Entrepreneurs and Marriage: Bob Wischer

Summary

In this conversation, Bob Wischer and Christian Brim explore the challenges faced by entrepreneurs in their marriages, emphasizing the importance of emotional connection, understanding love languages, and proactive relationship maintenance. They discuss common symptoms of disconnection, the significance of knowing what both partners want, and the necessity of regular date nights to foster intimacy. The discussion also highlights the impact of life's challenges on relationships and the need to move beyond a partnership mentality to cultivate a thriving marriage.

Takeaways

• Bob Wischer helps men strengthen their marriages and build trust.
• Coaching is about revealing the answers within the client.
• Mindset is crucial for personal growth and success.
• The journey of coaching can lead to profound transformations.
• Emotional responsibility is key in relationships.
• Many men feel trapped or lost in their lives.
• Coaching is not just about skills; it's about personal growth.
• Investing in coaching can lead to priceless personal development.
• Blind spots can hinder personal and professional success.
• It's important to recognize that you can't fix others, only yourself. Entrepreneurs often feel disconnected in their marriages.
• Guilt from work commitments can strain relationships.
• Understanding love languages is crucial for emotional connection.
• Proactive communication can prevent relationship issues.
• Regular date nights are essential for maintaining intimacy.
• Life challenges can either strengthen or weaken relationships.
• It's important to know what you want from your partner.
• Keeping score in a marriage is detrimental.
• Marriage should not be viewed as a partnership.
• Tending to your marriage is like caring for a garden.

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Transcript

Christian Brim (00:01.192)
Welcome to another episode of The Chris Project. I am your host, Christian Brim. Joining me today is the relationship engineer, Bob Wisher. Bob, welcome to the program.

Bob Wischer (00:13.705)
Thanks for having me.

Christian Brim (00:15.678)
So why don't you let the audience in on your bona fides? Like what qualifies you to talk to them?

Bob Wischer (00:23.79)
As a relationship engineer, I work mainly with men to help them strengthen their marriage, build trust in relationships, and align their ambitions with their values so that they can succeed not only in business but in life as well. I've been coaching now for...

excuse me, about seven years. Started off as a health and wellness coach and moved into life coaching and then really drilled down to as I got more into it and basically through my own healing process, just really started seeing the hearts of men. And as we kind of talked about the pre-show, I've had a lot of experience with some men that have taken their own lives and

the motivation for what I do comes a lot from those situations because the more and more men I talk to, for example, I talked to a gentleman today. We all have stuff that happened to us, whether it was in our youth or in our teens or in our marriages or whatever, that have really

Christian Brim (01:37.674)
Mm-hmm.

Bob Wischer (01:46.414)
you know, put us in a place where we either feel trapped, we feel stuck or just lost. And I was one of those men going on, you know, 10, 15, 20 years ago, who just felt like I'm on this hamster wheel of life and I'm just going, I go to work, I come home.

Christian Brim (01:55.913)
Mm-hmm.

Bob Wischer (02:14.858)
And it's the same thing every day, day after day. Excuse me. And it just I want to be able to work with those kind of men to first and foremost, let them see what the possibilities are, what they're what they're potentially missing out on in this life. Help them find purpose. That's a that's big one for me as I got to a point in my life where.

My divorce had been final, my kids were going off to college, and there I was with... I had a job, which was great, but what else am I supposed to be doing? I don't know, my purpose had always been to raise my family and that...

Box was more or less checked. I I still, of course, support my kids in every single way, but there's not that day-to-day need to be there. So I was like, okay, well, now what do I do? So that's what led me down this path of coaching and life coaching and then working with men on relationships.

Christian Brim (03:12.627)
Right.

Christian Brim (03:25.043)
So what did you do as a profession before you became coach?

Bob Wischer (03:29.522)
I still do. Actually, is a side hustle. I have been in the automotive industry. I live in Michigan in the Detroit area and been in the automotive industry for my entire career.

Christian Brim (03:44.826)
As an engineer.

Bob Wischer (03:48.398)
Program management, is kind of engineering adjacent. I work with engineers to make sure deliverables are met on time and things happen when they're supposed to in budgets and all that other kind of stuff.

