If you don’t put any work into your relationship, your relationship will suck.

If you take your relationship for granted, your relationship will suck.

If you simply expect your relationship to be awesome, your relationship will suck.

If you take take take from your relationship but never give to your relationship, your relationship will suck.

If you think your career is more important than your relationship, your relationship will suck. And your career will suck also.

And most definitely, if your relationship sucks, your life is going to be ONE GIANT SHITTY SUCK FEST.

THAT IS FOR DAMN SURE.

Yet, there are so many people who just EXPECT awesome relationships without putting the work in to create awesome relationships.

Put it this way: your primary romantic relationship sets the tone for every other relationship in your life.

Actually, let’s reframe that:

YOUR ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP SETS THE FUCKING TONE FOR YOUR ENTIRE FUCKING LIFE.

It becomes the benchmark for all...

I was recently interviewed on a podcast and asked what men need to do in order to have better relationships.

One of the things I said was men need to build emotional relationships with other men.

Without men building emotional relationships with other men, there is zero possibility these men will build amazing relationships with romantic partners in their life.

This is because – how we do relationships in one area of our life is how we do relationships in ALL areas of our life.

You don’t have low-level habits of relating and communicating in your friendships and then walk into a romantic partnership and suddenly have incredible high-level habits of relating and communicating.

You don’t revel in gossip with your girlfriends and then move into a relational container having this uncanny ability to adeptly carve out deep, introspective, nourishing and emotionally intimate conversations with your partner.

FUCK NO.

You don’t walk through life having difficulty...

I remember dating this girl one time who tried to tell me a relationship should never have disagreements, conflict or arguments.

I was like, “I actually believe that is what defines great relationships. How you work through conflict. How you both process your anger, individually, and together.”

As you can imagine, things ended soon after that conversation. As I am someone who has not only met his monster, but overindulged in his monster on far too many occasions.

She was the sweetest, kindest woman but she had not met her monster. She was not willing to meet her monster. She was not willing to work with her monster.  In fact, she didn’t even believe she had a monster.

But, WE ALL HAVE A MONSTER. Some of us are just more acquainted with it than others.

So you might be wondering…

WHAT IS YOUR MONSTER?

OUR MONSTER = OUR ANGER

OUR MONSTER = THE DARK CORNERS OF WHO WE ARE

Our monster is the explosive, reactive part of us....