Anna Goff: Hello and welcome to the Align Podcast. I am your host, Anna Goff, and I am here with Molly Rubish, and we are so excited to welcome Max Trombley to our podcast today. You probably recognize him from many social media platforms. He is the calm voice of masculine and feminine energy on the internet, and so we are just so blessed to have him here. Max is a powerhouse life coach and modern thought leader based in New Orleans, Louisiana. He's a devoted husband, father, and leading voice for the reclamation of the healthy and mature masculine. Max has become an unstoppable force in the self growth space, amassing over 700,000 engaged followers across social media in just two years. Very impressive. His work spans individual men. Women and couples within relationships alike, guiding them through transformational coaching rooted in ancient wisdom, therapeutic insight, relational teachings, and radical accountability. Max is committed to helping men and women rise into true maturity, self-empowerment, and the capacity to create deep love, igniting relationships where depth, passion, and purpose become the foundation of the extraordinary lives we are all we all dream of living. And that is an amazing bio and hallelujah to that, right? So welcome.
Max Trombly: Yeah. Yeah. It's a you know, it's a bit of a prayer, like the bio as prayer, but that's what I hope for the world.
Anna Goff: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And it's It's something that I think most of us hope and and sometimes we get to experience it, whether it's a slice of it or a big piece of it. and if we haven't experienced it yet, I think we're all hopeful that we will at some point. So yeah, yeah. So tell us a little bit about what got you started. What did you go through personally that kind of made your decision to start, you know, helping other people?
Max Trombly: Yeah. Well The easiest way I can tell this story is when I look at the totality of my life, sort of before the age of thirty-five. I grew up with a great mom and a good home and then she got sick when I was young. So around fifteen, sixteen, she died. And from this period of like fifteen to thirty five, I was just in like hardship. Like life wasn't working well. I didn't attract the right partners. I didn't know how to build good relationships. I was pursuing a career that was sort of fulfilling and successful enough, but not like thriving in my work. And You know, I got to a point where I just realized like there's something not working. And, you know, the underlying piece that I've talked about on some podcasts is my ex-wife had a pretty, really intense mental disorder. And so I was trying to figure out how to work with that and how to support it and hold it. And that opened my mind to this idea that like our mind is a thing to reckon with and like mental wellness is a thing to reckon with and look at. And so I started to learn how to meditate and how to like find stillness within myself, and then from there I started to realize that reaction Is different from how I had been experiencing it before, and that means there's different things I can do in it. Like I can choose to love differently, I can receive love differently, I can create relationships more consciously. Like all this just started to emerge. This is about 13 years ago. And from that point forward, I was committed to learning as much as I could, integrating it into my life, and sharing it with men. So I just started meeting with men around a fire, and I did that for a decade every single month, with just a few months off during the early pandemic. And at At some point I became a coach, people asked me to, you know, help them with their actual lives and that's now what I do for a living. Yeah.
Anna Goff: It's amazing. I love that.
Molly Rubesh: What did those campfire settings look like initially?
Max Trombly: Yeah, it was really interesting because I had no format for it. but I knew a therapist who had done group therapy work. So I called her and I was like, How do you run a group? And I knew a guy who had studied as a monk, and I called him and I was like, How do you hold people spiritually? And between the two of them, I kind of came up with a concept and basically I invited people to my house, I cooked dinner, and then we sat around a fire and talked about a topic that I I would choose. And so it was really casual at first, but by the time I completed sort of a decade of men's circles, the final circles were in a big yoga studio. I had, you know, a circle of cushions and we were all sitting there. We would do check-ins and, you know, topic teaching, practice, QA support, feedback. It was all it went from as casual as it could be, like dinner in a fire, to like the most professional men's work kind of experience that I could create. so that's sort of the arc across ten years. And meanwhile, you know, I filed for divorce. I did this whole dating process and eventually found Kelly, my wife, and you know, we're nine years in at this point and we have two kids and so I'm living kind of that dream life that I wanted, you know, to find my way to. You know, twelve years ago when I initially embarked on this journey.
Anna Goff: That's amazing.
Molly Rubesh: Amazing.
Anna Goff: Do you feel like like the men that you were attracting when you first started this campfire. because I I feel like women are really good about community. We you know, we have moms groups and you know, things when our kids are little and then we have the we're good about connection and men just tend to not have that. So, not in a not in the same way. You know, it's around sports and alcohol typically, or golf or whatever. Right, exactly. And so
Max Trombly: Yeah. Like high school friend groups. Totally.
Anna Goff: in doing this, like how have you seen the transformation of who or I guess the the group of men that started coming to you, how is it different now for like the people you're attracting?
Max Trombly: That's really astute question, just the awareness that that would change. Early on, the men were kinda like loose and messy. Like there's no other way to cut it. Like spiritual growth men are kind of like they're not very contained and they're not very driven. They're more just like, I'm discovering life. And so that's the kind of group that I originally had. And that was also a reflection of me. And so I can own that piece there too. but as I got more like kind of integral in the way that I held my life and more discerning in the way that I, you know, chose next right moment, next right action. The looser men, the ones that were still in active addiction or just like perpetually chasing experience, kind of fell off because I don't live that way. And what was replaced was men that were really like, No, how do I change my life experience? Like, how do I really change the nature of my marriage or the way that I'm pa you know, fathering my children? So I ran a men's program last year and when I had the men in a room and I could really feel them, I was like, wow. Like these men are like forty to sixty. They have grown kids. Like these are real men. Not like, you know, I'm journeying to Peru next week for some whatever. You know what I mean? Like these are fathers that I like
Anna Goff: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Peter Pan.
Max Trombly: they're driving their kids to high school or like, you know, college for the first time. So yeah.
Anna Goff: Yeah, yeah.
Molly Rubesh: So you talk
Max Trombly: Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: about like in your bio it said the thing that stood out the most was ancient wisdom. So are you returning people back to the deeper knowing and then tapping into like our soul's purpose or what does that necessarily mean?
Max Trombly: Yes. Exactly. no, that that's you you kind of you kinda
Molly Rubesh: I love it.
Anna Goff: There. We're coming at these questions that people probably don't typically ask.
Max Trombly: like the biggest idea in the world, you just nailed in one sentence. let me put it this way. We live in a world in a culture today where there's almost like too many options and too many things to chase.
Molly Rubesh: Mm-hmm.
Max Trombly: Like you can basically get out of high school and be like, I can do anything. And there's enough safety and security in our society that like you can get away with maybe not working until you're 35 because you live in your parents' basement or like you can casually date and not be serious about creating a family. Like these are things that people can do these days. That was never an option. And until the eighteen hundreds we were mostly hunkered down on like get a job, s you know, survive, marry, have kids, and like take care of that like that unit. And So in this modern culture where everything's on the table and it's basically like an ice cream shop with like five hundred flavors, how do people choose correctly to create a fulfilling life? Like what does that actually mean? What does soul's purpose really mean? And, you know, I kinda looked at the field of what's existing currently and everyone seems to think that they're thriving in their soul's purpose. But what I started to notice is a lot of these people only last like two years and then they change everything. And it's like, well, is that real? We live in an Instagram world where everyone's just like, I'm thriving, and it's like, you literally just moved to Bali like a week ago. Like, is that
Anna Goff: Mm-hmm.
Max Trombly: really a sustainable thrive? And what I wanted to know is like, what does it mean to actually build a fulfilling life? And so the only way that I could figure out how to do it is what if I study fulfillment two thousand years ago? Or what did to really thrive in life four thousand years ago look like? And I'm a s like a student of archaeology. Like I love like learning about ancient history and I have the whole wall of artifacts from like, you know, man, the the dawn of mankind. And, you know, I really thought about like as I was holding this axe head that was from five thousand years ago, like what would that man like what was his life? And it's basically like, I'm here to take care of her, them, and make sure that we're good. And like at a foundational level, that's like the primary colors of life. And when I started to realize that, it really simplified things because I have a wife and kids. And I had all these friends that were kind of chasing experiences, but I'm looking at my wife and kids going like, no, they need to be like cared for, like in a real serious way. And I look at like, you know, the women in the world that are like, We don't need a man, but I'm like looking at my wife and she's like, No, she needs me and I need her. Like we need
Molly Rubesh: Yeah.
Max Trombly: to actually do like real life here together. And I was just seeing this distortion between what our culture is talking about or pursuing or thriving as for temporary periods of time and the reality of the human experience. And I'm like, there's a serious truth that most people are missing right now. Like how to hold and sustain relationship truly, how to really raise kids so that they're emotionally healthy and competent. What does it look like to hold my wife through our seventies and eighties? Like no one's even thinking about that. They're just like, What are we doing this year? And so when I started to really look at this idea, like my role is to hold her, to hold them, to really do this life together as a, you know, as like a spiritual practice, it really just changed the way I experienced life. I don't really need any of the things that you know, some of those people I used to hang around with like do. Like what I'm here to do is make sure my kids are good every day, make sure my wife is good every day, make sure we're thriving, we have a great, passionate love life. Like things are good here in home. And once I kind of pivoted that way, that's when I realized just how much we're missing in our modern culture. Like we're just trying to find things outside of our home to feel good, but actually it's your home where you can really create thrive. You know?
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: And the human experience comes with suffering. I mean, it's just
Max Trombly: Yeah, yeah.
