Redefining Masculinity: Busting the 'Happy Wife, Happy Life' Myth

0:00 Hello and welcome to Real Men Feel. This is your host, Andy Grant. Please visit theandygrant.com to learn more about me. Real Men Feel will exist to remind men that they are human beings and that they have the right, the need, and the ability to feel and express all of their emotions. We have conversations that most men are not having, but that all men can benefit from. My guest today is Frederick Van Reifer. Fred is a men's Relationship and leadership coach dedicated to helping men and dads lead with purpose at work and at home. He empowers men to create balanced lives, building deep connections with their partners and children while excelling professionally. Fred gives lots of great advice for dads to be more than a provider of income and how to create deeper connections in all of your relationships.

0:44 We have a wonderfully deep and wide conversation touching on everything from shame to journaling. Fred shares about antiquated gender assumptions, how the death of his father changed his life, and the fact that asking for help is strength. Let's do it. Hello Fred, and welcome to Real Men Feel. Andy, thanks for having me. I. Think it was late October that we crossed paths on LinkedIn. There was one post in particular. Well, you have a lot of great content, but there was one post in particular that immediately made me reach out and I think it was happy wife, happy life, right? And wouldn't you like? No, that's just not the case for so many people. What was the rest of that? Do you remember? Like what?

1:25 What was the the main gist of why happy wife, happy life isn't the key to. Success. Yeah, I mean speaking from my own experience, I've been married now 10 years, my dad to two kids, teenager, 17 year old daughter and a nine year old son. And I think happy life, happy, happy wife has been or happy wife, happy life has been something that we've heard since we were kids, right? But when the truth is when, when, when I got married. And I think when a lot of us get married or even just not married, but in a partnership, we don't really know what the hell we're doing. We really don't. It's kind of like a, you know, trial and error in a lot of ways.

2:05 And what I've found is that you can get lost in that idea of like, I'm going to do what I have to do to make my wife happy, to make my partner happy, But you lose a bit of yourself. And it's important to, it's not, it's not so much being selfish, but it's about remembering that you're a person too. And some people like to twist it and say happy house, happy spouse. And I, I still don't love it because the truth is it's, it's, it's not your job to make someone else happy. It's your job to make you happy. And I think we lose sight of that when we get into a partnership. So what when I work with men, I do recommend being selfish because a whole happy, healthy man makes everyone around him better make his wife is happy, his kids are happier, the workplace is happier.

2:53 But but yeah, I'm not, not selfish in the sense of, yeah, you know, I need something so I'm going to take it from you. Not that. But that sense of putting yourself first isn't selfish. Right. I mean, if if you read about people pleasing, right, a lot of us are people pleasers and it's a terrible habit to be in because if you do that, then then you're kind of losing kind of who who you are and then you're unhappy. So pleasing someone else, you're not really pleasing yourself and then you're expecting someone else like your partner, perhaps in a, in a, in a relationship to, to do something and it becomes transactional. And that's the problem here is like, in my, in my view, partnerships are not supposed to be transactional. They're supposed to be, you know, a true partnership is how do I show up today?

3:41 How do I show up? There's me best so that I serve my family best so that I can be a great member of the community and help strangers and help the world heal. That's the way I approach life. And I'm not saying I'm perfect. I, I have plenty of days where I don't hit that mark. But I think the intention there is is, you know, how can I make my life better and how can I make other people's lives better? So you mentioned hearing happy wife, happy life while you're growing up. What? What else did you hear growing up that told you what it meant to be a man? Don't, I mean, probably a lot of what you've heard and what a lot of men listening I've heard, you know, man up, you know, you're not if you're not man enough. I've been called gay many times over as if that's a, a negative. And I think that's awful.

4:30 It's, it's this pressure to fit in to, to fit into this really narrow definition of what it means to be a man. And I, I talk about this a lot on LinkedIn. Masculinity is whatever you allow it to be. And if you were trying to make it something very specific and very narrow, well, then you're limiting yourself to who you can be as a human being. And we are human first, men 2nd. And so I, I, I like to think that masculinity can be expansive, that we are, there is no right way to be a man. It's up to you to decide what fits for you. And, and that doesn't mean you don't, that doesn't mean you have to give up some quote UN quote manly things, right?

5:12 Like we, we love, we love wrestling, we love cars, we love, you know, some of this more macho, manly stuff. There's nothing wrong with that. But you can all it can be both and you can love working on your car and you can also love watching a ballet with your daughter and not so much. And I'm not that's probably a bad example because I don't really love ballet myself, but but I love spending time with my daughter. So I will do, I will do things that maybe aren't naturally quote UN quote manly, because I want to connect. And I think if we, if we limit ourselves, you know, what are we doing here? Like why, why is why are we trying to and, and the judgement too, Andy and we, we get judged, we judge ourselves, but we also get judged by other men. And I think that pressure is real, that pressure to fit in. We want it's a biological thing because in the past, when we were hunters, you know, thousands of years ago, hundreds of years ago, it was, well, we have to go out to survive. We have to.