Christian Brim (03:58.74)
You talk to the nerds and help translate. Yes, okay, yes. Yes, well, I mean, it's a critical skill. That actually is what my daughter does. She's a project manager for the Oklahoma Department of Human Services and she manages their IT function. She has no background in IT, but someone's gotta talk to the nerds. Right, right.

Bob Wischer (04:02.028)
I translate, yes, exactly. You nailed it on the head.

Bob Wischer (04:24.364)
Yep, and I have no background in engineering, just what I've learned through osmosis. Yeah.

Christian Brim (04:28.937)
It's a skill. It is interesting. Okay. what in, mean, was there some specific event that, that inspired you to do coaching? mean, what, what, did you have any kind of like coaching background? mean, like, like even like little league or

Bob Wischer (04:48.174)
Well, yeah, actually that's a big part of it is I was actually so I didn't start when I start coaching when I have to have to engage it on my son's age more or less. He was probably 14. So when he was old. When he was 11, I had been coaching, I coached him up through the league all through.

through the levels of baseball. And when he was 11, I actually started working with the kids on their mindset. How does one deal with going up to the plate, even if you're the best player, going up to the plate and getting out seven out of 10 times? So I started working with them on that. I started working on the mentality of pitching.

you you give up a home run, what are you going to do mentally? How does that? So I started working with these kids at age 11. And then I continued that a little bit as the years went on. kind of was.

Christian Brim (05:50.216)
Right.

Bob Wischer (05:55.918)
stepping back for, he played for other teams that I wasn't the head coach for, but I was still always working with the kids on their mindset as far as, know, if a kid would strike out, I'd be the first one to grab him and kind of put my arm around him and say, you know, say a few things to him just to make sure that he was okay and that, you know, he didn't get down for too long. And then in 2017, I kept seeing ads for high performance men's coaching.

And I was kind of in a position at that point where I was in a director level position and I was really struggling with it because I was, the company I was working for was actually in the process of being purchased and I was constantly interviewing, a lot of turnover, stuff like that.

I was just kind of at my wit's end and my divorce had just been final, my kids were off doing their thing. I was kind of in this place of, like I mentioned earlier, oh my God, what am I supposed to be doing with my life? And I kept seeing these ads and I was like, you know what? I've heard of Coach Allen, course, Tony Robbins, all that kind of stuff. I like, I'm gonna look into this. And I got on the phone and talking to the intake person and...

They just made it sound so appealing and so amazing. I was like, okay I'm gonna give this a try and before I even hung up the phone I was like I'm gonna do this, you know, as long as it's not a million dollars and I guess I had no idea what it was. This is something I think I really really need because I and it's funny the first one of the very first things my coach made me do when I started working with them is

Christian Brim (07:30.13)
Right.

Bob Wischer (07:45.016)
was read something educational at least 15 minutes every day. And I look back on that and I was in my mid 40s at the time. It had probably been, since I read something educational, it had probably been 20 years. I was reading fiction books, newspaper, internet, whatever, but I was not learning and growing.

Christian Brim (08:02.793)
Hmm.

Right.

Bob Wischer (08:10.824)
I was definitely in that fixed mindset where I know everything I need to know. can finagle my way through life somewhere or another. And I didn't know until I was 45 years old that I don't know what I don't know. And that was a kick in the teeth. So I engaged in the process. I absolutely loved it. And probably two, three months into it, I was like, this is the best thing ever.

Christian Brim (08:23.613)
Yes.

Bob Wischer (08:34.602)
I wish I hadn't waited so long to do this, but I was like, I want to do this for other people. I want to show other people the possibilities. And it's just, it's been an absolute blessing for the last seven years of doing it.

Christian Brim (08:47.877)
Did you ever and I want an honest answer here. Did you ever wonder like who's gonna pay me to coach them? Was that ever a question striking out? Yeah. okay.

Bob Wischer (08:59.982)
Of course, every day. And some people, I'm sure I've had more conversations with people about a coaching relationship than have actually hired me. But honestly, the money, it's not what, the money isn't what's important to me.

What's important to me is the transformation, the learning and the growth for the client. The money in a coaching relationship is just energy. It's just, you know, I'm giving you my wisdom, my knowledge, my mentorship, whatever the case may be, and you're giving me some little pieces of paper that I can go and use at the store. I mean, it's that...

