Episode #1067
Divorce doesn’t usually come out of nowhere. Most guys just don’t see the signs until it’s too late. In this episode, Doug and Chris talk honestly about what really leads to divorce and why so many men are blindsided by it, especially after the holidays.
There’s a reason January is known as “divorce season.” While you’re focused on work or coasting through the holidays, your wife may already be checking out or meeting with a lawyer. This conversation unpacks how good men end up in bad spots, and what to do now if your relationship feels off.
Doug shares what emotional safety actually means, how to tell if your wife’s already on her way out, and why most divorces that start “amicable” don’t stay that way. They also get into why nice guys who avoid conflict often miss the biggest warning signs. If you’ve ever thought “she’d never leave,” this is one you need to hear. The truth is, women usually leave emotionally long before they file papers. And by the time most men realize it, they’re in cleanup mode. That doesn’t have to be you.
If your marriage feels stuck or your wife seems distant, now’s the time to act. Not after she’s already made up her mind.
Want to stop the slow drift before it turns into divorce?
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Transcription
Doug Holt 0:00
Maybe she doesn't divorce you. Maybe what she does is just checks out. Fifty percent of marriages end in divorce. None of us think it's gonna be us, right? We always think it's gonna be the other guy.
Christopher Hansen 0:10
They're already talking about divorce, right? Like his wife went to see a lawyer.
Doug Holt 0:15
And so they think, "Hey, I'm gonna have one more great holiday with the family, and then I'm out." If she says below a seven, you've got something to worry about. Divorce attorneys know that people are going to call or come in their office and file for divorce.
Doug Holt 0:40
Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the TPM Show, where we talk about all kinds of issues that are for modern men and their families. And today's gonna be no different. Once again, I've asked Chris Hansen to join us or actually stay as we're recording these because he had a really good question, which I think is very applicable to where men are today in this season. Chris, thanks for being here.
Christopher Hansen 1:26
Hey, thanks for having me, Doug.
Doug Holt 1:28
Yeah, absolutely, man. I always love having you at The Ranch
Christopher Hansen 1:31
Yeah, thanks. Yeah, it's some of my favorite times.
Doug Holt 1:35
Yeah, I love it. The off-camera stuff is always the funniest to me. So for guys listening to this, of course, we hit record. We have Colton that's here, who produces these, that's here local, and so before we start talking conversation topics as you can imagine, three guys getting together there’s lots of jokes and banter that goes back and forth, which is always fun.
Christopher Hansen 1:57
Yeah, for sure. So, question one of the things that I have heard being talked about, and something that I'm somewhat familiar with, is something called "Divorce Day." Yeah, so I'm curious what is it?
Doug Holt 1:48
Yeah, I hadn't heard about this either till maybe seven years ago or so when it came on my radar. So Divorce Day is a specific date that is talked about amongst divorce lawyers family lawyers, right? Family law and it is the number one day that divorces are filed. There's like one day on the calendar, and I'll tell you why, and then more importantly, I'll tell you how to avoid it for most guys.
But there's one specific day that divorce attorneys know that people are gonna call or come in their office and file for divorce, so they're like, "Okay, I can start planning all the money that's coming in based on all these divorces," because divorce isn't cheap, man. You're gonna lose half of your stuff, probably fifty percent, depending on the state you live in. But most people you’re gonna lose your business, you're gonna lose your house, let alone all the emotional toll.
It's so funny when I've talked to guys, because our program isn't inexpensive, or the guys I work with one-on-one which can go up to $250,000 a year and our programs aren’t that, but the one-on-one is because my time is limited, so I can only take a couple guys at a time. It's very intensive. And I was talking to one of the guys I'm working with one-on-one, and I got to know him really well, so we just banter at this point and talk as men do. And I was like, "Hey, so what made you choose one-on-one?" And he was like, "Hey, I wanted results quickly." And he's like, "Look, the price tag is high, but if I get divorced" and he saved his marriage "if I would have gotten divorced, I'm losing millions of dollars, let alone I don't know who's gonna be raising my kids. Fifty percent of the time, I can say who's there, but if my wife marries another man, now I got another dude raising my kids that I have no say in, really, what that guy does. I have to sell my house or buy my wife out from the house. I gotta move all my stuff, or move all her stuff. The kids gotta go back and forth." And he's like, "Just economics make sense."
