Episode #881
Ever feel like you’re lying next to a stranger, even though you’re just inches apart? It’s common for couples, especially as they become empty nesters. But what if you could avoid that growing emotional gap before it’s too late?
In this episode, I answer a listener’s question about navigating marriage as an empty nester. I’ll break down why couples tend to drift and share practical steps to rekindle that spark and intimacy.
You’ll get tools to figure out where your marriage stands, avoid the mistakes most guys make when their wives pull away, and how to get back to dating your wife again. Whether you’re heading into the empty nest phase or just want a stronger connection, this is for you.
Tune in for insights on:
– Why emotional distance creeps into long-term marriages
– The common traps men fall into when their wives start drifting
– How to bring back intimacy, even when it feels like the fire’s gone
Don’t miss this chance to strengthen your marriage. Listen now!
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Transcription
Doug Holt 0:00
It’s the classic, you know, feeling like you’re sleeping next to a stranger, right? You’re three inches away from your partner, yet you feel like you’re three miles apart. Now, the difference is, for most of us guys, you know, it’s about the intimacy, the sex, the passion, right? And when we recognize that we feel three miles apart from our wives, they feel 300 miles apart. We don’t pick up on it as quickly as they do.
Hey guys, welcome back to the TPM show. Today, I’m going to answer another viewer or listener’s question here, and this one comes from Chris. Chris sent a message in and said, “Hey, my wife and I are about to become empty nesters soon. I see a lot of people who become empty nesters have problems in their marriage. Is there anything I can do to help prepare for this next phase of life?” You know, this is a great question, Chris, and I see it a lot too. In fact, I saw this early on. In my early 20s, I owned a fitness magazine, I owned a private training studio in Santa Barbara, California, and I owned a consulting business all at the same time. So I was crazy and I was busy.
But one thing that I noticed, since I had a very high-end personal training studio—so it was a business model, a newer concept back then—you would drive to my location and just do your personal training there. I would see people three to six times a week on average. So I got to know them really well. Like, people will tell you a lot of things when you’re torturing them. I had other trainers working there, so anywhere between five and six trainers. So just setting the scene, there’s a lot of conversations going on, etc. I was working with, you know, again, in my early 20s, but I was working with people in their 40s and 50s, in that kind of stage of life. A lot of them, I would watch and witness become empty nesters. I remember talking to one woman in particular. I won’t say her name, but I remember working with her, and her son was the last one to leave for college. Her son was getting ready to go, and she was in a quandary, a massive, massive quandary. You could see the anxiety and stress on her face. We became friends, right? Yes, she was a lot older than me, but I worked with her kids. I worked with her husband sometimes, so I got to know her really well. She just shared with me, she said, “Look, I don’t want to be,”—these are her words—”I don’t want to be a country club wife.” She had spent, and dedicated in her eyes, right, the last 30 years or so being a mom, and she had a great lifestyle. Her husband made good money. She had given up her career to focus on being a mom for the last 30 years, and that was about to come to an end.
She said, “Doug, I’ve seen what happens to women around me. They become these country club wives, basically, arm candy if you will.” She said it just with horror, and she panicked. What she did was she separated from her husband almost immediately. Well, actually, what she did was she went on a trip to Spain for three months, came back for a little bit, went back to Spain for a year, and then split up with her husband. She started to confide in me. When she came back to town, she trained with me, and she confided in me that, “Hey, there’s this other guy, and then I met this other guy, and what do you think?” She was looking for my opinion and my approval. At this time, I was just, you know, coaching people kind of on the side, but that’s how I got into coaching. This kind of coaching was early on. I had so many people asking me for advice, mainly because I was the person they trusted, right? Because they were with me in this intimate setting of personal training where I was helping them achieve a goal—they were getting tortured. You get to know people really, really well in this setting. So she was leaving, and she didn’t know her husband anymore. Her husband was devastated, right? He didn’t see this coming; it came out of left field. So let’s talk a little bit about why this happens, set the scene, and then let’s talk about what you can do about it. Hopefully, this will apply now. This will apply to you, whether you’re an empty nester, about to be an empty nester, whether your kids are newborns, or your kids have been out of the house for a while because the symptoms that I’m going to talk about are exactly the same as I see in most marriages. You gotta understand, that at TPM, we literally get about 2,500 inquiries a month about our programs. So that’s a lot. We’ve been around eight years, eight years, guys, that’s a lot of inquiries. So we have a lot of data. We have a ton of data points to look at and scenarios that we’ve heard and seen, and so myself, the other coaches, as well as the rest of our team, we see commonalities. There are patterns in these situations.