That's where unfortunately a lot of people get hung up on the fact that, my God, coaching costs so much. it's really the value that I've gotten out of the investments that I've done. I've had three or four coaches. The investment that I've made in my personal growth is priceless. Because I would still be that same stuck, broken, lost person that I was back.

Christian Brim (10:06.728)
Do you?

Bob Wischer (10:15.246)
10 years, 11, 12 years ago now, that I would still be that guy today and I'd be walking around in a haze.

Christian Brim (10:24.093)
Do you work with entrepreneurs?

Bob Wischer (10:26.56)
I, yeah, absolutely. That's, I mean, we all have relationships. that's really, whether entrepreneurs, engineers, business owners, you know.

Christian Brim (10:39.667)
Do you find a particular segment is, gravitates to you or that you prefer to work with?

Bob Wischer (10:48.826)
yeah, actually the most, the group that's gravitated the most towards me are men that are going through divorces or relationship, you know, those major relationship issues. At one point I was strictly working, I was strictly working with divorced men. That's kind of broadened a little bit, but that just...

Christian Brim (10:59.175)
Hmm.

Bob Wischer (11:16.256)
Again, because I had been there, I had been through that situation. I had gone through a very difficult divorce where my ex-wife... Well, believe it or not, I have heard stories, but mine was difficult in that she was trying to alienate me from the kids and drive a wedge between us and destroy the relationships with my kids that I'd had for the previous 18 years. And I just wasn't going let that happen.

Christian Brim (11:18.14)
Right.

Christian Brim (11:24.585)
There are simple ones? I didn't know that.

Bob Wischer (11:45.474)
See ya.

Christian Brim (11:47.474)
Yeah, it's interesting. You talk about that coaching relationship. I don't remember the timeframe. Many years ago, I had a colleague of mine, an entrepreneur that was not a competitor, but very successful. And, and I went to him and I explained my situation. And at the time I thought I wanted to set up an external board of directors for my company.

And after I got done, he patiently listened and he said, well, you know, Christian, I think you need a coach. And I'm like, okay. And if it had not been him and I didn't value his opinion, I would have completely dismissed it. But as it was, I just kind of put that in the back of my mind and I didn't think about it. I didn't hire a coach for probably three or four years after that.

But I didn't make the connection, right? I mean, he clearly saw, it's like that, you you don't see the label from inside the jar. Other people can perceive you in ways that you can't perceive yourself. And having those trusted relationships that can speak truth to you in love, you know, those are rare.

Bob Wischer (12:49.858)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (13:14.417)
Those are exceptional to have those relationships that someone can say, Hey, Christian, dude, you don't see this, but this, this is something that you need to work on. And I don't think he was identifying anything specific, but it was just from my talking about what I thought I wanted. He's like, I don't think that's what you need. Do you find others that, that

reach out to you and are resistant to the idea of coaching? Like is that, or do they get to you and they already know they want to coach?

Bob Wischer (13:53.65)
no, I would, I'd love to have some more of the latter. it's, usually a lot, like I said, a lot of conversations that for one reason or another, they just, they just don't pan out to whether it's, you know, sometimes it's financial, of course, it's, it's, it's not inexpensive. It's not, you know, not pay, it's not millions of dollars, but it's not inexpensive. A lot of times it, and I think probably the most,

prominent version of that is that they just don't think that can be successful and and that's really the tragedy of it is because You get everybody can be successful at it. It's not There's a there's a premise In coaching that's basically says that the client has all the answers. They just don't know they have the answers and And what coaching does is it helps you like like you said helps you see that broader picture?

Christian Brim (14:29.843)
Hmm.

Christian Brim (14:45.405)
Yes.

Yes.

Bob Wischer (14:55.294)
and tunes into those shortfalls or pitfalls or whatever it is have, blind spots exactly that you have that you don't even like, for me, example, I didn't realize I had an issue with not learning. But I graduated from college, I was like, I'm done with books forever. I know everything. I have a college degree. I know everything there is to know about life. Wrong.

Christian Brim (15:02.045)
blind spots. Yeah.

Christian Brim (15:18.952)
Right.

Christian Brim (15:22.792)
Right.

Bob Wischer (15:25.96)
And until somebody, until my coach smacked me upside the head with a book, basically, I had no idea. And now I got this great bookshelf behind me with all kinds of books. I got a phone full of audible things I read. I read some, read, still to this day, it was seven years ago, I still read at least 15 minutes a day, sometimes more.