So anyway, Divorce Day, as you asked, is this year, for 2026, I believe it is January 5. So it's the first real Monday coming back after the holidays. And the reason this happens this is my opinion, of course but you can Google Divorce Day, it’s a real thing. But the reason it is, is the marriage has probably drifted for a while. And when I talk to women, what they say is, "Yeah, I've been telling him, you know, or hinting at what needs to change."
And he may have done a few things, but most likely has done none to make things better in the marriage. And so they think, "Hey, I'm gonna have one more great holiday with the family, and then I'm out." So she wants one last memory with the kids around the Christmas tree, eggnog, the whole nine.
What also happens is busy businessmen who have spent 40-plus hours away from the home, working their tail off, stressing about hitting Q4 projections, hitting end-of-the-year numbers, payroll everything else that comes up with that then also making sure, of course, their financial investments and everything are done by the end of the year they are now home. And they don't have the people there that they normally tell what to do. They're now with their wife. They don't know what to do. There's a disconnect.
The disconnection what was a disconnect now becomes obvious, right? It's down to the microscope. A lot of guys will go, "Okay, they feel disconnected. Let's just throw on the football game. Let's have some beers. Let's have some extra wine with dinner." And they start snapping, saying things that cause problems, and everything that's been buried under the carpet starts to come out and rear its ugly head.
And when you couple this, Chris, with the fact that 70% of divorces right? So you already gotta mention that if you're married, you got a 50/50 shot, statistically. Fifty percent of marriages end in divorce. None of us think it's going to be us, right? We always think it's going to be the other guy. We're on the other side of that 50%. But of those 50 that get divorced, 70% of them are initiated by a woman. That number, Chris, goes up to 90% if she's got a college degree or higher. That's huge. That means the women are planning their exit today.
So men that are listening to this right now, if your woman has even hinted at being disconnected, you're in trouble. The red flag is up there. This is me waving it in front of your face going, "Dude, this is a massive problem," right? And I've heard this from men who say, "Well, my wife would never leave me for religious reasons." Guess what we've got Mormon guys, Jewish guys, Christian, non-denominational guys, Baptist you name whatever religion you can think of and men who told me, "My wife would never divorce me because of religious reasons or because of this or because of that," I've seen all those men eat their words, unfortunately
Christopher Hansen 6:57
I had a conversation with a guy yesterday that shared the exact same sentiment that he wouldn't get divorced due to religious reasons and I've certainly seen that blow up in a lot of guys' faces. I also spoke with somebody the other day that shared with me, "We're not going to I'm not as worried about divorce." They're already talking about divorce, right? Like his wife went to see a lawyer but reassured him that this would just be amicable and he didn’t need to worry.
Doug Holt 7:29
There’s a nickel for every time I heard that.
Christopher Hansen 7:32
And he's going, "Yeah, you know, she would never make this hard on me. It would be a very soft process." I was like, she's talking to a lawyer. A good lawyer does not care about you.
Doug Holt 7:44
That's what it is. That's what the guys miss, right? And because not every guy that goes through our programs saves their marriage, right? Some leave it too late. You have another variable of the woman, or, you know, affairs. There are all kinds of things that can take place. The guys that get ahead of it have the best chance. Some men turn their marriage around week one. So it’s almost impossible to say which ones will, which ones won’t. I can tell you that 100% of the guys get skills that make their soon-to-be ex-wife more amicable, make it better with their children, and make their next relationship solid. So the skills don’t change; it’s just if you left it too late or not.
So what I would caution guys listening to this well, two things. One, to go back to the divorce thing, a lot of men that I’ve talked to, it always starts off amicable. Rarely does it end that way. Something happens along the process, and I hear this all the time: "She changed." And a lot of times, to your point, the lawyer doesn’t care about you. The lawyer’s job is to get the best.