6:11 And if we and if we're judged negatively and we don't fit in, then we're gonna get kicked out of the tribe and we're probably going to die. And so I think there's some leftover biological stuff there deep down. But truly it's it's it's easy to fall prey to that pressure and just do things that we maybe aren't in line and authentic because we're so afraid of not fitting in. Yeah, I would say that the only definition of masculinity that matters is yours. As I said, men do whatever you do, right? You consider yourself a man or a male, whatever we own. But like then whatever you do is what a man does. You can't do something that breaks. You can't have your man card revoked or any of that sort of nonsense.

6:52 You know, being your authentic self, making yourself happy. And then you said so many times, being of service to others that that's ideally what men do. They lead to serve, not lead to take. Right. And, and and to and to add to that, men also cry. Men can be sad and that's OK if you're not in touch with that emotion. It is a difficult 1 and I get it like it's, it's not something fun to deal with, but you have to be able to sit with your emotions and process your emotions and regulate your emotions. It especially as a dad, this is something that I needed to learn. You know, it was something I wasn't used to doing because as growing up as a man, as a boy, you know, it was beating out of me. It was, it was something that wasn't quote UN quote manly.

7:33 So for me to fit in, I didn't engage in a lot of that. And so getting more comfortable now as a father, I see the value in allowing yourself to feel, you know, real men feel. I, I, I believe that's true. And I think it's important if you are a man who stress, it's important to talk about it and comfortable talking about it, even if that's with yourself, right. You don't have to go out and you know, be the leader if unless you want to talking about your emotions all the time. But I think journaling or, or writing some thoughts down and kind of processing on your own is, is a super helpful way to start that journey. I have a free guide on my website called How to build emotional resilience. I think it's super helpful for any men that maybe haven't done this work before to download, and it's a free download just to kind of work through some of your emotions. I love the quote.

8:28 Anger is another emotion that men feel a lot and we struggle some sometimes to process that emotion and we let it impact the the words we say or the actions we take. But I love the quote. I sat with my anger long enough until she told me her real name was Grief by CS Lewis. And it's true. It's, you know, our anger is coming from somewhere else. Like what, where, what's the root cause of that? And how can we sit with it long enough to realize it's grief? And then how can we process through our grief and heal? Was it society overall that gave you those narrow messages of masculinity, or was it your own father passing that along? Like how, how did? How was that experience for you? Yeah, that's a great question.

9:10 I think it was more, more society, more friendships, more, you know, growing up a boy in the, and as a teenager in the, the mid to late 90s young man in the 2000s, I think I got a lot of that messaging from Pierce. My dad was a pretty traditional husband. So I think I learned a lot of like traditional ways of managing a household from my dad. The ideas of, you know, dad will carve the Turkey on Thanksgiving. Dad will cook maybe steak, but he doesn't necessarily cook most of the meals. Dad will mow the lawn and open the pool and shovel the snow, but he did and take out the garbage, but he won't vacuum and he won't dust, right?

9:56 It's these bones equated gender assumptions, I call them. And so I learned a lot of traditional kind of ways of managing a household for my dad. But my dad was a feeler, I would say. I, I saw him tell this story because it really impacted me. So in the early 90s, we had a recession here in the United States and my dad lost his job. And up to that point, I don't really recall my dad ever crying. But I remember the day that happened and I, I heard this really deep guttural cry, a cry I've never heard before from from any man. And it was one of like really deep pains.

10:37 At the time, I was 12 or 13 years old, so I didn't really fully understand. I just care for my dad and I wanted to make him feel better. So I remember like helping him type this is that before days of computers, I remember helping him type up resumes on a typewriter to apply for jobs. But I, but looking back on it now, like this idea that men have to be the provider financially is such a heavyweight that men carry. And it's real and we do and I agree we do have to provide for our families, but things have shifted quite a bit since the 90s and most, most couples today are dual income households. And so there's this like really tough kind of like shift that men struggle with, which is how can we redefine provider to mean providing love, providing attention, providing care? You know, I'm the idea of like an identity for men as a provider, but it do you identify as a caregiver? If you're a dad, you should, but I think a lot of dads struggle with that.

11:49 It's like, well, if I bring home the bacon, like my job's done. And that's not true and that's not a recipe for a sustainable relationship. But I think a lot of men fall into that that. Trope What do you see is our most men's biggest hurdle to making that transition from traditional provider to being a more all-encompassing 1. Try to think of my own journey with it because I felt the same. You know, I, I, I really think it all goes back to emotional processing, you know, feeling heavy feelings, being able to communicate those feelings, being able to have hard conversations with your partner and with your kids without blowing up, without shutting down, without wanting to leave the room, without feeling shame. You know, I was just talking to a colleague of mine before we hopped on here and she was making a distinction between guilt and shame.

