Episode #880
Ever catch yourself wondering when it’s the right time to start dating your wife again after a separation or divorce? It’s tough, especially when you’re trying to prove you’ve changed without seeming needy or desperate.
In this episode, we tackle a question from a listener about navigating the waters of dating your wife post-separation. We’ll dive into how to ditch “deer mode” (where you’re defending, excusing, explaining, and reacting) and instead step into “wolf mode”—wise, open, loving, and fierce. Plus, we’ll dig into why it’s crucial to address the real issues in your relationship and make sure your own cup is full before you attempt to rekindle the flame.
If you’re separated or newly divorced but still see a shot at reconciliation, this episode is packed with actionable insights to help you make moves and rebuild from a place of confidence.
Tune in to learn how to reconnect with your wife the right way, and why filling your own cup first is the key to becoming the man she truly desires.
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Transcription
Doug Holt 0:00
But you want to kind of chase her. “Hey babe, you want to go out to dinner?” She says, “Oh, I can’t tonight.” Go, “No worries, you know, we’ll try it another time,” and then you move on. But you make sure you go do something for yourself. You go to dinner, go to dinner by yourself, go to dinner with another buddy, go to dinner with a girlfriend—whatever you want to do—but you do something for yourself. You don’t sit at home, you don’t pine, you don’t look at old photo albums or her Facebook or Instagram or any of that stuff. You go do you, and that’s imperative. It’s so important that you have to be filling that cup.
Hey guys, welcome back to the TPM Show. Today, I’m going to take one of your questions and do my best to answer it to give you some insights. So, this question comes from a man named Wesley, and Wesley asked, “Hey, once separation or divorce is finalized but there’s a chance of reconciliation, when should I actually try to start dating my partner again? How will I know when to initiate it, and how do I do it without coming across as needy?” Now, Wesley, this is a great question. We see this happen all the time at TPM, where a man’s left it too late for whatever reason. There could be an acute problem—an affair, infidelity, whether it be an emotional affair or a physical affair—or he just hadn’t pulled his head out of the sand in time. And that we see even more often, where it’s been years, maybe even decades, where the marriage has been sexless, or at least passionless. There’s been no passion, no spark in the marriage, and the guy just lives off “hopium.” He’s hoping things will get better on their own. He’s hoping there’ll be a better tomorrow. But he doesn’t take action—not massive action, like I always implore you guys to do—and because of that, you know, his wife initiates the separation or divorce.
You see, if you look up the statistics, last time I looked it up, it was 70% of divorces in America are initiated by the woman. That number goes up to 90% if she’s got a college degree or higher. Think about that—90% of divorces initiated by the wife. And this, so oftentimes in my opinion—and I’ve been fortunate enough to work with over 10,000 men through the TPM programs—we see all kinds of data points. And when I look at this, most of the guys out there are watching maybe a video like this. Now, if you’re watching a video like this on YouTube, or you’re listening to me in your earbuds, you are a one-percenter, which means you realize that you could be doing better, and you are doing something to get there. Now, most people don’t, right? In fact, I was recently at an event, and I was with a bunch of married couples, and within that, you could see the couples that were just very distant, stonewalling each other. And all too often, the men had no idea. They knew things were wrong, but they had no idea how bad they were. And I only knew how bad they were because my wife would talk to their wives, and she would share it with me. And we often have these conversations. My wife’s a coach, and so am I. So these conversations come up, and the problem is men don’t realize.
So, let’s say you find yourself in this situation. I hope this isn’t you. You know, if you’re not in a situation, take massive action now to make sure you don’t get into it. But if you are, you know, I understand. So what do you do? Say you and your wife are separated. Maybe you’re out of the house, she’s out of the house, or maybe divorce has been finalized, or at least is on the table. But there seems like there might be a way to reconcile. So what do you do? Well, the first thing you want to do is address the issues that were present during the marriage that caused the separation, divorce. This may sound obvious. Sadly, it’s not, though. Sadly, I don’t see most people do this. And if you don’t address those key issues that are going on initially, if you don’t take massive action to do that, then what’s going to happen is the separation is going to create some kind of anxiety or tension between you and your wife, or your ex-wife in this case, and you might get back together. She might be interested. She’s remembering the good days or what could have been. But then she’s going to bump up into the old you again.