I had a guy that I was talking to everything was amicable. They agreed on everything. They signed the paperwork. So it was a legal document on the agreement of a divorce and everything. Then all of a sudden, for some reason, right, she felt insecure or something about it. She went out and hired the top divorce attorney that she could find. I’m talking expensive. This person works with very famous people, right? Here comes this amicable thing. Everything was great. He was giving up a lot. He was being very generous in the divorce and the separation. They were going to be co-parent, all of those things.
Next thing you know, he’s having audits of his business because this other attorney’s like, "No, this is not good." They only wanted him to have the kids for two days a week, maximum, right? And so all of a sudden, all of this was he’s like, "Doug, what’s going on?" was thrown in his face.
Now, with this particular guy, I’ll tell you, we maxed out on him being grounded masculine man showing up as his best, authentic self. She eventually fired that divorce attorney, went back to the agreement, because he was able to get her to see the safety in what he was doing. He applied the skills, and he still wants to he’s the one that wants to get divorced, yeah, so he wants to separate.
Christopher Hansen 10:10
Oh, wow. So he was able to navigate this in a way that actually made her feel safe through the divorce process.
Doug Holt 10:15
100%. He used the exact same skill sets that we teach. Now she's like, "Okay, I feel calm, I feel safe now," right? As you know, women need to feel safe, then seen, heard, and desired. He did all of those things. He left desire off a little bit, but his desire was, "You are the mother of my children. I will protect you and take care of you still." That’s what she needed because what got stimulated by this attorney and her fear was she was going to get left behind.
Now, what do I do? She was a stay-at-home mom. It was an identity thing. She just got scared. And so she was scared. She was looking for something to grab onto. She grabbed onto the divorce and the best divorce attorney money could buy. And of course, as you said, that attorney she has a reputation. Her reputation needs to be, "I crush everybody." Oh yeah, to get ahead. And he just happened to be the person in front of her.
Now I’ll tell you, if this was my situation, right, and I knew if things were if I was to rate my marriage on a scale of one to ten, and it was below a seven and then if I asked myself, what would my wife say? This is what I want you guys listening to this to ask yourselves. If my wife were to sit down with Doug right now, have a cup of coffee, and Doug asks her, "How would you rate your marriage on a scale of one to ten?" If she says below a seven, you’ve got something to worry about.
Okay, she is she’s looking for a ten. She’s watching rom-coms. She’s reading those books about what her marriage should be. She is, at some level, planning an exit. Could be just emotional withdrawal, could be an affair, emotional affair, or could be divorce or worse, right? This is time. It’s a wake-up call. This is us telling you, hey, it’s time to wake up and take action.
You know, get in a program like The Activation Method. We have a bunch of programs, but The Activation Method is the key program we offer for men who want to save their marriage. We have other ones, like The Accelerate Blueprint and The Ascension Blueprint, that are for guys that are stuck, just unsure about life. But this one, The Activation Method, is for married men or men in serious relationships.
Anyway, if not us, then go somewhere do something today, this week when you’re listening to this. If you’re like, "Oh crap, I think my wife might say it’s below a seven," right? Now, some guys I’ve talked to are like, "Oh, it’s a one." Like, these are beyond red flags. Otherwise, on January 5, you’re gonna find yourself, on January 6, getting served papers. Yeah, and now you’re looking at a multimillion-dollar deal, plus the emotional turmoil. And that’s what all the guys say even the guys that wanted a divorce said, "Man, I wouldn’t wish this on anybody."
Christopher Hansen 13:03
And when I'm going through the holidays just going through the holidays disconnected, alone, I can tell you, as someone who would consider myself to be on the other side of a lot of this work and in a relationship that, you know, we actively work on ourselves and we've...
Doug Holt 13:21
I want to buy you a gift. Look, if your marriage is struggling and let's be real, every marriage struggles at some point but yours is struggling where you've lost that love, admiration, and respect, I want to help you. I want to buy you a copy of the book that I wrote, A Man’s Guide on How to Save Your Marriage Without Talking About It.
In here, I've distilled over eight years of programs that we've developed at TPM to help men just like you save their marriages without talking about it. There's no fluff, no BS. It's an action plan that you can start using today to actually save your marriage and bring that love and respect back into your family, back into your house. You deserve it.
Look, all I ask is you pay the postage you pay the shipping. I'll buy the book for you. That way, you can take massive action today. Click the link or find it in the bio and get your copy now.