12:40 And she was saying how guilt is a really great indicator. If you feel guilty about something, well, that's OK. That can motivate you to make a change. But if you allow that guilt to turn into shame, and I grew up Catholic, so I have that Catholic guilt all the time. But if you allow it to turn into shame, then it starts to become about who you are as a, as a man, who you are as a person starts to become, you know, be confronting to your identity. And I think it's really important to for yourself to make that distinction too, to notice when you're feeling guilt versus when you're feeling shame. And if you're feeling guilty, we've all done things we're not proud of. We all have showed up in ways that we are, we wish we hadn't as a father, as a man, as a husband, as a partner, as a community member.

13:27 But allow that guilt to motivate you to make a change instead of allowing it to, you know, throw you into shame. And then it's this blame cycle. It's not my fault to get defensive. And it's a really, it's a really hard thing to do, but I think it takes intentional practice daily. Daily practice, yeah, that the best definition that that's always helped me is guilt is I did something wrong. Shame is I am wrong. Yeah, I love that. Yeah. So guilt, guilt without corrective action, without, you know, forgiving yourself, depending on what it is, forgive you, someone else, whatever it may be. But without action, Yeah, all those energies can settle in and become the identity. You know, I grew up battling depression and made multiple attempts in my life and like, I didn't think I had depression. I thought I was depression and that was my natural state and feeling good was a trick and it was a temporary high. So what inspired you to to want to be coaching men, to go into to service to other men?

14:28 Still going back to my dad when that happened, when he lost his job in the early 90s, I watched him struggle and he coped negative. He used negative coping mechanisms. He drank a lot. He smoked a lot and actually that continued to the day he died. So he passed away in December 2021. And I had lost my job. I've never been fired before in my life from a job. So at the age of 40, what is it? I guess 434243 I was, I was let go. I was fired and that was January 2021. So January 2021, I get fired.

15:12 December 2021, my dad passes. And as you can imagine, I had a lot of a lot of deep thinking to do that year and into 2022. And when my dad passed, I really thought a lot about our relationship, about our last conversation, which was on Thanksgiving. I didn't know it was going to be our last conversation. So we talked about snowstorms up in, I lived up in Syracuse, NY, so we had a lot of snow. He always asked about that. And we talked about sports, you know, but we didn't talk about life and death. We didn't talk about anything super meaningful. And that's OK. Not every conversation has to be about that. But I would have liked my last conversation with my father to be a little more deeper.

15:58 So by the time I got to the hospital, I was about four hour drive. I left around 3:00 in the morning. My dad was intubated and within a matter of three or four days he had passed. But I thought about my relationship with him and I thought about his life. And from the from the moment that he got fired to the moment that he died, he struggled. He struggled with emotional processing. I found out after he died that he actually went to a doctor and was prescribed medicine for depression that he refused to take and said he would deal with it on his own. And that's a lot of what a lot of men do, right? It's like, I don't need help. I don't, That's weak, right?

16:42 My dad was in the military. You know, it's this idea that asking for help is weakness is such bullshit. I, I just encourage every man listening like it's fucking bullshit. If you don't, I hope I'm OK. It's OK to curse on the show. But it, it bothers me so much that that is a notion that's out there that men think asking for help is weakness. Asking for help is strength. It is courageous. It is difficult to speak up on your own behalf and say, Hey, I'm struggling and I don't know what to do about it. And so I watched my dad suffer. And I was a kid, but I was, you know, in the night. I was like I said, 12 or 13 when that happened, but, and 40 something when, when he passed. But I never really had the tools myself to, to know how to help him.

17:26 I, I tried to get him to quit smoking and I tried to get him to stop drinking as much. But like, it's just, it was just words and he was going to do whatever he wanted to do. But I thought about how many men must be struggling in silence, suffering with things they don't want to share, don't want to talk about. And I thought after, and I worked in construction as a project manager. That was the job I got fired from. And I saw men in that field, tough, burly men right there. They're in construction. They're working hard all day, hard on their bodies, but they're struggling with their relationships. They're struggling at home. They don't know how to connect with their partner.

18:07 And this is supposed to be their most important relationship. They're not prioritizing the things in life that truly mean you're a success, right? Making money is great. I mean, we all want more money. And money's a great way to, you know, achieve things and, and do things in the community and do things for yourself and your family. There's nothing wrong with making a lot of money. There's nothing wrong with being rich, but if that's the only thing you have and you're not connecting at home, like you're not really wealthy. And so can we move from a place that defines success and defines rich to mean I have some money so I don't have to worry, but I also have rich relationships.