You’re going to get triggered. You’ll go into DEER mode, and especially if the separation was initiated by her, most men are anxious. They want to get back with their partner. So, they become needy, and they go into DEER mode. They defend, excuse, explain, and react, and they become a classic nice guy. If you look at Robert Glover’s got a book on this, that nice guy, where they try to, you know, shine and make her happy, to please her, and that only repels her in the distant future, right? So you might get one or two kind of initial contacts that seem good, a little flirting, you know, you know that awesome feeling that happens and then it wanes, it goes away. So you gotta, you gotta address the root problems. I think The Activation Method, the proven methodology that we at TPM implore, has helped thousands upon thousands of men just like you. I think that’s the best. Yes, I’m biased, but if it wasn’t the best, we would just change it to make it the best. We’re always adding on things or innovating. I think that’s by far the best option for men to go through. It’s six weeks, you go through, and you really are cleaning out the closet. The Alpha Reset being the next add-on that I would recommend there. Now, me recommending it, it’s not going to change my life, guys. If you go or you attend The Activation Method or any of our programs, but it will change your lives. And if you decide, “Hey, look, TPM’s not for me,” go somewhere else. Go somewhere else and do it. Go somewhere else and take care of your issues, whether you’re using psychedelics, psilocybin, MDA, MDMA therapy, Ayahuasca, whatever it is to fast track things. But find a place that you fit into, that you can get a proven methodology, right? It doesn’t have to be psychedelics. I just know a lot of guys that have gone down that route. I have myself as well. But it could also be in conjunction. You want to have some kind of integration process.
So that integration process could look like The Activation Method. Could look like the Alpha Reset. It could look like another program, even talk therapy, if that works for you. A lot of our guys, that didn’t work for them. Marriage counseling didn’t work, so talk therapy didn’t either. So what I would recommend you do is get with a like group of men, right? That? I think that’s imperative, because those guys—iron sharpens iron. So those guys are going to keep you on track. You want to be in a community. Now, it doesn’t have to be a large community. It could be a very small community, four or five people. You know, they always say you’re the sum of the five people you spend the most time with. But be with men who are bettering themselves, not only for themselves but also for their families and their marriages. And that’s going to help you, because even if you don’t get back with your ex, you know you’ll become a better man, which is like your stock rising in the market—your sexual market value, if you will, that’s going to be rising. So, that’s step one. You’ve got to address the issues. When you think about addressing the issues, think about it as a garden, right? That’s the way I look at this. So, in a relationship—and your own life as well—weeds pop up. The weeds, think of the weeds as like the bad things that happen, right? Could be tension, could be an affair, could be the fact that you’re always on your phone, or whatever it may be. And what most people do is they go out to their garden of their marriage, or garden of their life, and they see the weeds, and they just hack them out. Right, and now the garden looks a little bit better, but you and I both know what’s going to happen. A little sunshine, a little rain—boom—those weeds are going to pop right back up. They’re going to rear their ugly head.
And this happens to a lot of guys. They get caught in the cycle, and you’re gonna get caught in this cycle again. If you start to try to date your wife, or your ex-wife again, she is going to trigger you. She is going to push your buttons, right? We call them “shit tests,” right? What she needs to know is, are you a changed man, or are you the same guy that she chose to divorce, chose to leave? You know, have you actually bettered yourself? Are the good memories that she has valid, or is she making up a fantasy? So, she will do things specifically to set you off. She’ll push your buttons. Now, some women won’t do this consciously, but all women will do this unconsciously, right? Or subconsciously, I should say. They will do this because they need to make sure that you are strong enough to handle them. And if you’re not strong enough to handle them, then how the heck can you protect them out there in the world? You can’t, not in a woman’s eyes. And so, we’ve done a lot of podcasts where I go a lot deeper into this, but this is fundamental, guys. You need to understand it and need to get through it, and we talk about this in The Activation Method in a little bit more detail. So, what you want to do in this situation, though, is go back to that garden with those weeds and get your shovel out and dig out the roots. You need to dig out the roots to those problems. How did they start? Where did they come from? And that way, you can start forging a path to be the man that your wife, quite honestly, has always seen inside of you.
