TL/DR: My STBX wife sent me a link to a relationship coach’s article with a rather BP analysis of what she thinks happened in our relationship.

This morning I am driving to work when I get a text from my ex-wife (divorce pending). She sent a link to an article saying it was an excellent read and that it explained a lot of what went on in our relationship. The article is written by a relationship coach by the name of Bryan Reeves. It was called “Choose her every day or leave her.” The title seems innocent enough. Sure, I make the choice to be with someone or not. Makes sense. As I read I saw pretty clearly how much this guy played into the feminine imperative with articles like, “Why every man should be a feminist.” That told me about all I needed to know before reading anything else. The article is his analysis on what went wrong with his relationship.

I’ll just take the article point by point:

I did want to be with this one. I really wanted to choose her. She was an exquisite woman, brilliant and funny and sexy and sensual. She could make my whole body laugh with her quick, dark wit and short-circuit my brain with her exotic beauty. Waking up every morning with her snuggled in my arms was my happy place. I loved her wildly.

I found a unicorn and got oneitis really badly.

Unfortunately, as happens with many young couples, our ignorance of how to do love well quickly created stressful challenges in our relationship. Before long, once my early morning blissful reverie gave way to the strained, immature ways of our everyday life together, I would often wonder if there was another woman out there who was easier to love, and who could love me better.

I failed shit tests and couldn’t figure out what was going on. I realized this woman didn’t love me how I wanted her to, but there must be someone else out there who could.

As the months passed and that thought reverberated more and more through my head, I chose her less and less. Every day, for five years, I chose her a little less. I stayed with her. I just stopped choosing her. We both suffered.

I was unhappy, but I was too afraid to leave. What if I couldn’t find someone as amazing as her?

I was too focused on the anger, insecurities, demands, and other aspects of her strong personality that grated on me. The more I focused on her worst, the more I saw of it, and the more I mirrored it back to her by offering my own worst behavior. Naturally, this only magnified the strain on our relationship … which still made me choose her even less.

I wasn’t the dominant man she wanted and that made her unhappy. She had so many flaws, but it was my fault for seeing them.

To be fair, she didn’t fully choose me, either. The rage-fueled invective she often hurled at me was evidence enough of that. I realize now, however, that she was often angry because she didn’t feel safe with me. She felt me not choosing her every day, in my words and my actions, and she was afraid I would abandon her.

Shit went nuclear. I couldn’t deal with it. She felt scared because I wasn’t even strong enough to handle her, so I couldn’t be trusted with a real threat. You are left to assume they broke up (she probably found a Chad). He goes on to say this:

But if too many days go by and you just can’t connect with why you’re choosing your partner, and your relationship is rife with stress, let them go. Create the opening for another human being to show up and see them with fresh eyes and a yearning heart that will enthusiastically choose them every day.

“Ah!” I thought, “Here is the part she believes was meant for me.” I have made it clear that I do not want to be with my ex, but she still seems to want to give me some kind of closure. I have no doubt her new boyfriend would swallow this load whole, and prior to TRP so would I.

Lessons learned: Most relationship coaches miss the mark completely. They see the same problems we do, but do not attribute them to the root cause. They instead continue to follow and spread a feminist fueled agenda. I suppose I can’t fault them completely though. This is what sells.