There’s a pattern in these situations, and so what does that pattern look like? Well, it’s the classic, you know, feeling like you’re sleeping next to a stranger, right? You’re three inches away from your partner, yet you feel like you’re three miles apart. Now, the difference is, for most of us guys, you know, it’s about the intimacy, the sex, the passion, right? And when we recognize that we feel three miles apart from our wives, they feel 300 miles apart. We don’t pick up on it as quickly as they do, right? We may react to it or what have you, but it’s been going on for a while. That’s been my experience, and I’ve seen this happen play out since my 20s, owning that gym, and then everything else I’ve done, I see it play out as a pattern over and over and over again. Guys just hope it’s going to get better, but it doesn’t, right? It doesn’t just get better with hope. You have to actually be proactive to get in there. And so this distance spreads, and now you feel like your spouse is a roommate with a ring, but her focus, her identity in this situation, is “Mom.” Her identity, the reason she is staying in a relationship with you, is because you are both parents to this kid, right, or these kids, or what have you. But in the empty nest situation, let’s just assume one kid is still in the house and about to leave. So if her identity is “Mom,” and her “wife” identity in her mind is, “I’m with a roommate with a ring,” she’s given up her passions, and her goals to raise this family, and she’s done it right. She’s almost crossing the finish line if you will. Now, if there’s no spark in the marriage—and I’m going to give you an idea, it’s not just about sex. Sex is just an indicator. If you’re not having sex at least two or three times a week, there’s probably an issue, right? So just look at it through that lens. It doesn’t have to be every week, but routinely. Your sex life is an indicator of your relationship health. Now, I get it, there are going to be people out there—you guys are going to be outliers for whatever reason you or your wife can’t be intimate together physically. I’m not talking about you. But the same idea applies, right? It doesn’t have to actually be physical sex to qualify for intimacy, in my mind, but you get the idea. We’ll use that as an indicator, a bell-shaped curve for most of you guys.
So now here’s this woman who’s sitting there. She’s like, “Oh my gosh, my last kid is leaving. My job is done. What does my identity look like? Who am I as a person?” And that’s why you get the whole Eat, Pray, Love thing that goes on. Women tend to travel a lot during this period. They’re trying to rediscover themselves, and if, as they’re trying to rediscover themselves, they look across the table—the dining room table—or they look across the living room, and they see a guy who they married 30 years ago, or whenever it was, and he didn’t live up to his promises at that altar. And when I say promises, I don’t just mean, did he cheat or anything like that? He could have been the greatest guy, the nicest guy, right? He could have been Mr. Integrity. But what I mean by promises is when a woman says “I do,” she’s looking into the man’s eyes, and she’s not seeing the man in front of her. She is seeing the man he can become. So your woman knows what kind of man you can become. She’s vested in that. She wants that guy to rise, and she’s been dying for it. In this situation, as a made-up example, she’s been dying for it for 30 friggin’ years, and he hasn’t shown up. So she’s looking across that table at this guy who is a shadow of who he could be—or a shell, excuse me—a shell of the man he could be. Now, maybe he’s attempted, maybe he’s tried things to reach his potential, and if he’s doing that actively, he’s probably in a good place. But if he hasn’t, if he’s not doing anything about it, then chances are he’s complaining about it or he’s living kind of an average life. And now she’s looking over there and thinking, “Man, my life is about to change. I’m going to have all this free time. I’m not going to know what to do with myself, and I’m stuck with Mr. Average in a relationship that’s not full of sex or passion.” Now, I keep bringing up sex. Why? Because so many women read romance novels. Romance novels are basically erotica. If you guys have ever picked up one of these books, go to your wife’s bookshelf and look at a couple of books that she’s read recently in this fiction genre, even in historical fiction, there is a ton of sex in those books that are geared for women. A ton, guys.
Hey guys, I wanted to interrupt this episode because it’s dawned on me that many of you aren’t aware that we actually have a book on how to save your marriage without talking about it. Now, thousands of men have read it, they’ve reviewed it, and I want to give you the opportunity to do the same. If you’re interested in grabbing it, it’s a short read, but it’s helped a lot of men, just like you. Maybe you’re not interested in The Activation Method yet, but this is a small entry point that can really turn things around for you. Go over on Amazon. We have it priced as cheap as Amazon will let us, and that way you have a resource you can use right now to start getting some results in your marriage. Now, let’s get back to the episode.
