In this episode, Amanda and Kelby take a deep dive into a topic that impacts many long-term relationships: why blaming men isn’t helping your relationship. With raw vulnerability and real-life experiences, Amanda and Kelby explore the roots of negative beliefs about men, how these narratives shape our connections, and why letting go of blame can create more love and ease in our partnerships.

Drawing inspiration from the book The Queen’s Code by Allison Armstrong and discussing their own journeys, they break down how old wounds, societal modeling, and “black and white” thinking can infect relationships with mistrust or resentment. The hosts also discuss how blanket beliefs about men (or any gender) often stem from childhood, share compassionate advice for shifting those beliefs, and highlight the power of awareness, gratitude, and open communication in reshaping our love lives.

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Love under the scope.

Welcome to Love Under the Scope. I'm Amanda Durocher. And I'm

Kelby Knutt, and this is a podcast where we

explore all of the ins and outs of being

in a committed long term relationship

with another human being can be very complex. Lots

of turns to navigate. So we're here to

just be vulnerable, share some of our experiences, and

explore different topics around long term

love. And today, we wanted to talk about the topic why

blaming men is not helping your relationship. I know I

wanted to cover this topic because when I was first with Evan in my

twenties, we've been together for fourteen years now. But when we were first

together, I used to blame him being a man for so

many different problems we had, and that was not a helpful narrative to

have throughout our relationship. I know that

being with Evan has taught me to not put so much blame on

men and to actually change my view of men. What about you, Kelby? Oh, yeah.

Completely. I think I had before I met Kaya, I

had lost a lot of hope in men and just kind

of assumed that they could never commit to

me and provide me with anything.

So, yeah, I've totally had a shift of perspective being with

Kai and being able to work through some of those beliefs around

men? One of my main ones is that I used to believe all

men were untrustworthy. So that definitely

impacted my relationship with Evan, thinking that men were just an

untrustworthy species and that I also had the belief

that all they wanted was sex for a very long time as a rape survivor.

I think that's where that stems from. Actually, that is where that stems from. But

that has been something I've had to look at throughout my relationship and to be

honest with myself about where some of those beliefs started from because they

weren't helping me lean into a loving relationship

with Evan. It's like it creates a wall for us of not

being able to be vulnerable because we don't believe we can let

our guard down. For me, it was I think

there was a trust piece, but it was more about, like, I can't rely on

them, and they will never pull through for me. And,

you know, kind of along those lines. And and, yeah, they can't be relied

on to actually do something, like stay with me

or protect me or see me. Right?

That's kind of where I was coming from. And I know we wanted to

cover this topic because we've both become very aware

recently too about how much this is something that impacts

women in general. It's not just something you and I have struggled with. It's

very widespread. I mean, if you are a woman listening to this right

now, you've probably hung out with your friends. And a lot of the

time, the topic of conversation is, like, how horrible

our partners are. Or if it's not that drastic, it's,

well, he never does this, or I'm always the one

to take care of this and, right, like, those kind of nitpicky

things. And we see it with our mothers too. I know my mom

is you know, she talks about that a lot with my dad.

So we kind of get it modeled to us that

men are this. Right? Like, they're always gonna be

this thing. Yeah. And I think when we blame

men for all the problems within our

relationships, like, for me, it'd be like, oh, because Evan's not trustworthy. I can't trust

him to do x. You know? The trust issue, I just found it impacted so

many things because it was like, oh, I can't trust him to take the trash

out, or I can't trust him to listen to me, or I can't trust him

to support me. It leaked into all these different areas, so then I

just blamed that belief I had on him even though it didn't

actually do with him at all. Evan has time and time again shown me he's

a trustworthy person, but because I had this greater belief that men were

untrustworthy, it just leaked into and it feels like it infected my

relationship. It's like we take all of our perceptions from

our experiences and what we've heard from other women, and we

just put it onto our current partner whether they've

done that thing or not. It's like we almost assume, well,

you're a man. So, of course, you're gonna be this thing, right,

that I have created in my head. And with that,

I do wanna honor that most women have been

hurt by men. So it's not that this belief

stems from nowhere. You know, I think the truth

is everybody's been hurt by different people, but

women have been hurt by men, and that includes, like, our fathers.

And I know for me, when I went to the work world,

there was, like, a stark difference between the way men were

leaders and women were leaders, and I felt like that was a hard

transition for me. But, also, oh, school for me was a big one.

Boys at school were not very nice. Yeah. Totally

true. We have reasons for feeling the way we

do. Right? We don't create these notions out of nowhere. We

have experiences. We're told certain things.

