Some Songs Haunt Us Because They Reveal Our Deepest Struggles
Welcome to this month’s Musical Monday Musings, where I take a song from the soundtrack of my life and explore the truths it reveals about the journey of becoming a man, husband, father, and human being.
Some songs don’t just get stuck in your head—they get stuck in your bones.
Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game is one of those songs.
The haunting melody. The desperate longing in his voice. The way the lyrics strip bare the tension between desire and fear.
It’s a song about the cruelty of love, about wanting something so badly it hurts, about feeling like you’re burning alive, and only one person can save you.
And brother, if that doesn’t sum up the addicted masculine journey, I don’t know what does.
The World on Fire
The song opens with a line that has pierced me since I first heard it at 16, nursing an unrequited crush:
“The world was on fire, and no one could save me but you…”
That image—of a man consumed by flames that only a woman can extinguish—captures something primal in the masculine experience.
The desperate longing. The belief that she holds the key to our salvation.
I first felt it in high school when a girl’s rejection seemed like the end of the world.
I felt it again as a young married man, confused by the persistent ache that marriage was supposed to fix—but didn’t.
And I’ve felt it in moments of marital tension, when the distance between my wife and me felt insurmountable.
This song haunted me because it named the feeling I couldn’t articulate:
That love—or what I thought was love—was a cruel game being played on me.
The Strange Desire
Let’s be brutally honest.
There’s something deeply twisted about longing so intensely for someone that you simultaneously wish you’d never met them.
The song captures this paradox perfectly:
“What a wicked thing to do, to make me dream of you…”
It’s not that we don’t want love.
It’s that we fear the pain that comes with this kind of love—because it doesn’t fulfill us, it only consumes us.
I remember feeling this contradiction acutely after getting married at 20, expecting my longing to finally be satisfied.
When it wasn’t, I felt pain, resentment, and to a degree–like I’d been betrayed—not just by my wife, but by the whole damn concept of love, marriage and relationships.
I remember sheepishly asking older married men about these feelings, ashamed of being so unsatisfied as a newly married man.
Their responses? Useless.
These men lived lives of deep resignation and disappointment—emotional zombies shuffling through their days.
That wasn’t going to be me.
But for years, I thought I had only three options:
- White-knuckle it until I died.
- Wait for my wife to die.
- Or hope the second coming would end all my suffering. (Growing up evangelical leaves its marks.)
Every one of those options led to a big fat state of powerlessness, waiting and stuckness.
(And brother… those are the source of emotional pain. Emotional pain is our body’s way of drawing our attention to powerlessness.)
I’m not proud to admit how much time I spent fantasizing that my wife would meet her demise so I could start over.
That’s how deep my despair was. That’s how trapped I felt.
And this song played in the background of my life during those years, reminding me of that strange, desperate desire that never seemed to go away.
The Shadow Lover in Culture
We are surrounded by reminders of this shadow.
Look at our music, movies, advertising.
How many songs by men are about the agony of wanting a woman? About being saved by her love or destroyed by her absence?
Entire genres—blues, country, rock—are built on this foundation.
How many movies sell us the fantasy that finding the right woman will make us whole?
How many commercials use beautiful women to sell us products, promising that buying this car or drinking this beer will make us worthy of their attention?
Our culture understands the addicted and impotent lover shadows—and it exploits them relentlessly.
It sells us gimmicks, quick fixes, magic bullets—anything to scratch the itch without addressing the wound.
It’s like trying to fill a broken cup.
No matter how much you pour in, it keeps leaking out.
The Feminine Reflects—She Doesn’t Source
Here’s what I learned:
The feminine can play a role in our healing, just as the masculine plays a role in the healing of the feminine.
But the moment we believe that she is the source of our wholeness, we become consumers—sucking energy, needing validation, seeking something from her that she was never designed to give.
And that’s when relationships become exhausting.
When I finally saw this, everything changed.
I stopped looking at my wife as the answer and started seeing her as a reflection—showing me what I was refusing to see in myself.
I stopped needing women to affirm me and instead started owning my own sense of worth.
I stopped trying to get something from relationships and started bringing something to them.
This single shift—going from consuming to cooperating—revolutionized every relationship I have.
Conceptually, it was a relatively simple shift
But it was not fast–and it was anything but easy.
It required a wilderness experience.
The Wilderness Journey: Why Most Men Stay Stuck
This isn’t a quick fix.
It’s not a binary shift. It’s a journey—a hero’s journey, to be precise.
It’s leaving the comfort, confinement, and dependency of the emotional world we’ve known since childhood—the world where we’ve felt safe(ish), even if it wasn’t fulfilling.
