Front Row Dads with Jon Vroman

Every couple has a dance, and most men have never seen the steps written down.
One of you closes the distance and gets louder. The other creates distance and shuts down. What makes it a loop rather than an argument is that each one's way of coping is precisely the thing the other cannot tolerate. Mark Groves names it, then takes it apart: Gottman's four horsemen, why men stonewall more than women do, and the single sentence that breaks a defensive pattern even though saying it feels awful.
Then the harder half. Groves admits he spent years in a relationship with someone who needed exactly the skills he teaches, and asks the question underneath it: what if you need the problem to be there? What if the fixing is the point?  
 
IN THIS EPISODE
The dance: the distancer, the escalator, and why the loop holds
Gottman's four horsemen, and why men stonewall
"I can see some truth in what you're saying," and why it tastes terrible
Behind every criticism is a desired behavior
"Our defense strategies live beside our greatest wounds"
The kitchen, the deal breaker that kept moving, and what he said instead
What happens to the fixer when the addict gets sober
Why nobody should be 100 percent in with someone who is 99
Unconscious commitments, and needing a battle to fight
Jon on creating problems at home to have something to bring to the room
 
FULL EPISODE
How to Co-Regulate: The Science Behind Relationship Harmony: https://frontrowdads.com/474
 
Want a taste of what Front Row Dads is all about? The Brotherhood Experience is a free, one-hour online session where you meet other like-minded men who are committed to being family men with businesses, not businessmen with families. You will hear the core ethos and values behind the community, and why this brotherhood is a strategy for connecting with your kids, building a thriving marriage, and winning in business. It runs every month. Pick a time that works for you at https://frontrowdads.com/experience

Jon walked into a band meeting with seven things to do and walked out with one.
Episode 4 of Walk With Jon. No studio, no script, no guest, no editing. Jon Vroman walking the lake in downtown Austin on a Wednesday afternoon, thinking out loud. The audio is rough on purpose: traffic, wind, and footsteps are part of the deal.
He recorded this straight out of his monthly band meeting, where he put business on the table. Two things he admits he hasn't always done well: saying his truth out loud instead of withholding it to spare feelings, and being humble enough to ask for counsel. He did both. Then his buddy Tim kept saying the same thing until it stuck: "there's only one thing you need to do after this meeting," and until it's done with excellence, don't do two.
 
IN THIS WALK:
What a band is, if you're new here: four to six men, monthly, real conversations
Withholding isn't lying, but it isn't the truth either
Lead domino, five whys, communal drive: the FRD core values, and the one he wasn't living
Ideation is his top strength, and why that means he needs editors around him
The method in one breath: reveal, get curious, lean on your trusted advisors, pick one thing, execute, follow through
 
Front Row Dads is a brotherhood of family men with businesses, not businessmen with families. To learn more, go to frontrowdads.com.

She calls it puberty in reverse. It can last a decade. And most husbands have no idea it's happening.
 
LIVE WITH DR. HIRSCH, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8TH. 
She is joining the Front Row Dads community for a live session with Q&A on how men can support the women in their lives through menopause. Free for members, and a limited number of guest passes for everyone else. Details at frontrowdads.com/menopause
 
Dr. Heather Hirsch is board-certified in internal medicine, founded the Menopause and Midlife Clinic at Brigham and Women's Hospital, taught at Harvard Medical School, and has treated thousands of women through perimenopause and menopause. She flew to Austin for this one because, in her words, most of the conversation about menopause happens with women, and it's the men who share a bed, a marriage, and a family with them who never get the briefing. This is that briefing.
 
She defines the terms every husband should know, explains what actually happens as the hormones flicker out like a failing light bulb, and walks through what it does to sleep, mood, memory, weight, skin, and sex. Then the practical half: how to bring it up without saying "this explains everything," why tracking symptoms beats blood work, the bedroom at 65 degrees, why so many women see five to seven doctors before the right diagnosis, and what real treatment looks like.
 
