The BEST Coaching Advice Every Man Needs NOW | Save Your Marriage

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About Cody Butler

I'm Cody Butler, founder of Better Marriage, best-selling author, entrepreneur, and marriage recovery coach.

After helping thousands of men navigate separation, emotional disconnection, and divorce crises, one pattern has become clear:

Most men are suffering because they are operating from interpretations that create suffering rather than truths that create transformation.

My work focuses on helping men understand what is actually happening inside their marriage, identify the patterns that contributed to the breakdown, eliminate emotional dependency, and become the man capable of creating lasting change regardless of the outcome.

The mission is simple:

Liberate men from interpretations that create suffering and replace them with truths that create transformation.

Disclaimer
The content contained in this video is intended for educational and informational purposes only and reflects my personal experience, observations, and professional coaching perspective.

Nothing contained in this video should be considered medical, psychological, legal, or financial advice.

Always seek appropriate professional guidance regarding any medical, mental health, legal, or financial matter. Any decisions you make based on the information presented are your responsibility.

Individual results vary and no specific outcome can be guaranteed.

Transcript

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Hey, Cody Butler here, and today I'm going to talk to you about why most men fail to save their marriage in divorce crisis situations when actually the reality is many of the situations could actually be turned around with the right strategy, with the right approach. And I'm just going to give you the answer up front and then we'll look at why it happens in the solution as we go through this video. So the reason most fail is because of inconsistent execution governed by emotion. It's not that you can't do it or you won't do it or you don't want to do it. It's that the execution is inconsistent and it's not sustained enough. And the reason is because whether you execute or not is governed purely on how you feel in your emotions. And if we can get a grip of this, then this is going to have massive repercussions across every aspect of your life. This goes way beyond marriage crisis. This speaks to business, to finances, to your health, to parenting, every domain of your life. I'll just try harder, I'll say more, I'll promise what I need to promise. And they search endlessly for the solution. Like the solution is one thing that you go and get. Give me the script, give me the strategy, give me the whatever, and I'll do it. So they attempt to fix the situation by a checklist mentality, yet the situation continues to get worse. The wife keeps withdrawing from the marriage, she keeps pushing towards divorce or escalating the divorce. And emotional safety and the general condition of the marriage just continues on a downward trajectory. It keeps collapsing. So this can feel very unf very confusing to the man, very unfair, and it can have a feeling of hopelessness, right? Because he's trying, he's making an effort. You're making a genuine effort to save this marriage, and you know you are, but it's just not working, and she's not responding. And it's again, it's not that she can't respond or she won't respond. She the the strategy that you're taking is incorrect right now, and we're in a cause and effect environment. The way she's responding is a result of how you act. And change how you act, change, she'll change how she responds. So let's look at that. So what men tend to think is the cause of failure is not trying hard enough, not saying the right things, not acting quickly enough, or not fact, not finding the correct strategy to save the marriage. They think, well, if I can just say the right thing or do the right thing or promise the right thing, then this should turn around. But the truth of the matter is it's like the fly trying to escape the room. He flies against a closed window, hits his head against it, and doesn't break through, obviously. So he goes, I'll just try harder, flies against the window again, doesn't break through. He goes, I'll just fly faster, I'll just do it more often, I'll just make more effort. But the truth of the matter is, the harder the try that the fly tries to break out of that window, he's never gonna do it. No amount of effort is gonna get him through that window. In fact, the harder he tries, the quicker he's gonna die. But if that fly stopped for a second, looked off to the side, and saw that the door was wide open, he could effortlessly fly out of an open door and achieve the result that he wants. And the same is true with marriage. When you understand the actual causes of the problems, the solution is not to try harder, to say the right things, to act more quickly, etc. It's to adjust your strategy and simply walk through the open door. So the thing is, most men think it's a missing conversation, a missing breakthrough, a key fix, a script, etc. It's none of those things. So the first real failure that men make in this situation is they misdiagnose the problem, right? They try to fix the wrong hole and and they they frantically try to fix surface level issues. Just tell me what you want me to do. Do you need me to move the couch from here to there? Do you need me to paint the fence? Do you need me to take