Many couples find themselves trapped in a painful cycle where a woman seeks the safety her father never provided, while the man tries desperately to prove his worth. No matter how hard he tries, it's never enough; she feels unmet and unseen; he feels inadequate and resentful. Both are exhausted and disconnected.

Left unchecked, this dynamic leads to deepening resentment, emotional distance, and eventually relationship breakdown. But this episode offers a pause moment for both men and women, creating opportunities to break the cycle.

Mentioned in this episode:

The Cycle Breaker’s Path
A 2½-hour immersive workshop to heal your lineage, step into your calling, and reclaim your light.

The Awakened Masculine Program
An 8-week immersive journey into the depths of unleashing your awakened masculine power

Two years ago, we released an episode called The Woman with the Father Wound

and the Man with the Unworthiness Wound.

And this episode had a really, really big impact on our listeners and viewers.

I had no idea how powerful this episode actually landed for people,

and today we are revisiting this topic.

This is an expanded version of it.

If you've never heard of this before, keep listening or watching.

This is the episode to watch or listen to.

Now, if you still remember or you have recently actually listen or watched

this episode, I invite you to listen to the very end, because this is an

expanded version, we make this even more practical and go even deeper.

This is a very painful relationship dynamic that so many men and women

experience in their intimate life.

It's the dynamic when no matter how much a man seemingly shows up, it

seems to never be enough for her.

She feels unseen, she feels unheard, and she feels unmet.

He tries harder and harder to please her, only to feel smaller, emptier,

and more resentful in the process.

She seems to demand the impossible and he keeps trying to meet her.

Both feel exhausted, both feel disconnected, and from the outside,

it is so easy to label and judge the situation and to say it's her

problem, it's his problem, they are the reason and to put blame on one

or the other, whereas in truth, both hear me out, both are responsible.

Because both are co-creating this dynamic and usually for both,

something here feels familiar.

A familiar old pain that is being relived and re-experienced.

In today's episode, we don't just get practical, but I will help

you to understand what do you actually need to take responsibility

for as a woman and as a man?

How to clear the confusion and have crystal clarity, and also how you

can break free and actually heal from this dynamic, to experience the

intimate life that you truly desire.

Welcome to the Masculine and Feminine Dynamics podcast.

My name is Lorin Krenn, and I'm a coach, author and hypnotherapist.

I help you to understand masculine and feminine dynamics at the deepest level.

Let's begin with how this dynamic gets created.

When a woman grows up with an emotionally absent, distant, or inconsistent

father, whether physically present or not, her nervous system learns

that love ultimately means waiting, proving, chasing, or earning love,

earning approval, earning presence.

Deep down, she's searching for a love that is stable, that is

consistent, and the safety that she has never received from her father.

And while all of this is beautiful, and that's a natural, genuine

desire, how could there be a problem with any of what I've just said?

It makes perfect sense, right?

The challenge and the wound is that often she's actually not seeking a

partner in life, she's subconsciously seeking a father through her partner.

This might sting, but let this land for a moment.

Of course, a woman is looking for a man who's stable, who's safe, his

pre, who's present, and specifically if her father was showing up in a

deeply hurtful way, then even more so.

However, this can get entangled, and now what's actually happening

is not, I'm looking for my divine masculine counterpart.

What's happening is seeking the father that she never had through

her partner, through the man.

Let's get more practical.

She wants to be unconditionally held by him.

And of course there is a natural desire for safety and that all of her is welcome.

So again, what would the problem be?

There isn't, it's just, again, the wound is confusing in a very subtle

way, this dynamic and natural desire of the feminine, because it's not hold me

and welcome all of me, it's a sense of.

I want to be held by the father I never had.

And how a father holds his daughter is very different

to how a man holds his woman.

And please know when I say his woman, I'm not talking about dominance.

For those who know my work deeply, they fully understand what I'm saying here.

When I say this, I speak in the deepest reverence and devotion to the feminine.

So ultimately, to get even more practical, she's looking for a protector who protects

her from her childhood pain rather than a man who loves her as an equal.

This is very, gets very challenging to understand, like, bear with me.

This is not an easy topic, but these subtle differences

make all the difference.

This is why so many people struggle because it is very complex.

The example I like to give here is a father holds his daughter unconditionally.

Well, a conscious father, let's put it that way.

Not every father, clearly, no matter how she's showing up.

She might throw a huge tantrum, she might misbehave, and yet he will hold her.

And this dynamic might then actually play out where a woman disrespects, and when

I say disrespect, I mean saying something that's below the belt, blaming him, or

even calling him names, showing up in a way where he has no alternative but to

set a boundary if he respects himself.

