Tough Love For Men

In this episode, my guest, Luke Adler, and I, Ryan Ginn, challenge you to reflect on how the shadow of competence affects your relationships, especially as a man. We share personal stories—like a vulnerable moment I experienced with my partner, Eden, over household chores—and explore how fears of inadequacy can trigger defensiveness and hurt communication. Luke adds humor and insight with his own...

In this episode, my guest Luke Adler and I explore the transformative journey of men's work, delving into the unconscious parts of ourselves that influence our behavior and relationships. Our focus is on fostering deep personal growth, emotional intelligence, and healthier relationships for men. We often get asked: Why do a men’s retreat? Isn’t one-on-one therapy more effective? Surprisingly, no!...

On taking care of all parts of yourself so you can show up fully in your relationship. Almost every man we encounter in our work has been conditioned to be somewhat dissociative in relationships. They are not fully engaged with themselves; in fact, there are entire aspects of their beings that they are not in touch with, that they were never taught how to be in touch with. This ends up being a maj...

On the heels of facilitating a men’s intensive weekend in Ashland, Oregon, Ryan and Slade wanted to delve deeper into the benefits of this kind of concentrated, immersive men’s work. As adults, most men don’t realize the degree to which wounded younger parts of them (think the inner child) are impacting their ability to sustain intimate relationships. This inner boy whose needs were not properly m...

On maintaining a growthful state of consciousness in your daily life. Men often cease to emphasize the day-in and day-out practices that will actually make a difference, because they’re waiting for a big experience or breakthrough of some kind that will ignite them and motivate them.  We want to bring a more critical eye and a constructive approach to how to integrate those moments,  prepare for t...

On mitigating each other’s trauma responses in conflict. Periodically, in coupledom, you’re going to do something—or not do something—that elicits a threat response or inflammatory reaction of some kind in your partner. The problem is, most people don't know how to effectively handle that response. At that moment, it can seem like a gross overreaction. But you may start to realize that this same r...

On consciously challenging your relationship perspective to avoid reinforcing blind spots. – In our work, we’ve realized that most men tend to fall into one of two general camps: they are either doing-oriented or being-oriented. Those who are more doing-oriented tend to be hyper-focused, solution-oriented, and constantly moving forward. They get things done, and are good at juggling multiple probl...

A discussion on the process of building trust with our partners after a commitment to change. – Most men have been given behavioral feedback from their partners at some point. And when we are able to recognize this feedback as something that necessitates a change on our part, no matter how much we also believe in the need for that change, the implementation can be an incredibly vulnerable process....

As we phase out of childhood and into the first phases of being an adult, most men need to undergo a lot of personal growth. There is a need for a personal deepening, a better understanding of self, that will help us form healthier communication patterns and vastly improve our ability to engage in long-term intimate relationships. This work is an ongoing process, and most men have received feedbac...

Many men struggle with opening up difficult conversations with their intimate partners because they fear the inherent vulnerability of that act. To communicate a need is to risk receiving judgment or negativity from our partner in response, and often, it’s easier to ignore the need entirely so as not to have to ask our partner for things. But giving in to this fear of vulnerability perpetuates avo...

On creating a conversation around intimacy needs in relationships. As men, we were never taught how to navigate the complexities of a healthy, successful sex life in long-term relationships. It’s something we are often left to figure out ourselves, with no real guidance around how to understand, respect, and prioritize both our own and our partner’s individual needs. As a result, many men feel una...

Most men have some form of emotional wounding, sustained in childhood, that is carried with them over the years and affects their adult relationships in different ways. In many cases, these woundings come from a mother’s best attempts to meet a child’s ever-changing needs. It is a fact that sometimes parents fail, and when they do, it can cause feelings of anger and resentment to arise within the...

On conquering the fear of being known. Men often have a hard time opening up to their partners about what’s happening for them internally. Anxiety, fear, and other similar emotions are scary for men to face alone, let alone in the presence of others. So, too often, they decide to bottle these feelings up instead of trusting their partner to see them and love them in all their vulnerability. Althou...

On the ups and downs of navigating parenthood as a partnership. Fatherhood is different for every man, and parenting is different for every couple, but there are some common threads often experienced by most fathers. Hearing other parents’ perspectives and experiences can help fathers feel less alone on their own parenting and relationship journeys. So with this in mind, in this episode of The Cru...

At the core of a lot of problems men have in relationships is that we don’t know how to properly deal with our pain. When we can’t actively relate to our pain, we shut ourselves off from emotional presence and withdraw into ourselves to try to cope with the pain rather than attend to it in a healthy way. As a result, we become inaccessible to our partners. Now, we all live with a certain amount of...

A common struggle among many men these days is the feeling of being inadequate in our partner’s eyes. We work hard for our families, we show up for our kids, and we focus on being a present partner and husband. But no matter how much effort we put in around the house or for our partners, it never feels like enough. We feel disconnected from our partners, we are constantly feeling negative feedback...

Something almost everyone has experienced at some point while in a relationship is the feeling of being attracted to someone other than your partner. This experience affects both men and women equally, and it is completely normal. In fact, attraction is ours first–it should be considered sacred & personal, and not something that has to be shared. Despite this, many people feel compelled to bring t...

When your partner feels triggered, you may find their emotional outbursts cause you to feel triggered, too. This is a common issue in relationships, and it can become a difficult cycle wherein your frustrations only serve to frustrate your partner further, and vice versa. A common question we get from men is, how can I help my partner in those moments, without succumbing to my own frustrations and...

It would be nice if our partner were able to give us feedback in a vulnerable, compassionate way, but it is unrealistic to expect this 100% of the time. This being said, there are things we can do, as the receiver of the frustrated feedback, to help stop the cycle of retraumatization that we perpetuate each time we trigger each other. And these can be done regardless of whether or not our partner...

If you’ve listened to the last couple of podcast episodes, you may be wondering, what exactly is a “Crux” in this context? How does this relate to my relationship and my interactions with my partner? Cruxes are the obstacles, issues, and stumbling blocks that come up in relationships, usually to do with our emotional perceptions of ourselves and our weaknesses. Some cruxes seem larger or more sign...

One of the chronic complaints many guys get from their partners is a lack of presence. This lack of presence typically shows up in the form of distance, being “checked out”, aloofness, or similar feelings, but the truth is, it’s actually the result of not being able to swim both in and out of the emotional plane. For many men, emotions are a foreign language, and when this is the case, it's diffic...

Welcome to The Crux! We are Ryan Ginn and Slade Machamer, and in our new podcast we will be tackling the most important questions around men's experiences in relationships, with the goal of giving men real, concrete steps to help them move out of frustrating places and towards feeling more confident in their relationships. We are so glad to have you along for the ride!