We see things happen, and we come to

these conclusions, and they can get really embedded

into the system, into the mind without us even

thinking about it. But it certainly comes from somewhere, I

would venture to say, even from, you know, the

long history of how women have been treated in the past

perhaps could contribute to that. Although we're not living

that way today, it could still maybe there's a remittance of

that. And with that, I think that so much of this goes back

to the inner child that we talk about a lot because the idea that

all men are one thing sounds very childlike to

me. You know, it's the way a child would choose to see the

world is when they're trying to make sense of an unsafe situation or something that

feels unsafe to a child, they would label men or

women a certain way. And I think that with

the beliefs around men, as we've already mentioned, a lot we picked

up a lot of them from our mothers or from women we

surrounded ourselves with. I know for me with teachers or just women who would

watch me after school, they also hold beliefs about men. And so

I think so much of this also stems from that inner child who

created a belief about the world that now that we're adults may not be so

helpful in our relationships. I agree. We're trying to keep ourselves

safe, so we create this kind of truth. Well,

we think it's a truth that, you know, we apply to all of a

group of people so that we can keep ourselves safe. And we

don't realize that, you know, as we get older, it doesn't

really serve us anymore to hold such a

black and white belief. I love that you say black and

white because that's really what it is. Because I don't think every

man should be trustworthy, but I don't think every man isn't

trustworthy. You know? Like, labeling an entire gender one way or

another is that black and white thinking. And I think that as we get older,

we just realize life is more nuanced. And if we wanna be in a loving

relationship, don't we wanna see our partners in a loving way rather

than carrying these beliefs that are hurtful to them, to be

honest? Yeah. It doesn't help us to project those things

onto our current partner who, assuming, is

a loving person who we've chosen, who we

do trust. Right? And yet we're still projecting these things onto

them, and it can lead to a lot of frustration and pain and

suffering. So that's why we're having this conversation because,

ideally, we can lessen that suffering. Yeah.

How do you think it does impact people's relationships?

I think going back to what I said at the start, that wall

that's created where we're not willing to

step outside of the wall and we kind of hide behind it

and no growth and true deep love can't

happen when there's a wall between you two. And I

think having this perception of men can contribute to

that wall. I agree. I think

that when we choose to view them

as the problem within the relationship because that's how it feels when we blame men

for the problems or we blame men over and over

again. We're choosing to view them as the problem. And it's just not taking

responsibility that most of the time, it's a two

way street. And that your partner if you

love them, right, we're talking about loving relationships, that they're not

a horrible person. They're a multidimensional person. So if they do

something that upsets you, maybe there's a conversation to be had

rather than just blaming them as if all men do

x. Yeah. I think you saying that, it makes

me think about how it can lead to our own pain. If I'm

going around let's say I'm cleaning my apartment and

I notice that the trash is full. Oh

god. He never takes the trash out when it needs to be taken out. You

know? Not only am I coming after him, but

that's creating pain for myself. And, usually, there's some

kind of story there about, well, why isn't he taking it out? Okay.

Because he doesn't love me enough or because I'm not good

enough for the trash to be taken out without me asking

or whenever it's full. So it's

just pain all around. It's pain for the

male partner, and it's pain for the female partner.

So, yeah, the disconnection there and the animosity and the

resentment. It's Yes. Right. And I love that you mentioned

that when you feel that way, you feel like he doesn't love

you because Kelby and I are actually both reading a book right now. It's

called The Queen's Code by Alison Armstrong. And she talks

about that in it, which I thought was really interesting is that women tend to

take these things that we put on men, and we somehow bring it back to

ourselves. Like, because they didn't take the trash out, it means

something about me. And like you said, that creates a cycle

of pain. And to me, it also creates a cycle of helplessness.

Like, we feel helpless if we're in this cycle of this means this

and there's no solution to this. And I think that's one of the problems that

blaming men can create is a feeling of feeling helpless. Yes.

Absolutely. Like, this will never be resolved. This is always gonna be

a problem, and I'm never gonna be lovable enough. And it's like a whole

narrative that we construct in our mind that just keeps pushing

us farther and farther from our partner and

from understanding because I think we

resolve to believe that this is it. This is true. There's no other

way. Like, men are this way. This is another part of blaming men.

It's like, this is true. Like, men are this

way. They can't be relied on. Men are not to be trusted. All of these

things are opinions. It's not a fact. Mhmm. Right?

So can we go underneath the belief and see what's

going on there? Why do I believe this? Yeah. And I think so many times

we believe it. Even though it's painful like you talked about, it's a

way to feel safe because it feels predictable. And if

we can predict the way that men will be, then we will

feel safe and almost superior. Right? Like, I

knew you would be this way. And so then we

feel safe inside. And I think for women that can go farther back to then

the times we're living in now. Right? Like, if you could predict the way men

acted, then you wouldn't be so disappointed or you would be able to

figure out the way you could be in the world. But I think

that when we do that, it creates this mistrust within

relationships, or it just creates this disappointment within

relationships if we view it from a way that

this isn't something that could change. It's confirmation

bias. It's like, I believe this about men.

Therefore, when I noticed that my partner didn't take out the trash,

it fits right into my narrative of men are

lazy or men are can't be relied on to do

anything. It's like I'm getting confirmation that

belief is just getting more and more solidified, which is not a good

thing in my opinion. Right? Because it's just that hardening.

Like, I really can't trust him. Look at these are all the reasons. Look. He

didn't do that. He didn't do this, and yours just keeps

getting hardened. And I like how you mentioned before too

that these are opinions that we have because even

with you mentioning they're, like, men are lazy. The book we're reading mentioned

that as one. And I think a lot of women do hold that belief, but

I thought it was interesting because I don't have that belief because I grew up

around really hardworking men. But

I did have a belief, like, men put work above all

else, which then went back to they love work more than they love

me. But, again, that's not truth either. Right? Like,

by seeing that some people view men as lazier, some people view men as hardworking,

you could just see their opinions based on our own experiences, not

universal truths. Yes. And it takes

courage and it takes balls. I just

told somebody recently, it takes lady balls to go

in and dissect the way we feel about

men because it can be uncomfortable to confront

what we believe and why. Where did it come from?