I hear that more often than not, where a woman will say, “Man, the biggest frustration, or the reason I got divorced, is I saw the man he could have been, but he didn’t take action. He didn’t go down that route, right? He took another turn.” And so you want to do that because you want to be the man that you know inside. You want to be able to look yourself in the eyes, in the mirror, and know that, “Hey, I’ve done it. At least I’m working towards it.” No one’s perfect, right? We’re all on our journeys, and, you know, I stumble all the time. But it’s the idea of getting yourself back up and retrying again, working at it, and working the system, and trying something different. So, that’s the first thing you want to do, right? Really get to the root of the issues. The second thing—you don’t want to be needy. That’s entirely, extremely important. So, what I want you to do is write the word “DEER” down, because I want you to memorize DEER, the acronym: Defend, Excuse, Explain, React, right? Put it in big, bold letters and put it somewhere in your office, somewhere in your apartment, your house, wherever you’re living right now. Then, I also want you, on a separate piece of paper, to write the word “WOLF.” And that’s an acronym that we use at TPM for Wise, Open, Loving, and Fierce. If you are going to approach your ex, you need to approach her as the WOLF, not the DEER. The deer is timid. The deer runs away. The deer is going to do whatever the predator wants the deer to do so it doesn’t get eaten, right? That’s the old you, guys. Don’t be that guy. Be the WOLF. The wolf’s a predator, right? You want to be a little cocky, funny. Confidence goes a long way, right? With women especially, confidence is going to go a long way.
“Hey guys, sorry to interrupt this episode, but the reality is, if you are watching or listening to this right now, then you are looking to better yourself, and I applaud you. You’re one of my people, and I want to give you the opportunity of taking massive action. So, if you haven’t joined The Activation Method yet, it’s our flagship program—do what thousands of other businessmen, just like you, have done, and take action. Be one of the one-percenters that actually does the work and takes action. There’ll be a link in the description that’ll take you right to a page that’ll just give you more information. There is no obligation. Just go check it out and see if it’s a good fit for you. All right, let’s get back to this episode.”
So, if you are interested and you’re getting yourself in a grounded state, right? That’s really important, because remember, you are going to get triggered. She is going to trigger you during this time. And now, you want to start when you’re in a grounded state. You’ve worked on your weeds; you’ve weeded your garden, right? Permanently, through a program like The Activation Method or something else. Now you’ve got yourself in a grounded state. You’re in the wolf-like state—we call it the powerful man, right? The inner power that’s within you. You have this confidence. What you want to do is now practice engaged indifference. And this is a process where you’re engaged, but you’re indifferent to the outcome. So, I could call you on the phone and say, “Hey, do you want to go play basketball?” Right? If you say no to me, I’m not going to be hurt. My feelings aren’t going to be hurt because I’m indifferent to your response. If you say no, no big deal. I’m calling the next guy down the list, my other buddy, right? But if you say yes, great, we go play some hoops—all good.
You need to be in the same state, right? Where you’re engaged with the person, like I would be engaged with you. I’m hoping that you’ll go shoot some hoops with me, but if you don’t, no big deal. I’m indifferent to your response, right? So, you want to be the same way with your partner when you go to approach her in a conversation—whether you’re asking her out on a date, saying, “Hey, let’s go get dinner,” or “Maybe, let’s go get a cup of coffee,” or “Go on a hike”—whatever it is, you want to be engaged, with some excitement or what have you, but indifferent. If she says no, or she needs to wash her hair, or even if she says she’s going out with another guy, you cannot get triggered. You cannot show you’re upset because, if you do that, you’re essentially saying, “You have the power.” You’re telling her she’s got the power over you because now she has control of your emotions. And again, women, the number one thing women need to do with their man is feel safe. Every woman wants to feel safe with her man. Every woman. Now, if you react to situations, that makes you volatile. That means she has control of your emotions, and therefore, you are no longer safe. If you are not safe, you are not sexy, guys. So this is really, really fundamental. You do not want to be in that case. You also don’t want to come across as needy. So don’t chase her. If you shoot her a text message, right, as an example, like, “Hey, would you like to grab dinner tonight?” If she doesn’t respond right away, don’t keep texting her or sending a question mark, ghost emoji, or whatever else it is that you guys do. I’ve seen it all, so don’t do it. Don’t be needy, like, “Hey, why aren’t you getting back to me?” or anything like that. Just chill. Ask the question, throw it out there. If she doesn’t respond in time, make other plans. And if she responds, let’s say at four o’clock, and says, “Hey, sorry, dinner tonight sounds great,” and you’ve made other plans, say, “Hey, sorry, I made other plans. I didn’t hear from you. Let’s get a rain check for next week,” or whatever happens, and continue the conversation. Don’t get upset, don’t get angry, just look for something else.
