Amanda: Welcome to the podcast today everyone. I have an awesome guests for you today. My friend and fellow coach Glenn Loveless. Glenn, welcome to the podcast. 

Glenn: It’s good to be here, Amanda. I’m excited. 

Amanda: Do you want to introduce yourself a little bit to my audience? 

Glenn: Yeah, absolutely. So, my name’s Glennn Lovelace. I’ve been married almost 17 years and my wife and I have six kids, so we’re pretty busy.

My wife does hair. She’s always done hair out of the house. And then I’ve done all kinds of jobs. So I’m the one probably figuring life out more than her. We live in Mapleton, Utah. We’re building a house in these crazy times, it’s quite the roller coaster. One day we’re freaking out and the next we’re having fun.

So today they’re putting windows in. So that’s kind of exciting. You never thought you’d be adulting that hard over windows. Pretty fun. 

I think where my story gets really interesting is about nine years ago, I found myself at a low point and I had a gun in my hand on Christmas Eve. The thought at the time was, I’m going to hurt myself because other people are hurting me and I want to hurt them back by hurting myself. Pretty messed up. 

And it was the thought of my kids being raised by another man or the thought of my kids knowing that I quit on them, that kind of kept me around. 

The hardest thing in my life was my relationship with my wife. So it kind of turned me inward where I was like, okay, we’ve got to figure this out because you know, one, I was never going to tell anybody about this story. 

And then two, it was like, why am I going to hurt myself? I love life. And here I am in this dark situation. So I had this dark night experience and it just put me into this turning inward time and trying to find myself. So I did what I thought was the right thing at the time and it worked out great. I went back to the gym and I started creating better emotions and thoughts, and started getting results for myself and regaining some confidence. And at the time I was working three jobs, which probably sounds crazy. I was averaging 90 to a hundred hours a week for over four years.

Amanda: Oh gosh. 

Glenn: I was recovering from losing a house and a lawsuit, and then losing one of my primary sources of income for a whole year. And just lots of stuff that happens to everybody. You know what I mean? 

Amanda: Yeah. 

Glenn: When I was growing up, if my dad would mess up as a dad, he would come to me and we would make peace after and he would apologize.

And I could get emotional just thinking about it, but he’d say, Glenn, I’ve never been a dad before. And it just created such space for him to make mistakes. And as a kid, of course you want to let go. And so a thought for husbands and wives is you’ve never been a wife before. You’ve never been a husband before. You’ve never been a husband under employed who doesn’t understand your wife before. 

So part of my problems with myself, and I would normally blame them on Amber, was that I was a poor communicator. I didn’t know how to express what I was feeling. And here I am married to a gal who knows exactly what she wants to say. And she’s, my safe word is elevated and she’s very vocal about it. So I just was way over-matched. 

So I go on this fitness journey and I’m doing all the things and I’m super busy. And in 2017 I entered an online contest and out of like 60,000 people, I won the whole thing. I won a hundred grand.

Amanda: Wow. 

Glenn: Yeah, it was unbelievable. And we could talk about that maybe another time. But even through that, we were having marital issues. The night before I went to go get my final pictures for that, Amber said, You know what? You’re so selfish. All you are is on Instagram, dah, dah, dah, dah. 

And I was playing the game of this contest. I laid it all on the line, it was one of the most powerful things at the time, but I said, Hey, I want to finish together. If you’re not going to be with me with during those pictures, then I’m not going to go. So I’m going to get the kids ready and we’ll be waiting for you in the car. And if you don’t come down, then we won’t go. And I won’t ever say a thing about it. 

So anyway, we go on and do the pictures. And a couple of weeks later we won and there’s all kinds of stories about battles back and forth with me and her. 

And this kind of gave me a new platform where people were coming to me for advice. So for a whole year, I coached hundreds of people for free and they got no results cause I wasn’t charging any money.

So it’s like, I’m giving you the keys to the kingdom here and you’re squabbling. Like you just aren’t getting it. 

This is where I started figuring out a coaching business. I go to the life coach school, which we have in common, and I’ve quit all my jobs. And you know, I’ve reached that six-figure coach level, which if you’re a coach, that’s just some silly mark that means you’re successful or something.