And yet that father wound is saying, hold me.

And then if he holds her, what it's really communicating is that he's abandoning

himself and abandoning his truth.

And then she also loses respect for him.

I mean, how crazy is this?

What a paradox.

But it makes sense.

It's a dynamic where somehow he can never win.

He can only fail.

And this is the core dynamic when the father wound hijacks the natural desire

of the feminine for a man to show up, to hold space, to make her feel safe, which

unnatural and healthy desires, it's that it becomes hijacked by something where

a man can only fail, because the wound doesn't naturally allow her to receive

his presence, to receive his love, and also is always looking for the father she

never had, rather than seeing him for the partner that she actually truly desires.

Now, the man this woman often attracts is a man with a deep unworthiness wound.

Maybe he grew up feeling unseen, never enough, having to earn love

through achievement or performance.

He was told and conditioned by society that who he was was simply not enough.

He had to work harder, prove himself in the world, otherwise he would be left.

he was often shamed for his natural desires, for his truth, for his interests,

he grew up in a society where being himself fully was simply not safe.

He had to chase the approval of others and change who he is, and

work harder and prove himself more in order to be accepted.

And when these two meet, it feels almost magnetic, almost faded.

Because their wounds are calling each other, just like their souls might be

calling each other, of course, in order to heal the wound, transcend it, and go

deeper into their truth and higher selves.

But it feels so familiar.

The chemistry might be off the charts at the beginning of this relationship.

It might feel this is the one, and it doesn't mean they're not the one, but

it certainly means this wound has to be transcended and has to be worked through

for both to experience the intimacy that they actually seek and desire.

And it's very simple how it plays out, having understood now the context,

it's, she demands the impossible, the safety only a father can give.

He tries to earn it, the love he could never quite reach.

Both end up feeling chronically unmet and unseen.

Both are desiring something that the other is not able to give them.

It causes constant disappointment and resentment and affirmation sub

subconsciously of the core wound.

She goes See?

No man can hold me, no man can make me feel safe, every man is the

same, something is wrong with me.

He goes I am never enough.

No matter how much I show up.

It just isn't enough.

The more she demands the impossible, the smaller he feels, the smaller

he feels, the more she loses respect and safety and round and

round and round and round they go.

here is also where spiritual bypassing can easily happen because when two

are stuck in this cycle, it might seem like she's coming from a genuine

feminine intuition and from a place of love, whereas in truth, it is either

coming solely from a father wound or the father wound is hugely entangled

into it, not really allowing the true feminine, awakened heart to shine through.

And the woman might say, well, this is my desire for you to hold space,

and you're still not showing up.

And maybe on paper that would make sense, but if you look at a deeper dynamic,

that's not what's actually happening.

And he might think, well, I just need to create more safety.

If I just get to this perfect place where I feel so powerful inside

myself, where I don't need anything and have no desires anymore, and I

can just hold absolutely everything, then finally I can be her hero.

I can be the person who makes her feel safe for the first time.

And the intent is genuine, but it's only going to get worse

if this is how you approach it.

Because even though you have a genuine desire and intent, you are

ultimately feeding the core wound rather than actually starving it.

You're not going to the root, you are working somewhere at the

surface and the root hasn't been touched, hasn't been seen, hasn't

been taken responsibility for.

So let's go deeper.

Let's get more practical now.

How to break free.

Let's get really serious now.

As a woman, you need to understand that this dynamic is almost never one sided.

As a man, you also need to understand this.

As long as you blame her, as long as you blame him, as long as you blame them,

you're going to keep staying stuck and you're gonna keep fueling your victim

story that somehow it's them, but you are also involved 99% of the time, unless

we're talking of highly toxic dynamics where there is deliberate emotional

manipulation and worst abuse happening.

In that case, fuck responsibility, because that only creates more victim shaming.

As a woman, your responsibility is your awareness and specifically your

awareness around to notice when your desire for safety for him to hold

you, for presence comes from love, and when it comes from the wound.

How do you know the difference?

When it comes from the wound and he's trying to show up,

it will still not feel enough.

You will still distrust it and every attempt he makes at showing up.

When it comes from love, and that he eventually, or actually steps up and

shows up, you will feel an immediate sense of deeper relaxation, because what's

happening is you are receiving that, but the father wound doesn't actually allow

you to receive his steps of showing up, and he will do this in a very cunning

kind of sense of, well, it's, it's, he should have done it differently.

No, I don't want it like that.