Molly Rubesh: the one guarantee that you're gonna have. And so if you
Max Trombly: Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: have your infrastructure of your family or your soul is at peace with accepting and being able to receive that, what a beautiful gift. The
Max Trombly: Yeah. Totally.
Molly Rubesh: so you said it so beautifully because I think everybody that is listening would say, Yes, how do I get my husband to hold The home this way. And I think there's a disconnect on how we articulate it. So women are like, you don't see me, you don't understand. I've been asking.
Max Trombly: Yeah, there is.
Molly Rubesh: And they almost get louder or detached or frustrated. And it and maybe comes out in contr feels like it's control or disappointment, or the woman goes into her masculinity. So how do women do a better job articulating that they just want to be safe with their
Max Trombly: Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: man?
Max Trombly: Well that's a really good question.
Molly Rubesh: And safety doesn't mean like beat up the bully in the alley. It means like
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: safe at home. So how do we help our listeners articulate that missing piece in their home?
Max Trombly: The first thing just around emotional safety is articulating it through the lens of For me, safety is being understood in my experience. Like any woman
Molly Rubesh: Mm.
Max Trombly: that can explain that in that sentence structure should start to unlock that it's not about his reality or the facts of the moment, like what just actually happened, according to him. It's more like she's having an experience and him understanding that experience is where safety will come from. That's the first
Molly Rubesh: Mm-hmm.
Max Trombly: piece. But the bigger and more important piece is that when women truly own that they need their men, like if you look at your husband and you say, I look, I I need you and I need you to understand this for the sake of us and like our future, rather than you're not getting it right, you're not doing what I need. I hate this, I can't stand you, you know, I need you. If you can get into that posture as a woman, like that is an evocation or an invitation of his capacity.
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: Need you. You know, like that's a real request versus like I hate you and you're wrong. Yeah.
Anna Goff: Right. Or everything
Molly Rubesh: Yeah.
Anna Goff: acting as a criticism, which I I feel like a lot of times in relationships when a woman brings something up, a man views it as I'm not doing it right, not an invitation to have a conversation about how can we make this better. so do you find that people are more receptive of going through this hard stuff and having these hard conversations with second marriages than they are with first? Because I know Molly and I have this dream of Helping couples before marri before their first marriage to understand like you know what things you're going to go through and what it's going to be like when you're 80, and how do you deal with finances and how do you deal with all the hard things in a relationship? However, everyone in going into their first marriage thinks I will never be the one that gets divorced. I will never have the hard time. So how can we help people not only for their first marriage, but going into a second marriage very intentionally ab you know, about building on these things so it's not a conversation that has to come down the line after, you know, s as a repair or something.
Max Trombly: Most people have not considered that there's a different way to do life than what we were taught and programmed by our parents. Like that's kind of the beginning of consciousness, which is like, I can do things differently and I can see things through a different lens. So what I would say is that whoever kind of awakens first in a relationship or whoever is a human being that has more depth of understanding in relationship, like bringing that as a concept into your relationship is really important. Like there are ways to do relationships that I don't think either one of us even know. Because like, you know both of our parents wouldn't have known this. That's kind of an easy way to open this idea. Now I think, you know, for any individual that wants to approach creating a deeper experience of relationship, you have to do you first. Like, I have to know what my love languages are, I have to know what my sensitivities are, I have to know what my like where my triggers and wounds are, so I can start taking responsibility for them. Not only inviting her to love me the way I need to be loved, but also like owning my own emotional wellness, right? When any individual becomes sort of a more emotionally well in relationship, it's also emotionally sovereign, which means you kind of stop being in the drama cycles that we create in relationship. Because you can be like, hold on, we're not gonna do this again. Like I love you too much to do this cycle again. When you can stop that habit of the unconscious previous way, that's where everything really changes. Does that make sense?
Anna Goff: Mm. Yeah. Yeah.
Max Trombly: So it really does start with like do you first, I do me first, like handle your own wellness first so that you can kinda pause your own way of perpetuating the habits that you've lived as, you know, forever. And then
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: when these things are kicking up, being like, Hold on, like let's try something different. And then you have to kind of deal with like how long it takes for the partner to catch up to that idea and the p the possibility of it. So if you can get support, that can happen a lot faster. and you know, when it comes to men, that's one of the things I've really tried to master is like how do I help men understand as quickly as possible that there's a different way. 'Cause I'm I don't wanna like be in the muck and the drama of a man being like, but it's like she's having a different experience and like the facts are the facts. Like I just go away with that. Like, let's be actually real.
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: Like you're two individuals having
Molly Rubesh: Yeah.
Max Trombly: a completely different experience. Let's understand each other.
Anna Goff: Right.
Max Trombly: And, you know, so the way I teach men I can really kind of break through the confusion and and I guess the chaos of it and just you're like, here's what here's what women need from us. And if you can nail
Anna Goff: Mm-hmm.
Max Trombly: this, you're gonna have the best life in the world. Like literally that's how I teach it. which is a pretty inspiring take.
Anna Goff: Mm-hmm.
Molly Rubesh: do you get I mean, you know, obviously you've got your followers on Instagram and and it's resonating. Are you getting pushback from men that think you know, I mean clearly we g I get pushback all day long from men. But
Max Trombly: Sure. Yeah.
Anna Goff: We get pushed back. We're used to that.
Molly Rubesh: if as a man that's speaking about kind of doing life a different way, are you getting pushback to still maybe that that more closed off or that different soul level or you know, somebody that's not interested in hearing it, do you get a lot of criticism?
Max Trombly: Yeah. I mean I like seven hundred thousand followers online, so like every time I put out a video someone's got something to say. But I mean the majority
Molly Rubesh: Mm-hmm.
Max Trombly: of people are really supportive and, you know, really get what I'm out here doing. but like I'm always gonna have some random person that doesn't follow me. Like they hear what they think they're hearing from my content and they're gonna like, This is bullshit. Like, why is it always on the man? And I'm just like, whatever. I don't respond to it. I you know, if it's particularly
Molly Rubesh: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Mm-hmm.
Anna Goff: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah.
Max Trombly: vicious I just block people 'cause it's just like I don't look this is not like a freedom of speech place. Like my comments are part of my you know what I mean? So I protect it
Anna Goff: Right.
Max Trombly: well and I also protect people that are in it. So if people are fighting in my comments, like I'll just get rid of the people that just like I don't know where that came from, but you're out. Yeah. Yeah. I
Anna Goff: Right. Yeah, yeah. I do the same thing.
Max Trombly: you're kind of standing in a town square just being like, here's my thoughts and like you're gonna have people that come in that throw tomatoes and you just gotta like, whoa, like I see. Yeah.
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: Well, and it more and it's less about even s find social media, of course there's gonna be haters, it's more about reflecting or it's better it's an example of the pool that we're dealing with. So if that is an indicator of then women going in women and men going into the dating world, you're in the beginning you got the endorphins going, you've got the oxytocin, you've got good passion and you're dating, and then all of a sudden you start seeing that there's all these the dichotomy of belief systems and then we're entering into marriages and then everybody wants to know why marriages aren't working and why we should just stick it out. You should just try harder, do more, try harder. But we're actually speaking very, very different languages. And so it'd be interesting like your mission has to be actually way, way bigger than even seven hundred thousand to hit the billions of people entering into relationship.
Max Trombly: I'll go there. Yeah. to that to the exact moment you were just talking about. When I was dating, I was shocked how many women were not available for real relationship. I dated like 17
Molly Rubesh: Mm.
Max Trombly: women before I met my wife, and that's not that many. Across a year, it was like one or two dates
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: a month. A few of them I went on like a couple dates with. But yeah, like 17 of them were just like, no, they're not oriented in their mid-30s toward real relationship. Like they're like, I'm finding myself or I don't know where I'm gonna live. And it's like, I was looking for the mother of my children. So when my wife popped up, I was like, What are you looking for in relationship? And she was like, I'm looking for someone to build a really beautiful relationship with. And I was like, Boom. You're my lady. Like, I chose
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: her that day. Because she was serious about relationship, which is that's like the real gold. Finding a person
Anna Goff: Mm-hmm.
Max Trombly: that's like, I wanna be in love, I wanna be married, I wanna be in relationship. If you can find someone that says that, then you actually like that's a good starting point. Because most people are not that, you know.
Anna Goff: Right. So when you're dating later at you know, and have previous partners or children or other things in the mix I think sometimes people are more standoffish about inviting someone into their world because it's different when it's two single people and you're like, okay, yeah, even if you've
Max Trombly: When you have kids, yeah, totally.
Anna Goff: been married before, you know, deciding when to bring someone into your world. And then also the red flag. So, you know, typically we're on our best behavior. But what I have found in dating after divorce and dating other people. People have been divorced, is people tend to lay it all out on the line. And like, this is who I am, this is what I want. So, when people show you some things that might be red flags, like, how do you know whether to work through them or whether to turn and run the other way?
Max Trombly: Hmm. Yeah, I was when I was dating I was pretty good at no. Like I was just like, No, not my person. That's okay. Have a nice day. You know? I don't need many red flags. In fact I had committed to pretty much like zero red flags. And my ex wife, like the situation that happened in my first marriage was incredibly difficult. And I was just like, I need to get this right completely. Like I'm not willing to even have slightly wrong in my next relationship. I don't know how else to explain it. I need to find someone that's mentally healthy, that has happiness as a core way of being, and that has vitality and the capacity for energy and wants to be a really great mother. Like that's like literally what I was looking for. And even if you have older kids, like you want someone that's like if you have kids, don't date people that don't have kids. That's like number one rule, you know, because
Anna Goff: Right.