Usually, there's an inner child piece there if we have a very strong belief

about men. So it's kind of just easier to

just have the thought and move on with life. But I'm saying that, and

I'm like, it's not really easier though because in the long run, you deprive yourself

of connection and understanding and compassion for your partner

who, again, we are assuming you love them. Right?

So don't you want that softness between you two?

And I found when I was younger, I used to not trust any

man. I used to put all men in, like, a box where I was like

a shaming box. You know? I was already shaming them before I even met them.

And it felt easier because as a rape survivor, it was a way to

stay safe. Right? I didn't trust men after the experiences I had. It was easier

to just not go near them. But I was depriving myself of

men, and men are wonderful. I actually love men. Some of my favorite people are

men. I mean, they're humans. Right? Some of my favorite people are women, but some

of my favorite people are men. And men are different than women, and they offer

different gifts. And, yeah, it was just actually really sad

that I deprived myself of that for so long. I like that you're sharing

kind of personal experience, and I'll share a little bit too about how

I kind of emasculated men. That's a term

from The Queen's Code, the Booker reading. The way that

I do it, and I still do this. This is something that I'm work working

on currently. I was in a men's group recently, and I was looking

around the room at them, and I was just like, aw. Like, they're so

cute. So that's for whatever reason, I

reduce men to children in my mind, and I think it's because of

watching my parents' dynamic where my mom was

the one that was in charge, and she kind of showed up in a

almost a mothering way with my dad. And

at least for what I saw, right, this is my perspective. I can't say behind

closed doors. But because of that, I show up in a mothering

way sometimes with my partner, and it can be really nice and fun

sometimes. But other times, it's like, I don't want to be mommy.

You know? And I don't want to see my partner as a child all the

time. Maybe every once in a while, it's fun. But I

noticed when I looked around at those men and I had the thought, aw. I

was like, oh, there is something for me to work on that I see men

as, like, cute little kids. Yeah. That's interesting. I

think a lot of women hold that one. And I

told you a story recently, but I was at the gym recently,

and there was this man there who I labeled childish. He was,

like, skipping, and he was just taking up the whole gym. And I was so

irritated. But since we've been reading this book, I caught myself, and I was

like, who cares? This guy's having fun with his exercise.

Why do I have to label the childish behavior as a bad

thing? Like, what if I instead was like, cool. This guy's

having fun at the gym. Maybe it's a little childish, but I'm childish too.

Right? Like, letting that inner child out. And then he was skipping

around, and then I did a little jig. And then we, like, had an

interaction because of it because I opened up to being more

fun, honestly, and more playful with myself. But my go

to was to scold him for acting childish. Like, he should

be more of an adult here. And it's like, why we're exercising?

Who cares? You know? But I think a lot of women have that one because

I've seen that one in me too. That's a really good point to make. I

think it moves us into talking about how can we shift

this belief. And you said it yourself, having

that awareness of when we're looking

at men. You could say this about anybody, even when you look at women,

but just for the purposes of this conversation. When are we looking at

men and having a blanket statement thought? Going back

to my thought of looking at a group of men and thinking, ah, oh, they're

cute. You know, it's the awareness of, oh, interesting. I

just took an entire group of people and made a whole blanket

statement about them. I don't know anything about them, and I just made a statement

that they're cute, which for all I know, one of them could

be an axe murderer. I don't know anything about them. And

so can we catch ourself in that moment and

pull away and observe? And one that I've had that I

think other women might have is that men are terrifying. And

so I label a whole group of men as terrifying people.

And one, that's me giving power away usually because then I'll

shrink myself, and I'll become smaller if I find a group of men terrifying. But,

also, like you said, it's like, these could be some of the kindest people

ever. I don't know. I can't just label them because they're men as

terrifying because there are also some women who are terrifying.

Yeah. I like that playing with the this could go with any thought. I like

to play with the idea that we have the blanket statement thought, and then we

play with, like, the opposite of that. So it it kind of

creates that room in our mind of like, oh, anything is

possible. Things aren't so concrete as I believe them to be.

Right? Like, what do I know to say this

group of people are this thing? Right?

Yeah. And I do just wanna take a moment to say, because I know people

who listen to my work sometimes are also rape survivors,

that when healing from that trauma

specifically, it's all about learning to trust yourself

and your body. And you don't have to rush the process. Like

me with thinking men was terrifying, I did stay away

from men for a while, and that was a safety mechanism. There was nothing wrong

with that, but it became a point in my life where that no longer served

me, where it wasn't helping my life. It was hindering it. And I had to

be honest with myself about that. And like Kelby said, I had to grow some

lady balls and look at some of my beliefs around men because

of that. But to this day, I listen

to my body when I'm in a room and what it's communicating to me

about the people I'm with, And I've just learned that that is very often

not gender specific. It's actually never gender specific. It is person

specific. And I share in a story that I

wrote on my website about women who betrayed me after being

raped. And I in that story, I explained that after I was raped,

I labeled all women as safe and all men as unsafe. And because of

that, I ended up in a lot of unsafe situations with a lot of women

who weren't trustworthy because I blanket statemented an

entire gender. And it's through my healing journey that I've just learned,

people are people, and we have to get to know each person as a

multidimensional human, not as this one dimensional thing. But so

many of us have taken on these beliefs from childhood mostly for a

lot of these big statements about men, and

we've carried those into adulthood. And one of the reasons I wanna do this topic

too is because I see this played out in so many different ways in society

right now that women as a whole, in my opinion, seem

very angry at men. I like that you point out nothing is a

rush here to get to the finish line, and that's

why I just wanna stress, like, the awareness is just

a huge step. You don't even have to do anything. Just can you

observe your own thoughts? And nothing has to be

changed, you know, unless you want it to change, then

go for it. Why would you wanna change this? Because it could

create more connection. It could create ease for

you as a woman and as a man, either one.

