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Hi Reader,

Birds fly, dogs bark, ants crawl, tigers pounce …

And women test men.

It’s what they do.

These unconscious tests can show up as objections, complaints, protests, “I’ve changed my mind,” loaded questions, flashes of emotion, door slams, or — on occasion — a delightful mélange of the aforementioned.

It’s important to note:

• Our wives don’t test us because it’s that time of the month.
• Our wives don’t test us because they’re bored and have nothing better to do.
• Our wives don’t test us to be insulting or annoying.

Our wives test us because they have to.

The same way a caterpillar has to morph into a butterfly, a mother grizzly has to protect its cubs, and a King Salmon has to swim 1,800 miles upriver — traversing two mountain ranges — to return to its spawning grounds in British Columbia.

It’s written into her genetic code.

You and I can view this in one of two ways:

1. A pain in the ass
2. A gift from God

Choose wisely.

Your marriage and masculinity hang in the balance.
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The Existential Why

OK, but what’s behind it all?

What’s really going on?

Why should we lean into her tests rather than avoid them?

The excerpt below is from David Deida‘s The Way of the Superior Man (required reading). Read it slowly. Then read it again. There’s gold here for every man.

A woman often seems to test her man’s capacity to remain unperturbed in his truth and purpose. She tests him to feel his freedom and depth of love, to know that he is trustable. Her tests may come in the form of complaining, challenging him, changing her mind, doubting him, distracting him, or even undermining his purpose in a subtle or not so subtle way. A man should never think his woman’s testing is going to end and his life will get easier.

Rather, he should appreciate that she does these things to feel his strength, integrity, and openness. Her desire is for his deepest truth and love. As he grows, so will her testing.

The most erotic moment for a woman is feeling that you are unperturbable, totally loving, fully present, and all-pervading. She cannot move you, because you already are what you are, with or without her. She cannot scare you away, because you already penetrate her in fearless love, pervading her heart and body. She cannot distract you, because your commitment to truth will not bend to her wiles. She can trust you, utterly.

Perhaps you’ve been working toward some financial goal, and finally you’ve succeeded. After months or years of effort, you‘ve creatively earned a large amount of money. You feel happy, full, successful. You come home to your woman and want to share the news with her.

“I just made a million dollars today.“

“That’s nice.“

“That’s nice!!?? You know how hard I’ve been working for this.”

“I know. It feels like I haven’t seen you in months. Did you remember to pick up the milk on your way home?”

“Oh, sorry. I forgot. But who cares? We could buy a dairy farm now!“

“I asked you to pick up the milk three times this morning, and I put a note on your briefcase. How could you forget?“

Why is she being this way? Because she simply wants to deflate your success? No. She‘s challenging you because your success doesn’t mean shit to her, unless you are free and loving. And if you are free and loving, nothing she says can collapse you. She wants to feel you are uncollapsible, so she pokes you in your weak spot.

Of course she knows how much this moment of success means to you! This is precisely why she‘s negating it. Not because she wants to hurt you. But because she wants to feel your strength. She wants to feel that your happiness is not dependent on her response, nor on you making a million dollars. She wants to feel you are a superior man.

It‘s a tall order to be this free, and in your more mediocre moments you‘ll wish your woman would settle for less. But if you‘re a man who is living his fullest, willing to play his edge and grow through difficulties, then you‘ll want her to test you. You may not like it, but you don’t want her to settle for some bozo who depends on his woman’s response to be happy. If you’re aligned with your mission, you are essentially happy, even though times cycle between difficult and easy. You don’t need your woman's strokes to fulfill your mission. It still feels good when she strokes you, but you don’t need mommy anymore, telling you what a good boy you are. And your woman doesn’t want you to need mommy. In fact, it sickens her.

If your woman is weak, she may settle for a weak man, and therefore play into your need to feel like a good boy. But if she‘s a good woman, a strong woman, she won’t tolerate your childish needs for a pat on the head, collecting bigger toys, and being king of the mountain. A good woman will love the childlike part of you, but she wants your life to be guided by your deepest truths, not your untended childhood wounds. She wants to feel that at your core you‘ve grown beyond the need for kudos and million-dollar toys. She wants to feel your self-generated strength of truth.

So she will test you. She might not be fully conscious of why she is doing it, but she will poke your weak spots, especially in moments of your superficial success, in order to feel your strength. If you collapse, you’ve flunked the test. You have let your woman deflate you. You have demonstrated your dependence on her for external validation. Even if you just made a million dollars, you are a weak man. Your woman cannot trust you fully.

But if you remain full and strong, humorous and happy, your truth unperturbed by her testing, then you pass the test.

“Honey, I’ll get you some milk, all right,“ you say as you sweep her off the ground and lay her on the couch, laughing, kissing, looking deeply into her eyes, and “milking” her happiness with the confident loving of your caresses.

She can relax and trust your core. She can surrender the tensions around her heart. You are trustable. You don’t need her validation in order for you to be loving. You simply are loving. The truth of you is love. Your fullness is independent of mommy. You are not only a man, you are a superior man: a man who does his best to live as love in the world and in his intimacy, a man whose heart remains open and whose truth remains strong even when his woman criticizes him, a man who can find the humor in forgetting to pick up the milk on a day he made a million dollars.