18:49 I also know how to connect at home. I know how to process my emotions. I know how to feel. I know how to explain my feelings. I can have these what started as difficult conversations with my partner. Now they're not difficult because I've done them and that's really what it is. It's practice and if you want to get good at something, you got to practice. So start today. What did you do to not follow your dad's path? I I I'm sure it must have crossed your mind when you lost your job and you thought about your dad losing his job and he never really recovered. It sounded like for a long time I did exactly what my dad did. I coped with alcohol. I smoked cigarettes. I spent a lot of my adult life up to that point drinking, drinking my feelings away. My journey.

19:32 I'm not very far along on that journey. I but after he passes, when I think, when everything kind of changed because I started really reflecting and thinking about. I don't want to end up like my dad, like I love my dad and he was a he was AI was I would say he was a good father. He was a great father when I was young and I think he turned into a absent father in a way when I got older. And to me, I don't want to be that dad. I want to be there for my kids throughout their life. I want to be present. I want to I want them to call me. And so, you know, what do I need to change? How can I move away from that story and, and write a new story?

20:14 That's those types of questions were running through my head. And so after he passed, I was asking myself all these questions. And it wasn't like an overnight switch. You know, now I'm not going to drink. But I came to that after a while. So I actually haven't had a drink since this year at all. I don't know the day I stopped because it wasn't something like I know a lot of people who struggled alcohol. They they mark the day that they quit. I, I didn't really do that. I think partly because I was, I never thought of myself as an alcoholic. And, but looking back on it, I think I was for sure, you know, certainly drank more when I before I was married, Sarah, my wife definitely had been a positive influence on kind of limiting some of that, that that behavior. But I would fall into those patterns, those old patterns easily, especially if we went to a friend's house. So, yeah, my journey's been, it's pretty recent and with all started with the death of my father and really reflecting on our relationship, what he went through, what I saw him struggle with, what I wasn't able to help him come out of. And I didn't want my son and or my daughter to have to feel those feelings and feel like their father was absent when they were older.

21:28 Parenthood and fatherhood motivate you to become better if you allow it to. And it's a lot of learning and consistent learning. I would say daily learning. So sounds like fatherhood is definitely influenced your coaching. I wonder how coaching has influenced you being a father. Yeah, my son will pop in sometimes and he like he'll he'll tell me. Dad, you're doing you do such amazing work. And it's such a gratifying feeling that he notices that I'm I'm helping other men and he, you know, he asked questions about it. My coaching makes me a better father, I think, because I get out of my own echo chamber.

22:12 You know, my experience is mine and others are are theirs. And I don't, I, without having those conversations with other men, with other dads, I don't know what they're going through it. I think we share a lot of similarities, a lot of commonalities of as men, you know, things we struggle with. There's always nuance and there's always different distinctions. And I always tell my clients, you know, I meet you where you're at. I listen to your story and we talk about customizing and tailoring plans to you, to your experience, to how you're feeling. And some of that's very similar. It, it's, it's something that I'm always in awe of the dads that do come to me to hear, you know, their personal struggle and to encourage them to keep going. I think I always say everyone, men, women, doesn't matter, all genders.

23:06 People want to feel seen. They want to feel heard. They want hope. And that's what I feel like I give to my clients. It's not, it's not. Yeah, sure, I give them practical tools and tips and all that, and that's great. But really what I'm providing them is that there's someone out there that cares enough about them and their success that is willing to to go walk with them, you know? What are some, you know, simple, achievable first steps that that you could recommend a man who's wanting that deeper connection with with children or a a partner, but he's he's just stuck in himself, stuck in those that he's in that narrow man box, that definition.

23:47 What's the first step to kind of break that down? I think the first thing I would recommend is, is finding out your tendencies, you know, the judgement that leads to this shame and blame cycle, because I think that's a lot of what we're stuck in here is like, what is your identity? Who do you want to become? And starting really simple with, you know, literally writing it down. I know like for me, like I had had these thoughts I've had, I've had some deep conversations over the years with friends and, and colleagues and this and that. I never spent time before 2021-2022 reflecting enough and having conversations with myself, you know, as and I think journaling really opens it up. Like writing something down is super powerful. Words have a lot of weight and there's no rules. No, nobody has to read this.

24:42 You, you can just write about anything, whatever you're feeling. And it's like, this is how we start to build the muscle of emotional resilience is getting comfortable talking about how we're feeling, even if it's not with our partner right away. The other thing I would recommend is there's a, there's a great program called Positive Intelligence. It's by Shahzad Shameen. He's a Harvard professor, if that means anything to you. I don't really care about, you know, that sort of thing. But I do care about how powerful his program is. What positive intelligence did for me is it allowed me to see my judge and my sabotage, my saboteurs, he calls them. And this is a great way to identify kind of like your patterns, like, where is it coming from?