From there, we must cross the wilderness of emotional adolescence…
That’s the stage where we aren’t really boys emotionally anymore, but we also haven’t fully stepped into our fullness as emotionally mature, grounded, and confident men.
It’s like standing at the edge of mature masculine adulthood, staring into the unknown, knowing there is no shortcut to get there.
And the wilderness?
- It’s slow.
- It’s confusing.
- It’s painful.
Most men spend 12 to 18 months in this space—if they’re fully committed. I did too.
Some stay far longer because emotional immaturity is painful to let go of.
Not because they have character defects.
Not because they are broken, flawed, or bad men.
But because they are afraid.
And any expansion into the unknown comes with fear.
And fear requires courage.
Why Emotionally Immature Men Stay Stuck
Unfortunately, emotional immaturity leads men to believe they can’t make this journey until they feel different.
But that’s like saying:
“I’m not going to brave the foul weather and traffic to drive across town to the grocery store until I’m already feeling totally satisfied and satiated first.”
That’s not how it works.
This is how emotionally immature men think—they want certainty and comfort before they take the journey.
They want to feel different before they do different.
So… they don’t go.
Instead, they do what seems easier.
They marry a woman and hope she will provide for all their lack.
And for a season?
It works.
She loves him. She pours into him. She tries to be the emotional nourishment he’s been starving for.
Then, something happens.
She gets tired of that gig.
Especially if she has children—because suddenly, the endless, insatiable neediness of her husband feels just like the needs of the kids.
At some point, she wakes up to the pattern and says to herself:
“Wait a minute… this guy’s energy and needs feel an awful lot like the kids’ endless neediness that drains me to depletion.”
And then?
She starts to pull away.
She stops responding the way she used to.
She doesn’t engage as deeply.
She withdraws emotionally, sexually, or both.
She might say things like…
“I need space.”
“I need to find myself.”
“I think we should separate.”
“I want a divorce.”
…or maybe be drawn to the attention and focus of another man who is far easier for her to feel at peace around because he doesn’t feel so damn pressuring (yet, but he will too eventually, because he’s one of these, too!)
But the immature man?
He doesn’t get it.
And that’s when he starts Googling it.
And he finds the diagnosis that makes perfect sense to him…
“My wife has an avoidant attachment style!” or “My wife is a narcissist!” or really, any story that explains to him why she hasn’t yet fulfilled all his hopes and dreams for what a perfect wife was supposed to be like (and to be fair, plenty of women do this to men!)
He starts creating a story in his head about her:
- “She had childhood trauma.”
- “She has deep emotional wounds.”
- “She’s got intimacy issues that prevent her from getting close.”
He becomes obsessed with why she is pulling away…
All while completely failing to see his own role in pushing her away in the first place.
How Some Men Double Down Instead of Waking Up
Some men go further.
Instead of blaming the attachment theory blogs, they go all-in on resentment and judgment.
They tell themselves:
“She’s broken.”
“She’s let me down.”
“She used to love me, but now she’s cold and distant.”
And that judgment poisons the relationship completely.
Instead of taking responsibility for their own emotional immaturity, they double down on her obvious failures.
She can’t win.
If she stays distant, he punishes her with resentment.
If she comes closer, he clings harder, making the whole dynamic worse.
He has created his own suffering, and he has no idea how to fix it.
Because he’s looking at her instead of himself.
Here’s the good news. I have a great track record of helping men who think they have “avoidant wives” completely change the dynamic of their marriage, not by helping him persuade her to change, but by guiding him –as men have done for thousands of years–through a wilderness of emotional adolescence.
The problem –he does not want to go through without her.
But he must.
And if he will, he’ll become a securely attached man, and most often, tend to see the entire dynamic vanish. He’ll come to see how she was avoiding him for good reason – the endless neediness of his emotionally immature, Eros-centric love and his refusal to cross the wilderness.
A man becoming emotionally mature and grounded in healthy masculinity repairs the pursuer-distancer dynamic in marriage (where he is the pursuer).
The Only Way Out of the Wilderness
If a man stays stuck in this pattern, there are only two options:
- She eventually leaves, and he repeats the same cycle with someone new.
- She stays, but they both live in quiet resentment and emotional isolation.
Neither option is a real life.
The only way out?
He has to walk through the wilderness.
No shortcuts. No magic fixes. No hoping she’ll “come back” if he just tries harder.
He has to take the journey that in times past, maybe he would have taken before he ever got married.
And if he does?
Everything changes.