Max Trombly: once you have kids, you understand that there's more to life than yourself. And so if you have kids, you're in that orientation. And if you date someone that doesn't, like they just don't understand what that is. And so there's an imbalance of un like depth, you know.
Anna Goff: Mm. Yeah, I found that. Yeah.
Max Trombly: So that would be the first one. Vitality, happiness, the capacity to understand relationships. Like those are the massive green lights.
Anna Goff: Mm-hmm.
Max Trombly: You know?
Molly Rubesh: And I like the thought of wanting to be in relationship. And so if you put that first, like I want to be in relationship. I love love. I love love. And
Max Trombly: Exactly. Exactly.
Molly Rubesh: I want to be married to my husband. And fortunately, we have a good marriage, but because we pour into and prioritize each other versus like, you made me mad or you didn't do this today or a You know, of course those things could happen or we get annoyed because we're human, but at the core of it is deep love and partnership where we actually care about one another. And if we hurt one another, we want that repair and we want to grow. And and I think that's the difference of when you get married. Like I met my first husband when I was twenty four, I grew up in the Midwest. I went to high school. I went to college. I got my degree. My friends were getting married. It was time to get married. I needed to get married so then I could have kids so then I could do my thing. And I never stopped and this is no fault of either one of us, except for I didn't know that there was a different way to your point to do life. And I didn't know that I was allowed to go, whoa, what is relationship? What is marriage? What is partnership? More than just you guys live together and play house and have kids. I n I didn't even know what I didn't know.
Max Trombly: That's exactly it. We don't know what we don't know. You know? But
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: And so we have to be more forgiving for people who f who have marriages that end in divorce because n nobody chose Get divorced. Nobody, we didn't get none of none of the three of us got married the first time with hopes that that marriage would end in divorce. But we also were young people marrying a young person, regardless of age, right? Young emotionally even. And it's almost like the beauty.
Max Trombly: We do our best to choose through the frame of life that we have when we're young. And that's a very different frame than we have when we're older, you know? Like when I was eighteen thinking about my life, I was thinking about it from a completely different frame. You know, what car I chose, what I was gonna do with my time. Like I wouldn't choose any of those things today.
Molly Rubesh: Right.
Anna Goff: Right.
Molly Rubesh: Right.
Max Trombly: And yet here we are getting into
Anna Goff: Right.
Max Trombly: relationships, tying a knot, having kids. And it's like sometimes here's the thing. Not everybody has to divorce. The divorce rate's like forty-eight, fifty percent or something
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: like that. So like there are some people that chose well enough that they can make it work. And I live in a part
Molly Rubesh: Mm-hmm.
Max Trombly: of the world where there's a lot of kind of long term, multi-generational family systems. So I see what functioning
Anna Goff: Mm-hmm.
Max Trombly: marriages look like, you know, across thirty years, forty years, the first marriage is working. But then there's this other group, which we I guess we're a part of where we maybe chose a misaligned truth, you know, without seeing it at the beginning. And so then we we become aware of that and let's just have grace and recognize that's okay. Like I I filed for a divorce and then I started over. And then I chose right. And now I'm building the life I'm here to build. You know?
Anna Goff: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which is so beautiful and
Max Trombly: Yeah.
Anna Goff: and I do think, you know, I was married for eighteen years. So it was a long time. And y as you go through life and life stressors and you don't know how you're going to handle certain situations and how one person may evolve differently than another person. And I love, you know, the concept of really deciding what you want for your relationship and committing to that and growing together and being very honest about what you need and looking at it as like because I'm telling you this is a need, it's not a criticism of your ability to fulfill that or for me to be able to fulfill that, but this is this is what I need in my life.
Max Trombly: it. So you s your first marriage was eighteen years, is that what you say? What
Anna Goff: Yeah, yeah.
Max Trombly: about you, Molly? How long?
Molly Rubesh: I love it.
Max Trombly: Okay. So when I was dating, one of the bigger green flags was the capacity for sustained relationship. So I was a
Anna Goff: Mm-hmm.
Max Trombly: basic no to anybody at 35 that did not have at least a six year relationship. And when
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: I found my wife, ideally what I was looking for was someone who was either like a widow or had filed for
Anna Goff: Uh-huh.
Max Trombly: divorce and even potentially had a kid. Because I
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: was looking for someone that I just I'm not here to like play around. Like I want a serious response. Like what are you looking for in life? When I met my wife,
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: it was the exact same situation that I had just been through. Like her ex had a mental thing, my ex had a mental thing. So we both kind of filed for divorce and we were like, I want a real relationship. And the irony
Anna Goff: Mm-hmm.
Max Trombly: is that she had heard about men's work. And so I'm in we're in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: I was running a men's circle in New Orleans. She literally looked up New Orleans men's work, but like I wasn't on the internet yet. I was only on text based. And
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: so we were like searching for each other a year and a half before either of us really came into the dating space. It's crazy. Yeah, yeah, it's amazing.
Molly Rubesh: No.
Anna Goff: That's amazing. That's
Max Trombly: I think the thing that I was really trying to point to is that for both of you, like if you were dating today, you would need to find men that had been in like a ten year and sustained it, you know.
Anna Goff: Yeah, absolutely.
Max Trombly: versus these like I met a woman at thirty five, she like yeah like her longest relationship was three months and I was like, Cool, we are definitely not aligned here you know.
Anna Goff: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I was engaged to somebody that I had known for thirty-five years. We grew up together and he didn't have kids and and had never been married and he was forty-seven. And it didn't work because of those things, because my capacity was different than his because of the way that, you know, I dated and lived with my ex and we got married and had a baby and moved across the country. So like the capacity grew over time over seventeen years, eighteen years of marriage and when you're dating somebody that doesn't have that it's just it's not going to align. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. No.
Max Trombly: It's different frequency of life. Yeah. And it's no shame for those people. It's just that for people that are if if you've had a 10-year relationship and you're looking for a real relationship, you just have to know what the field of play really looks like. And it's like people that have been in long term, you know. And I'm just I'm just actually putting
Anna Goff: Yeah, absolutely.
Max Trombly: that in the pot for your listeners and anyone that's kind of walking this walk is like save yourself the headache of dating people that don't have the experience that you would need to feel safe across time.
Anna Goff: Mm. I think that makes so much sense.
Molly Rubesh: Yeah, and that's interesting because I do think that there is a little appeal, like we blended a family. So I could see where there'd be some attraction to, this person doesn't have any children, and then you don't have to have the step-parenting and the ex-wife code family dynamic. So I it's interesting to see where there could be benefit to both, but the bigger key factor is maybe they were married for a long time and they just didn't have children. Or they have the capacity to hold
Max Trombly: That's totally t yeah.
Molly Rubesh: a long term relationship.
Max Trombly: Well and that's another reason I wanted to put this in the pot, 'cause it's not just whether they have kids or not. It's also it's like, do they have depth of potential in relationship, you know? And I
Molly Rubesh: Mm.
Anna Goff: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Max Trombly: hear exactly what you're saying. So like if you have kids and you've divorced and you're kind of co-parenting there and you want to bring someone in, like, yeah, like there are different ways we can arrange that. I'm not just trying to like take half this group of people and be like, You're you're not valuable. but but at the same
Molly Rubesh: You're done.
Anna Goff: No.
Max Trombly: time when you're dating, you should have such a degree of d discernity that you're willing to say no to like ninety-nine percent of people so you can find the one that really works. Does that make sense? Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: Yeah, I do, yeah.
Anna Goff: Absolutely. Yeah. And a and when that's great. And and when people show you who they are, believe them, right?
Max Trombly: Yeah, believe it. Yeah, exactly. And be willing to actually own the judgment that you know is true. That's the thing. Everyone's all
Anna Goff: Right.
Max Trombly: like non-judgmental, but like when someone tells you like I don't know what I want to do with my life, actually that means a lot. And I don't need that in my life. You know what I mean? Versus my wife
Anna Goff: Right, right, right.
Max Trombly: when I met my wife, my son was three. So she
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: had a son. She came to me and she was just like, Yeah, I'm looking for the father of my son and like, you know, someone that can really build a family together. And I was like, that is exactly what I'm here for.
Molly Rubesh: Mm, that's cute.
Max Trombly: versus I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know if I'm gonna live here for the next six months, like which is kinda like the woman I had dated right before my wife. So like contrast was intense, yeah.
Anna Goff: Yeah. Yeah. So when you're going into a relationship so I talk a lot about financial security and safety and having having that dynamic I am often accused of being very untraditional, but I'm very traditional. I was a stay-at-home mom for 15 years. I loved that. That was something that I loved pouring into my husband and my family and his career and being that support person, and that was really great. It ended up burning me in the divorce. So, how can women and men have these conversations about not only safety within the marriage? But but also having that autonomy to be able to say, okay, I want to be there for you. I want to pour into you. I want you to hold the family and hold me. But I also need to protect if you become an alcoholic and or find love elsewhere and I've devoted my whole life to you. So how can we have those conversations without being accusatory or without feeling like it's the end, you know, like you're planning for the end, but just helping both people understand like we need safety and security within a relationship, especially if one person's stepping out of the workforce.