It could create more ease and more flow,

more love. This is why you might wanna do this. If

you decide either, a, I don't want those things for whatever

reason, or, b, it's not my way, that's fine.

But just having the awareness is, like, huge. And with

the ease part, we did episode five. We talked about softening. And

I think having these beliefs about men that you're carrying into your

relationship keep you from softening because they keep those walls up.

And in order to soften into our relationships and soften into that

feminine side, that feels really good. And we talked about in that episode, we all

have masculine and feminine qualities. But I think looking

at and bringing awareness to these beliefs really help with that ease and that softening.

Yes. Which goes back to something I wanna point out that I feel

like saying this these days is almost controversial because

of feminism and stuff, but

men enjoy providing material

things. They really enjoy providing the

home, providing the finances, and

it doesn't mean that a woman can't do those things. But a man

finds satisfaction in knowing that he is

taking care of a woman who loves

him, who we then provide our

loving energy. Women have we have a very

powerful way of providing love,

care, and attention and affection. Right? Both

people can provide these things, but this is the ease that we're talking

about. Can we, as women, ease into

receiving receiving what the man

is providing so that the man can then

receive our love? And, again, this is for

me, this feels good for me. I'm learning how to do this

because I've done a lot on my own, and it's been

really hard to feel like I have to do everything

myself, and I can't rely on anybody. And to have a

partner who finds so much joy, like, he

gets a sparkle in his eye when he knows that he's done

something for me that really is meaningful. I love that you mentioned

that because I have found that too in my relationship that the

more I allow Evan to provide for me, the more I'm able to

soften and the more he's actually able to soften as well. And we're

both able to feel safe. It creates safety, honestly, in the

relationship for me to receive from Evan because I do think a

lot of men have this inherent quality of wanting to provide.

And when you refuse to receive, I think it creates more to

this wall that we've been talking about or more of like a rift within your

relationship. And I think it's just a helpful practice to

receive. And it doesn't mean you have to receive

everything overnight or anything like that. But I think that learning

to be provided for and learning to receive as a woman in

today's world is a helpful process,

if that feels good to you. I don't know if that feels good for everybody,

but I think that there is a narrative of hyper

independence today, and I don't think any human is meant to be

hyper independent. I think we're meant to be in

community. We're meant to be in family. We're meant to be in relationship.

And in relationship, it's learning how to be interdependent.

And you can be independent, but hyper independent, I think

that sounds lonely. I agree. I love the idea that

we can rely on each other for certain things, and that's a good

reason for wanting to shift our opinion on

men so that we can learn to rely on them for

the things that they can provide to us. So

whatever it is, they do think a little differently than women.

So what does that mean? Well, if you want him to take the trash

out, are you being aware that he is doing it

for you to provide you with the

ease of not doing it? And, therefore, can

you show him that? Oh, thank you so much or whatever it is.

Right? And, honestly, if you would have told me that last year or a couple

years ago, I would have been like, well, why do I have to say

thank you for taking the trash out? And it's like,

look. You don't have to. If you don't wanna do it, don't do it. But

just know if you do, do it. It will

benefit you a lot, and he will show up in

ways that might even surprise you if you do that. Doesn't mean

you have to baby him. Oh, thank you so much. A little bit. No. It's

just a simple thank you for doing that because it made my life

easier, and I didn't have to get my hands dirty. I personally hate

taking the trash out. So if all I have to do is say, thank

you, this is what you just did for me and make it clear that you

provided something, I'll take it. I'll take it.

I feel like we've talked about it in multiple episodes, but gratitude goes a long

way. You know? And it's actually interesting because they talk a lot

about when healing or with mental health to make, like, gratitudeless,

and those are helpful. But it's interesting because that practice goes into

relationship as well. Gratitude to your partner goes farther than I think

we all maybe think it does originally. And I think about it with myself too.

I love being thanked because I just love knowing that what I did

mattered to somebody. Like, when I get a thank you, I'm like, okay. I'll

keep going because I know that somebody's impacted by the action I did.

Yeah. And it's such a simple thing. It's funny because I used to feel condescended

by Kai when he would say, thank you for doing the dishes. I'd be like,

well, I don't have a choice. It's like, okay. It's a little

intense. Let's just bring down the anger a little bit. I have a lot of

anger in my past, so it's a process. Right? We move through these

things slowly, and here I am now. I love being thanked, and I love

giving thanks to him. I literally sat with him yesterday

and told him, thank you for

being the majority breadwinner right now and all of the

things that we get to do because of that. And my

life is pretty easy breezy because of that, and I get to live in a

really nice place and, you know, etcetera. Right? And he was,

like, so happy. This is all he wanted to

hear because he loves me very much, and I hope, you know, the same for

anybody who's listening. I love that you guys had that conversation

because I think that, honestly, I think when it comes to men,

sometimes as women, we take them for granted, and we take what they do

for granted. And sometimes we become really resentful.