25:26 We all have a judge in our head. We all have an inner critic, if you will. And what are they telling you? What stories are they telling you about yourself? And how can you take that? And now rewrite that story to be positive. And I don't, and I'm not toxic positivity, but we tell ourselves a lot of negative shit about ourselves and as a general generalization. And So what can you do today to stop doing that? Because those stories that you're telling yourself most likely aren't true. Most likely they are not true. And if you're telling yourself that you suck at this, that you're not good enough, that you're not man enough, that you don't fit into this manly definition that someone else decided it had to be for you, and you're trying to meet expectations of others. Like what are your expectations of yourself? What standards do you want to hold? And how can you if if there if your standards are low for yourself, how can you raise those standards? If your standards are are good, but you aren't meeting them, Like how can you meet your standards? But first you got to know what those are. And if you haven't reflected in, in a long time, like I hadn't, like I didn't even really know what did that look like. And so start with self reflection. And then I would recommend going to positive intelligence. I think it's, I'm, I'm not sure, but I think it's positiveintelligence.com.

26:48 You can actually take a free self-assessment and it'll spit out a report. They put you on their e-mail list, but you can just opt out of that. And it's a great way to kind of just see what that report says about like your tendencies, what your comments saboteurs are. So are you a people pleaser, for example, are you trying to think of another one like restless all the time, you know, and then and then it's then you start to say, OK, I am restless all the time. Why am I restless? Why do I feel the need to be busy? Why can't I just sit and sit with myself and be calm? That was me, You know, I, I have a hard time sitting still. And so I think it's important to rest. But as a, as a man, we want to be busy. We want to be productive.

27:33 We have this idea in society to be productive all the time. Well, rest is productive. Yeah, there, there there's an inner world that men are responsible for building as well. So it's not just go build that over go go build builds a pyramids, go build the Taj Mahal for your. They'll live every life. It's not, it's not just that, but yeah, I I just want to circle back to, to journaling a little bit because journaling is something that was recommended to me by therapist for at least 10 years before I dared try it. And I had this like, oh, I'm not going to get my alumni little Princess diary thing. It just seems so feminine is so little girly to me. But I finally just started and I felt benefits, like I felt better. And for me, my worst conversations happen in my head if I write the things down.

28:19 Oh, the, the bad thoughts have less weight. The good thoughts have room to breathe and I have now I journal on a daily basis. It might be 20 years and one little tip I carry around the yellow pad and I jot down wins, losses, deep thoughts for me to journal about later. But some days my journaling is just the sticky pad of what what the highlights of the day. So make your own rules, but do something. Just get out of that roommate and chasing your old tail with your shitty thoughts. And one thing I've, I took a positive psychology program with some Harvard professors. So I, I have an affinity for Harvard professors. There you go. But one thing was, yeah, all that negative self talk that we all do, we're lying to ourselves.

29:03 But as you said, so when you're aware of it, choose better lies. I'm great at this. I can figure this out. I'm a hell of a man, all right? If you're going to, if you're going to lie to yourself, you might as well tell yourself some positive, uplifting lies and just see how that feels. 100 percent, 100%. And it's, and it's OK, it's OK to strive to be better, right? Like we as I think that's a pretty common human thing that we all want to be the best version of ourselves. And when we're not the best version of ourselves, we know it, even if, even if we lie to ourselves. But I think it's important to tell yourself the positive talk to to boost yourself up. If you're not able to say, you know, I'm a hell of a man, say like, I want to be a hell of a man, I'm going to do XYZ today to prove that to myself. And if you don't hit it today, that's OK. Like we're we're not perfect.

29:52 This is, you know, my coaching. We talked progress over perfection. We got to get away from this idea that we got to show up and be a brilliant every single day and every moment and be in control and have certainty about everything in our lives. Life is uncertain. We don't know if we'll be here tomorrow. We are blessed to be here today. How can we make it the best we can? And if we fail, and I say fail, not truly meaning fail, but if we miss right, then how can we show up tomorrow? So have that. So when you talk about journaling, have AI like to have a reflection in the morning to to set intentions for my day. And then I like to have a reflection at night to say, Hey, did I hit do I was I the man I wanted to be today? And where did I miss? And not in a way to shame myself or guilt myself, which would have been my old version, right?

30:38 Like I would have definitely gone down that spiral and probably gone to the bar and had five drinks and forgotten about it. Current, current Fred is what did I miss? And you know, what can I do better tomorrow? And what can I, what am I proud of? You know, because there's always something you can find to be proud of. And it can be small, but boost yourself up. It's life isn't easy. It's not, it's not anal. And and So what are you doing? That's, that's making yourself proud and how are you showing up as a father, as a partner, as a community member, as a friend? And guess what, if you're not sure, that's OK too. But I have some tips for that. Like for example, pick up the phone, call somebody you love.