Max Trombly: Yeah. So I was talking to somebody recently about this and you don't have to decide everything when you begin dating somebody.
Anna Goff: Right.
Max Trombly: let's say you're a couple months into dating somebody, you can say like I'm loving this relationship. I really want I I want you to be my boyfriend, like I want you to be my girlfriend, like can we like be more serious about this? Like get into serious first and then when the conversation comes up around finances, what I often say is let's decide at year four or let's decide at year three, like what we actually want to do financially and how we work together in the financial space. For the first couple of years, let's really focus on building the emotional congruence of this relationship and sort of how we relate. And once we're in a certain space, let's kind of renegotiate like what are our true commitments? And you could do that around the time of like marriage if you remarry
Anna Goff: Mm-hmm.
Max Trombly: or, you know, with I I married my wife like 18 months after I met her. So it wasn't she had a three year old and we wanted to have more kids. So we were like, let's get this
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: going. But anyway, what I'm trying to say here is you can make decisions four years in and you can decide at the beginning that that's what you're gonna do. And so you just kinda go like, Okay, four years in, we're gonna take a trip and we're gonna make some bigger decisions around how we orient our lives and our financial security across time. But before that, let's actually just focus on relationship and building love. Does that make sense?
Anna Goff: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I think that's so smart. And I always say like there is the contract of marriage, whether you have a prenup or not, and it should be an ongoing conversation. Yeah, throughout your
Max Trombly: Discussion. Yeah, to yeah.
Anna Goff: throughout your relationship. As things change, as you buy homes, buy businesses, sell businesses, accumulate wealth,
Max Trombly: One hundred percent.
Anna Goff: someone stays home, somebody and I think oftentimes we avoid those conversations because we think they're planning for the end, but really it just makes it crystal clear in everybody's mind. There's no it's a huge part of the communication within a relationship that should happen
Max Trombly: One hundred percent.
Anna Goff: and if you have a baseline, you know, document to go off of, and you know, it should be a working document throughout your marriage.
Max Trombly: It should be. Yeah. And also there's this thing where people put too much meaning on the idea of prenup or no prenup when marrying. And like actually
Anna Goff: Mm-hmm.
Max Trombly: can we just chill and have that conversation in three years? And like we'll decide to do that. We can calendar
Anna Goff: Right. Right.
Max Trombly: it now. We can even go and do a trip and like renegotiate our agreements, like whatever. I just think
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: as human beings that have varying life experiences in empowered states are very diverse when we get to our thirties and
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: forties. We just have to be willing to be flexible and not just like, no, it's gotta be this way, like we're All in it's all the same pot or not and we're protected separate. Like let's kind of get
Anna Goff: Yeah. Yeah.
Max Trombly: off the that shallow kind of perspective of looking at it.
Anna Goff: Right, right. I agree. I agree. And and so much security money and security are tied together so much for for people.
Max Trombly: One hundred percent. Yeah, it was safety and fun this is the th I don't understand why no one talks about this. So women wanna feel safe. They want to feel emotionally
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: safe in a relationship, they wanna feel safe in the world. Like that's just normal and it makes complete sense. Long term financial planning is massive when it comes to safety. Like if you don't know if you're gonna be okay in five years, especially when
Molly Rubesh: Mm-hmm.
Max Trombly: we get to our forties and fifties, like we start to really like lose it. Like I don't feel safe. we don't have a retirement. We don't know what we're doing. Yeah, yeah. And like literally the
Anna Goff: You're like, shit, what's happening? Yeah.
Max Trombly: worst case scenario for a woman is like perimenopause and menopause. You don't have financial security, he's emotionally vacant. Like that's like hell on earth.
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: And so o emotional safety and long term financial planning are crucial to hold a woman across time. it doesn't mean a man has to hold it all. Like you guys can have an agreement or a way that you do life where you're both making money and creating, but like it has to be conscious and capable.
Anna Goff: Right.
Molly Rubesh: S money, emotional safety and financial safety, it probably sums
Max Trombly: It's everything.
Molly Rubesh: up a hundred percent of the women that are coming to me saying, I don't know where to turn and I want a divorce because they are saying over and over again that they want a different outcome and they and we talked about it earlier, but they can't articulate what emotional safety feels like or what it looks like, or the man is unable to receive that because they can't either like, tell me what to do. It's not like unload the dishwasher, you know, it's
Max Trombly: The thing is women can't tell men what to do because women only know it from the feminine perspective. And if they tell them what to do, then like they're actually not gonna be fulfilled in what the man's doing, you know? Yeah, it's so crazy.
Molly Rubesh: Yeah. Yeah, interesting. Yeah.
Anna Goff: Uh-huh.
Max Trombly: Like men have to learn a different way of doing what the woman is actually asking for. And that's what I do. I teach men how to do that so that they can actually have congruent, emotionally viable relationships, you know.
Molly Rubesh: So talk about that. So if somebody's listening and they're like, I need I I'm gonna send this to my husband. Yes.
Max Trombly: Mm-hmm.
Molly Rubesh: Like what what's the journey for the man if they come to you and what does that look like? How do you teach them that?
Max Trombly: Okay. Three stages. Stage one. The first thing a man needs to do is become emotionally sovereign and stop being reactive, defensive, or vacant emotionally with her. So what that looks like is actually understanding your emotional self. And most men don't even know what that means. Even if they're hyper stressed and in their emotions of stress all the time, I have men that are like, I I don't know what my emotions are. I can't feel my emotions. It's like, bro, you're like seething as stress. Or like anger issues. They have anger issues and they're
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: like, I'm not emotional. It's like, where's the disconnector? So
Anna Goff: Mm-hmm.
Max Trombly: what I first do is I help men really come into the emotional body, which is a beautiful thing. Like happiness, joy, play, sadness. These are all beautiful emotions and they're actually like a really important part of the human experience. And then there's like rage and anger and stress and those are difficult emotions. But like being able to register those and regulate them and self-kind of soothe when you're having that experience is the first stage of masculine sovereignty. The second stage is teaching just relational dynamics. And so how do you actually work with a woman who's enraged, upset, resentful, you know, confused, angry, like whatever? Like, how do you work with that? And so working with that in an effective way, where you go, like, okay, look, I want to hear you. Like, let's actually get into a conversation. And then you go, like, that makes sense. Like, I understand how you feel. I understand how I impacted you in that way. Like, I understand how we can do this differently. Let's try. Like, to be more competent in how we resolve conflicts is a game changer. As soon as you start getting competent in that, instead of feeling Like you guys are fighting each other all the time, you're feeling like okay, like we can get better at this, which brings in faith and hope in the relationship. And so when a woman can believe that there's change happening in relationship, it's like the whole resentment cycle stops, trust starts to build, and then after that, it's just the real positive aspects of relationship. Like, how do you flirt with her? How do you light her up? How do you touch her body? How do you get her like fuck yes, life is good, both physically, spiritually, and also just like experientially. So, you know, are you doing
Molly Rubesh: Mm.
Max Trombly: Things with your wife that have her feel like, fuck, I love this life with you. You know, I just took my wife
Molly Rubesh: Yeah.
Max Trombly: and kids to Portugal and like my wife is just like, I cannot believe this. That was not a possibility in her life a decade ago, you know, and neither was it in mine. And so it's
Molly Rubesh: Mm-hmm.
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: like, how do we create a life where emotionally competent, sexually viable, and vital, and just a fuck yes experience. Like that's what I create with my wife, and we're in it, and it's awesome. And when men hear that, they go, okay, how do I do it? And I just outlined it for you guys.
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: Well, and it's perfect because at the y men often want to flirt or or grab
Max Trombly: Yeah. Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: or, you know, they want to have intimacy, but they're missing the first two things. And women are like, I have so much resentment towards you. The f don't touch me. Don't rub my back. Don't I mean,
Max Trombly: Yeah, don't touch me. Yeah. Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: and they're like, when he puts his arm around me, I like actually retreat. I do not I'm so resentful, I'm like not receptive to that. And so then they double down and she has so much resentment. I had a client send me a message last night and she's bas I mean she's very close to filing for divorce and she's continued to tell him He texted her and said, Can I ask you for a favor? And she said, Sure, what's up? He said, Can you wear that black shirt because your boobs look fantastic in it? And she's like, I'm so what?
Anna Goff: Like what what
Max Trombly: Yeah.
Anna Goff: in the world?
Max Trombly: Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: What? And and
Max Trombly: Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: I don't know if that's his attempt to flirt with her or compliment her. I'm not I have no idea. Like trying to send her a she's like
Max Trombly: It is. Yeah, he's trying to create energy. But but what you said, I know, I know, I really get that. But
Anna Goff: She's gonna go burn that shirt. She's
Max Trombly: yeah, like he's just trying to bring energy the only way he knows it, and she's got the resentment in the the like wall. And like
Molly Rubesh: Yeah.
Max Trombly: you have to actually deal with the resentment in the wall first. And the
Molly Rubesh: Mm-hmm.
Max Trombly: wall is just a lack of trust, a lack of safety, you know. So anyway, yeah, I really get that. That's a bummer.
Molly Rubesh: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Anna Goff: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I hear I hear that so much from women.
Molly Rubesh: it it's so good.
Anna Goff: Yeah. From women about like once they get divorced and they're like, I didn't think I liked sex. I didn't think I liked flirting. I didn't think I liked making out and all this but when it's not their husband anymore and there's not that resentment then they're like, I do yeah, like I do feel that again.