And I think having those type of conversations where we can thank each

other and just honor each other for the gifts we

provide each other goes such a long way. Oh, definitely.

Definitely. I I even was thinking the other day, god. How great is it that

I live with a man who's strong, and he was a marine.

I feel safe. I don't have to worry about being

attacked or anything. Just him, just his body. That

provides something to me. Safety. Right? And god

forbid, if we're ever confronted, like, I have protection.

So that in itself, yeah, I totally take that for granted

a lot of the time. And this is why we pair up together

because I offer this and you offer that, and sometimes we

do a dance where sometimes Kai is the one that's more

soft and emotional. But because we trust each other,

we get to play with that energy now. But I had to

work on my opinions on men in order

to see him as a human being and get to

that place of trust and movement and play.

You mentioning seeing them as a human being, I think that's

profound. I think it might not sound it, but I think it is profound

because I think so many people view one another as one

dimensional. And the book talks about that's what objectification

is. It's when we choose to view somebody as one thing. That

person's a loser. That person's a bitch. That person's a sexual object.

I used to only think of objectification in a sexual sense, but truly, it's when

we label somebody as one thing. And when we

see somebody as a human being, we remember that they're just like

us, and we know that we're complex. We don't

wanna be one dimensionalized. And so I think it's one of the greatest gifts we

can give another person is seeing all of them or trying to see all of

them. Right? I mean, that's the other great thing about romantic partnerships is that we're

always learning more about this other person because that's how multidimensional they

are is that they're always teaching us more, and they're growing and changing

too just like we are if we choose to be a person who grows

and changes. Yes. Which hopefully we

are. That's how I feel anyway. Like, why doesn't everybody want this?

Because, yeah, first of all, when we objectify somebody else, anything we're

doing to our partner, we're doing to ourself. Anything. I don't care what it

is. If we're stripping them of their power by emasculating them,

which I do wanna touch on that, then we're stripping our own

power away. You can't do something to your partner without it happening to

you. So I wanna talk about emasculation. So two of the

terms from the book that she gets into are how men

objectify women beyond just sexually and then

how women can emasculate men. Because in the

past or even now, we feel afraid

of them physically, we will do this thing where

we try to take their power away, like, emotionally

or mentally. And the way that can look it actually happened to

me recently. Kai was sharing he had, like, a

confrontation with somebody, and he was sharing what happened with

me. It had nothing to do with me. So, realistically, I could have just been

like, That's not how I would have dealt with it, but okay. But instead of

just saying, oh, that's not how I would have dealt with it, but okay, I

did, like, a whole thing where I gave him the cold shoulder. I was

very judgmental. I kind of was, like, disgusted with

him and doing this thing of like, ugh. You're disgusting. Get away from me.

And I turned my back towards him. I was ignoring him,

and I saw him, like, shrink. He shrunk down,

like, to a little boy and was just hunched over.

And I I could just see that's how we take their powers by

it's like an emotional game that we play with them. And

so yeah. Are you doing that to your partner? And I do it.

So it's like, can we just be aware and admit to

it? I think it's a huge thing to admit and to

begin to see. In the book, she calls it emasculation and castrating a

man. So we castrate them with our words

and the way we speak to them, and it is. It's because we view them

as so powerful that we tear them down. And I will say in

the book, she talks about men objectify women because they also view women as

powerful. So it's like, how can you make this woman less powerful? I make her

one dimensional. And I think men and women both do it, but in the book,

she talks about how women really can do this castrating and men objectify

women. And since reading this in the book, I have seen

the castration effect, and it makes me so sad

in myself as well. But I observe it actually all

the time. You know, I live in an apartment complex and I go to the

community pool sometimes. And I have noticed that these men will

sometimes seem so open, and they'll make a joke and a woman will just

tear them down like that and just put them in his place. And you see

that hunched shoulders just defeated thing, and it

makes me so sad. And I've also noticed a few times in my

relationship, if I'm not in the mood for something and Evan comes in

it's so sad. This is such a sad thing I do. When Evan comes in

looking for attention, I'll just knock him down. Like, I'll be like,

no. And it's just seeing it in myself. I'm like, why

do you do that? This man is reaching out for love, and you're just

tearing him down because you're not in the mood for it because that's where I

go into my own judgments of, like, I don't have time for this or whatever.

And seeing it in myself is just very humbling. It's very humbling.

Yeah. It is. Definitely. It ain't pretty me. Especially when

you are a compassionate person or you're trying to

be more compassionate, and then seeing how you have

just kind of stripped somebody

or blocked somebody or rejected them. Because men do

need love and affection, and they will reach out for it. It might be

in different ways than women. You know? They aren't women.