What a Journey with Me Actually Looks Like
For men who are seriously ready to walk through this, the path starts with:
🔥 Step 1: An 8-week one-on-one intensive → Start Here
🔥 Step 2: A year of small group mentoring
This isn’t for men looking for another quick fix.
This is for men who are done playing the game.
The Fire That Burns Away Illusion
The song’s haunting refrain tells us:
“Nobody loves no one.”
In my darkest moments, I believed this was true—that love was just a cruel game we play with each other.
But now I see the deeper truth: We can’t truly love another until we stop trying to use them to complete us.
The fire that burns in those desperate moments of longing?
It’s not meant to consume us.
It’s meant to refine us.
To burn away the illusions we’ve built about what love is and what it’s for.
Are You Ready To Step Into Real Change
Your wife isn’t the problem.
Your longing isn’t the problem.
Your longing is the path. Your wife is a mirror showing you your need to take it.
The only question is: Are you willing to follow it?
👉 If you are, begin your journey here:
P.S. A Note For the Ladies
I want to take a moment to acknowledge you—the women who find themselves entangled in this journey, often feeling like collateral damage to a man’s emotional immaturity.
By the time many men come to me, the cost of their emotional immaturity has already rippled through their relationships, leaving behind frustration, resentment, and deep wounds—for both of you.
I know this is exhausting.
I know that, for many of you, this isn’t just theory. It’s not some philosophical conversation about men’s emotional development.
It’s your life.
It’s the years of feeling unseen, unheard, and emotionally burdened.
It’s the pattern of being more of a caretaker than a partner—feeling like you have to hold the emotional weight of the relationship, navigate his moods, and somehow carry both of you when he emotionally shuts down.
It’s watching him chase your validation and approval instead of standing firm in his own center.
It’s trying to reach for him and feeling like he’s either too needy or too distant—never truly present.
It’s the cycle of him reacting, overcorrecting, placating, or withdrawing, instead of simply being a strong, stable, emotionally mature man you can rely on.
It’s painful. It’s complex. It’s incredibly challenging.
I see you in that.
At the same time, I want you to hear this, because it’s critically important:
A man’s journey from emotional immaturity to calm, grounded masculinity is not an overnight process.
It cannot be rushed.
It cannot be forced.
It cannot be manipulated, pressured, or demanded.
I know that might not feel fair—that you have already given so much, that you have already been patient, that you have waited and waited for him to “get it.”
But if you try to push him, coerce him, or pressure him into growth before he’s truly ready, you will not get a stronger man.
You will get a more reactive man.
And here’s where it gets really dangerous:
If a man feels critiqued, judged, or criticized for the small, shaky first steps of this journey—if he perceives that even his efforts are not enough—he will instinctively retreat right back into the safety of what he knows.
And what he knows?
It’s a world where he’s trying to appease you.
A world where he’s managing your reactions instead of leading his life.
A world where he’s manipulating, placating, and chasing your approval—and you already know where that leads.
It produces more of what’s already exhausting you.
That’s why, in this process, he needs to go on a journey.
And you need to decide where you fit into that.
For some women, that means staying.
For others, that means stepping back and letting him do his work without carrying the weight of it.
For some, it means navigating your own wounds and recognizing that his emotional immaturity has also revealed where you have your own work to do—because no emotionally solid woman allows herself to be depleted for years without questioning it.
This time of transition is deeply uncertain for both of you.
Yet, he is incredibly prone to treating your uncertainty as the reason he shouldn’t take the journey at all.
He will fixate on your reactions and use your frustration as his excuse to stay the same.
This is where you have to hold firm in your own clarity.
Your job is not to lead him.
Your job is not to inspire him.
Your job is not to be so patient that he never feels urgency.
Your job is to be clear about what you will and will not participate in.
Your job is to be honest about what you want and what you will no longer carry.
Your job is to step into your own power and stop waiting for him to become a man before you claim your own clarity.
And that is what actually gives him the best shot at real transformation.
Because the moment he realizes he has no more room to hide, no more excuses to avoid the path, no more ways to pretend he’s doing “just enough” to keep you around—he will either step forward or he won’t.
And that decision is entirely his to make.
But the good news?
If he does take this journey, if he actually does the work, if he stops playing the game of chasing external validation and steps into his own solid masculine center?
The relationship shifts in ways neither of you can imagine.
Because you are no longer the source of his stability, nor the emotional object he’s depending on.
He is standing on his own.
He is leading himself.
And from that place, he can finally show up for you, for himself, and for the life he was meant to build.
If you need my support in this, please reach out and I’ll offer you as much encouragement as I’m able.
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