Max Trombly: Yeah. It's amazing. I can actually enjoy sex. I can actually be present in the moment. I can actually enjoy this person in the experience, even if it only lasted like a month or two. The reawakening is pretty incredible. I went through I
Anna Goff: Yeah, absolutely.
Molly Rubesh: we're hardwired for love. We want it. We want it. We're not trying
Max Trombly: Yeah. Yeah, we want love. Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: to like push it away, but we're not mm-hmm.
Max Trombly: Totally. And sex and intimacy are a need. It's not like a
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: bonus. It's not like a thing that we get to d like it it's actually a need, you know? And w and I think we
Anna Goff: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Max Trombly: forget that or we make excuses as to how it's not a need
Anna Goff: you have to feel like you want it and like it's not a ch a chore to check off the list and and and it can. And the more connected you are and the more emotionally connected you are, the more she'll want it.
Max Trombly: That's exactly right. And that's the key to why I learned all this. Like years ago I was like, I wanna create a forever vital relationship that feels happy,
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: alive, and the sex is good. Like that's literally the primary three things I wanted in a relationship. And I was like, So what does that mean? Like what what do I need to build in my relationship to ensure that that happens? 'Cause I mean I can flirt with my wife for the rest of our days, but there's other pieces that are if they're missing, like it's not gonna work.
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: And so this is why I developed all this. Like essentially so that I could have the best relationship I could create for the rest of my life. And as I realized it, I was like, Wow, fuck, men would love to know this information. Like this is really the missing piece for men. Does that make sense? Yeah.
Anna Goff: Yeah. I love that. I it makes absolute sense. And I think that, you know, if you can have a partner that you get to choose every single day that you're madly in love with, that you're passionate about, that you're connected to, that you trust, like and you have amazing sex and want that, like, yeah, that's what we all want, right? Like there is
Max Trombly: Yeah, like what else is there to life? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Molly Rubesh: Right.
Anna Goff: nothing better and then you don't have to go out and find somebody else and you're like, Man, I'm married to the hottest guy. I you know,
Max Trombly: Yeah.
Anna Goff: we wanna just Yeah. No
Max Trombly: I don't wanna date. I don't wanna try to find things I don't have. I don't wanna spend my life feeling like I'm unfulfilled. I just wanna be like, Cool,
Molly Rubesh: Yeah.
Max Trombly: my life is good, my wife is amazing and it's hot as fuck. Like that's my life. Yeah. And like you can do that. Yeah.
Anna Goff: Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Well,
Molly Rubesh: Yeah. And to feel like
Anna Goff: I am
Molly Rubesh: loved and seen sitting next to your partner. I mean, just
Max Trombly: Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: just to go to bed at night and know and and that's the beauty of having two different marriages is one I can really, really, really appreciate the depths of my marriage now because of how different I felt in my first. And some of that is on me. I will not sit here ever and blame it all on him.
Max Trombly: Of course. Well the only way it's gonna work now is when you take responsibility for your side of it. So yeah, of course, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's amazing.
Molly Rubesh: Correct. it's so good. I love it.
Anna Goff: Yeah. Well that is an amazing s place to stop. And now that
Max Trombly: Sure.
Anna Goff: we're all like fired up about going out and finding this and building this, I'm so excited that you are on and I know that what you're teaching men is resonating and women are thanking you everywhere and so
Max Trombly: Yeah, thank thank you.
Anna Goff: tell us where people can find you and follow you.
Max Trombly: Well, my name is Max Trombley. So you can find me online pretty easily if you just search for that. My company is a shiftinbeing.com and that's where you can find access to my programs or my different things. I run a men's program once a year from January to June. And that's kind of my primary like education tool for men. And it includes emotional integrity and then you know, building really effective relationships. it's also the interesting thing about my men's work is that even though I framed it through creating better relationships, for most men. It's really just finding themselves again. It's like learning who they really are, like learning what is inside their kind of operating system of life and then coming into an empowered self state first. so really the cool thing about my program is that it's not just about the wives, even though it dramatically affects the relationships. It's really about these men. And so at some point I'll run, you know, stuff for teenage boys and I'll run things for elders as well. But right now I've got the way of man, which is my program from January to June. And yeah. Shift and being dot com is where you can find me. Or Instagram.
Molly Rubesh: We have all the links and we will provide them in the show notes. so Max, thank you so much. On behalf of both Anna and I, we deeply appreciate your time. And for our listeners, I'm sure they're gonna appreciate this, but mostly thanks for doing the work in the world to try to change the shift and elevate us as humans to have better relationships because all of us will have better human experiences if we learn how to love one another better.
Max Trombly: Yeah, more kindly, starting with ourselves. Yeah, thanks. I really appreciate that. Yeah, my
Molly Rubesh: Yeah, yeah.
Anna Goff: Right, awesome. Thank you.
Max Trombly: pleasure.
Max Trombly: Yeah. Yeah. It's a you know, it's a bit of a prayer, like the bio as prayer, but that's what I hope for the world.
Anna Goff: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And it's It's something that I think most of us hope and and sometimes we get to experience it, whether it's a slice of it or a big piece of it. and if we haven't experienced it yet, I think we're all hopeful that we will at some point. So yeah, yeah. So tell us a little bit about what got you started. What did you go through personally that kind of made your decision to start, you know, helping other people?
Max Trombly: Yeah. Well The easiest way I can tell this story is when I look at the totality of my life, sort of before the age of thirty-five. I grew up with a great mom and a good home and then she got sick when I was young. So around fifteen, sixteen, she died. And from this period of like fifteen to thirty five, I was just in like hardship. Like life wasn't working well. I didn't attract the right partners. I didn't know how to build good relationships. I was pursuing a career that was sort of fulfilling and successful enough, but not like thriving in my work. And You know, I got to a point where I just realized like there's something not working. And, you know, the underlying piece that I've talked about on some podcasts is my ex-wife had a pretty, really intense mental disorder. And so I was trying to figure out how to work with that and how to support it and hold it. And that opened my mind to this idea that like our mind is a thing to reckon with and like mental wellness is a thing to reckon with and look at. And so I started to learn how to meditate and how to like find stillness within myself, and then from there I started to realize that reaction Is different from how I had been experiencing it before, and that means there's different things I can do in it. Like I can choose to love differently, I can receive love differently, I can create relationships more consciously. Like all this just started to emerge. This is about 13 years ago. And from that point forward, I was committed to learning as much as I could, integrating it into my life, and sharing it with men. So I just started meeting with men around a fire, and I did that for a decade every single month, with just a few months off during the early pandemic. And at At some point I became a coach, people asked me to, you know, help them with their actual lives and that's now what I do for a living. Yeah.
Anna Goff: It's amazing. I love that.
Molly Rubesh: What did those campfire settings look like initially?
Max Trombly: Yeah, it was really interesting because I had no format for it. but I knew a therapist who had done group therapy work. So I called her and I was like, How do you run a group? And I knew a guy who had studied as a monk, and I called him and I was like, How do you hold people spiritually? And between the two of them, I kind of came up with a concept and basically I invited people to my house, I cooked dinner, and then we sat around a fire and talked about a topic that I I would choose. And so it was really casual at first, but by the time I completed sort of a decade of men's circles, the final circles were in a big yoga studio. I had, you know, a circle of cushions and we were all sitting there. We would do check-ins and, you know, topic teaching, practice, QA support, feedback. It was all it went from as casual as it could be, like dinner in a fire, to like the most professional men's work kind of experience that I could create. so that's sort of the arc across ten years. And meanwhile, you know, I filed for divorce. I did this whole dating process and eventually found Kelly, my wife, and you know, we're nine years in at this point and we have two kids and so I'm living kind of that dream life that I wanted, you know, to find my way to. You know, twelve years ago when I initially embarked on this journey.
Anna Goff: That's amazing.
Molly Rubesh: Amazing.
Anna Goff: Do you feel like like the men that you were attracting when you first started this campfire. because I I feel like women are really good about community. We you know, we have moms groups and you know, things when our kids are little and then we have the we're good about connection and men just tend to not have that. So, not in a not in the same way. You know, it's around sports and alcohol typically, or golf or whatever. Right, exactly. And so
Max Trombly: Yeah. Like high school friend groups. Totally.
Anna Goff: in doing this, like how have you seen the transformation of who or I guess the the group of men that started coming to you, how is it different now for like the people you're attracting?
Max Trombly: That's really astute question, just the awareness that that would change. Early on, the men were kinda like loose and messy. Like there's no other way to cut it. Like spiritual growth men are kind of like they're not very contained and they're not very driven. They're more just like, I'm discovering life. And so that's the kind of group that I originally had. And that was also a reflection of me. And so I can own that piece there too. but as I got more like kind of integral in the way that I held my life and more discerning in the way that I, you know, chose next right moment, next right action. The looser men, the ones that were still in active addiction or just like perpetually chasing experience, kind of fell off because I don't live that way. And what was replaced was men that were really like, No, how do I change my life experience? Like, how do I really change the nature of my marriage or the way that I'm pa you know, fathering my children? So I ran a men's program last year and when I had the men in a room and I could really feel them, I was like, wow. Like these men are like forty to sixty. They have grown kids. Like these are real men. Not like, you know, I'm journeying to Peru next week for some whatever. You know what I mean? Like these are fathers that I like
Anna Goff: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Peter Pan.