This is the reason I talk about Fifty Shades of Grey. We all are familiar with the book Fifty Shades of Grey. Go Google how many copies it sold. Guess who was reading those? Almost every woman in America, in Europe, everywhere. So there’s a reason that this was such a popular book. It’s not because women don’t want sex. It’s not because it’s not something they’re interested in. It’s not because they don’t want to be whisked away. No, they do. They do—maybe not everyone, but almost everyone. And they want this fantasy. Yet now she’s sitting across from Mr. Average, who’s not living up to his potential, who’s not doing exciting things. They’re not doing dates like they used to. Date night and things of that nature. They’re not traveling around the world together. They’re not doing a lot of these things that they did when they first started dating. Now, when they first started dating, they probably didn’t have the money to do a lot of these things, but they probably accumulated some money along the way, and now, instead of doing that, they’re doing the “smart thing.” They’re saving, they’re investing. And I’m not saying you shouldn’t do that, but are you being creative? Are you creating romantic interludes? Are you putting notes in your wife’s drawer? Doing little things like that? Guys in our community are always coming up with these really clever ideas, and I read about them, and I’m like, “Oh man, that’s a good one. I’m stealing that.” You’ve got to keep that freshness there. So, if you’re finding yourself in this situation, this is where you get to start bringing up the conversation and leading. So, I would do this if I were in this situation, Chris. If I was thinking, “Okay, we’re about to become empty nesters, all right? And I’ve seen people around me fall, which we all have, right, when this happens. What do I do?” Well, what I would do is I would approach my wife first. I would look at my life. Look at my marriage. Where’s your marriage? How would you rate your marriage on a scale of 1 to 10? You can’t give yourself a 7. If it’s a 7, it’s got to be a 6 or an 8. One to 10. Be honest with yourself. How would you rate it? Okay, write your number down. Really do this, guys. So many guys just listen to this and don’t do the action. Just do this. Pop a number in your head.
Now, if I called your wife right now, or we sat and had coffee together—me and your wife—and I asked her, I said, “Tell me honestly, where is your marriage on a scale of 1 to 10? 10 being this is the best marriage, better than you could ever imagine it being, 1 being this is complete shit.” What is she going to say? Guys, if she is a 6 or below, or if you’re a 6 or below, you need to take massive action today. Not tomorrow, not next week—today. Get on a call with an advisor. Do something totally different. You have to, right? You have to take action now. After you’ve done that, or after I’ve done that, what I would do is now I would schedule a date with my wife. Do something fun. Now, it could be hard—she could feel pulled, especially if the child’s still in the house and you want to spend more time before he or she leaves, whether they’re going to college, university, traveling, or just getting a job, right? So you want to make a date night and plan this out. Guys, don’t ask her where she wants to go. Plan it out. And what that could look like, if your marriage is in a decent place, is it could look like, “Hey babe, Thursday night, I’m taking you out. I just need you to be ready by six o’clock. Put on that red sundress that you love, and we’ll head out.” Something as simple as that. She can ask questions, and I like to be coy and play around and not give answers, but it’s up to you. Your relationship is going to be different than mine, so your confidence level with this kind of stuff is going to be different as well. So do that. Now, once we’re at dinner, I’m going to bring up the conversation, like let’s just say our kid’s name is Rick. Like, “Hey, you know, can you believe little Ricky’s about to leave the house in six months? This is crazy. We’re about to be empty nesters.” Now, I would start creating a dream with her, like, “What’s possible for us?” I realize over these last years you have poured so—this is where I’ll use The Hidden Motives Technique—you have poured so much of your love and energy into raising the family, right? It’s been your whole identity, and I want to thank you for doing that. It’s been absolutely amazing. And I gotta imagine, if that was me, right, I’d be questioning, “What’s my next move? What’s my next step? What’s the next thing for me?” And that could be scary at times, right? It could be uneasy, unnerving. And get her buy-in. So she’s either going to say, in this case, “No, that’s not it at all.” Now you can get clarity on what it is for her, or she’ll agree with you. And if she agrees, she’s probably going to feel seen and heard for the first time—if this is the first time you’ve done it—in probably a long time in your marriage. Now, you can have a conversation about this, and you get to lead that dance of the conversation.