Another thing that’s really important, guys, is you need to fill your cup. And what I mean by that is, if you can imagine, if I’m holding a cup right near my heart. And for a lot of us men, we’ve sacrificed so much for everybody else’s happiness that our cup becomes empty. We pour into everybody, and we forget to fill it up. We work our asses off. We clean the house, we fix things in the house, we change the oil in the car, we take the kids to soccer practice, all of these things we’re doing for others. But we don’t do things just for ourselves, and oftentimes, when we do, people tell us we’re selfish, right? So we decide, “Okay, I have guilt around that. Now, I’m not going to do things for myself. I’m just going to help everybody else. Give me your burden, I can take it. I’ve got broad shoulders,” right? That whole story. But then what happens is, we become needy. We need somebody to fill us up. And if you make your partner that person—the person to fill you up—you make them that need, that’s their role. She’s not gonna like that. Now you become a child to her. You become a burden to her. So what you do, guys, is you fill your cup first, and whatever that looks like. For some of you guys, it’s going to shoot hoops with the boys. For some of you, it’s going to be hiking in nature. For some of you, it’s going to be working out consistently, or doing something different, getting a massage—you know, all kinds of things you can do to fill your cup. You have to do that so much so that your cup overflows into other people’s cups, because it’s overflowing with an abundance of energy, of inner power, right? Of passion. That’s where passion comes from.
And so, when you see a guy who is passionless, right, he’s got an empty cup. So you need to fill that cup so you can get into her. And now, you want to start approaching her. Start approaching her as if she’s not your ex. You want to be flirty. You want to be mysterious, right? Mystery. Kind of think of the “cat theory.” If I walk into a room—so the cat theory, I’ll explain it. I’ve explained it a lot, but some of you guys are newer to the show. If my dad has a cat—perfect example. So, if I go visit my dad, and the cat’s on the couch, and I walk briskly and quickly over to that cat because I want to pet it and put it in my lap right away, what happens? The cat looks at me, sees me coming at it quickly, jumps up, and runs into the kitchen. Now, if I follow the cat into the kitchen, it’s going to run into another room, right? It doesn’t like that energy. Same cat, same house—I walk in, ignore the cat, sit down on the couch. What’s going to happen nine times out of ten, if not ten times out of ten? You know the answer: that cat is going to get curious. It’s going to come, and it’s going to start purring and rubbing its body against my legs or my arms, and it’s going to end up in my lap. And then I can gently pet it. That is the way you want to approach this energetic relationship, right? This polarization is really what it is.
So, don’t be needy. You want and desire your wife, right? Women, besides being safe—safe should be a foundation—they need to be seen, heard, and desired. That’s where The Hidden Motives Technique comes in. You’ve got to master that—seen, heard, and desired—but they don’t need to be chased. A little chase is okay. A little pursuit is good, but only if it’s in a playful nature, not a needy nature, right? You can kind of picture what that is. So, you want to have that, but you want to kind of chase her. “Hey babe, you want to go out to dinner?” She says, “Oh, I can’t tonight.” Go, “No worries, you know, we’ll try it another time,” and then you move on, but you make sure you go do something for yourself. You don’t sit at home, you don’t pine, you don’t look at old photo albums or her Facebook or Instagram or any of that stuff. You go do you, and that’s imperative. It’s so important that you have to be filling that cup. And now you can start to date her again. You’ve cleaned the garden out, right? So you’ve gone through, and you’ve looked at yourself, and you’ve got to be honest with yourself to do this. I’ve got a guy I work with one-on-one. His name’s Ben. He is awesome at this. He’s so good at looking at his weak spots and other areas of improvement. In fact, we’re going to call it today, and he did it. He hit the nail on the head with something that he was doing. And so you need to be able to do that, right? Be objective and look at yourself and go, “Okay, this is where I’m faltering.” We all know where we’re faltering. There are areas for all of us. So, look at that and then start to clean that up.