Christopher Hansen 14:14
I'm excited about the holidays. Like, I'm excited to be home with my family. I'm excited to connect with my wife. Give yourself the gift of that. You know, I talk to a lot of the men and you mentioned earlier, you know, different circumstances and how women are going to respond to this work so I consider myself pretty good at being able to identify that in a short conversation.
Most of the guys that I talk to, I get the sense and I again, I think I'm spot on that their wives are sitting on the other side of that gap, waiting to be met. Yes, just waiting with open arms for you to show up and provide emotional safety for her, and provide the environment for her to thrive emotionally. And when you start to do that, like, she’s right there to meet you.
Doug Holt 15:07
100%. I’ve talked about this in the podcast, but I have four women that work out in my garage three times a week. I can hear eavesdrop, right it’s next to my kitchen. I have a finished basement; I can hear through. I can hear what they’re talking about. They’re not always talking pleasantly about their husbands, I’ll tell you that.
And they’re doing the work, and they’re wishing to get the one. This is why we have so many women calling in TPM trying to get on calls with our program advisors because they want to find out, “Hey, how do I get my man? This is my last-ditch effort.”
If your wife is calling in to get on a call to talk to someone like you, Chris, about one of our programs, this is her last-ditch effort to save the marriage. She’s exhausted. She’s told you, she’s hinted in her eyes, anyway. She may or may not have done it the right way, but she’s done all these things to tell you, “Hey, this ain’t working, and something’s got to change.”
Now, maybe she doesn’t divorce you. Maybe what she does is just checks out. She becomes cold. Sex becomes an obligation versus a fun, great thing to do. And I can tell you, talking to the guys, the guys that are having sex with their wives out of obligation hate it. They’re like, “I don’t even like it. I’d rather go masturbate, because then I don’t have to deal with the fallout of the whole thing.”
She just has sex with me because she thinks it’s her role versus having a woman want to ravage you as her man. That’s a totally different feel. And so you can do all this. You just got to learn to provide that emotional safety, that connection. Make your wife feel heard, make her feel truly seen.
That’s what prevents Divorce Day. That’s what prevents the angst from the holidays. And to your point, you know, if you have children, you want to be there so they have a memorable, fun Christmas, Hanukkah, whatever it is for your family, rather than one where mom and dad avoid each other and you know, both of them turn to drinking too much or doing drugs or sedating in front of the TV the whole time versus one where you’re playing games, you’re having fun, you’re all enjoying each other’s company.
Christopher Hansen 17:19
Yep, yeah, absolutely. And I can assure you, the guys listening, your wife wants that.
Doug Holt 17:27
Yes, 100%. 100%. And I say this all the time on the show just go look at Amazon bestsellers for women, and you’re gonna find inside the covers, right? So something I do with my wife the books that she’s reading or the book club she’s in I take a picture of it, I throw it into ChatGPT. I’ve got a custom prompt that gives me a summary and questions. Almost all the books that these women are reading like bestsellers they’re all romance books about a woman who’s provided this rugged safety.
Why do you think women read these books? Do you think they read them because that’s not what they want? Yeah, they read them because that’s what they want. They don’t want a nice guy they want a great man who is nice, but they don’t want a so-called nice guy who’s a doormat. They want a man who’s going to show up strong for them, who’s going to lead them, who’s going to provide safety.
The providing thing we got caught in the wrong assignment. I did a podcast with Coach Andy Tor. We talked about what a man’s roles are. Providing is one of them, but what we got stuck on was providing monetarily or physical safety. Physical safety is a default, man like you’ve got to provide that for your family but emotional safety is the one that most of us miss.
I certainly missed it. I mean, I know, I remember distinctly in Santa Barbara, California, my wife sobbing, saying, “I don’t feel safe.” And I was like, “What the heck are you talking about?” I was doing jiu-jitsu at the time, I ran a gym, I was in good shape, and was I the biggest, toughest guy in the world? No, but I was way above average. And I was like, “How can you not feel safe with me? Like, I feel very capable of handling myself and protecting you.” That’s what she said. That’s when I learned the idea that I don’t feel emotionally safe. Yeah, and I had no idea what that meant.
