Most Marriages Struggle in Silence—Here’s What Happens When You Don’t

Who Was There on Your Wedding Day?

Let me take you back for a second to your wedding day. Picture the people in the crowd, your best man, your brothers, your friends, maybe your dad, and if you got eloped or you had a tiny wedding, then try to visualize having the most important people in your life there with you now.

They were there to celebrate, to witness your vows, and in a way they were making a vow too, just by showing up to support your marriage, to be there for you to have your back. And let me ask you something. Where are they now? How many of those men are you still intimately connected to? When your marriage started getting hard?

Did any of those men reach out to you? Did you reach out to them? For most of us, the answer is no.

Why Men Don’t Ask for Help

And that's because in our culture, most men don't talk about this stuff. We don't want to be the one who's struggling. We don't wanna bother others with our issues. So we go silent and we carry it alone. And I want to tell you from my own personal experience in healing my marriage and from leading men's groups, retreats, and online communities, that there is power in men coming together to help each other out.

That's what I want you to hear today. We touched a little bit about why men choose to go at it alone in the last episode, and I wanna offer the possibility of what it could be like if we actually showed up for each other in today's episode. Stick around. This could be the turning point for you and your marriage.

Welcome to Better Husband

Welcome to Better Husband, the podcast that helps you answer the question, how can I be a better husband? I'm Angelo Santiago, a men's marriage and relationship coach, and each week I bring you practical insights to help you strengthen your marriage and become the best husband you can be. In the last episode, we talked about why so many men resist getting help, and if you missed it, don't worry.

Let me fill you in. We looked at how most of us try to fix our marriage alone because we think that's what we're supposed to do. It's the idea that I got myself into this mess. I should be able to get myself out. But what we don't realize is that figuring it out ourselves keeps us stuck longer than we need to be.

The Struggle of Going It Alone

Today, I want to go a little bit deeper because even if you've realized you do need help, you might still feel unsure about where to turn or what support actually looks like. This episode is about what happens when men stop doing marriage alone and finally let themselves be supported.

Most men grow up with a simple message. Be strong, be self-sufficient, don't need anyone. So when your marriage starts to break down, you put your head down and try to push through it alone. Maybe you might vent to a buddy in passing, or you might not say anything at all.

But for so many men, even when they do talk, it's often to friends who joke about how hard marriage is, or tell you to just write it out, and that's not support. If you've been surrounded by that kind of energy, let me be clear. You need new voices in your life. You need people who challenge you to grow and help you stay grounded when things get tough.

My Firehouse Brotherhood—and Why It Wasn’t Enough

And I know all about this firsthand because this is exactly what I went through back when my marriage was on the verge of falling apart. I was still working as a firefighter. I spent 10 years in the fire service. And while that job taught me a lot about dedication, service, and showing up for others, it also taught me something else.

We didn't talk about our struggles. Firefighters are part of a tight brotherhood, a team, but underneath the surface, it's also a culture of silence, especially when it comes to marriage. You may not know this, but divorce rates in the fire service are extremely high, and a lot of the talk around the firehouse reflected that Guys would joke about how miserable marriage was, how their wives didn't appreciate them, how they had to work overtime just to afford the life she wanted. It was nonstop negativity, complaints and sarcasm. And when a younger firefighter proposed to his partner, he'd get mocked. Guys would roll their eyes and call 'em an idiot or tell him you'll regret it.

So when I was struggling in my own marriage, really struggling, I knew I couldn't bring it to the table because all I get in return was confirmation. Yeah, man, marriage sucks. It wasn't until I stepped out of that culture and into a space where men were actually doing the work that things began to change.

The Men’s Retreat That Changed Everything

I went to a men's retreat and found something I'd never experienced before. Other men who were devoted to being better husbands, better fathers, better men. Men who didn't laugh at the idea of love. Men who stood up and said, I want to fight for my marriage. Men who are real, honest and willing to confront their own behavior.

That retreat changed everything for me. It saved my marriage and it saved my life. In fact, I left the fire service. Immediately after that retreat, I came home and never went back to the firehouse because I knew if I went back to that firehouse, it would be business as usual. And most likely my marriage would fall apart

to be fully honest, unless they're listening to this podcast right now. None of the firefighters I work with know that this is the true reason why I left, that I chose my marriage over a dream career, a dream pension, and a dream of helping others on possibly the worst day of their lives. Now let me be clear.

I'm not telling you to quit your job or burn it all down, but I am telling you this.

You Need Better Voices Around You

If you want your marriage to change, you need to change the people you surround yourself with. You need to surround yourself with men who are on the same mission to show up with more heart, more integrity, more courage.

Men who challenge each other, celebrate each other, hold each other accountable, remind each other what really matters. You need a team that believes in the possibility of connection, intimacy, friendship. Laughter and a future worth building and fighting for in your marriage. And if you don't know where to find that community, then stay with me because I'm building it.

I want you to be a part of it. I'll share more about it a little bit later in the episode, but first I wanna talk about why this is so hard for men.

What Family Roles Have to Do With This

If you got the last episode, you'll remember we talked about family roles, specifically the hero child. That's the kid who takes on responsibility too early, tries to hold everything together and learns that being good means never asking for help.

The Lost Child—And Why He Doesn’t Ask for Help

But today I wanna talk about another role that many men experience in their childhood growing up.

One that I know personally because it's where I find myself when I look back at my childhood.

It is called the Lost Child. The lost child is the one who disappears into the background, and there's two common types. There's the hero type, lost child. This is the kid who made himself easy. He didn't cause problems. He got good grades, he followed the rules, and most importantly, he didn't need much.