31:23 It's very simple to do things that you can be proud of. We, we'd like to think like, think that something has to be grand and like this big achievement. We, we, we made $300,000 this year. We, you know, won this award. Yeah, All that's amazing. But what about those little things? I would say to my couples, the, the little things are the big things. You know, the resentment that builds in in relationships is often not about, I mean, of course, you know, a major event like a cheating incident is a big deal. But most of the couples, the resentment that they build builds over time. And it's small fractures. It's tiny things that they didn't address, that they didn't talk about, that they didn't communicate fully about both partners, not just men.

32:06 You know, women are guilty as well of not communicating the things that bother them because they're afraid that it's going to lead to judgement from their partner. And so that trust needs to be there first of all, to have those hard conversations. Practice, get in the habit of coming to each other with the things that are tiny so that they don't, you know, I'm construction brain like a tiny fracture in a foundation might not look like a big deal right away, but over time that's going to start to make your foundation crumble. And that's what we're trying to avoid here. I think I got this from Gay Hendrix, but your willingness to have an uncomfortable conversation for a few minutes can eliminate an uncomfortable life for years and years. So yeah, it's worth taking care of those those little things. Well, I say that your your, your discomfort zone is your growth zone.

32:59 And so if you want your relationship to evolve and grow, which I think most of us do, we don't look, you know, we don't have that mindset maybe in our heads, but we should. It's like you're both human. So you are evolving, whether you like it or not, that's happening. And people change in relationships. So, you know, this idea of going backwards and like, oh, the honeymoon period was amazing. But now it's so hard. Like, yeah, relationships don't get easier, you get better. That's one of the things I always say relationships don't get easier. You get better. And for seven, I've been married 10 years now. For seven years I wasn't. I would say I probably wasn't getting better. Honestly, I might have been getting worse because I wasn't focused on the right things. I was focused on my job. I was trying to be an amazing project manager, but I wasn't really trying, at least not consciously, to be an amazing husband or an amazing father.

33:48 I think I wanted those things. I think I would say that out loud at that time, but I don't think I was choosing daily actions and words that were getting me to that place. And so saying, saying your wants and not doing anything about it is just wishing. And wishing isn't a recipe for success. So if you want to be an amazing husband, if you want to be an amazing partner, if you want to be an amazing father, you need to wake up every day and ask yourself that question. What do I need to do today to be that, to embody that? And I'm telling you right now, you have to do things. It's not easy, like some of this stuff's not easy like having hard conversations, but it becomes easier the more you do it.

34:31 And so allow yourself that opportunity to grow and have that space to become the best version of yourself, which by the way, will change over time. So it's it's a choice. Yeah, it's not static, right? Yeah. And the progress only happens via our actions. So again, the drilling is just the starting point. You'll get inspired ideas, you'll do things. But yeah. And, and I find the more, the more I allow my life to unfold with joy, the more joy there is, the more I'm like, the more I want to do, the more that wants to be done to me, the more opportunities, synchronicities, all that stuff starts going when you when you, when I create my own momentum going forward. Yeah, yeah, Momentum, 100%.

35:14 That is it. That is, that's a great term because that's what you're doing when you choose one daily action, like journaling, right? You're creating that first step of momentum. And then from there, you choose to show up differently in a conversation that would have been hard a week ago or a year ago. And so you have that conversation, so there's another momentum, and that's something you can be proud of at the end of the night. And so you're like, yeah, I was proud of that. I'm going to do it again. So you we've talked about pride a lot and there's a common question I ask all my guests. Fred, what are you most proud of? I, there's, there's a lot, but I think what comes to mind is, is not having a drop of alcohol in over a year or well, again, I don't know the exact date, but it's been close to a year now. I think in the past when, and I've had conversations with a buddy of mine, we used to go drinking together all the time. And I, I was talking to him about it, you know, I, him and I both had this idea that what's the point of having a drink? Like, what's the point of having one drink, right? It's like this idea, like I want to feel buzzed. I want to, I want to like, if I'm going to have the extra calories and I might as well have 3 or 4 because I want to have that feeling of whatever you want to call it, euphoria or ignorance, whatever, whatever frame you want to put on it, right?

36:29 And this isn't a judgement for people who drink alcohol at all. I think for some people, they're able to drink responsibly. For me, especially coming from, you know, my model, my father, you know, I was never able to drink in a way that was, if you want to call it responsible, I just wasn't. And so I knew I needed to make a pretty big change. And at first it was like I said, it wasn't this idea that I was never going to drink. And I was, I was kind of, I was training for a marathon. I was like, well, that's not going to serve me well in the race. So I was up for a little bit of time here. I'm just not going to have a drink. And then it had been like 3 months and I said to Sarah, I said, hey, Dave, like, you know, I haven't had alcohol this entire year because I started training in January.