the trash out? What is it that you need me to do? Just tell me what you need from me, dear wife, and I'll give it to you. And I'm genuine in that. I really want to make you happy and just tell me what you need. But the problem is, these are all surface level issues because we're very transactional as men. We look at we look at the problems as fixable things, like let's move this from here to there, let's take a hammer and hit the nail, right? Whereas the real problem that she's looking for, uh that she's looking to escape from is emotional instability, emotional pressure, and nervous system dysregulation caused by the condition of the marriage. And all of these continue unchecked and unchanged during this situation, right? So to put it another way, she's looking for, she's looking to divorce as a pressure release, release valve. It's not necessarily that she's choosing divorce because that's her first option. She's choosing divorce because the pressure within the marriage has reached a point that she can no longer handle, it's literally a survival situation at this point, and she cannot get that regulation and pressure relief within the marriage. So now she's looking at going outside of the marriage or leaving the marriage. Not because she wants that, because this is the only option that she has to get that relief from the pressure. When you understand that saving your marriage is about releasing pressure, it's not about checklists, everything changes. So what is the mentality checklist? Well, as men, we love checklists, right? Especially if we're in business or you know, we're very productive. It's like, give me the checklist checklist, we'll check it off, and at the end of it, the task is done. So he thinks, well, tell me what to fix, tell me what to solve, tell me what to do here. What do you want? What do you need? I'll do it. I have no issue with doing it, I'll fix it. And then we just move on beyond this, right? But this is not this is not what's going to save the marriage, right? The reality is she's not looking for one-time fixes, she's not looking for things to be done specifically. She's looking for sustained behavioral stability, emotional consistency, and embodied change over time. Now, this is the overtime part is the part that men really don't like, right? We just want to we we we're like a microwave. We just want it done in 30 seconds. We don't want to be the slow cooker. But what she needs to feel safe again is to see embodied change over time, consistency, consistency, consistency. It's not about doing amazing things, it's not about doing remarkable things, it's about doing ordinary things remarkably consistently. And again, this is why the number one the recipe for failure is inconsistent execution governed by emotion. When you you can do the right thing, but you have to do it consistently over time. And if your emotions get in the way of that, as you're going to see coming up, it's going to be very problematic. So the reason that our efforts fail, even though a lot of people will watch my videos or the men that I work with, they'll go, Well, I did what you said, Cody, and it worked for a second, but it's not working anymore. It's like, well, it's because there's a lack of consistency. It's like the the execution of the principle is emotionally governed. So your behavior or or the new behavior is simply based on your mood. It's based on the hopes, the hope condition of the marriage. If if you feel hopeful, if she's giving you hope, then you behave a certain way, which is very positive if she takes that hope away, then you behave another way that's very inconsistent. You behavior is based on fear, and it's also based on her reactions. If she has a good day, you have a consistent day. If she has a bad day, you have a very inconsistent day. Or in other words, there's really no internal authority going on inside of you. Whether your execution and whether your behavior is consistent is completely dependent on the environment, right? Completely dependent on emotion. So there's simply no disciplined execution. The the key here is consistent execution devoid of emotion. So if you don't feel like it today, good, do it anyway. All hope has been removed from the relationship. Okay, fine, do it anyway. I'm scared, Cody. I understand. I'm scared too. Do it anyway, etc. etc. Right. There's no disciplined execution that all execution is based purely on how you feel. So, what does emotional inconsistency look like? And again, this is what she needs to stay in this relationship: emotional consistency. Right now, you're providing emotional inconsistency. So the persona that you're looking to move into, the internal authority, emotional sovereignty that you're looking to adopt is a calmness. Uh not only when things feel hopeful, but also when they're when hope is taken away. So the inconsistently looks the inconsistency looks like collapse when divorce feels real. When that divorce feels real again, you just collapse. It's you you you feel positive and you're able to control and regulate yourself when she's responding well to the situation, but when she isn't, you can't. You become angry or depressed, or you you become very negative when she withdraws. Your mood is completely dependent on whether she's coming towards you or moving away. You're able to provide stabilizing behavior to the relationship only when it's convenient, meaning only when the mood takes you. Destabilizing behavior returns under pressure. Again, a lot of the men that I work with, they do very