Her story is the first 20 minutes. The practical breakdown starts at 19:56.
Find a trained clinician: menopause.org or heatherhirschdirectory.com
Her books: Unlock Your Menopause Type and The Perimenopause Survival Guide
Follow her: @heatherhirschmd
 
Want a taste of what Front Row Dads is actually like? We run a live Brotherhood Experience most months. Jon and a few other dads, 60 minutes on Zoom, and a real conversation about how fatherhood is actually going. It's not a webinar, and you won't leave drained. On any given week, most dads give support and never get any. That's what this hour is for. It's free, and the next date and your seat are both at frontrowdads.com/experience

Most of us don't have a plan for our marriage. We have a repair schedule.
Something breaks, we patch it, things are fine for a while, and then we sit there quietly waiting for it to break again. Lance Salazar lived in that loop.
He describes a defeatist stretch where even when things were okay, he was just wondering when it was going to go bad.
So he and his wife stopped fixing and started designing, borrowing the thing they already knew how to do in business: decide what you want, build a plan, commit to it, track it.
What came out of that is a framework they call the four legendary relationship elements. You. The partnership. The friendship. The lovers. And Lance is insistent about the order, because a great partnership needs a great partner first, and it is very hard to feel like friends with someone you are arguing with about the garbage.
 
IN THIS EPISODE
The cycle of patch, coast, break, repeat, and why it ends in mediocrity
Designing a marriage instead of repairing it
Applying goals, milestones, and actions to a marriage the way you would to a company
Why you can't run a marathon you never trained for
The four legendary relationship elements, and why the order is the point
The partnership loop: finances, kids, the trash, and why couples get trapped there after kids
Tracking it: ten minutes of talking a day, a planner, an actual checkbox
"If you haven't been kissing your wife every day, then you need a reminder"
Why it sounds unromantic and why he does it anyway
How friendship becomes the foundation for intimacy
 
FULL EPISODE
Legendary Couples with Kids: https://frontrowdads.com/39

Jon's eleven-year-old had been more anxious than usual, and his wife told him why.
You have been more stressed at work. He is a reflector. He picks up on your energy. 
Bryan Post takes that and does something more useful than reassurance. Your son has his own part, formed long before this week. You have yours. And the moment you take his behavior personally, you lose the ability to be present for him, because you have made his stuff your stuff. He gives the actual words to use, and the reason they work: all behavior arises from stress; a stressed child regresses to a younger age, and between the stress and the behavior there is only ever love or fear.
Then the part most parents get backward. When your kid's fear frightens you, what you do next is control, suppress, and correct, and you tell yourself that is good parenting. It isn't.
He finishes with the child who goes quiet instead of acting out, what happens when you try to pry that child open, and the one thing that works instead.
 
IN THIS EPISODE
What Jon's wife told him about his own energy
Your part and their part, and why the difference matters
"Every communication is energy"
Why personalizing your kid's behavior costs you the ability to be present
The script: "Dad's been really stressed lately, and I've noticed you have been too"
All behavior arises from stress, and why a stressed eleven-year-old acts like a five-year-old
Love or fear: what actually sits between the stress and the behavior
"You're doing that because you're scared"
Turtle children, and why you cannot dig them out with a stick
The linchpin, the neuroscience behind it, and the Bruce Lee line that sums it up
 
FULL EPISODE
This is a short cut from one of the best conversations on this feed. The whole thing is worth your time: Love-Based Parenting Is Firm, Honest, and Harder Than Yelling Ever Was — https://frontrowdads.com/531
 
Want a taste of what Front Row Dads is all about? The Brotherhood Experience is a free, one-hour online session where you meet other like-minded men who are committed to being family men with businesses, not businessmen with families. You will hear the core ethos and values behind the community, and why this brotherhood is a strategy for connecting with your kids, building a thriving marriage, and winning in business. It runs every month. Pick a time that works for you at https://frontrowdads.com/experience