This is the kind of man your woman can trust. Now, the moment is a moment of celebration. Now, she can relax and truly join in your jubilation, knowing you are not dependent on her praise for your happiness. It will last, perhaps, ten minutes. And then she will test you again.

It never ends. A woman will always test her man for the pleasure of feeling his strength, his capacity to transcend nuisance, his persistence in his own truth, and his capacity to share that truth in love with her, even when she‘s complaining — especially when she‘s complaining. Her complaint is the beginning of her pleasure. It is not true criticism, but a test of your manhood. The criticism is entirely dissolved in love as soon as she feels your humor and happiness in the midst of the poke.

It never ends. This is the secret. You can’t get out of it. Finding a different woman won’t get you out of it. Therapy won’t get you out of it. Financial or sexual mastery won’t get you out of it. Your woman is testing you because she loves you. She wants to feel your truth. She wants to feel your love. And she wants to feel that your truth and love are stronger than the barbs she can throw at you. Then she can relax and surrender into the polarity of man and woman. Then she can trust you.

The most loving women are the women who will test you the most. She wants you to be your fullest, most magnificent self. She won’t settle for anything less. She knows it‘s true of you. She knows in your deepest heart you are free, you are strong. Anything less than that she will torment. And, as you know, she’s quite good at it.

Yet, if your purpose is to be free, you wouldn't have it any other way.

Just to be clear:

David Deida and I are not giving your wife a pass for bad behavior!

Repeated and unwarranted disrespect is not OK. Repeated and unwarranted disdain is not OK. Public ridicule and contempt are never OK.

That’s not what we’re talking about.

It would be wonderful if a woman always tested us in ways we like. The reality is she won’t. A man must be prepared for that, respond in a powerful way, and use every test as a growth moment.

This post assumes that the marriage exists for both husband and wife to evolve and become better people. Without that firmly in place, there’s no hope for any relationship.

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​A Woman’s Perspective

In her post, “How and Why Women Test Men (And Why They Fail),“ Tesia Blake puts more meat on the bones for us:

What about those moments when she’s mad at you and you don’t know why? She won’t tell you, because you’re supposed to know, but if she did, she might say:

• “I said I was cold and you didn’t offer me your jacket.”
• “You saw me stretching to reach a can on the top shelf and you did nothing to help me.”
• “I stormed off in the middle of a discussion and you didn’t chase after me.“

Men are often confused by women’s tests. They think:

• “I was cold, too. She knew it would be chilly, why didn’t she bring her own jacket?“
• “She can reach the top shelf if she steps on the kitchen chair. It’s not hard.“
• “How am I supposed to know I should go after her? I thought the best thing to do was give her some space.“

Yet, your woman is thinking (often unconsciously):

• “I might be cold, but ultimately I‘m interested in whether you‘ll sacrifice some of your comfort for my well-being. How invested are you in protecting me and keeping me safe? In other words, can you be selfless?“
• “Yes, I can drag the kitchen chair over and grab what I want off the top shelf myself, but I need to know if you can: a) be observant enough to notice I’m struggling; b) be proactive enough to take action and help me.”
• “I can stay and finish our argument, but I’m anxious for us to make up and move on, and I need to see if you’re willing to put your ego aside and fight for me. I need to know how much you need me in your life.“

Remember, it‘s factory-installed.

It will never end.

A wise man doesn’t want it to.

He knows each test is an opportunity to build greater relational intimacy.

So, the next time she pushes on you ...

• Will you react and get bent out of shape or will you be a rock for her to lean on?
• Will you miss the point or will you seize the moment?
• Will you whine about her tone of voice or will you hear what’s not being said?
• Will you play the victim or will you play the leading man?
• Will you finger-point and blame or will you face the witness?
• Will you sidestep responsibility or will you take responsibility?
• Will you avoid her or will you answer her heart’s cry and invest more in your marriage?

Remember, every test is an opportunity to show up as your best self. To go deeper as a man. To go deeper in your marriage. To turn a potential point of contention into a point of connection.

And lastly ...
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Another Take on a Popular Proverb

You can find it on the Men’s Ministry page of every church website in the world:

That’s because we‘ve assumed it meant: “Guys need to spend time with other guys so we can call each other out on our crap, hold each other accountable, and ultimately, grow and become better men.“

Can it mean that?

I suppose so. It’s extremely rare outside of communities like this one, but it does happen.

But I wonder if there‘s a more universal application.

I wonder if the hard and unyielding nature of iron more closely resembles your wife than the guy you pray or watch football with.

I mean ...

• Is there anyone harder on you than your wife?
• Is there anyone who lets you get away with less than your wife?
• Is there anyone who holds your feet to the fire like your wife?

I wonder if she‘s God’s chosen instrument to refine you. To heat and hammer you. To forge and shape you into a better man.

Maybe David Deida is right.

Maybe we should be grateful for her tests, grateful for her torments, smiling in the face of them, knowing it’s only in our mediocre moments when we wish she would settle for less.

Maybe your wife’s not on a mission to tear you down and undermine your leadership. Maybe she’s an emissary from heaven sent to sharpen you and unleash your inner William Wallace.

And maybe Proverbs 27:17 needs to show up on more marriage websites.

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Your Coach,

P.S. If you’d like to share powerful, marriage-saving content like this with a friend, forward them this email and have them click the link below.

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