Christian Brim (15:41.256)
Yes.

Christian Brim (15:49.426)
I was in a room with about 50 entrepreneurs and Vern Harnish, author of Scaling Up and Rockefeller Habits was speaking and he asked the group, know, how many of you read or know how to read? And of course everybody raised their hand and he said, how many of you don't read? And it was only or no, how many of you read? He asked it in the positive.

And only about a third of the group actually raised their hands and he said, well, to the rest of you, you might as well be illiterate. And I was like, wow, that's kind of strong. And I think the idea of wanting to learn in general is an attitude that you need to cultivate, especially if you're an entrepreneur.

But everybody should I mean, you know, I think in your situation like if you're an employee working for somebody and And you've reached the level of success that you want You might not see value in learning, right? But as an entrepreneur, there's always things to learn And that's true for everybody really. I mean, it's just that it presents differently You also said something that I think is key and I think one of the things that

Bob Wischer (17:00.664)
Yeah.

Bob Wischer (17:05.166)
Sure.

Christian Brim (17:15.481)
why I kind of dismissed the idea of working with a coach initially is I always thought of coaches in terms of teaching you skills, telling you what to do, right? And one, I'm kind of anti-authority. So I don't like people telling me what to do, one. And two, I didn't really feel like my business knowledge was lacking.

Bob Wischer (17:37.528)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (17:44.892)
Like I didn't feel like from a business standpoint, I needed help. but to your point and your statement, I think a good coach, doesn't teach you any skills. He just re he or she reveals the answer that's already inside of you and gives you that space.

Bob Wischer (17:45.016)
Mm.

Bob Wischer (18:03.406)
Exactly. Yeah, I don't have to know anything about your business to coach you on your business.

Christian Brim (18:08.283)
Right. And, and I think, you know, my personal experience when I engaged my current coach, it was in a time of crisis of my marriage. it had nothing to do with the business. I, I, I didn't even see how my personal life was affecting the business. Right. And right. And, and, and I think, I think a lot of entrepreneurs, especially if they're men,

Bob Wischer (18:18.03)
Hmm.

Bob Wischer (18:29.826)
Yeah, blindspot.

Christian Brim (18:37.929)
like to think they can compartmentalize things, right? Like there's the work self and there's the home self and I'm gonna operate siloed, but it doesn't work that way because who you are shows up both places, right?

Bob Wischer (18:51.458)
Mm-mm.

Bob Wischer (18:58.032)
How we do one thing is how we do everything.

Christian Brim (19:00.273)
Right. And when we started work, working and I, I honestly, the situation was that he came along with another consultant and so I wasn't paying him separately. So I started using him because I was using this other consultant and I, I, so I kind of accidentally found him. But I'm thankful for that because

We spent the first six months talking about my marriage. We rarely talked about the business. But through that six months, I'm like, holy shit, this is why I'm having problems. And I didn't even see the problems at work. But it was all tied together into who I am.

Bob Wischer (19:36.846)
Mm-hmm.

Bob Wischer (19:50.06)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (19:57.994)
And that's the second thing is, and I'm sure you run into this if you're counseling married men, is there was this idea in the back of my head that if I could just fix my wife, everything would be fine, right?

Bob Wischer (19:58.126)
Mm-hmm.

Bob Wischer (20:14.318)
Yep. I'm in an online men's group and somebody posted something exactly like that today and everything was, if she would do this and she does this and shit and I said, brother, I hate to square, I hate to square it between the eyes with this but as long as you keep playing the victim of your life, you're gonna keep being a victim of your life.

Christian Brim (20:37.607)
Well, and see that that's the fascinating thing because I didn't see myself as a victim. My wife had gone through a lot of shit and because of that, she was, I believe, clinically depressed. And so I saw her as the victim that I needed to fix. Like I've got to be able to fix her so that she can be better and then we can be better.

Bob Wischer (20:45.153)
Hmm.

Bob Wischer (20:52.589)
Mm.

Bob Wischer (20:56.246)
Okay. Right.

Bob Wischer (21:03.693)
Right?

Christian Brim (21:05.213)
But obviously working with my coach is like, you know, even if that is the case, it doesn't matter. You can't fix her. So it's what can you do about you?