If your parents were overwhelmed, distracted, or emotionally unavailable, you probably learned early on that the best way to stay safe was to not need anything at all. You might've heard things like, thank God for you. You're the only one I don't have to worry about. Or maybe you just notice that being quiet, helpful and self-sufficient got you approval, or at least kept the peace.

So you became the reliable one, the achiever, the steady presence who didn't make waves, and your parents didn't ever have to worry about you and focused on maybe your siblings or other challenges in their marriage. But underneath all of that, there was a kid who still needed care. Still needed connection.

He just didn't want to ask for it or didn't think he was allowed to ask for it. That's the challenge of the hero type lost child. Your praise for having it all together. So much so that nobody thinks to check if you're okay. I.

The other is the scapegoat type, lost child. This is the kid who couldn't do anything right, or at least that's how it felt. Maybe you were too emotional, too sensitive, too intense. Maybe you didn't fit the mold your family expected you to fit. You were the one who got blamed when things went wrong. The one who got labeled, the difficult one, the one who got yelled at or ignored.

If your family didn't know how to deal with your emotions, your needs, or your personality. You probably learned to go quiet, mostly because speaking up only made things worse. So you stopped reaching out. You stopped asking for what you needed. You decided it was easier to go at it alone. Maybe you couldn't wait to leave the house and not come back.

Maybe you promised yourself you'd never be like your parents. But that kid, the one who felt misunderstood and rejected, didn't just disappear. He's still there, still afraid that if you let people in, they'll criticize. You still worried that if you show your real feelings, maybe there'll be too much. I.

That's the wound, the scapegoat type, lost child carries, and it's why connection, support and vulnerability can feel so risky, even as an adult.

Either way, you grew up believing no one's coming to help. I've got this. You stopped asking, you stopped expecting help, and you started figuring it out alone. That belief doesn't just disappear in adulthood.

It shows up in your marriage, in the way you isolate, in the way you shut down, in the way you pretend you're fine when you're not.

From Lost to Found: My Story

This is personal for me because I was the hero type lost child. I was the one who didn't need anything, who handled things on my own, who got the good grades and got into the good college. I was on the football team in the school band, the honor role, and for a long time that worked until it didn't.

Because although I was able to solve a lot on my own, there were parts of my life that were a disaster and I had nobody to talk to about it. Fast forward to me as an adult and the entire pattern was still playing out. I had the graduate degree, the house, the car, the new baby, the secure job, but behind the scenes I was really struggling and nobody knew about it, and I didn't tell anyone.

But my wife could sense it. My marriage was falling apart and I was seconds away from losing it all, my wife, my family, my future, and I did what so many men do. I waited until my wife couldn't take it anymore and said she'd had enough. Thank God that at that point my eyes were opened up and I reached out for help.

And after that I continued to reach out for help.

Creating a Supportive Community

To this day I'm still not doing it alone because I know the power of surrounding myself with men who support me and want to see me win in marriage, in parenting, in health, in business, in every aspect of my life.

I share that because I want you to know you don't have to figure this out alone either, and if no one's told you this before, I care.

Announcing: Better Husband Academy

So this is why I decided to put my energy into creating the Better Husband Academy for men like me, men who want to grow, but don't always know where to start. I'm putting together a four level self-paced course online and adding two live group calls per month for men to come together, connect with each other, learn from each other, and receive coaching from me.

My hope for the future is to add the online community aspect, bring in special guests to teach and share their stories, and create the space that men who want to become better husbands go to. I'm launching at the end of May, so if you know this is for you and you wanna receive special bonuses and discounts, join the wait list at betterhusbandacademy.com.

Again, that's better husband academy.com, or just click the link in the show notes.

Let's be honest. If your current circle of friends is full of guys who trash talk, their wives avoid conflict and normalize mediocrity, guess what you'll start to normalize. That's why who you surround yourself matters. You need a crew that raises the bar. And when you're in a space like Better Husband Academy where working on your marriage and talking about it isn't weird, it's normal.

You get the chance to become the kind of man who changes the trajectory of his life and his relationship alongside others doing the same. I want you to go back to your wedding day once more, and I want you to imagine something. What if every man at your wedding came together again, not just to celebrate, but to support you.

What If Your Wedding Crew Came Back to Support You?

What if your best man, your brothers, your friends, all sat in a room with you, looked you in the eye and said, we're here. We've got your back. Let us help. That would change everything. You see when men come together to accomplish a goal, we fricking do it. We put our minds and our muscles to work, and when we put our hearts into it too, we're unstoppable.

Think about movies that show this. The 300 Lord of the Rings, the sandlot. Now, think about how long you've tried to figure it out on your own. How many nights you've gone to bed feeling stuck, how many conversations you've avoided, how many moments with your wife or your kids felt tense that you didn't know how to fix it.

Now ask yourself, how long are you willing to go at it alone, and what is it costing you right now? How much longer will she stick around hoping for change? You don't have to keep doing it like this. There is another way. Whether you choose to join me in Better Husband Academy or find another group of men that are going to support you, I don't care, but I do care that you do something and stop trying to change everything on your own.

Your Challenge for the Week + Closing

Here's your challenge from this episode. Think about one man in your life you could go to right now and say things are hard and I could use some support. If you can't think of anyone, that's the sign to build that community in your life. Now start by joining the wait list at betterhusbandacademy.com because no matter how strong you are, you weren't meant to do this alone, and let's change that together.

Thanks for listening to Better Husband. If this episode spoke to you, let me know and share it with someone who you think might also need to hear it. And once again, go to better husband academy.com. The wait list is open. I'm here for you. Let's do this together. I'm Angelo Santiago. I'll see you in the academy or on the next episode.