So although we are human and we have so much in common

just by that alone, men are

different. The way that they reach out is different. The way that

they like to receive affection is going to be different a lot of the

time. So if we can just learn to work with that

and be okay with that and then learn the ways of men

too, which this book is very helpful about that, then

it's to our benefit. That's the fun part. It's like, we're

not doing this just because we're worshiping men and we're,

like, pick me women or whatever. Yeah. We're doing this because it

benefits me and Amanda and all the other women out there. It

helps me when I learn how to work

with Kai and his way of

loving and being loved and the appreciation for him. Then

it comes back to me, and I am supported, and then I can go after

the things that I want and I desire. Right? And it's

the word that we've mentioned a few times. It just creates this ease

when we allow men to be them and we allow ourselves to be

ourselves as women. It creates an ease

rather than when we're tearing each other down. Or specifically women, we're

the ones who tear down men with words over and over again, and it

creates resistance rather than ease. Yeah. And don't we

all want ease. Right? The hard part about doing this

is accepting that your beliefs that are so near and dear

to you might not be true. That's the hardest

part. That's why a lot of people don't do

inner reflection or inner work is because

it requires confronting our own beliefs

and admitting that they might not be true. Yeah. And for

me, it's admitting I'm not perfect,

admitting I'm still growing. You know, I think when I first

started doing the inner work, I was trying to, quote, unquote,

fix myself because I had such low self worth, and I

thought one day I would be fixed. And

the truth is about the inner work and inner reflection is that it's a continuous

process. That's why I call it the healing journey. Life is a journey. It's

ever evolving. We get to go deeper, and we get to see more and more

about ourselves, and it's a humbling journey. But I think it takes

courage to admit time and time again that we're not

perfect, and we were never meant to be perfect. But for me, that's one

that comes up for me is, like, oh, yeah. I'm not perfect. I was gonna

say probably never will be. No. I I never will be perfect. I'm human. Yeah.

It's like, what is perfect anyway if you think about it? And I think

the reason we come up with these beliefs about people and

men is so that we feel like we

know. Like, I'm safe because I know this thing about

men, and, therefore, I choose to only see that.

And imagine you live your whole life like that, and that means

you don't leave any room for surprise

or mystery. If you can peel

away the layers of your beliefs around men, your

partner and other men will probably surprise you. And

isn't that fun to play with, that idea? I view

it as so much of healing. It's like taking out the rose colored glasses.

You know, you see the world through this one lens, and when you take them

off, you get to see the world as, like, technicolor rather than just this

one shade of rose colored. It's more

exciting when we can allow people, like you said, to surprise us than to

make life predictable. And that's the way we try to control life, and

we're not in control here. No. No. It's funny because in

another episode, you mentioned the rose colored glasses, and I think I said

something like, I feel like I've been wearing shit colored glasses because

because and I'll say it again because it's relevant to my beliefs

around men. It's like, well, they're all disappointing, and you can't rely on them, and

you're gonna always have to do everything for yourself. And you're never gonna

be supported in the way that you want because they're disappointing.

That's shit colored glasses and, like, always filtering for that

when I look at men. Well, they're disappointing. Like, literally, what taking a walk,

I walk by some guy, he's disappointing. You know? It's like, well,

that's that sucks. Like, for that guy, it sucks. For me, it

sucks because there's no openness around, like, oh, he could

surprise me. And, oh, I wonder what this guy is about or my partner.

Like, I wonder what he might do today and

or what he what he's feeling. Right? Because I don't know everything

he's feeling because I haven't put this label on him that he

is this thing. And I think it's also this way that

we continue to live in the past because so many

of these beliefs we have about men are from the past. For

example, for me, as reading this book, one of the beliefs that came up was

that I viewed men as weak, and I had to, like, be with that.

Why is this so ingrained? Men are weak. And for me, it went back

to part of when I was raped in my teen years, there were bystanders. There

were guys who didn't intervene. And it was humbling for me

to look at that and be like, I have been living in this place

for like fifteen years and labeling all men as weak

when that's just not the case. I lived through a horrible experience, but by

continuing to live with that belief, I was continually living there

unconsciously. And that's what we do so many times with these beliefs.

So it's also really freeing for us to bring awareness to these

beliefs we have because then we're not limited by

them anymore. And truthfully, like you said, we don't look at these so we can

put men on pedestals. We look at these so we can free ourselves and so

that we can see life truthfully, and we can live from a place of

freedom, not a place of limitation. Yes.

Limiting ourselves and limiting the possibility of other people to surprise

us. And what I think of when you're talking about, you know, reliving

your rape situation is, like, we torment

ourselves almost. Like, the thing happened, and then, obviously,

there's gonna have to be some healing where it will be difficult. Don't get

me wrong. But it gets to the point where it's like, okay. I wanna

stop tormenting myself now. Like, I'm ready to move

beyond this thing. And for me, it would be

just how I experienced men in my childhood, my

family members, my classmates, and my past

relationships. That's a big one. You know? How disappointing

they were in my perception. They felt

disappointing. Being able to let go of that and be with

my partner now so there's, like, the presence element of being with

my current partner, who, by the way, is incredible. He provides

so much for me, and he freaking adores me. Can

I be with him and, like, savor this current relationship

because I've worked on shedding the layers of

disappointment around men? I think talking about the

torturing ourselves is so important because I do think

doing this work is hard. I think it's a reason most people don't do

it. But when we don't do it, that is the truth. We are

torturing ourselves. We are tormenting ourselves. We are

punishing ourselves. That's how I view it. I was punishing myself over and

over again. And so though it's hard to bring the

awareness and to look at some of these beliefs we have, we

get to no longer torture ourselves. I mean, that's how we become present. That's how

we live in the present where that's where surprises, mystery,

all the good things. You know? We're no longer

convincing ourselves that, oh, I'm not enough. Like, in my case, well,

men are disappointing because I'm not lovable.