Bob Wischer (21:10.806)
Yeah, can't fix her. Nope.

Right. How do you react to those situations? How do you deal with her emotions and her moods and all that other stuff? That's all on you to figure out how you can...

Christian Brim (21:21.51)
Exactly.

Christian Brim (21:25.737)
100%. And what I realized, I mean, it was a multi year journey, in some ways, one, I'm still on. But I realized because of my own baggage, I was allowing her feelings to dictate my feelings. Now, obviously, you know, there's a certain amount of that, that you can't get away with, get away from when you're living with somebody.

But the reality is, to your point, you're in charge of your emotions. Like you're responsible for your reactions. you know, being able to figure out that like, I don't need her to be happy for me to be happy. Like that was a revelation for me, right? And if she's sad, it's not my fault. Like, you know, if she's... And honestly, was a...

Bob Wischer (21:59.982)
Mm-hmm.

Bob Wischer (22:11.182)
Exactly. Yeah.

Christian Brim (22:23.707)
a great amount of freedom for her to, to be able to say, okay, it's okay for me to be sad or to have feelings. And you know, it's, it's not going to cause a problem with you, right?

Bob Wischer (22:36.917)
Mm-hmm.

Bob Wischer (22:40.459)
Absolutely.

Christian Brim (22:43.305)
So I know that a lot of entrepreneurs struggle in their marriages. What would you say are the, let's start with the most common symptoms. What are the most common symptoms that people come to you with as entrepreneurs in their marriage?

Bob Wischer (23:10.838)
It's usually that feeling of disconnection. Whether it's walking, I've heard the terms I all the time, walking on eggshells. Don't know how to make her happy. Just like you said. I think there's a certain amount of guilt that comes with being an entrepreneur. Because you're probably working nights, you're working weekends.

Christian Brim (23:15.731)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (23:22.856)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Bob Wischer (23:39.662)
you know, out on family events, things like that, whether it's, you your kid's ball game or your daughter's dance recital, whatever, there's a lot of things that come up like that and that builds a lot of resentment between the spouses. And if you're not taking care of that piece of your life, that one-on-one relationship with your spouse, obviously things can go really wrong really fast. I mean, a lot of guys...

Christian Brim (23:40.233)
Right.

Bob Wischer (24:09.602)
you get into that mode, you're off and you're doing your thing and she's, she's, she's checking boxes, right? Is he there for me? Nope. Is he making me feel safe? Nope. Is he providing for the family? Well, yes, financially, but not emotionally. And they start making that list of things. And then all of sudden it usually takes them two or three years, but generally a woman will think about it.

the D word for two or three years before she actually says it. And then once she makes that decision that, I'm gonna have this conversation, then it's usually...

The train is already running downhill down the tracks on the wrong side of the hill for you. And it's very, very difficult to win back their trust, their safety factor and all those other things that they go through when they're thinking about this for two years. They've got a big head start on you and many men, it's a blind side, right? It's like, my God, I've been providing for you. I've been doing this, I've been doing this, I've been dying.

Christian Brim (24:55.941)
Mm-hmm.

Bob Wischer (25:20.432)
I've been doing all these things for you, but it's not the thing that she needed. Actually, a client I'm working with now, if we have this exact conversation, he's been, he's to use love languages, I'm sure you're probably familiar with, right? He's been giving acts of service for, he's been married for almost 20 years. His love language has been to give acts of service. He just found out last week because I made him go find out.

what his wife's love languages are. They're words of affirmation and physical touch. So he's been sending all this service her way, thinking, I'm being a great husband, I'm being a great father, I'm doing all these things, I'm taking care her, and it's completely missing the target for her because she's wanted affirmation all her life, or all their relationship, and she's not getting it. And she had actually filed for divorce about a month or so ago.

And after a few sessions of us working together, she pulled it back off the table. It's absolutely...

Christian Brim (26:21.683)
Well, that's good to hear. think, yeah, I think, I think you're right. think most of us, most of us men are simple creatures and we don't understand the complexities and nuances of females. you know, I, I have, I've been married for 32 years. have two grown adult daughters.

Bob Wischer (26:41.428)
No, we don't.