37:14 And I said I kind of feel good. Like I feel like I have clarity. I feel like I feel stronger mentally, physically. And I don't think I want it. And you know her, not her. And I would share a glass of wine here and there. I was like, I don't think I'm going to join you in like drinking anymore. Like I'll have non alcoholic drinks, you know, if I go out. And so, yeah, I think I'm most proud of being able to stick with that because I think when anyone makes a decision, especially one that's to give up a habit that they've been doing their whole adult life, which drinking was for me. And I started, I started when I would go see the Grateful Dead with my oldest brother when I was like 16 years old. He let me have beer, you know, because mom and dad weren't around.

38:03 But, you know, looking back on it, yeah, that was fun, Fun brother. He took care of me. He made sure I didn't know nothing bad happened to me. All that. And we had a good time at the shows. But yeah, that's a pretty bad habit to start when you're a teenager and then a pretty hard habit to quit through adulthood when you're trying to quote UN quote, fit in and you feel like, you know, bars are great places to, to. I mean, in theory, I don't agree with this now, but I think in in the past, I was like, oh, women hang out at bars. Like I can pick up chicks at the bar, right? I was never the guy to pick up chicks at the bar, but that was my thought process. And then but also that's where men hang out and that's where you can, you know, have close friendships and talk about sports and the things that we talked about.

38:47 And in my older years, my wise years, you know, now I'm thinking like you can meet better. You can have better relations outside of that situation. You can meet people outside of those those locations. Like the bar is not the only place that exists on the planet, but for me it was for a long time. It's like, well, if I want to meet people, that's where I go, you know? But you don't have to choose that. You can go to the Y, you can go to the gym, you can go to lots of different places and start up a conversation. Yeah, I, so I, I was a heavy drinker probably started like 13 or 14 for me and and I always knew I was conscious. I was aware that I drink to change my mood, to change my emotions to, to sometimes I drink to stop crying, sometimes I drink.

39:35 So I actually, yeah, I used to really as a teenager, I would get drunk so that I could cry. I just knew something was bugging me and I couldn't do it sober for some sort of block ahead, whatever it was. But anyway, as I created the life that I'm living and a life that I love, I'm like, why am I drinking? And and so I haven't drank. And it'll be, it's coming up on 6 years. I don't know the exact day either, because we went there to like, I'm not interested. And then I made it through COVID without just saying fuck it, I'm getting drunk. So like well. If I could do that, then I could do anything. I'll ever pick up a drink again. Yeah, yeah, that's really unwelling for me. But yeah. And everything you're saying clarity, health, just you don't know what drinking most of your life does until you stop and you need like and I think you need like months to have that clarity and to to get it all out of your system. Everything.

40:25 But but again, you know, if if you're if you're happy and you know it and then you can go out and have drinks. Great. But it for me, it's all about I know why you doing it. Is it bringing you joy? Is it benefiting your life or not right? Does it help you be of service somehow? Then then great, but right. Tell me about your podcast. Dad's interrupted. Yeah, I started a podcast called Dad's Interrupted It back in June, I think was the first episode, you know, this year we talked about, we talked about the interruptions that Dad's face. And really it's it's similar to the interruptions that men face, right? It's this, it's the negative self talk. Yeah. We're not talking literal interruptions. My kids interrupt me all the time.

41:05 But we're talking about, you know, more figuratively, you know, mental health issues, things that men struggle with that they don't talk about. Very similar to, to the, you know, the, the context of your, your show here. It's like, let's let's talk man to man, dad to dad about what we struggle with his dads. And you know what, what similarities we have, what differences we have, what we do about those things and how can we become better dads? How can we inspire dads that are listening to become better dads? How can we elevate the role of father so that it's part of your identity, not your whole identity? Because I think it's super important to make that distinction, right? I think it's easy to, it's easy to, to, because being a dad is difficult.

41:53 It's easy to say, I'm not going to be a great dad because it's too hard. And it's also easy to say all I am is a dad, and I'm really great at being a dad. But like, what about a partner? What about a community member? What about a friend? Like, what about for yourself? Are you showing up in the ways that you need to for all of those identities that you have? And if you're not like, let's talk about that, let's have these hard conversations. I'm not a dad, which is why I do love talking to fathers and especially talking to fathers that are helping other men be better fathers and giving them that space. I think I have one friend that has ever admitted to me that he he wishes he had never became a dad.

42:39 And he and and I know he kept, I know he carried that for years until he voiced it to me. And but he's but he's been a great dad. He has a good self of the family, but he was like early on, like I don't think I like this, like you just didn't have that moment of my child. Wow. He just like. That never hit me. Well, Andy, Andy, I became a dad overnight because my wife had my daughter. I call her my daughter, but she's my stepdaughter. So she's 17. I started raising her when she was 5. But when I started dating Sarah, that was a big decision for me. I actually for a long time said I was never going to have kids. And my reasonings around that were more, at least I told myself they were more around the world that we live in. And you know, you look around, there's danger everywhere, there's there's struggle, there's pain. And I was like, I don't want to bring a human into this, into this world.