I don't want, it's, it's not good enough, but it's always that same theme.

It's not good enough.

It's still not good enough.

It's still not good enough.

Now, if you come from love and a man is not showing up again and again,

and again, and again and again, this doesn't necessarily apply.

It might still be the case, but then really you're looking at a dynamic

where your needs and your truth and your heart are not being heard.

That's different again.

All of this might still play into it, but we're looking at

something that might not be aligned.

As a woman, you gotta ask yourself, is this my wise feminine heart

or is this the little girl inside me still longing for her father?

And you don't need to suppress your needs.

They just need to be expressed from your truth and from your heart,

and not from an old familiar wound.

Just by implementing this pause and asking yourself, is this coming from

love or is this coming from the wound?

Is there a sense that no matter what it does, it's never good enough?

This will immediately point you into the right direction.

As a man, your responsibility is to stop performing and to

start embodying your true worth.

It might seem paradoxical.

The pleaser will say, if I can only do mo more to finally show up for her.

But this is only going to lead to more loss of respect, because the feminine

cannot respect the man who disrespects his own truth and manhood and sense of

self in the process of wanting validation and approval, it's a lose lose situation.

Embodying your worth means working through this hero archetype, which

is often described as the immature version of the warrior archetype, or

the enlightened the conscious warrior.

The hero believes if he somehow pulls off the incredible saving rescue mission

where he makes her feel so safe and he can somehow compensate for the father she

never had, and he can get to this place of total invincibility and, and being

almost perfect, becoming this ideal, then finally, he will feel worthy, which keeps

feeding the same wound of unworthiness.

So boarding his worth means letting go of playing the hero.

You're not here to be her hero.

You are here to be a man who lives in truth, in presence, and in alignment.

And this can really be felt in a relationship when a man is embodying

his worth, When a man is not coming from a place of, I need your

approval to feel like a strong man, I already hold that inside my self.

And that starves this dynamic immediately when he stops performing as the hero

and starts embodying who he truly is.

When a man embodies who he truly is, all these hero and savior and rescue,

please, all these false masks start to drop away and there is a deep sense of

power in that moment because it is truth.

It is not a story.

It is not a conditioning.

It is just higher and divine power moving through him.

The father wound and the unworthiness wound are mirrors.

One is the need to be seen.

The other is the fear of never being enough, and both dissolve

when love meets self responsibility.

You as a woman, when you no longer look at a man through the lens of the father

you never had, but to see him for the man he truly is, and actually receive the

ways he's showing up, then you will feel paradoxically, so much more seen, so much

more loved, and so much more intimacy.

When you as a man stop performing and trying to be someone who you are not, and

just show up as your true self, then you will also create, with the right person,

the intimacy that you truly desire.

Why is this so hard?

Because when you starve this dynamic, she has to face the terror

that the little girl experienced.

He has to face the terror that the little boy inside him had to face.

Almost everything seems easier than doing that.

Most unconscious dynamics that you see playing out in any relationship or in

this world in general, are usually all an escape and some form of attempt of

avoiding facing the rawness of our pain.

Because as long as she stays in this dynamic and looks to find the

father she never had through him, she doesn't truly have to face her

pain at the deepest and rude level, because she can always blame men.

And for him, it's the very same.

As long as he's chasing and playing the hero he never has to come face to

face with just how much his energy is leaking, his power is being drained,

and to feel that deep unworthiness that he carries inside himself, the fear of

slowing down, of entering stillness and embodying his true worth, even though

he's not perfect and no one truly is.

Why do some people not change?

Because change feels too painful.

If both do this work, the highest possibility of working through it.

If only one does it, which can often be the case, then

ultimately it comes to show.

If a man stops performing and she still feels nothing is ever good

enough, then it might not work.

If she no longer looks at him through the lens of the father she never had, but

sees the man, but he keeps staying in a perpetual cycle of pleasing and performing

and never slowing down and never truly facing his pain, then he might not align.

But the only way it can ever align is if you starve this dynamic, and

the way you starve it is by taking responsibility for your part in it.

That's the only way alignment, truth, and true intimacy can ever be born.

The truth is you do not have to struggle with this dynamic.

But you have to make a choice.

That you are no longer going to fulfill that unconscious script that you've

been playing out again and again.

And this is a choice you will have to make again and again and again.

And when you make this your highest priority and you stop in the moment when

the script wants to play out and the old wound is recreated, you actually

rewrite everything in your life.

You actually create the possibility and opportunity to experience the love and

intimacy and life that you truly desire.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode.

It is a true honor to have you here.

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