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.
Music doesn’t just entertain—it penetrates. It sneaks past our intellect and slices straight into the hidden places. For me, Bruce Springsteen’s “Secret Garden” did that more than most.
It haunted me. It poked at an ache I didn’t know how to name for years. An ache that had nothing to do with what I lacked externally and everything to do with what I had not yet touched internally.
The Ache That Won’t Leave
“She’ll let you in her house / If you come knockin’ late at night…”
The opening verse sets the tone—a woman who welcomes access, but with conditions. I recognized that pattern. I’d lived it. The deeper I tried to go, the more I sensed there were limits. Rules. Conditions.
“If you pay the price, she’ll let you deep inside / But there’s a secret garden she hides…”
The first time I heard those lines, something inside me shuddered. They spoke to a frustration I hadn’t yet admitted: that I loved my wife, but I didn’t feel fully connected to her. Not in the way I wanted. Not in the way I longed for.
There was something unreachable. Mysterious. A part of her I couldn’t access no matter how present, devoted, or intimate I tried to be.
I spent years believing that was her fault. That if she could just trust me more, relax more, love me better—that final wall would come down.
But that belief was a cover for my own confusion. And my own disconnection from myself.
The Frustration of Long-Term Love
“She’ll let you into the parts of herself / That’ll bring you down…”
If you’ve been in a long-term relationship, you know what I mean.
In the beginning, connection feels electric. Everything about her is new, exciting, mysterious. You’re captivated. She’s receptive. You both feel chosen.
Then life happens. Routines take over. Kids, work, exhaustion, years. And that connection gets buried under responsibility. Passion becomes practicality. Romance turns to logistics.
And what no one tells you is how deeply frustrating that shift can be—not just sexually, but emotionally, energetically, spiritually.
It’s not that you want a different woman. It’s that you want her. The version of her you remember. The part of her you felt when you first fell in love mixed with another part of you that you know is in there but that she’s not giving you access to.
And when all those parts seems gone or locked away, it can start to mess with your head.
When you hit mid-life in that condition… you start thinking some hard things asking yourself some tough questions…
“Is this all there is?”
“‘Will I ever find what I’m looking for?” (Maybe U2 will be next month, ey?)
“Time is running out. I’m worried I won’t find what I long for before it’s too late.”
“Should I cut bait and start over while there’s still time?”
“Did I marry the wrong partner?”
What We’re Really Longing For
Here’s the thing. By this point, we’re desperate. What do we do?
What’s the freakin entry code to the gate of this garden?!
“She’ll let you in her heart / If you got a hammer and a vise…”
That line is brutal. It points to the masculine impulse to force closeness. To work harder. To break through. But it never works.
“Into her secret garden, don’t think twice.”
You can’t force your way in. You can’t perform your way there, either.
That lyric captures it all. The agony of almost. The hope that keeps you trying.
But here’s what I came to see: I was longing for something I hadn’t yet given myself.
What I thought I was missing in her wasn’t actually about her.
It was about me.
What I craved wasn’t sex. Or romance. Or better communication.
It was the experience of intimacy. But intimacy (into-me-see) does not consume. It witnesses.
A kind of soul-level knowing that awakens both the lover and the beloved.
But I wasn’t showing up to know her that way. Because I hadn’t yet known and witnessed myself that way. I was asking her to give me what I wouldn’t give myself—emotional honesty, acceptance, respect, admiration, reverence, vulnerability, beauty, awe.
A mature woman is unlikely to open up to a man asking her to complete him. (In real life, Jerry McGuire would have been divorced eventually when Dorothy Boyd got sick of his neediness)
The Mistake Most Men Make
When we don’t understand this ache, we look for the answer in all the wrong places. We blame. We numb. We fantasize. We seek emotional charges elsewhere. Sometimes that leads to infidelity. Sometimes it’s porn. Or work. Or chasing some spiritual experience that will finally fix it.
“You’ve gone a million miles / How far’d you get?”
The answer? Not far.
Because none of those things solve the real challenge:
That we, as men, often seek fulfillment from the feminine way before we have developed the capacity to witness and hold her.
The Secret Garden Isn’t Hers Alone
“She’ll lead you down the path / There’ll be tenderness in the air / She’ll let you come just far enough / So you know she’s really there…”
hat was the experience I kept having. So close. Almost. But not quite.