My willingness to be uncomfortable with my wife and circle back and have all these really tough conversations was bridged by all the discomfort I had in the gym. So I would go to the gym to hurt myself, to fail, to hit my limits. And I had my bag of tricks and all the things that would help me have a great workout.

And the minute I connected that arguing with my wife was actually good for me, I thought, let’s go. And I brought my bag of tricks with me. I call them rules of engagement now, but we’ve both been coached. So we speak the same language is what I call it. 

So I think if both partners are getting coached, but it’s not under the same roof or umbrella, one is speaking French, and the other German and they’re just going to have a hard time. And so I love kind of what we’re doing today is maybe hopefully bringing men and women together where it’s like, Hey, there’s lots of options, but we got to work together. 

And now when Amber and I argue, our return cycle can be like a couple of minutes instead of ruining the whole night or the whole week. 

I just have to share this cause it’s funny. We were in Mexico a few weeks ago and I showed Amber some political thing going on and she got ticked and then right afterwards, I said, Wow, you’re being kind of prickly right now. And it just erupted. 

And normally the old Glenn would think, Oh man, the whole night’s ruined the whole trip’s ruined. And you know, it’s all these rules and all the language and all the tools that we have together that helps us get back on the same team a lot quicker. 

So anyway, that’s a long introduction.

Amanda: Yeah but that’s great. 

Glenn: I’m happy to be here. 

Amanda: So you coach men whose wives have already had their transformation or haven’t, but you just coach men.

Glenn: I coach men, yeah.

Amanda: Tell us specifically what you’re coaching them on. 

Glenn: Yeah, absolutely. So again, I love using fitness and finances and career because I can track it. There’s metrics there that show progress. 

How do you gauge if you’re making progress with happiness? How do you measure happiness with your wife or your husband? 

You count how many times you’re intimate? That’s just gross. 

Amanda: That’s probably what most people would say. We’re happy if we’re having sex this many times a week.

Glenn: That might work for a minute, but really, it’s dumb. There has to be a better way. 

And so, men are, I don’t want to say what they are because everybody’s different. I was going to say they’re logical and they’re not. So I’m just going to put the brakes on that. 

If men can find success in one or two areas and use the tools that I have and that you and I have, then they can start to build confidence to go into where it’s not comfortable. So a lot of men will go to the gym and they’ll go to work because they’re not comfortable at home to have these tough conversations. 

And so I love bringing that hook punch where it’s like, Okay, you’re making success here, but this success train never ends. You have to circle back for your wife and your kids because you’re missing it. 

That’s really the juice. 

Amanda: Yeah. That’s where the success actually matters. Right? 

Glenn: A hundred percent. My dad was always really good about pointing things out to me about the older generation. One of the wards we lived in at church, the older guys would get up, and there were a lot of them who were pretty successful and they’d say, Guys, my biggest regret was being too busy thinking I had to provide all these things and by the time I actually got there, the kids were gone. 

I missed everything. 

And so that’s a huge part of my messaging is to guys. That this game never ends. We’ve got to have it all. Let’s have it all.

Amanda: Awesome. So today I really want to focus on this lie of happy wife, happy life.

Glenn: Awesome. So imagine us all as newlyweds and wherever we pick up this mantra or this idea, I don’t want to blame it on church, but I think that’s probably where I got it. Some Elders Quorum lesson and someone says it and we all snicker, and everyone has their own idea of why that’s funny, but we kind of buy into it.

Amanda: Yeah. 

Glenn: So, through coaching, we learned that we don’t have control over other people’s emotions. 

Amanda: Nope. 

Glenn: The very law of happiness, the entire plan, the entire reason we’re here is to have this agency and we could get into natural man and the adversary and we could get into how very little control he actually has over us.

We can get into Elder Bednar’s talk, Choose you to be Offended. 

Amanda: Right. 

Glenn: And we have that choice to be offended. And I started dissecting all this and it took me way too long to figure out that trying to make my wife happy is a good thing. But if that means I’m not happy in my life or I’m not happy because she’s not happy, then I’m creating a huge problem because now I’m taking her results into my life.

Now, this kind of sounds twisted if people are new to coaching, perhaps, so kind of hang in here with me, but I got in this trap where if my wife even yelled, which Amber was almost every day, she’s just a passionate fireball, right? 

Amanda: Yeah. We love Amber. 