well when things are going well. But this is not the measure of who you are as a man. We find out who you are when the pressure arises. It's not when you've had a good night's sleep and a full belly of food and everything's going well and you're behaving well. We don't say that the man's behaving well in that it is behaves well consistently. It's when he's hungry, when he's tired, when he's cold, when she removes all hope from the relationship. When he finds out that she's spoken to a lawyer. This is when we find out who you really are. Can you stabilize yourself in that situation? Can you be a stabilizing force when every every emotion inside of you wants to fall apart and collapse? If you can, then you stand a chance of saving this marriage. So this is like the gym, right? Saving the marriage is like going to the gym. And it's like saying to your wife, I'm serious about change, I'm serious about losing weight, I'm serious about getting healthy, and I'm gonna go to the gym five days a week. And you mean it, you really do. But you set the alarm clock for 5 a.m., the alarm clock goes off, and you tell yourself a story, you go back to sleep because you feel tired, or you tell yourself a story about it's not good to push yourself when you feel this way, or you'll do it later in the afternoon. Whatever story you manage to tell yourself, you go back to sleep, you hit the snooze, or you turn the alarm off and you go back to sleep. And the reality is you were serious about changing. You you made a plan to change, you put all the conditions in place for the change to take place, but you failed to execute because of emotion. You were tired in this case. I had every intention of doing the right thing, but emotion got in the way. The man that saves his marriage, metaphorically, doesn't care that he feels tired. He says, I'm getting up at five o'clock no matter what, I'm going to the gym no matter what. The great example here, I I love farmers because they understand this inherently. That those cows need feeding every day at 5 a.m. regardless. Doesn't matter if he's sick, doesn't matter if he's tired, doesn't matter if it's snowing, raining, the sun's shining, doesn't matter if it's winter, doesn't matter if it's summer, doesn't matter if there's a pandemic going on, doesn't matter if the world's at war. He has to get up at 5 o'clock and go feed those cows every single day, irrespective of how he feels. Farmers are the perfect example of consistent execution devoid of emotion. If you can get that mentality in your relationship of consistent execution devoid of emotion, you are in a very, very good position to save your marriage. So the marriage equivalent here is like the man promises changes, he means them too, he's well-meaning, but he emotionally eclapses under the pressure and he abandons consistency when it becomes difficult. At five o'clock, when that alarm clock goes off and it's cold and you're tired, you abandon the consistency because your emotions take over and you submit yourself to your emotions, not to your will. So the real breakdown here is truly that he's governed by emotion, not rules and stability. Yeah, not rules, discipline, internal authority. So what's actually happening here is external conditions are controlling your behavior, they're controlling your nervous system, and they're controlling your consistency. Internal authority, internal sovereignty says, I'm gonna do it regardless. I'm gonna do it by demand, not by feelings. I'm gonna do it because I demand it of myself. I'm gonna do it because I have the internal discipline and the internal authority and strength to do it regardless. I'm gonna get up at five o'clock and go to the gym regardless. I'm gonna feed those cows regardless. I'm gonna behave in a consistent, restrained, stabilizing way within this marriage, regardless of how the marriage behaves back to me. I'm gonna bring stability to the marriage, I'm not gonna take stability from the marriage. So why does it destroy trust when you lack this internal authority to execute consistently or your execution is purely based on emotion? It's it's because you're she she can't trust emotionally conditional behavior. Effectively, what you're saying in this situation is I I'll give you everything you want, but it's conditional. It's conditional on you giving me positive vibes, it's conditional on me feeling secure in this relationship. So what she experiences is instability, unpredictability, and uh temporary transformation, right? This is why we hear things like, I see your changes, I can see that you're making an effort and I appreciate it. You might hear something like, the next person that you're with, I'm truly happy for them, they're gonna really benefit from this. Because they they see the change, but they do not believe the change is permanent. Because you're still emotionally governed and regulated at this point versus being governed by internal authority. You're a man that gets blown around by the wind instead of being the storm, the shelter from the storm. So, what happens is that she sees that your positive behavior is emotionally dependent and it's not character-driven. You don't behave that way because that's who you are and you're gonna choose it regardless. You behave that way because the wind is blowing in the right direction. So, real change is not about emotional intensity, it's not let me show her how much I love her, making promises, I'll do this, this, and this, short-term effort, or panic-driven motivation. All of these things