Christian Brim (26:50.249)
And I don't understand them any more than I did when I was, you know, 23 and got married. I have a lot more experience, but I don't know that I would translate that into true understanding. because I mean, we, we, are fundamentally different creatures and, you know, one of the most powerful questions my coach asks, he asked it a lot.

Bob Wischer (26:59.982)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (27:19.771)
initially and occasionally still does is, know, what do you want? And, you know, for me, I didn't grow up in the church, but I had raised my family in the church. We, my wife and I were baptized together before we were married. And, and so that was a big part of our, our relationship. I,

I thought it wrong to think about what I wanted, right? Like that that was somehow unimportant. And

Bob Wischer (27:53.058)
Hmm.

Bob Wischer (27:56.814)
Yeah, a lot of them, that's a majority of men actually.

Christian Brim (28:00.498)
Yeah, I think it's more of a universal condition because once I started getting clear on what I wanted from the marriage, I started to ask my wife that question. And I remember the first couple of times I asked her, well, what do you want from me as a husband? It was just this blank look, like, I don't know.

And then it was like, well, if you don't know, I can't give it to you. Like I can't make strides. But see, it goes back to that word that you used, victim, right? And it's very easy for every person to look at someone else as being the antagonist and the cause of your problems instead of owning your own shit and saying, you know, I need to do something with me, not somebody else because...

Bob Wischer (28:38.85)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (28:57.423)
At that point, she was frustrated and angry and disappointed in me and rightly so. I'm not saying she wasn't, but she'd never even really tried to understand what it was that she needed from me. the, I know I don't want this, but what do I want? Right. And it took, it took several times asking that question before she could start to give me some feedback.

Bob Wischer (29:14.358)
Mm-hmm.

Bob Wischer (29:24.15)
And so how's that going now?

Christian Brim (29:26.881)
it's, going swimmingly. I, it's, it's a process. I mean, you know, I'd say, this is, what is it? 25. I would say this is going on year four or five. it is night and day different from what it was when we started. And, and, you know, it was one of those deals where

Bob Wischer (29:29.742)
Great.

Christian Brim (29:56.938)
We had been married we'd you know started a business together and and for a long time she worked in the business Raise three kids and they're all out of the house and she hasn't worked in five or six years and her last baby leaves home and then her mother dies her sister dies and she gets

Bob Wischer (30:18.606)
Okay.

Bob Wischer (30:23.918)
Mm.

Christian Brim (30:26.823)
breast cancer and has to have a double mastectomy and reconstruction. And so like the shit hit all the fan at once, right? Or all the shit hit the fan at once. And and there was a pandemic, right? And yeah. And so like, you know, I would not go back and relive those times voluntarily. They sucked. But I am very thankful for them.

Bob Wischer (30:28.245)
Ugh.

Bob Wischer (30:36.942)
Yeah, and that little pandemic thing.

Christian Brim (30:56.071)
because if it weren't for that, couldn't have, we wouldn't have a relationship. If things had been coasting along, one of two things would have happened. We would have either ended up in a divorce or more likely where I see a lot of people, they end up just living separate lives. And they live together and they socially do some things together, but they're not connected.

Bob Wischer (31:16.738)
Mm-hmm.

Bob Wischer (31:23.702)
Yeah, yeah. And really that's the thing that nobody teaches us, right? When we're going through, you know, we get married, we have kids, and that 18-year span of life where we pour everything, you like I said earlier, our purpose was to raise our family.

Christian Brim (31:45.479)
And you had that in common. You had that in common.

Bob Wischer (31:45.538)
you know, provide for them. Yeah, and you have that in common and then you get to the end of that 18 to 25 years, depending on how many kids you have, and then all of sudden you're looking at each other and you're like, who are you? Because you don't know each other anymore. That's... No.

Christian Brim (32:02.237)
And you don't have anything to work. I don't know how many times my wife said, I don't feel like we're partners. Like, I don't feel like we have anything that we care about in common. And I think that was probably not entirely true, but the feeling was true. it was because we had something that we had poured so much energy into. There was no equivalent. It wasn't like, OK, now we're going to

Bob Wischer (32:08.813)
Yeah.

Bob Wischer (32:15.405)
Right?

Bob Wischer (32:25.4)
Yeah. Nope.

Christian Brim (32:30.301)
do mission work or something. mean, like it wasn't, yeah.

