do it through this bubbled insulation, and you can only get so close. It pains you – or at least, it /ought/ to pain you, but again, you are so distant from your own heart that you just assume that’s what it /should/ feel, but you don’t really feel it at all. Not that it’s supposed to reflect your love for them, but just that you don’t remember /how/ to feel. Kind of feels like you’re touching life through cotton…like, you can generally feel that there’s something on the other side of your hand, but it all feels the same, and it’s all dulled out.

And man, what a brutal spot to be in, to feel like your life is ever-increasingly in need of your heart, and to feel like you lost it years back.

You know, I was in a similar spot…loneliness was really what triggered it for me – which sounds like that’s part of the symptoms you’re feeling too. When my daughter was born, becoming a parent was /incredibly/ isolating for me. All of a sudden I didn’t have time for relationships or didn’t really know how to engage with them or didn’t have the energy to…it felt like my connection to others was just unplugged and I’m in this world where life requires so much more of me, and I’m not ready for it, and I don’t have anyway to revitalize, to restore myself…so every day just felt like more and more erosion to my heart/soul. One day I just broke and I reached out for help, too. I found a particular message that began to rescue me. It is faith-based, but it spoke of the essential, universal truths to recovering my masculine heart. And it breathed new hope, new life into my withered heart. I’ve been on a journey ever since, and honestly dude, I feel more alive than ever. I feel more connected to my family, to my /life/, than ever. It was a catalyst that began my rescue. I couldn’t recommend it more highly:

https://www.amazon.com/Wild-Heart-Discovering-Secret-Mans/dp/0785268839

DM me if you end up getting it; I’d love to hear what you think.

Either way – you’re spot on in identifying that at the core of this issue is your heart. And you have got to find a way to get it back. This book can be a roadmap for that, but it’s not the only path. So stay on it, stay in it, keep fighting for it…it is the epicenter of your life, and it’s where all good things will pour forth from. So whatever it takes, get it back.

-Nate