simply communicate to her that you're inherently unstable. Real real change is stable execution, consistent behavior, devoid of emotion. It's disciplined action, devoid of emotion, and it's emotional regulation under pressure. Again, think about the farmer. This is what you need to become. I'm gonna get up at five o'clock regardless of the conditions, regardless of my condition, and I'm gonna execute disciplined, consistent execution, regardless of the emotional state under it, driving it. You get control of yourself and you go, I'm gonna execute regardless of how I feel today. So the critical principle here is we've talked about this, right? True character, who you actually are, which is who your wife is responding to, not who you think you are or who you're telling her you you are or who you're projecting that you're gonna be. She's responding to your true character, and that is revealed when emotions no longer support the behavior. What does that mean when emotions no longer support the behavior? When when your emotions tell you that this marriage is hopeless, that this situation is hopeless, and you behave in a way that's concrete completely contrary to those emotions, you behave in a way that is productive and supportive. When emotions no longer support the behavior, the behavior is getting up at five o'clock in the morning to go to the gym. When your emotions, which tell you you're tired right now, no longer support that behavior of getting up, the behavior wins, not the emotion. So stability as a man, which ultimately this is what your wife is craving from you, and it's why she's leaving the relationship, because she's going to get far more stability being outside of the relationship than being in it. Stability means doing the right thing for one reason and one reason only, because it's the right thing to do. These videos are a great example, right? I've committed to posting two videos, making two videos a week and posting them regardless of who watches them. If zero people watch it, I'll still do it. When it feels hopeless, when it feels like nobody's gonna watch it, when it feels like nobody's gonna respond, I'm gonna make the video and I'm gonna post. Regardless. Because I've decided that that's what I'm gonna do. Now I'm gonna execute consistently regardless of how I feel or what the situation is telling me. So again, it's doing the right thing because it's the right thing to do, not because she rewards it, not because you're getting something out of it, not because it feels good, not because you're getting results or you can see that it's working, but simply because I'm committed to that and I'm a man that operates on executional discipline, not emotional stimulation. So we gotta rebuild trust in this marriage, right? She needs to trust you again, and more explicitly, she needs to trust your behavior. When when you say you're gonna do something, you do it. When she she needs to know who's showing up, who's she gonna get. So, what actually rebuilds trust is not promising anything, it's not saying I'll do this and this. It's behavioral consistency over time. It's seeing that it's her seeing that you're gonna follow through regardless. It's emotional neutrality and execution. The farmer is emotionally neutral to the situation. If he feels good, he gets up and goes feeds the cows. If he feels bad, he gets up and goes feeds the cows. He's completely emotionally neutral to the execution of the act. This is this is where trust really starts to rebuild with your wife, is when you act from a place of emotional neutrality in your execution and you stabilize regardless of the outcome, regardless of your own fear, uncertainty, and her reactions. We all have these things, right? We're all fearful. We're we all have to deal with uncertainty. We all get reactions that we're not looking for or don't want from her. But can we stabilize? Can we react consistently in a way that stabilizes her, regardless? In other words, can we can we execute consistently regardless of emotion? This is embodied leadership when we do this. This is internal authority, this is masculinity, right? So the deeper understanding to take away from this is as long as your behavior depends on her moods, her validations, her reactions, your feelings, in other words, she is still regulating you. She is still the one stabilizing the relationship, and she is the she is the emotional environment of the marriage. She's having to create when when she stabilizes herself and she can give you that that positive feedback, then you're able to stabilize. You're effectively you're taking stability from the relationship instead of giving it to the relationship, which is ultimately your role. This is your role, this is your masculine role, this is your role as the man in the relationship, is to provide that emotional stability. So effectively, we've still got a major role inversion going on. You've put her in the position of the man, you've put her in the masculine position of needing to provide the stability to stabilize you when what truly is needed is you need to provide stability into the marriage to stabilize her. When you provide that stability and she stabilizes, that's when the marriage stabilizes. So, what does healthy leadership actually look like? Your stability creates her regulation, it creates her safety, and it creates her relational calm. She starts to calm down, she starts to feel safe in the marriage, and she starts to her nervous system starts to regulate within the marriage. Right now she's