In a conversation, be inquisitive, but don’t interrogate. Some guys miss this—they become interrogators. Be inquisitive, fun, you know, just inquisitive like you’re a reporter covering the best story ever. I like to, when I’m dreaming with my wife, I like to get in a childlike state of dreaming, like, “Ooh, what’s possible? Where would we travel? What could we do? Ooh, now we’re going to be able to walk around, and have sex on the kitchen table, without anybody being around.” And laugh and joke. Don’t wait for her reaction, just be you and go through it. And start setting the tone and helping her create this new identity. Now, if it’s me, I want to help her create the identity that’s going to be the best for her and me, right? I want it to be a win-win for our relationship. There’s you, there’s her, and there’s the third entity of your marriage. So I want to make those completely, completely compatible, right? And solid. And start dreaming about it. Like, “Okay, when Rick leaves, that’s going to be weird, but what are some fun things that we just haven’t been able to do because we wanted to take care of little Ricky, right?” And start playing with that idea. Maybe it’s traveling, maybe it’s taking a class, maybe it’s just taking some time off, right? And really get to the idea. Now, you’re being proactive about the situation. Again, if your marriage was or is a 6 or below by your standards or her standards, then you need to be doing something. You, not her, right? This is key. A lot of guys try to change their wives. They don’t realize that they have to change first. I can’t tell you how many times I hear a guy say, “Doug, this is amazing. I started doing the work, and after a couple of weeks, I found out she started doing the work too.” Your wife doesn’t want to tell you, right? Because she doesn’t want to say, “You’re right.” No way she’s going to give up that power. So, you’ve got to start doing the work on yourself, right?
So, if you’re a 6 or below, start doing the work on yourself immediately. The second step, set that date night, have that conversation about little Ricky leaving, and then use The Hidden Motives Technique, right? We’ve talked about that a lot in these podcasts and these shows. Use that to open her up and see how she’s really feeling. How is she feeling about this? What’s going on in her head? She may have already planned an exit, right? She may have thought, “Well, a year or two ago, this marriage isn’t working, and as soon as Ricky gets into college or wherever I’m out.” But this is your opportunity to change it. This is your opportunity to turn things around. And this is her opportunity, where she could share some of that with you, right? She could say, “Well, actually, you know, I’ve been thinking about traveling to Spain for a year,” or “I’ve been thinking that you and I really need to talk about our future or our relationship,” or more than likely, she might say, “I don’t know. I don’t know what’s next.” Now, here’s a key tip: don’t try to solve the problem for her. Don’t try to fix her. Don’t solve her, right? Don’t go into solution mode. Go into listening mode. Be there to listen and be a mirror to reflect back to her—her thoughts and, more importantly, her feelings. And then ask questions like, “Okay, I get that. Well, I remember before when we got married, you were thinking about this. Have you considered that again?” Or, “I know you love to paint,” or “I know you love to travel,” or, “Maybe it’s just time. Maybe it’s just time for both of us to take some downtime and have some fun together.” One thing I would highly recommend you suggest is: that you guys have to start dating each other again. Yeah, you know what I’d love to do is start dating you again and figure out the woman that I married, who she is today. That would be sexy. Let’s have real fun with that, right? And you’re putting a suggestion out there for her—not trying to fix her—but putting a suggestion out there for her, right?
The last thing you want to do is tell her, “Oh, you can start going to the gym and losing that weight again,” or “You can start going to this class and getting better at this thing I think you suck at.” Don’t be that guy. I know it sounds stupid for me to say that to some of you, but for some of you, you’re like, “Oh, I shouldn’t say that?” Because I’m the one that gets the phone call to help guys clean these things up. But don’t do that. Make this playful. Guys, this is not a business meeting, this date. It’s not. This is your chance to turn things around. But know this—if you’re not going to do steps 1 and 2, then the next step you’re going to be doing is signing separation or divorce papers. Because this is such a pivotal time, Chris, as you mentioned in your message, for so many couples. This can become the catalyst for someone stepping out of their marriage and going in a different direction because now they have a reason or an excuse, and what was tethering them to the relationship is no longer tethering them. So, I hope that’s helpful. Guys, as I always say, in a moment of insight, take massive action. One action step you could take, if you haven’t rated your marriage, is to rate it. Ask your wife how she would rate it. That could be a really cool exercise to do.
If there are things you want to hear on this show, any of the five territories—self, health, wealth, relationships, and business—those are the five territories that we cover inside of The Powerful Man at the base level, right? In fact, this next event, we’re doing a whole thing—we’re bringing in AI specialists. It’s going to be amazing. But if you want to hear that kind of stuff on this show, just let us know in the comments or drop us a line. Go over to thepowerfulman.com, where you can also see hundreds of testimonials from men just like you. You can leave us a comment about what you would like us to cover and what guests you’d like us to bring on, and we’ll do what we can to make it happen. See you next time on The TPM Show.