Bob Wischer (32:31.682)
Yeah. Yeah, you never, there's no, and there will never be, I mean, you can have the greatest business ever and it's never going to be the same as raising your kids. it's, yes, it's a step down, but it's still, you have to have that step because you got to land somewhere or you just, you keep falling and then you got nothing.

Christian Brim (32:40.261)
No. No.

Christian Brim (32:53.289)
So if, if what would you, mean, because men get blindsided and we want to kind of prevent that from happening, we don't want to wait until, you know, your wife's out the door. What, what would you, how would you counsel men? What would you advise them to, to do proactively to check and say, is there something I'm missing?

Bob Wischer (33:23.406)
My first and foremost recommendation I give to every man I can talk to is you've got to have a date night. You've got to continue dating all through, no matter where you are today, set it up in your calendars, put it in every two weeks, black out Friday night, Saturday, whatever is your weeknight, whatever works for you, but black out every two weeks.

Christian Brim (33:33.139)
Hmm.

Bob Wischer (33:51.416)
Get out of the house, get away with her, go to dinner, go to a movie, have ice cream, whatever the case may be, but get out of your routine and spend that time together and have conversations.

Depending on the magnitude of the disconnection at that point, there's always there's prompts and things that you can use. think I think you even mentioned one earlier. Yeah, you thought what your coach asking her, what do you want from this relationship? What do you want from this marriage? What do you want from me having having those hard conversation? Yes, it's an awkward question. But like you said, eventually, once you asked it enough, she got the gist of what you're coming where you're coming from. And then you probably had a lot more.

open dialogue about it and we're able to talk about it. So that staying staying and connected like that. And I even I especially see it in like younger, younger men that I know and some some that I've worked with that when they have that first kid and they're, you know, pouring everything out whether they did a business and their kids and what I'm like, dude, you have to do this. You have to get in in your

Christian Brim (34:42.504)
Yes.

Bob Wischer (35:09.376)
You know, I call it a non-negotiable of life to have that in your calendar. If you can do it every week, great. But a lot of people, whether it's every two weeks or every month, whatever the cadence is, but just have a regular cadence. because if you don't do that, you're going to wake up, I guarantee you will wake up 18 years from now and you're going to look at each other and you're going to go, I don't know you. Because again, you've...

Christian Brim (35:34.774)
Which doesn't seem possible when you're young.

Bob Wischer (35:37.006)
It doesn't seem possible, but how much did the world change in 2020? That was one year stacked, no, not necessarily doing that, but stacked 18 years on top of each other. How you're going to change, how she's going to change.

Christian Brim (35:42.577)
Yeah, yes. Yes.

Bob Wischer (35:52.008)
your priorities, your business, everything about you is going to change completely in 18 years. So you don't know who you're going to be, you don't know who she's going to be, but if you're staying connected all that time through, you have heck of a lot better chance.

Christian Brim (36:08.893)
The analogy that someone gave to me a long time ago was a garden. And, you know, I'm not a gardener. I refuse to do yard work. But that was a good one for me. For some reason, it resonated like if you don't tend your garden, it's not going to be productive. It's going to be overgrown and eventually it's just going to die. And the relationship, any relationship,

Bob Wischer (36:18.744)
Later.

Christian Brim (36:38.637)
But but especially marriage is is very much like a garden you've got to tend it it has to take intentional effort and I think I Think a lot of people get caught in that well They're not doing this so I'm not gonna do that and there's this tit tit for tat, right and and

Bob Wischer (36:48.494)
Yeah.

Bob Wischer (37:01.24)
Keeping score. Yep, can't keep score.

Christian Brim (37:05.385)
Right, and the reality is that if your marriage is based upon love, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what the other person does. You do you out of love. Yeah.

Bob Wischer (37:12.91)
Exactly.

Bob Wischer (37:18.648)
Yeah.

Bob Wischer (37:21.998)
A lot of people seem to think marriage is 50-50, right? You do 50 % of the chores, do 50 % of the child-rearing, you do 50 % of everything because you're a team, right? And a team is 50-50 even. I look at it as if I put 80 % into my marriage, if she puts even north of 50, we got a great shot because we're both putting in more than 50.

put in the best we can, we've got a shot. if we're both just trying to get to 50 and we're keeping score, imagine maybe one of us is at 49 and one of us is at 43, it's just the long-term, it's not sustainable.