Here’s what finally changed everything:
I realized the secret garden wasn’t something my wife was hiding and keeping me out of.
Without wholeness—self-worth that comes from within—the stakes are too high for her to open. She can’t trust herself to open when what’s inside her might be taken to soothe what’s been avoided in him. Whatever we’ve neglected in ourselves, we’ll be tempted to extract from her sacredness.
It would be like walking through the gate of a beautiful garden you didn’t plant—only to cut the flowers, leave, and put them on your table to slowly wither. And needing to return again and again doing the same just to feel whole.
I learned this firsthand—ironically—as I began literal gardening. You don’t just take beauty. You cultivate it. You tend to it. You learn to be present with it. Or it dies. It’s best enjoyed where it is (in the garden), not where I am.
And so I saw:
It was something I hadn’t yet cultivated within myself.
The garden is not a place of access. It’s not something we earn, unlock, or possess. It’s not about trust, approval, or even closeness.
It’s about reverence.
And reverence requires presence. Stillness. Power. And most of all—wholeness.
When a man is fractured, reactive, emotionally needy, the garden closes. Not to punish him. But to invite him to remember a better version of himself and to protect what is sacred in each of them.
What the Garden Responds To
“Then she’ll look at you and smile / And her eyes’ll say / She’s got a secret garden / Where everything you want / Where everything you need…”
That smile only comes when she senses your coherence, when your presence asks for nothing but honors everything.
When I began to show up with more steadiness instead of performance. When I offered my presence without expectation. When I began to feel the ache without outsourcing it to her.
That’s when something shifted.
She began to open. Not because I cracked the code. But because I stopped treating her like one.
The garden began to bloom because I had finally prepared the soil.
That’s what nature plainly teaches us. It’s in the DNA of living things to blossom, flourish, and multiply.
The Hero Complex and the Trap of Self-Abandonment
Men are taught to be heroes. To save. To sacrifice. To rescue.
But here’s the hard truth:
When your sacrifice is rooted in emptiness, it’s not love. It’s manipulation.
Not overt. Not conscious. But still… a trade.
“I’ll give you all of me… if you make me feel worthy.”
That kind of heroism always backfires.
Because real intimacy isn’t built on dependency. It’s built on freedom.
And freedom requires two whole people choosing each other, not leaning on each other to avoid themselves.
Becoming the Kind of Man the Garden Opens To
When I stopped trying to be her hero, I started becoming my own.
That meant facing my shame. Tending my wounds. Stopping the chase.
It meant becoming the kind of man who could witness beauty without needing to possess it.
And the kind of man who could invite connection by the way he lived in connection with himself.
For many men, this realization brings deep disappointment. We’ve spent years trying to get into the garden. We’re in a rush to reconnect. And, if we’re honest, that same urgency shows up in the bedroom, too. We want intimacy on demand. Now.
But this wasn’t bad news for me. It was the best thing that ever happened. It needed to happen.
Because the true reward was never the garden. It was in becoming the gardener.
The garden isn’t the prize. It’s the celebration.
And you know what… I’ve got a lot of growth to experience in this still. That’s okay! It’s not about perfection but stewarding what I do have so that I can be ready to experience more.
Teaching Our Sons and Daughters Something Better
For my sons, I now remind them of this: You are the hero of your own story. Do not seek worth by fixing a woman. Cultivate your own garden first.
For my daughters, I’m instilling them with better beliefs: You don’t need to be rescued. Your power is already within you. A grounded man will see it and honor it but never try to own it. Be patient while he figures this out (it’s not likely to happen before a long-term relationship) while holding on to yourself, your values, and your self-leadership in the process.
This is the kind of intimacy that transforms families. The kind that builds legacies.
It’s transformed mine, and I believe it will continue to do so.
The Ache Is the Invitation
If you feel the ache I’ve described, you’re not broken. You’re being summoned.
That ache is not something to escape. It’s something to listen to. Because on the other side of that ache isn’t more frustration. It’s fulfillment. Depth. Peace. Presence. Fullness.
It’s a secret garden that opens not when you demand access, but when you become the kind of man who knows how to be still enough to see it.
Unsure how to get started? I can help.
Download the FREE GUIDE: The Longing That Won’t Leave (below).
This is where the journey begins.
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