Max Trombly: they're driving their kids to high school or like, you know, college for the first time. So yeah.
Anna Goff: Yeah, yeah.
Molly Rubesh: So you talk
Max Trombly: Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: about like in your bio it said the thing that stood out the most was ancient wisdom. So are you returning people back to the deeper knowing and then tapping into like our soul's purpose or what does that necessarily mean?
Max Trombly: Yes. Exactly. no, that that's you you kind of you kinda
Molly Rubesh: I love it.
Anna Goff: There. We're coming at these questions that people probably don't typically ask.
Max Trombly: like the biggest idea in the world, you just nailed in one sentence. let me put it this way. We live in a world in a culture today where there's almost like too many options and too many things to chase.
Molly Rubesh: Mm-hmm.
Max Trombly: Like you can basically get out of high school and be like, I can do anything. And there's enough safety and security in our society that like you can get away with maybe not working until you're 35 because you live in your parents' basement or like you can casually date and not be serious about creating a family. Like these are things that people can do these days. That was never an option. And until the eighteen hundreds we were mostly hunkered down on like get a job, s you know, survive, marry, have kids, and like take care of that like that unit. And So in this modern culture where everything's on the table and it's basically like an ice cream shop with like five hundred flavors, how do people choose correctly to create a fulfilling life? Like what does that actually mean? What does soul's purpose really mean? And, you know, I kinda looked at the field of what's existing currently and everyone seems to think that they're thriving in their soul's purpose. But what I started to notice is a lot of these people only last like two years and then they change everything. And it's like, well, is that real? We live in an Instagram world where everyone's just like, I'm thriving, and it's like, you literally just moved to Bali like a week ago. Like, is that
Anna Goff: Mm-hmm.
Max Trombly: really a sustainable thrive? And what I wanted to know is like, what does it mean to actually build a fulfilling life? And so the only way that I could figure out how to do it is what if I study fulfillment two thousand years ago? Or what did to really thrive in life four thousand years ago look like? And I'm a s like a student of archaeology. Like I love like learning about ancient history and I have the whole wall of artifacts from like, you know, man, the the dawn of mankind. And, you know, I really thought about like as I was holding this axe head that was from five thousand years ago, like what would that man like what was his life? And it's basically like, I'm here to take care of her, them, and make sure that we're good. And like at a foundational level, that's like the primary colors of life. And when I started to realize that, it really simplified things because I have a wife and kids. And I had all these friends that were kind of chasing experiences, but I'm looking at my wife and kids going like, no, they need to be like cared for, like in a real serious way. And I look at like, you know, the women in the world that are like, We don't need a man, but I'm like looking at my wife and she's like, No, she needs me and I need her. Like we need
Molly Rubesh: Yeah.
Max Trombly: to actually do like real life here together. And I was just seeing this distortion between what our culture is talking about or pursuing or thriving as for temporary periods of time and the reality of the human experience. And I'm like, there's a serious truth that most people are missing right now. Like how to hold and sustain relationship truly, how to really raise kids so that they're emotionally healthy and competent. What does it look like to hold my wife through our seventies and eighties? Like no one's even thinking about that. They're just like, What are we doing this year? And so when I started to really look at this idea, like my role is to hold her, to hold them, to really do this life together as a, you know, as like a spiritual practice, it really just changed the way I experienced life. I don't really need any of the things that you know, some of those people I used to hang around with like do. Like what I'm here to do is make sure my kids are good every day, make sure my wife is good every day, make sure we're thriving, we have a great, passionate love life. Like things are good here in home. And once I kind of pivoted that way, that's when I realized just how much we're missing in our modern culture. Like we're just trying to find things outside of our home to feel good, but actually it's your home where you can really create thrive. You know?
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: And the human experience comes with suffering. I mean, it's just
Max Trombly: Yeah, yeah.
Molly Rubesh: the one guarantee that you're gonna have. And so if you
Max Trombly: Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: have your infrastructure of your family or your soul is at peace with accepting and being able to receive that, what a beautiful gift. The
Max Trombly: Yeah. Totally.
Molly Rubesh: so you said it so beautifully because I think everybody that is listening would say, Yes, how do I get my husband to hold The home this way. And I think there's a disconnect on how we articulate it. So women are like, you don't see me, you don't understand. I've been asking.
Max Trombly: Yeah, there is.
Molly Rubesh: And they almost get louder or detached or frustrated. And it and maybe comes out in contr feels like it's control or disappointment, or the woman goes into her masculinity. So how do women do a better job articulating that they just want to be safe with their
Max Trombly: Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: man?
Max Trombly: Well that's a really good question.
Molly Rubesh: And safety doesn't mean like beat up the bully in the alley. It means like
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: safe at home. So how do we help our listeners articulate that missing piece in their home?
Max Trombly: The first thing just around emotional safety is articulating it through the lens of For me, safety is being understood in my experience. Like any woman
Molly Rubesh: Mm.
Max Trombly: that can explain that in that sentence structure should start to unlock that it's not about his reality or the facts of the moment, like what just actually happened, according to him. It's more like she's having an experience and him understanding that experience is where safety will come from. That's the first
Molly Rubesh: Mm-hmm.
Max Trombly: piece. But the bigger and more important piece is that when women truly own that they need their men, like if you look at your husband and you say, I look, I I need you and I need you to understand this for the sake of us and like our future, rather than you're not getting it right, you're not doing what I need. I hate this, I can't stand you, you know, I need you. If you can get into that posture as a woman, like that is an evocation or an invitation of his capacity.
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: Need you. You know, like that's a real request versus like I hate you and you're wrong. Yeah.
Anna Goff: Right. Or everything
Molly Rubesh: Yeah.
Anna Goff: acting as a criticism, which I I feel like a lot of times in relationships when a woman brings something up, a man views it as I'm not doing it right, not an invitation to have a conversation about how can we make this better. so do you find that people are more receptive of going through this hard stuff and having these hard conversations with second marriages than they are with first? Because I know Molly and I have this dream of Helping couples before marri before their first marriage to understand like you know what things you're going to go through and what it's going to be like when you're 80, and how do you deal with finances and how do you deal with all the hard things in a relationship? However, everyone in going into their first marriage thinks I will never be the one that gets divorced. I will never have the hard time. So how can we help people not only for their first marriage, but going into a second marriage very intentionally ab you know, about building on these things so it's not a conversation that has to come down the line after, you know, s as a repair or something.
Max Trombly: Most people have not considered that there's a different way to do life than what we were taught and programmed by our parents. Like that's kind of the beginning of consciousness, which is like, I can do things differently and I can see things through a different lens. So what I would say is that whoever kind of awakens first in a relationship or whoever is a human being that has more depth of understanding in relationship, like bringing that as a concept into your relationship is really important. Like there are ways to do relationships that I don't think either one of us even know. Because like, you know both of our parents wouldn't have known this. That's kind of an easy way to open this idea. Now I think, you know, for any individual that wants to approach creating a deeper experience of relationship, you have to do you first. Like, I have to know what my love languages are, I have to know what my sensitivities are, I have to know what my like where my triggers and wounds are, so I can start taking responsibility for them. Not only inviting her to love me the way I need to be loved, but also like owning my own emotional wellness, right? When any individual becomes sort of a more emotionally well in relationship, it's also emotionally sovereign, which means you kind of stop being in the drama cycles that we create in relationship. Because you can be like, hold on, we're not gonna do this again. Like I love you too much to do this cycle again. When you can stop that habit of the unconscious previous way, that's where everything really changes. Does that make sense?
Anna Goff: Mm. Yeah. Yeah.
Max Trombly: So it really does start with like do you first, I do me first, like handle your own wellness first so that you can kinda pause your own way of perpetuating the habits that you've lived as, you know, forever. And then
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: when these things are kicking up, being like, Hold on, like let's try something different. And then you have to kind of deal with like how long it takes for the partner to catch up to that idea and the p the possibility of it. So if you can get support, that can happen a lot faster. and you know, when it comes to men, that's one of the things I've really tried to master is like how do I help men understand as quickly as possible that there's a different way. 'Cause I'm I don't wanna like be in the muck and the drama of a man being like, but it's like she's having a different experience and like the facts are the facts. Like I just go away with that. Like, let's be actually real.
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: Like you're two individuals having
Molly Rubesh: Yeah.
Max Trombly: a completely different experience. Let's understand each other.
Anna Goff: Right.
Max Trombly: And, you know, so the way I teach men I can really kind of break through the confusion and and I guess the chaos of it and just you're like, here's what here's what women need from us. And if you can nail
Anna Goff: Mm-hmm.
Max Trombly: this, you're gonna have the best life in the world. Like literally that's how I teach it. which is a pretty inspiring take.
Anna Goff: Mm-hmm.
Molly Rubesh: do you get I mean, you know, obviously you've got your followers on Instagram and and it's resonating. Are you getting pushback from men that think you know, I mean clearly we g I get pushback all day long from men. But
Max Trombly: Sure. Yeah.
Anna Goff: We get pushed back. We're used to that.
Molly Rubesh: if as a man that's speaking about kind of doing life a different way, are you getting pushback to still maybe that that more closed off or that different soul level or you know, somebody that's not interested in hearing it, do you get a lot of criticism?
Max Trombly: Yeah. I mean I like seven hundred thousand followers online, so like every time I put out a video someone's got something to say. But I mean the majority
Molly Rubesh: Mm-hmm.