I'm no longer telling myself that story. Again, none

of this is about, well, I'm gonna worship men. It's

about me moving on. It's about me moving forward.

Right? However that looks. You know? It's about, it really

is about me. Because me even with the men are weak, it went back

to me. Men are weak, which means I'm not worthy of

protection. Like, that's the belief I had was that I wasn't

worthy of being protected. So it went back to me. I

was shaming men, but, again, it went back to me. So by looking at it,

I get to see that that's not true and that Evan's

protected me for years, and Evan's created a safe environment for years. And I get

to be with the truth of my life, which is that I'm in a beautiful

relationship rather than stuck in the past where it's just

it's not fun. It's really not fun to relive the worst. It's funny

because we relive the worst things we've been through. We forget about

the good times. Like, those just roll on by. They don't get stuck in the

body. So it's like we wanna learn how to, you know, free ourselves of those

past experiences that are keeping us from being present and having the

beautiful life that we deserve and we desire. And I think another

element too so there's the shedding of that

shit, and then there's also the being open to having

a shift of perspective. So I love in the book

I recommend reading this book so that some of this has more

context because something that I really appreciated was

this shift of perspective where she does get into one of the

characters has trouble getting her partner to take the trash out, which is, like, a

thing for me too. K? Kai takes the trash out. I don't do that.

It gets to the point where she realizes through a series of

events that she may have to ask

him to take the trash out. That may be part of this whole

conundrum. And she's like, oh, I don't wanna have to ask him. And

the whole point of it is that might just be part of the

process. But can you be okay with the fact that if he

knows what it provides to you, that it makes your life easier, that

you don't have to get stinky and gross and have a

bad smell, which I freaking hate personally. Ugh. I live

in an apartment building where you have to carry it down the sidewalk, and I

just feel like a freaking ogre carrying that thing. If he knows,

I'm providing that to you. You don't have to go through all of that. You

can feel like a fucking princess because I'm gonna take the trash out.

First of all, tell him that. Tell him what it does for you.

Then, yes, you may still have to tell him to take it out, but

he's going to put it in his mind, in his list of things

to do. It'll be there now, and he'll get to it. So then

there's, like, the dropping of the expectations that he's gonna do it right now.

Right? That's another part of this. We talked about this in the softening episode. Can

we work on our expectations of perfection? Right? That doesn't mean he

has to drop everything and do it now, but he will add it to the

list of of tasks. And it for that, I've

noticed with me too, it's learning to ask before

the resentment has built. Because for me, sometimes I would wait till,

like, it needed to go up right now in my mind, even though I had

noticed for example, I'm thinking about the trash. I've noticed it needs to go out.

It needs to go out. And then I'll ask when, like, I feel like it

needs to go out right now. And then Evan never drops

everything to do it right now, and he doesn't have to. So I've also had

to learn that I need to communicate things before resentment

builds as well. Because normally, the thought is there, and resentment

builds because I haven't said anything or because my expectation hasn't

been met. Mhmm. Yeah. It's pretty funny

too what can happen. I'll share that I did have that conversation

with Kai about what it provides for me to take the trash out,

and that's the kitchen trash. Right? Well, recently, I had noticed that the

bathroom trash was getting to the top. And I was like,

yeah. I'm gonna have to take that out. That one, I don't mind taking out

because it's not stinking and gross. And so it was in my head. I'm gonna

have to take that out. I'm gonna have to take it out. Well, I went

out last night just on my own, and I came home, and it was taken

out. And I was like, That's kinda cool. I didn't even have to

say anything. It just was gone. It was just out. And I will say Kai

is a very clean person, so I wanna put that out there. It's been easy

with him because he is clean. I don't wanna make it sound like it's just

we talked about it, and now it's not a problem. You know, maybe it's

more of a conversation with you and your partner, whoever's listening. But

my point is you might be surprised what happens when you reveal to him what

he provides to you by doing these tasks.

I love that that was your experience. That was not mine. So for anybody out

there, that was not my experience. That's my experience. Yeah. What I have

learned about Evan and I is that our home looks like two

entrepreneurs live here. Like, that's what I've decided is I have

to let go of my house was always clean growing up. I grew up

in a very clean home, and I've just decided at this point

in my life, oh, this is what it looks like for two people to work

from the work for themselves. But Evan will take it out if I ask,

but he hasn't magically remembered on his own

yet. Yeah. I I just wanna remind you guys Kai was a marine, so

that's you know? You know? That's a whole thing, and it's very

nice. I'm lucky that way, but we have our other things.

Right? So this is just one one facet of

existing together. Right? So everybody has their own experience,

and everybody has their own level of some people are so clean. They're,

like, scrubbing the floors every week, and I can't say we're that way.