Glenn: Oh, I love Amber! I’ve changed my thinking about her elevation too. She’s a passionate woman. She’s really hot right now. It’s really hot. Here hot is hot and that’s helped me. But you can see where I got in a big, big mess where, because she wasn’t happy, in my mind, it was my fault. And I was carrying that and there’s just a whole slew, a mess. So, you know, yeah. I think that’s a lie.

We’ve got to recognize that and then figure out what that means in our own marriage. 

Amanda: Yeah. And I think we women are told that same thing. We hear that too. Right. But we also get the reverse that like, you know, it’s our job to keep our husbands happy as well. There’s not the saying, happy husband, happy life or whatever, but that’s very much ingrained into us as well, that it’s our job to keep our husband happy.

Now if we translate that into not just marriage, but into the bedroom. 

Glenn: Absolutely. 

Amanda: We got problems. 

Glenn: And that pressure, I don’t know where it comes from, maybe in your work you know. I mean, there could be so many influences on that. But it’s absolutely there. 

And, you know, just bringing up one random topic, he won’t look at porn, if I take care of his needs. Or she’s not taking care of me, so now I’m justified to take care of it myself. And it’s just down the rabbit hole everybody goes. 

Amanda: Yep. From the women’s perspective, that’s when we get into duty sex. Doing it out of obligation to ‘keep him happy.’ And I’m saying that in air quotes, right? 

What he is actually looking for isn’t just sex. He’s looking for that intimate connection. And he’s not getting that when you’re not really engaged. And you’re just like, Okay, I’m a body here, use me to masturbate. 

Glenn: Right, right. And again, he’s never been a husband before, and she’s never been a wife before. And so, we don’t know what to think about intimacy and sex and marriage and having a good relationship. And then you start having issues just organically and caused by our choices. And now you lose trust. You lose safety, you lose communication, you lose security. And then there is no wonder that these women don’t have the desire and then these men make it mean something else.

Amanda: Yeah. So tell me from the man’s perspective, what they’re making it mean when all this is happening. 

Glenn: Okay. So, women have kids, their bodies are constantly influx. 

Amanda: You have six. You’ve experienced it.

Glenn: Yeah, and we have a little baby now. And I think, Where’s my girlfriend, you know, and we’re great, but it is different when you’re taking care of a baby.

And, not trying to divulge too much, but Amber is like, My body just doesn’t feel like mine right now. 

Amanda: For sure. 

Glenn: But we’re having these conversations. You’re going to have to bring me back. What was the question? I kind of lost my train of thought. 

Amanda: Just what are the men thinking when all of this has happening?

Glenn: Gotcha. So I know for me personally, if things weren’t aligning or time between mom and dad, whatever we’re going to call it…

Amanda: We call it sex here.

Glenn: Okay. We are on the Sex for Saints Podcast, it’s probably a safe word. 

Amanda: It is definitely a word I say all the time. 

Glenn: Glenn you’re in safe company. It’s okay. 

I know for me, I would take it as rejection, probably number one. And then number two, I remember having crappy thoughts, like, Oh, you do hair and you have all these kids and you do wonderful things for your friends and neighbors and there’s no energy left for me, just on and on and on. And so, there’s a lot of bull crap that as men and as women that we have to sort through and realize, Okay, these thoughts are producing your own rejection.

Amanda: For sure.

Glenn: And now we can communicate and be like, Hey, thanks for the pass, but let’s tomorrow or whatever. 

Amanda: Yeah. I mean, I’m all for if you’re really not up for it, say no. And let your husband deal with whatever he needs to deal with. Right? Husbands, I encourage you not to be like pouting or like punishing her because she’s not wanting sex, or making it mean all sorts of things that it really doesn’t.

But at the same time, I think women also need to maybe push themselves a little bit. Like maybe I’m not feeling in the mood, but instead of just like a flat-out no, like I’m not feeling it right now, but entice me, convinced me. I’m not in the mood for intercourse, but I could totally go for a massage.

Glenn: Absolutely. I rewind back to newlywed days and you know, being newlyweds, you hang out with other newlyweds. And I think as men, we have to be really careful about not throwing our wife under the bus in the circles where it’s like, Oh yeah, I got to give her like an hour massage or whatever it is. It’s like four minutes, dude. You know what I mean? 