having to go outside of the marriage to get that regulation safety and emotional calm. This is very simple. Remove the conditions that are causing that dysregulation and that emotional storm in the marriage, and she does not have to go outside of the marriage anymore. Most of us just want stability. That's all we want. We want certainty, we want stability, we want safety. That's really what we want as human beings. And the way we create that for the woman is to do these things. So what leadership is definitely not, it's not her emotional state controlling your behavior or uh stabilizing you, right? Like if she's having a good day, you have a good day. That's her controlling you, that's her control in the marriage. This is not you demonstrating emotional sovereignty and masculine leadership. This is you being completely dependent on her to regulate you. So stability flows from. From you into the relationship, not from the relationship into you. Right now, what's going on is a situation where effectively you're looking at the fire and saying, Give me heat, fire, and then I'll put wood into you. Instead of putting the wood into the fire and the fire coming back out. You'll say into the relationship, relationship, give me stability, and then I'll pump stability back into you. This is backwards. This is a role inversion. So this consistency isn't about emotional suppression. It's not pretending you don't care. It's not about perfection, going, I can't mess up. It's not about robotic behavior or never feeling pain or feeling emotional. Like, don't this is not about becoming devoid of emotion. It's about learning to act in spite of your emotion. Use your emotions as a data point. Use your emotions are instructional. They're useful in terms of getting data and evaluating the situation. They're not useful as a decision-making mechanism. They need they don't need to be suppressed or completely destroyed. You need to be able to act in spite of them. A soldier advancing into fire in battle, he doesn't feel no fear. Trust me, he feels fear, but he advances anyway. Why? Because he's he's has internal authority and he's rule-driven. He overrides his emotion, and a good soldier will execute consistently regardless of the fear and the emotion that he's feeling. He doesn't ignore those emotions or pretend they don't exist. He feels immense fear. He's just able to override those emotions and act in spite of them. So it means disciplined execution, regardless of how you feel, emotional regulation, regardless of how you feel. Internal authority, right? This is what we've just said. Can you advance into fire when every emotion inside of you tells you not to do it? This is the this is the height of emotional or internal authority, right? If you can experience the most aggressive emotions telling you to turn around and run, and you're able to advance anyway, this is the this is the definition of internal authority. And behavior, independent of emotional weather, doesn't matter what direction the wind's blowing in, you're going to behave a certain way. The farmer gets up and executes regardless of what the weather is. So, as always, let's ask the better question. Better results come from better questions. So stop asking the question, what do I need to say to save this marriage? And start asking the question, can I execute stable behavior behavior regardless of emotion? Most of you will find that the answer to that question is no right now. You can't behave, you can't execute in a stable way regardless of emotion. You can't. And that tells us where we need to work, what we need to work on. That's where we're at, right? So uh I do have a if you want to learn how to do that, then there is a workshop link in the description. Go ahead and grab that and we'll talk. I do talk in more detail on that. But let's just summarize what's going on here today. Most men fail in trying to save their marriage because they misdiagnose the problem and then they execute inconsistently. Emotional instability or inconsistent execution driven by emotion destroys trust with your wife. It destroys emotional trust, it destroys emotional safety. The trust starts to rebuild through consistent behavior, through disciplined execution, devoid of emotion, and through building a true sense of internal authority, which allows you to behave as you choose, not as your emotions dictate. And to rebuild that emotional safety, stability under pressure is what creates it, not emotional intensity. Not going to her showing her how much you care, becoming emotionally intense. This is just more instability. So let's finish on this. Masculinity is the capacity to remain grounded, regulated, disciplined, and emotionally stable, independent of external conditions. Can you advance into fire when every fiber in your being is telling you to turn around and run? If the answer is yes, then you are in possession of true masculinity, you are in possession of leadership capacity, and there's a good chance you can save this. If the answer is no, that's fine, but that's where we have to work, right? If you're still emotionally driven, that's great. That's we've got an accurate diagnosis now, and we can put a treatment plan together to get this to where it needs to be. So that's it from me. If you want help with this, check out the link in the description. Get the free workshop. And if you want more in information, if you want another video, I'll have a video here on uh building emotional safety. Watch that, and I'll see you in the next video.