Why women are (reluctant) catalysts for many men to begin the real work …

“Women often become the unwitting ritual stewards in relationships with men – the ones who become the initiators of men into mature manhood.

Which is not their f*cking job.

So much hostility arises between men and women because, on some level, we men crave the initiation yet know it’s not a woman’s job to offer it. Women also know it’s not their job. But given our modern culture’s overwhelming absence of intentional rites-of-passage into mature manhood, intimate relationship is what there is.”

** Quote from my recent “Bridging Connections” Episode #161.

In many a man’s story of deep transformation you will find a woman was the catalyst for his journey.

That certainly is true for me.

I’ve heard it a thousand times from men:

“My wife kept leaving your book lying around so I finally picked it up, and holy sh*t, you were talking straight to me …”

“My girlfriend demanded I listen to your podcast. I resisted at first, but then I heard one episode, and just kept going …”

“She told me something had to change, or we were done … and I finally believed her.”

Sometimes it takes a relationship to end for a man to truly begin his journey.

But once he enters the arena of his inner life, as he steps into the realm of powerful support, real accountability, and real brotherhood with men further down the road, something shifts inside him.

He reconnects with something primal, ancient. He discovers a resource of authentic power he’s not fully experienced before, because all the men he’s ever known have been long disconnected from it, too.

He learns to stop asking (requiring) his partner to be his validator, or his therapist, mother, cheerleader .. his only mirror.

He learns what it means to stand beside a woman, not below her .. or above her.

He learns to meet her in the essential work of relating, and he stops resenting her for wanting (needing) that of him.

This week’s Bridging Connections Podcast episode is an ode.

To the women who love men enough to call them into their greatness, even when it might not land gently.

Even when it sounds like criticism.
Even when it’s done unskillfully.
Even when it ends in heartbreak.

To the women reading this:

Thank you.

Whether you’ve extended the invitation to a man skillfully or not …
Your voice matters. Your stand matters.

We’re listening, even when it doesn’t look like it.

In this podcast episode I share something a girlfriend once told me – it wasn’t kind, and I don’t encourage saying it to a man – that took me 15 years to understand the painful truth of it. She saw what I was unable to see; what many women see in men around them that few men likewise see:

… that I was still a boy, not a man.

To the men:

If you’ve been hearing the same message – maybe in the form of frustration, distance, closure, or even silence – let this be the nudge from another man you’ve been waiting for.

Yes, I agree women must learn how to be a stand in more skillful ways. Yes, criticism never works; telling you what you to do never works. Indeed, psychologist Terry Real said it true: “Harshness never works.”

Nonetheless, if you keep finding yourself standing before an angry woman, a resentful woman, or one who’s simply closed and shutoff to you for reasons that confound you, rather than focus on what you think she’s doing wrong, consider it far more useful to ask yourself:

“Why does this keep showing up before me?”

That simple question may spark the beginning of the most extraordinary journey of your life.

In this brief podcast episode (only 16 minutes), we explore:

• The masculine resistance to growth – what’s really beneath it
• Why women often become the “ritual stewards” of men’s growth (even when it’s not their job)
• The difference between a friend group and a men’s group
• What men gain when they’re supported by trustable men
• How saying “yes” to the invitation can change everything

Episode 161: An Ode To Women (Who Compel Men Into Manhood)

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🔥 You should know about ELEVATE 2026 → A year-long coaching journey for men ready to rise.
→ Only 10 men are invited each year.

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*Header Photo by Eli Searcy from Pexels