Max Trombly: of people are really supportive and, you know, really get what I'm out here doing. but like I'm always gonna have some random person that doesn't follow me. Like they hear what they think they're hearing from my content and they're gonna like, This is bullshit. Like, why is it always on the man? And I'm just like, whatever. I don't respond to it. I you know, if it's particularly
Molly Rubesh: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Mm-hmm.
Anna Goff: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah.
Max Trombly: vicious I just block people 'cause it's just like I don't look this is not like a freedom of speech place. Like my comments are part of my you know what I mean? So I protect it
Anna Goff: Right.
Max Trombly: well and I also protect people that are in it. So if people are fighting in my comments, like I'll just get rid of the people that just like I don't know where that came from, but you're out. Yeah. Yeah. I
Anna Goff: Right. Yeah, yeah. I do the same thing.
Max Trombly: you're kind of standing in a town square just being like, here's my thoughts and like you're gonna have people that come in that throw tomatoes and you just gotta like, whoa, like I see. Yeah.
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: Well, and it more and it's less about even s find social media, of course there's gonna be haters, it's more about reflecting or it's better it's an example of the pool that we're dealing with. So if that is an indicator of then women going in women and men going into the dating world, you're in the beginning you got the endorphins going, you've got the oxytocin, you've got good passion and you're dating, and then all of a sudden you start seeing that there's all these the dichotomy of belief systems and then we're entering into marriages and then everybody wants to know why marriages aren't working and why we should just stick it out. You should just try harder, do more, try harder. But we're actually speaking very, very different languages. And so it'd be interesting like your mission has to be actually way, way bigger than even seven hundred thousand to hit the billions of people entering into relationship.
Max Trombly: I'll go there. Yeah. to that to the exact moment you were just talking about. When I was dating, I was shocked how many women were not available for real relationship. I dated like 17
Molly Rubesh: Mm.
Max Trombly: women before I met my wife, and that's not that many. Across a year, it was like one or two dates
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: a month. A few of them I went on like a couple dates with. But yeah, like 17 of them were just like, no, they're not oriented in their mid-30s toward real relationship. Like they're like, I'm finding myself or I don't know where I'm gonna live. And it's like, I was looking for the mother of my children. So when my wife popped up, I was like, What are you looking for in relationship? And she was like, I'm looking for someone to build a really beautiful relationship with. And I was like, Boom. You're my lady. Like, I chose
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: her that day. Because she was serious about relationship, which is that's like the real gold. Finding a person
Anna Goff: Mm-hmm.
Max Trombly: that's like, I wanna be in love, I wanna be married, I wanna be in relationship. If you can find someone that says that, then you actually like that's a good starting point. Because most people are not that, you know.
Anna Goff: Right. So when you're dating later at you know, and have previous partners or children or other things in the mix I think sometimes people are more standoffish about inviting someone into their world because it's different when it's two single people and you're like, okay, yeah, even if you've
Max Trombly: When you have kids, yeah, totally.
Anna Goff: been married before, you know, deciding when to bring someone into your world. And then also the red flag. So, you know, typically we're on our best behavior. But what I have found in dating after divorce and dating other people. People have been divorced, is people tend to lay it all out on the line. And like, this is who I am, this is what I want. So, when people show you some things that might be red flags, like, how do you know whether to work through them or whether to turn and run the other way?
Max Trombly: Hmm. Yeah, I was when I was dating I was pretty good at no. Like I was just like, No, not my person. That's okay. Have a nice day. You know? I don't need many red flags. In fact I had committed to pretty much like zero red flags. And my ex wife, like the situation that happened in my first marriage was incredibly difficult. And I was just like, I need to get this right completely. Like I'm not willing to even have slightly wrong in my next relationship. I don't know how else to explain it. I need to find someone that's mentally healthy, that has happiness as a core way of being, and that has vitality and the capacity for energy and wants to be a really great mother. Like that's like literally what I was looking for. And even if you have older kids, like you want someone that's like if you have kids, don't date people that don't have kids. That's like number one rule, you know, because
Anna Goff: Right.
Max Trombly: once you have kids, you understand that there's more to life than yourself. And so if you have kids, you're in that orientation. And if you date someone that doesn't, like they just don't understand what that is. And so there's an imbalance of un like depth, you know.
Anna Goff: Mm. Yeah, I found that. Yeah.
Max Trombly: So that would be the first one. Vitality, happiness, the capacity to understand relationships. Like those are the massive green lights.
Anna Goff: Mm-hmm.
Max Trombly: You know?
Molly Rubesh: And I like the thought of wanting to be in relationship. And so if you put that first, like I want to be in relationship. I love love. I love love. And
Max Trombly: Exactly. Exactly.
Molly Rubesh: I want to be married to my husband. And fortunately, we have a good marriage, but because we pour into and prioritize each other versus like, you made me mad or you didn't do this today or a You know, of course those things could happen or we get annoyed because we're human, but at the core of it is deep love and partnership where we actually care about one another. And if we hurt one another, we want that repair and we want to grow. And and I think that's the difference of when you get married. Like I met my first husband when I was twenty four, I grew up in the Midwest. I went to high school. I went to college. I got my degree. My friends were getting married. It was time to get married. I needed to get married so then I could have kids so then I could do my thing. And I never stopped and this is no fault of either one of us, except for I didn't know that there was a different way to your point to do life. And I didn't know that I was allowed to go, whoa, what is relationship? What is marriage? What is partnership? More than just you guys live together and play house and have kids. I n I didn't even know what I didn't know.
Max Trombly: That's exactly it. We don't know what we don't know. You know? But
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: And so we have to be more forgiving for people who f who have marriages that end in divorce because n nobody chose Get divorced. Nobody, we didn't get none of none of the three of us got married the first time with hopes that that marriage would end in divorce. But we also were young people marrying a young person, regardless of age, right? Young emotionally even. And it's almost like the beauty.
Max Trombly: We do our best to choose through the frame of life that we have when we're young. And that's a very different frame than we have when we're older, you know? Like when I was eighteen thinking about my life, I was thinking about it from a completely different frame. You know, what car I chose, what I was gonna do with my time. Like I wouldn't choose any of those things today.
Molly Rubesh: Right.
Anna Goff: Right.
Molly Rubesh: Right.
Max Trombly: And yet here we are getting into
Anna Goff: Right.
Max Trombly: relationships, tying a knot, having kids. And it's like sometimes here's the thing. Not everybody has to divorce. The divorce rate's like forty-eight, fifty percent or something
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: like that. So like there are some people that chose well enough that they can make it work. And I live in a part
Molly Rubesh: Mm-hmm.
Max Trombly: of the world where there's a lot of kind of long term, multi-generational family systems. So I see what functioning
Anna Goff: Mm-hmm.
Max Trombly: marriages look like, you know, across thirty years, forty years, the first marriage is working. But then there's this other group, which we I guess we're a part of where we maybe chose a misaligned truth, you know, without seeing it at the beginning. And so then we we become aware of that and let's just have grace and recognize that's okay. Like I I filed for a divorce and then I started over. And then I chose right. And now I'm building the life I'm here to build. You know?
Anna Goff: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which is so beautiful and
Max Trombly: Yeah.
Anna Goff: and I do think, you know, I was married for eighteen years. So it was a long time. And y as you go through life and life stressors and you don't know how you're going to handle certain situations and how one person may evolve differently than another person. And I love, you know, the concept of really deciding what you want for your relationship and committing to that and growing together and being very honest about what you need and looking at it as like because I'm telling you this is a need, it's not a criticism of your ability to fulfill that or for me to be able to fulfill that, but this is this is what I need in my life.
Max Trombly: it. So you s your first marriage was eighteen years, is that what you say? What
Anna Goff: Yeah, yeah.
Max Trombly: about you, Molly? How long?
Molly Rubesh: I love it.
Max Trombly: Okay. So when I was dating, one of the bigger green flags was the capacity for sustained relationship. So I was a
Anna Goff: Mm-hmm.
Max Trombly: basic no to anybody at 35 that did not have at least a six year relationship. And when
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: I found my wife, ideally what I was looking for was someone who was either like a widow or had filed for
Anna Goff: Uh-huh.
Max Trombly: divorce and even potentially had a kid. Because I
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: was looking for someone that I just I'm not here to like play around. Like I want a serious response. Like what are you looking for in life? When I met my wife,
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: it was the exact same situation that I had just been through. Like her ex had a mental thing, my ex had a mental thing. So we both kind of filed for divorce and we were like, I want a real relationship. And the irony
Anna Goff: Mm-hmm.
Max Trombly: is that she had heard about men's work. And so I'm in we're in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: I was running a men's circle in New Orleans. She literally looked up New Orleans men's work, but like I wasn't on the internet yet. I was only on text based. And
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: so we were like searching for each other a year and a half before either of us really came into the dating space. It's crazy. Yeah, yeah, it's amazing.
Molly Rubesh: No.
Anna Goff: That's amazing. That's
Max Trombly: I think the thing that I was really trying to point to is that for both of you, like if you were dating today, you would need to find men that had been in like a ten year and sustained it, you know.
Anna Goff: Yeah, absolutely.
Max Trombly: versus these like I met a woman at thirty five, she like yeah like her longest relationship was three months and I was like, Cool, we are definitely not aligned here you know.