Christian Brim (38:04.967)
Yeah. It's almost as if you've got to come with the attitude of I am going to give more than the other. And if you don't feel that way in a positive way, I mean, you can't feel like you're being abused or taken advantage of or this or that. But I think about the book that my coach originally

Bob Wischer (38:14.68)
Mm-hmm.

Bob Wischer (38:21.731)
Yeah.

Exactly.

Christian Brim (38:34.909)
before he became a coach was a Orthodox rabbi and he and his wife did marriage counseling and or marriage coaching and so he had me read a book from these Jewish Rabbis had written this book called it's not a partnership and It's it's a fantastic book

Bob Wischer (38:38.531)
Mmm.

Christian Brim (39:03.653)
The first half of it is what I would say more the Hebrew or Jewish understanding of marriage and God's purpose in it. And then the second half is more practical stuff, but the first half is what I found fascinating. But it starts out with that premise that most people are told that marriage is a partnership.

like that it's like a business arrangement and to your point then it becomes well I'm doing my half but you're not doing your half and then there's a friction point and there's a problem and that's not it's not the model of marriage partnership is not the model of marriage

Bob Wischer (39:31.598)
Mm-hmm.

Bob Wischer (39:40.6)
Yep.

Bob Wischer (39:44.59)
Hmm

No, absolutely not. And that's unfortunately what happened in my first marriage. We got to that point. The kids were there. We were pouring everything into them. I was coaching. She was doing her thing. And we we continued to grow apart and get farther and farther away. lacked, the communication wasn't there. Priorities weren't there.

So if somebody was always keeping score, what are you doing? What am I doing? And it just, it got worse and worse until it wasn't recognizable as a marriage anymore. It wasn't a partnership, it wasn't a marriage, it wasn't even a roommateship at that point. So change had to be made, unfortunately.

Christian Brim (40:32.521)
I remember my eldest daughter and she was probably 26, 27 at the time. And she came and sat both of us down.

And this was, I had been working with Jacob for probably six months to a year. So I, I had already started this, this journey and, she, she looked at us and she goes, I don't like being around you guys anymore. You guys are, you know, mean to each other. You're angry. and I'm just telling you that if you're going to continue acting like that, I'm not going to come around.

Bob Wischer (41:04.533)
Hmm. Ouch.

Bob Wischer (41:16.59)
Mmm.

Christian Brim (41:17.809)
And I sat there and I'm like, wow, that's my first thought initially was like, I wish I had that level of maturity at that age, right? Right. And how strong of character she must have been to be able to have that conversation. And then third, it was like how much she loves us.

Bob Wischer (41:30.678)
Yeah, no kidding.

Bob Wischer (41:40.899)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (41:46.429)
that she would have that conversation because she clearly wanted to be around us and wanted it to be different. Right. and, so my response was markedly different than my wife's who at the time had really not started her journey, and, and was defensive really. Right. And, I totally understand that reaction. mean, your kid coming and telling you that is you, you,

Bob Wischer (41:46.702)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Bob Wischer (41:53.315)
Yeah.

Bob Wischer (42:08.472)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (42:16.071)
That's not a right. You don't want that, right? So I understand her reaction. But I guess to I don't know why I started that story, but no, thought it was a good story.

Bob Wischer (42:16.49)
embarrassing. That's a massive embarrassing. No.

Christian Brim (42:34.729)
Bob, how do people find out more about you as the relationship engineer if they want to learn more about working with you?

Bob Wischer (42:43.342)
Yeah, very simple. www.menbecomingbettermen.com. can see the sign there. Men Becoming Better Men. That's my website. That's a kind of one stop shopping. You can find my old podcast episodes there. You can connect with me there, schedule appointments, kind of see a little bit of what I do. Yeah, that's not too complicated. Keep it simple.

Christian Brim (43:12.137)
Perfect. Listeners will have those links in the show notes. If you like what you've heard, please share the podcast, rate the podcast or subscribe to the podcast or all three. I don't care. Do honor all. If you would like to hear somebody specifically that we haven't had on, please message us and let us know. Until then, remember that you are not alone.

Bob Wischer (43:14.071)
Ahem.

Bob Wischer (43:22.734)
You

Bob Wischer (43:37.666)
Hmm.