Find a proven methodology—something that’s proven that other people like you have had success with—and go at it. Go at whatever it is for you. If it’s fitness, go after something that’s a proven methodology that helps men just like you with their fitness. Whatever it is, go at it with tenacity. And then, once you’ve done that, now you’ve got the WOLF and the DEER, right? You put them up in your house somewhere to remind you: don’t be a DEER. Be the WOLF—wise, open, loving, and fierce. Now, we’re gonna practice engaged indifference, right? So you’re going to contact your ex, invite her to dinner, coffee, hike, whatever. You’re going to be engaged. You’re going to be excited. It’s going to look something like this. My wife’s Erin. Let’s just say we separated. I might say, “Hey Erin, hope you’re having a fantastic day. I’m going to go for a hike at five o’clock over at Pine Butte. Do you want to join me?” Something simple like that, right? And if she says no, go, “Cool. No worries. Have an amazing evening. I’ll talk to you later,” right? Or, “Maybe next time,” something like that. You want to have that energetic thing. I get to hear some of these calls that guys share with me, and it sounds more like this, guys, when I hear: “Hey Erin, I’m going for a hike. Do you want to go?” And then she says no, and he’s like, “Oh, okay. Well, do you wanna do dinner then?” She says no. “Oh, okay.” And there’s no confidence in there. There’s no manliness in there. And even if you get rejected, guys, you—it hurts, I get it, it hurts—but you get to move on, right? Do not play the victim card. Do not play the needy card. That’s not sexy. It does not serve you to your highest level.
Now, you can start engaging, and now you get to, on these dates, showcase to her how you’ve changed. Now don’t do it for her. Do it for you, right? Just be the new you. And this is why so many men, within the first few weeks, are able to rekindle their marriage when they go to The Activation Method, because they’re learning the methodologies, and we make them do it, right? That’s one thing we do. Our coaches make you do the work. Well, they’ll make you, but you get the idea—they encourage you with the accountability to do the work. And everybody around you is going to notice the changes. They’re going to notice that you have more pep in your step. They’re going to notice that you have more passion, more mojo. And especially if you go to an Alpha Reset, it’s even more so. Again, we have hundreds of testimonials on our website from men just like you that’ll describe exactly what this feels like. In fact, I’ll see if we can put one on YouTube after this video, so you just get a general idea. Again, it does not have to be with TPM. Go through another program—I don’t care. I want you to do something, though, right? And now that you’re with her, you can now showcase to her. And now, she gets to showcase to you that she’s made changes, that she’s cleaned her garden up, because she’s not a perfect flower, right? She’s cleaned up her stuff or is at least working on it so that the two of you can come together. See, in any intimate relationship, there are three entities: there’s you, there’s her, and the third entity is the relationship. You’ve got to take care of you. She needs to take care of her, and then the both of you need to protect that third entity of the relationship like it’s your little kid. Like, you know, it’s a baby. It needs to be protected, and it needs to be worked on.
So, I hope this helps you. I know a lot of guys probably have questions like this. Guys, if you have more questions, put them in the comments below, wherever you’re getting this. And if you’re listening to this in your earbuds, run over to Facebook and drop us a line, or go over to thepowerfulman.com—there’s a form there. Let us know what your comments are. Let us know what other episodes you’d like to hear on the TPM Show. And then, as I always say, in the moment of insight, take massive action. There’s no other time to take massive action like this one. If you’re in this situation—hey, if you’re not in the situation, you’re not separated, you’re not divorced, you know, yeah, great—but make sure you’re doing the work so you’re not going down that path. I do the work every day. So does Colton, so does Tim, and everybody else that’s here right now. So make sure you’re doing the work as well, and we’ll see you next time on the TPM show.