43:29 Like it's hard to watch the atrocities that are happening all across the globe and think, hey, you know what? I want to do another human to experience this. And that was my outlook for a long time. You know, obviously not seeing the beauty of life and not seeing the beauty that's around me and not noticing all the good that's here. And it's a really easy thing to do, right? It's why we turned to watch a car accident when we're driving. It's because we, you know, it's like this gruesome, potentially like negative thing. And we're all like, what's going on over there, right? That's why the news is, you know, 25 minutes of negative bullshit and then one minute of a positive story. And so because that's how we're kind of trained in a way.

44:12 Like it's hard to see the beauty unless you were looking for it, unless you're allowing space for that, unless you're convincing yourself, hey, is this world worth living in? And it's a tough question to answer. And you got to answer that for yourself. But there's beauty. And I would encourage you to notice the beauty that's around you because it's guaranteed. It's there. And, but but to, to get back to being a dad overnight, I made that choice like I was with Sarah. I loved her, we fell in love. I knew that making a decision to stay with her meant I was going to be a father literally overnight. And that was a big decision for me. I don't regret it. It has been difficult.

44:53 My daughter is neurodivergent. He struggles with anxiety, she struggles with depression, she struggles with school. You know, teenager doesn't help because of all the changes that teenagers go through. And so every day is a challenge. But it's taught me to be a better man. It's taught me to show up better for myself. It's taught me to that that kids are here, You know, if you are a dad, I see parenting as not so much what I can teach my kids, but how I can show them what a good man is and then also what can they teach me? And so it's kind of a good balance there. And obviously you do teach your kids some things, but you can be overbearing with that.

45:37 And I've been that in the past of trying to always teach a lesson, always teach something. And then they, you know, your kids are going to tell you like dad, like stop, like you can just, you can just hang out and like be cool, right? And what they mean is like, you don't always have to be teaching me something. Kids are going to learn their lessons sometimes from you, but mostly from watching you, not so much from listening to you. And like, to your point earlier, Andy, it's the actions that you take more so than the words. Certainly the words matter, but the actions matter more in my opinion. Yep, my opinion too. And I am going to go out on a limb and say life is worth living for everybody. Then I do not believe there are any exceptions. And especially if you're at a good enough place that you're listening to a podcast somewhere you have the time and the freedom to do that, then yeah, your life is definitely worth living.

46:28 If you don't like every part of it, take some responsibility, make some changes. It's, it's up to you. We were, we are all driving each of our ships of, of life here. I used to avoid responsibility because I thought it meant blame. But when you take responsibility, you can then make changes, right? You can. You can make course corrections to continue that same, that same. Yeah, I love that. But yeah, so, so Fred, what's the best place people can go to find out everything that you're up to and connect with you further? Yeah, if it, if it calls to you, check out my website, seat@thetablecoaching.com. That's where you can download the free guide how to build emotional resilience. I think it's super powerful. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. If it helps you, if it's, if you found it to be shit, like, feel free to, to e-mail me after you download it. But I, I wrote it so that men can start to build that emotional resilience that they so desperately, a lot of them need and never have been taught.

47:25 And so I, I hope coming from another man who truly cares about you, you know, that is that my heart is in, in the place where, you know, to your point earlier asking me, you know, why did I start this? So I started it for my dad, you know, and I realized like the true deep meaning of why I started it was because I couldn't save my dad. But now I'm trying to quote UN quote, save other men, you know, And when I say save it, I mean you need to be fixed. I mean that you need you need to learn some tools and he needs to learn some strategy and he needs to know that somebody cares about you, that other men care about you. And so check out my website. If it calls to you, schedule an appointment, We can chat, see if we're a fit.

48:10 And I'm on LinkedIn every day. I'm on Instagram at Frederick van Ripper. I'm on LinkedIn. It's you just type in my name, Frederick Van Ripper and find me there. Love to hear from you, even if it's not necessarily to engage in coaching, just share a story, you know, say hi. Let me know what resonated on this episode. Let me know what question you have. You don't have to make this transactional. You know, again, I'm I'm here to serve and I want to help in any way I can. And if that means that we engage in a coaching engagement, that's that's wonderful, but it doesn't have to be that awesome. Well. Thanks for being here today, Fred. Thanks for everyone listening to us. Please visit realmenfeel.org for the blog post for this episode. We'll have links to all the resources mentioned, all the programs that Fred shared, all the things that have helped him, all the ways to need to help yourself and ways to reach out, connect with him.

48:59 Wherever you're discovering real men feel, please subscribe, follow, give a like, share this with somebody that would get benefit from it. Post a review or comment and until next time, be good to yourself.