Christopher Hansen 19:16
But most of the guys that I talk to don’t, or it’s a new concept for them. Yes, their wives have said something similar, and they’re out trying to figure out exactly what that means. They also don’t have the tools to actually go implement that, right? I tell guys all the time, look if your wife came to you and asked you to build her a house and she gave you kitchen utensils, like, what’s that process going to look like? You’re going to end up just frustrated, you know? But if I give you the tools, a blueprint, a subject matter expert most of the guys I talk to are pretty capable, yeah, and they’re going to be able to execute. Yeah, it is that simple.
Doug Holt 19:55
That’s a good analogy, because, I mean, that’s what The Activation Method is. It’s a methodology step by step. “Here, do this. Do this.” And it’s a learning. Some women will think that what we’re doing is trying to teach men how to manipulate them, and that’s not true. We’re trying to give men the tools that they haven’t had to speak to a woman to provide safety so men realize, “Oh, this is what emotional safety means. Got it. Now I can do something about this. Oh, this is what shutting down means, and I don’t have to do this. This is why I shut down, and this is what it feels like to her, and this is how I can do something different.” We’re just giving guys new skills.
Christopher Hansen 20:35
Yeah, the guys that I talk to anyway and the guys that I know all want to make their wife typically the term they use is “happy,” right? Which is a bit of a misguided term, but it’s coming from the place of like, “I want my wife to feel desired.” They want their partners to have the feeling that their partners want to have, right? There is that piece there, and it’s not that they don’t love each other. It’s not that they aren’t willing to do the work. They don’t understand one another. Yeah. And until you can bridge that gap to where you can understand one another, you’ve got to just have you have to have the tools to navigate it.
Doug Holt 21:21
100%. If you were speaking Russian and I was speaking Japanese, we’d get frustrated at not understanding what the other meant. But if we had somebody sitting here who was a translator and was translating it, we’d have clear communication. Or I learned to speak Russian, or vice versa Japanese we’d be able to do stuff, or at least work things out.
And so that’s what we provide the men this whole toolbox, step by step, on what to do and how to do it so they can avoid Divorce Day. And not only that, man, like, you can take these tools into your business, with your kids they work universally. It just teaches men the tools on how to interact specifically with women, but they also work with guys too. But mostly with women and you’re going to interact with women the rest of your life.
And as guys, we just haven’t been taught these tools. At least I wasn’t taught these tools.
Christopher Hansen 21:59
Yep, same.
Doug Holt 22:01
Yeah. Awesome, man. Well, as always, I really appreciate all that you’re doing. We’ve got the holidays coming up; we’re going to have a lot of guys coming in. I know we have a couple programs starting right before the holidays. So gentlemen, if you’re interested, reach out to someone like Chris.
I’d get on the horn right away, man. You want to get ahead of this today, because the groups are going to fill up, and you don’t want to be on the back end of this. It happens all the time Chris gets on a call with a guy, it’s like, “Hey man, I got served papers divorce papers. I need to get in right away.” And sometimes we just don’t have spots. So you want to get in as soon as you possibly can.
If you feel like TPM could be a possibility for you, you still have to get on a call with Chris or one of our other program advisors. You know, it’s a carefully gated program, and at the same time, we want to make sure you get the best. But we keep our cohorts extremely tight, because we can guarantee the results that we give them when we keep them tight.
So man, thanks again for all you’re doing. Happy holidays to you and your family.
Christopher Hansen 22:56
Yeah, you too, Doug. Thanks, appreciate that.
Doug Holt 22:59
Gentlemen, like I said, in the moment of insight, take massive action. This is me waving the red flag in front of you guys. If your wife is gonna say your relationship’s below a seven, you’ve got to get on the horn or do something different. Shake things up. Do something. Listening to this podcast is a good start.
All the time, I hear guys go, “I’ve been listening to podcasts for a year, three years before they join,” and I get to meet them here at The Ranch during their Alpha Reset period when the guys actually go through that program. Do The Activation Method. Do the Alpha Reset. Get in there.
Look, my life is not going to change whether you do or do not do the program but I guarantee your life will. We’ll see you next time on The TPM Show.
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