And so now the old self is like, Dude, you had it like, like you were so dumb. It’s exactly what you’re saying. And, instead we play all the child games where we get out of bed and we go downstairs and we pout and we kick and scream and we give the silent treatment the next day and whatever…

Amanda: And that’s creating more connection and intimacy for sure.

Glenn: Let me tell you, it totally works.

So yeah, there’s a lot that if someone would educate us, like Amanda Louder, then yeah, we could sift through that a lot quicker. We’re not trying to avoid it. We’re just trying to see those patterns. And then ultimately we both want the same things as husband and wife.

Amanda: Yeah. Most of the time we do. 

So if the lie is happy wife, happy life, what’s the truth? 

Glenn: That’s a really good question. I think the truth for me is that women are in charge of their happiness. Men are in charge of their happiness. I have this hashtag trophy husband joke and it used to drive my wife nuts, but it was like, what would the trophy husband do?

He’d do dishes. I would use it on Instagram and it was kind of ridiculous, but yeah for me, it’s like, if I’m doing everything I can to manage myself, take care of myself and won’t I want to meet her needs? Won’t I want to like step over that line. 

An example is: We’re living in Amber’s mom’s basement. I’m 40, playing video games. I’m just kidding. But we’re crashing at Amber’s mom’s while we build a house and we have six kids sharing one bathroom. It’s a total party. And Amber does hair and she’s out of the home right now. And that’s just creating more pressure on the kids and me and on her. And you know, this is just a recent discovery for me, but she’s yelling at the kids and for a while, I was like, she’s going to have to own these results. She’s going to ruin these kids and their relationship isn’t going to be good. And I was just being passive. I was sitting by and what I didn’t realize is she was yelling for help. That’s a new thought for me where it’s like, Hey, if she’s yelling at the kids, she’s yelling for your help.

And so why wouldn’t I want to come over and make up the difference. And then when she can do that for me and whatever that means, whether it’s a sandwich or a slap on the rear as I leave, that’s where I think we can get a really intimate and connected relationship when we’re both playing by those same set of rules. We’re both taking care of ourselves and then looking for ways to help each other.

Amanda: Absolutely, absolutely. I think, and that’s why I love what you do, Glenn, because you are talking to these men about different ways that they can think about themselves, about their marriage, about showing up differently to really create the life they want for themselves, which is in turn, going to help them create the family that they want. And when you’re not looking for that validation outside of you, if you’re not looking for like, have sex with me so that I know that I wanted and desired and you’re just like, no, I’m awesome, I am desirable because I am taking care of myself. If she’s not feeling it, then I need to figure out what’s going on with her, not just keep pressuring her to validate me. 

Glenn: Right. If she’s tired all the time, then why can’t I help her not be tired. I know men joke about this and so do women maybe, but it’s like, oh, it’s so sexy when you do the dishes, have you ever heard men say that that’s what their wife was saying?

Amanda: Yeah. Yeah. But then the men do the dishes just to try and get more sex. 

Glenn: Yes. So, I won’t tell the full story, but when I was 15, my dad said you’re not a dog, turn that thing off. (I was peeing on the beach and Morrel Bay) And he says, You’re not a dog, turn that thing off. And we laugh about it now. It was kind of crazy dad moment, but I’m a crazy dad too, but men you’re not dogs. Like you don’t need to do tricks for treats. Like that’s part of one of the slogans. And so I’ve had to rewire why I do dishes or anything around the house? I do it because I want to, and it makes me feel that I’m helping. And sometimes there’s a by-product because it helped my wife not be as tired. And then we have more time to spend together. 

So, that little phrase is one of my reminders. Don’t be doing this trick for treats, do it because it feels good for you. And if the result comes later, that’s cool. And if it doesn’t, you still win because you got to help. 

Amanda: Yeah. I mean, that’s what the whole point of this is, right? You showing up being the person, either the man or the woman, that you want to be, because that’s who you are. Right. And the results that come from when you show up as true and authentic and good, they’re usually pretty good results.

Glenn: Oh yeah. And just playing on that, another area is like, I don’t think women feel dated or courted. Is that fair to say?

Amanda: A lot, yeah.

Glenn: So men, when we’re trying to impress and we’re on the chase, we do all the things and it doesn’t mean to be buying flowers and opening doors, but it could be. But it could just be texts throughout the day. It could be checking in. These are all things Glenn’s still working on, by the way. Just because I’m saying it doesn’t mean I’m totally great at it. 