So everything is a spectrum. Right? What works for you? Yeah. What what

works for you? The whole point is just, can we create a little bit of

wiggle room in our perception? And I realized I

run a really clean household, me. And if

all it takes for me is to say, hey, Kai. Can you take the trash

out today? That's all it takes. That's fine. In the past, I would

have said, why do I have to be the one that's in charge? And I'm

realizing, like, because I like it a certain way. I like

that. That delights me to have a apartment that

smells good and is clean and so on. So that's

why I'm gonna take charge on saying

that. And that's what I've really learned too because I used to be like, why

can't Evan just remember it? Because sometimes I feel like as

a woman, and I think this is a common thought, I carry all these

thoughts in my head, and he doesn't have all the same thoughts. The book

actually goes into it how men are a little more single focused, and women tend

to take in a lot more from their environment, and it goes back to hunter

gather mindset. So hunter is single focus. Gathering, you have to

take a lot of information on it once, and you also have to communicate that

information. And I've just found, like you were saying,

that you know what? If all I have to do is ask Evan to do

it and he does do it and I've communicated what that provides for me, that

can be okay. You know? It's okay that I have that

capacity to remember a lot, and he's willing to support me and help. He

doesn't as I view it as magically remember, but if I ask and he

does it, that's enough for me. That's perfect. That is making my life easier.

And the more I like I said, don't wait till I'm resentful, I

ask when it first pops in my head, the more things ease and

flow within our relationship. Yes. Exactly. And there's

trust involved in that too. I'm gonna say it, and then

I can trust that it will happen in in his time.

And, of course, like I said, this isn't something that you just

implemented and it's runs like a smooth, you know,

system. But maybe it's it takes some time, and there's

whatever. But are you willing to have the conversation? Are you willing to step outside

of your assumptions about men that they're lazy, they're stupid,

they're so on? In fact, maybe creating a list that

was really humbling. In the book, she has you actually

create a list of your beliefs around men, and that can be very

revealing, to put it kindly. I think that's a great

practice for anybody listening is to

create a list about what you believe about men. And if any men are listening,

you could create a list about what you believe about women because I think it

goes both ways. Totally. Yeah. Agreed. This is a two

way process. But I would say the cool part about this

work too is that if you are a woman listening

and your partner doesn't know anything about this, isn't listening to

this podcast, you can still do this stuff on your own.

Maybe he's still having the conversations. Right? But if you shift,

your partner most likely will show up differently

too. Because that's the cool thing about relationships is you don't have to do all

this stuff together, you know, arm in arm, going through all of

this side by side. One of you, you can be, like, a

little bit a couple steps ahead, and then the other comes to

meet that partner. Right? And we can do that. We can shift ourself, and then

our partner gets the choice. It's like an invitation for them to step

up with you. Yeah. I've noticed that time and time

again. Even yesterday, Evan and I had plans for dinner, and then

he mentioned that his friend texted him asking. I was like, well, why don't you

go out with your friend tonight? You and I will go out tomorrow. And he

was like, when did you become so easygoing? This makes my life

so easy. Like, when did this happen? I'm like, I hope it's been a while.

He's like, I think it's been a year, but I'm just realizing it. I'm like,

it was just one of those moments. I was like, cool. That's the work.

Absolutely. It benefits both partners. It's really,

really cool. And I used to think Evan had to do all the same

inner work I did, and I think maybe a lot of women when they first

start believe that too. And it's like you said, it's not the case. We all

can do inner work differently. I think when I do a lot of

the inner work where I'm, like, diving deep and

I change within my relationship, Evan changes and grows too. It just looks different than

me. And that's been one of my beliefs that I've had to change around men

even was that men change differently. They still

change, though. I think I, for a long time, didn't think men change, but women

change, and that's not true at all. I agree. There I would

try to get Kai to do certain things, and it's like he's got his

own journey, and he's done a lot. You know, just it's funny. Going to the

marines was a big one for him. And isn't that funny? It's like a place

where they scream at you and tell you, like, how horrible you are

and, like, that worked for him. Okay. I can't relate, but

hey. Yeah. However, it's how you got there, you know. Right? Like,

it's it's fine. Yeah. It's just different for

everybody. I think also when we free ourselves of the beliefs we hold

about men, we also allow ourselves to be more open minded, and

that's always a gift. It's so much easier to live that way.

So much easier. I think the world could use a few more open

minded people. A few. Do you have any

other thoughts before we wrap up? I think we covered it

all. I think we always end with a mention of compassion.

And while you go through these realizations

about your beliefs with men, having the compassion of there's a reason that you feel

this way. You're not crazy. You didn't just make them up because you're an

angry, you know, bitch. Like, you have reasons.

So can you have compassion and grace for that? A %. I

totally agree with that. I think that the compassion piece, as

always, is so helpful. It allows us to soften to ourselves

and to soften to our truth because it's hard to look at some of this

stuff, and that compassion piece really does help. Agreed.

Thank you so much for joining us for this episode. We are

so grateful for everyone who listens. If you enjoyed this episode, we invite you to

leave a five star rating wherever you're listening to this episode and maybe leave a

review. If you're interested in connecting with us, we have an

Instagram at love under the scope, or you can email us at

loveunderthescope@Gmail.com. We're always open to

episode suggestions or questions. Or if you have any

thoughts on the episode, we're always interested in dialoguing with people.

Yeah. And if you're wanting to get some guidance around

breaking down your beliefs around men, I do that in my

work, in my coaching, so I am available

to work one on one with people. If that

resonates for you, you can find me at

coached by Kelby on Instagram. Yes. And

you can find more information about the podcast and Kelby on our

episode show notes, and the link is in the description. Thank you so

much for joining us for another episode where we looked at Love Under the Scope.

Love Under the Scope is a new view advice production.

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