But, one of the best things I’ve ever done for my marriage is what I call ‘old people walks’. And my clients are literally telling me, in fact, there’s a master certified coach out there through LCS who said, Glenn, this might be saving my marriage. So, and she’s not the only one, but it just means a lot. 

So what is it? It depends on what stage you’re at in your marriage. Are your kids old enough that you can leave the house for 15, 20 minutes and you can put one of them in charge with a phone or whatever you got to do to make them feel comfortable.

But at night, no matter what time of the year it is, we’ve done it in the rain, snow, but we go for our old people walks and we go in and we just check in with the day. We hold hands. And we do probably what we did when we were dating. Spend time together. We’re talking or flirting, but now it’s like an intimate deal where we’re all in together, like there’s a lot of crap going on out there, let alone our own stuff and we get to sort through that together. And so these old people walks just create a whole different level of intimacy. And so, you know, men like these women, they want to be dated. They want you to make plans. Ask them out, even though they know every Friday, you’re going to take her out. You can still ask. 

And if you’re going to the grocery store, call it a hot date, like I’m planting the seed, this is a hot date. This is a hot date. And I say it because I want her to feel like we’re on a hot date. 

Amanda: Yeah. Dating your spouse doesn’t just mean going out on a date once a week, it means like, what are all the things that you used to do when you were dating? He or she was the first thing you thought of when you woke up in the morning, you would send a text to check in. 

My husband leaves really early for work. I sleep and depending on the day or whatever, I’ll usually get a text from him somewhere between like 6:30 and 7:30, just like telling me good morning. And I love you. And we do those check-ins throughout the day. It’s just like little touch points throughout the day that keep that relationship. And we go for, I guess, old people walks too a lot too, and that’s where we connect and we can, now we’ve got our puppy, so we take our puppy on the walk and I kind of shared not a little, not much, but a little bit, like we’ve been going through some really, really hard things as a family, the last four to five months and those walks are where he and I get to talk about what’s going on and how we want to handle things and what we can do better. It’s those connection pieces that lead to a great sexual relationship because women always say, I need emotional connection before I need physical connection. Men usually say, When I’m physically connected, then I can feel more emotionally connected, but guess what? You can physically connect by going on a walk together. And that’s where that emotional connection happens. And then the sex is more likely to happen. 

Glenn: Absolutely. Yeah. I just picture a bunch of men now, like laying in bed, texting their wife, “Goodnight.” “Good morning.”

Amanda: Yeah. It’s those touch points during the day that are really, really important. 

Glenn: Absolutely. For sure. 

Amanda: All right. So Glenn is one of the men that I’m always recommending to husbands who want coaching. I don’t coach men, I just coach women, but if you are wanting some help in your marriage and your intimate relationships, Glenn is definitely someone that I recommend that the men reach out to.

So Glenn, why don’t you just tell them a little bit about how they can work with you? What working with you looks like, how they can get in contact with you, where they can find you. 

Glenn: Sure, absolutely. And first, just thanks for that trust. I don’t take that lightly. My ultimate desire is not for men to get in better shape and make more money, it’s that they can finally connect and have this relationship that they’re looking for. But I deliver it where you can find success in other areas too. 

So, www.glennlovelace.com is the website. There’s a scheduling link. They’re pretty easy to follow. For women, I’ve got a landing page on that site where you can text a number and you text women only, and it’ll drip you content once in a while, just for how you can help your husband. Obviously I’m focused on the men. And so in that women’s only texting, you can tell me what topics you would like for him to hear and you can be my spy and we can be on the same team. 

I do have a little foundations course coming out that’s focused on men acquiring some of these tools and communication skills and these different thoughts, and it’s just a small one-time deal and they have access to it forever.

The one-on-one is where they can really make a lot, a lot of progress. And that’s where I’m the most comfortable, but www.glennlovelace.com, you can go to Instagram – @itsyourwingman

And you can follow the cookie trail from there. 

Amanda: Okay. And we will link all those in the show notes. Thanks so much, Glenn for coming on.

Glenn: I’m sad it’s over. I want to keep going, but thanks for having me. And I look forward to maybe coming back sometime.