Anna Goff: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I was engaged to somebody that I had known for thirty-five years. We grew up together and he didn't have kids and and had never been married and he was forty-seven. And it didn't work because of those things, because my capacity was different than his because of the way that, you know, I dated and lived with my ex and we got married and had a baby and moved across the country. So like the capacity grew over time over seventeen years, eighteen years of marriage and when you're dating somebody that doesn't have that it's just it's not going to align. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. No.
Max Trombly: It's different frequency of life. Yeah. And it's no shame for those people. It's just that for people that are if if you've had a 10-year relationship and you're looking for a real relationship, you just have to know what the field of play really looks like. And it's like people that have been in long term, you know. And I'm just I'm just actually putting
Anna Goff: Yeah, absolutely.
Max Trombly: that in the pot for your listeners and anyone that's kind of walking this walk is like save yourself the headache of dating people that don't have the experience that you would need to feel safe across time.
Anna Goff: Mm. I think that makes so much sense.
Molly Rubesh: Yeah, and that's interesting because I do think that there is a little appeal, like we blended a family. So I could see where there'd be some attraction to, this person doesn't have any children, and then you don't have to have the step-parenting and the ex-wife code family dynamic. So I it's interesting to see where there could be benefit to both, but the bigger key factor is maybe they were married for a long time and they just didn't have children. Or they have the capacity to hold
Max Trombly: That's totally t yeah.
Molly Rubesh: a long term relationship.
Max Trombly: Well and that's another reason I wanted to put this in the pot, 'cause it's not just whether they have kids or not. It's also it's like, do they have depth of potential in relationship, you know? And I
Molly Rubesh: Mm.
Anna Goff: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Max Trombly: hear exactly what you're saying. So like if you have kids and you've divorced and you're kind of co-parenting there and you want to bring someone in, like, yeah, like there are different ways we can arrange that. I'm not just trying to like take half this group of people and be like, You're you're not valuable. but but at the same
Molly Rubesh: You're done.
Anna Goff: No.
Max Trombly: time when you're dating, you should have such a degree of d discernity that you're willing to say no to like ninety-nine percent of people so you can find the one that really works. Does that make sense? Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: Yeah, I do, yeah.
Anna Goff: Absolutely. Yeah. And a and when that's great. And and when people show you who they are, believe them, right?
Max Trombly: Yeah, believe it. Yeah, exactly. And be willing to actually own the judgment that you know is true. That's the thing. Everyone's all
Anna Goff: Right.
Max Trombly: like non-judgmental, but like when someone tells you like I don't know what I want to do with my life, actually that means a lot. And I don't need that in my life. You know what I mean? Versus my wife
Anna Goff: Right, right, right.
Max Trombly: when I met my wife, my son was three. So she
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: had a son. She came to me and she was just like, Yeah, I'm looking for the father of my son and like, you know, someone that can really build a family together. And I was like, that is exactly what I'm here for.
Molly Rubesh: Mm, that's cute.
Max Trombly: versus I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know if I'm gonna live here for the next six months, like which is kinda like the woman I had dated right before my wife. So like contrast was intense, yeah.
Anna Goff: Yeah. Yeah. So when you're going into a relationship so I talk a lot about financial security and safety and having having that dynamic I am often accused of being very untraditional, but I'm very traditional. I was a stay-at-home mom for 15 years. I loved that. That was something that I loved pouring into my husband and my family and his career and being that support person, and that was really great. It ended up burning me in the divorce. So, how can women and men have these conversations about not only safety within the marriage? But but also having that autonomy to be able to say, okay, I want to be there for you. I want to pour into you. I want you to hold the family and hold me. But I also need to protect if you become an alcoholic and or find love elsewhere and I've devoted my whole life to you. So how can we have those conversations without being accusatory or without feeling like it's the end, you know, like you're planning for the end, but just helping both people understand like we need safety and security within a relationship, especially if one person's stepping out of the workforce.
Max Trombly: Yeah. So I was talking to somebody recently about this and you don't have to decide everything when you begin dating somebody.
Anna Goff: Right.
Max Trombly: let's say you're a couple months into dating somebody, you can say like I'm loving this relationship. I really want I I want you to be my boyfriend, like I want you to be my girlfriend, like can we like be more serious about this? Like get into serious first and then when the conversation comes up around finances, what I often say is let's decide at year four or let's decide at year three, like what we actually want to do financially and how we work together in the financial space. For the first couple of years, let's really focus on building the emotional congruence of this relationship and sort of how we relate. And once we're in a certain space, let's kind of renegotiate like what are our true commitments? And you could do that around the time of like marriage if you remarry
Anna Goff: Mm-hmm.
Max Trombly: or, you know, with I I married my wife like 18 months after I met her. So it wasn't she had a three year old and we wanted to have more kids. So we were like, let's get this
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: going. But anyway, what I'm trying to say here is you can make decisions four years in and you can decide at the beginning that that's what you're gonna do. And so you just kinda go like, Okay, four years in, we're gonna take a trip and we're gonna make some bigger decisions around how we orient our lives and our financial security across time. But before that, let's actually just focus on relationship and building love. Does that make sense?
Anna Goff: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I think that's so smart. And I always say like there is the contract of marriage, whether you have a prenup or not, and it should be an ongoing conversation. Yeah, throughout your
Max Trombly: Discussion. Yeah, to yeah.
Anna Goff: throughout your relationship. As things change, as you buy homes, buy businesses, sell businesses, accumulate wealth,
Max Trombly: One hundred percent.
Anna Goff: someone stays home, somebody and I think oftentimes we avoid those conversations because we think they're planning for the end, but really it just makes it crystal clear in everybody's mind. There's no it's a huge part of the communication within a relationship that should happen
Max Trombly: One hundred percent.
Anna Goff: and if you have a baseline, you know, document to go off of, and you know, it should be a working document throughout your marriage.
Max Trombly: It should be. Yeah. And also there's this thing where people put too much meaning on the idea of prenup or no prenup when marrying. And like actually
Anna Goff: Mm-hmm.
Max Trombly: can we just chill and have that conversation in three years? And like we'll decide to do that. We can calendar
Anna Goff: Right. Right.
Max Trombly: it now. We can even go and do a trip and like renegotiate our agreements, like whatever. I just think
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: as human beings that have varying life experiences in empowered states are very diverse when we get to our thirties and
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: forties. We just have to be willing to be flexible and not just like, no, it's gotta be this way, like we're All in it's all the same pot or not and we're protected separate. Like let's kind of get
Anna Goff: Yeah. Yeah.
Max Trombly: off the that shallow kind of perspective of looking at it.
Anna Goff: Right, right. I agree. I agree. And and so much security money and security are tied together so much for for people.
Max Trombly: One hundred percent. Yeah, it was safety and fun this is the th I don't understand why no one talks about this. So women wanna feel safe. They want to feel emotionally
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: safe in a relationship, they wanna feel safe in the world. Like that's just normal and it makes complete sense. Long term financial planning is massive when it comes to safety. Like if you don't know if you're gonna be okay in five years, especially when
Molly Rubesh: Mm-hmm.
Max Trombly: we get to our forties and fifties, like we start to really like lose it. Like I don't feel safe. we don't have a retirement. We don't know what we're doing. Yeah, yeah. And like literally the
Anna Goff: You're like, shit, what's happening? Yeah.
Max Trombly: worst case scenario for a woman is like perimenopause and menopause. You don't have financial security, he's emotionally vacant. Like that's like hell on earth.
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: And so o emotional safety and long term financial planning are crucial to hold a woman across time. it doesn't mean a man has to hold it all. Like you guys can have an agreement or a way that you do life where you're both making money and creating, but like it has to be conscious and capable.
Anna Goff: Right.
Molly Rubesh: S money, emotional safety and financial safety, it probably sums
Max Trombly: It's everything.
Molly Rubesh: up a hundred percent of the women that are coming to me saying, I don't know where to turn and I want a divorce because they are saying over and over again that they want a different outcome and they and we talked about it earlier, but they can't articulate what emotional safety feels like or what it looks like, or the man is unable to receive that because they can't either like, tell me what to do. It's not like unload the dishwasher, you know, it's
Max Trombly: The thing is women can't tell men what to do because women only know it from the feminine perspective. And if they tell them what to do, then like they're actually not gonna be fulfilled in what the man's doing, you know? Yeah, it's so crazy.
Molly Rubesh: Yeah. Yeah, interesting. Yeah.
Anna Goff: Uh-huh.
Max Trombly: Like men have to learn a different way of doing what the woman is actually asking for. And that's what I do. I teach men how to do that so that they can actually have congruent, emotionally viable relationships, you know.
Molly Rubesh: So talk about that. So if somebody's listening and they're like, I need I I'm gonna send this to my husband. Yes.
Max Trombly: Mm-hmm.
Molly Rubesh: Like what what's the journey for the man if they come to you and what does that look like? How do you teach them that?
Max Trombly: Okay. Three stages. Stage one. The first thing a man needs to do is become emotionally sovereign and stop being reactive, defensive, or vacant emotionally with her. So what that looks like is actually understanding your emotional self. And most men don't even know what that means. Even if they're hyper stressed and in their emotions of stress all the time, I have men that are like, I I don't know what my emotions are. I can't feel my emotions. It's like, bro, you're like seething as stress. Or like anger issues. They have anger issues and they're
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: like, I'm not emotional. It's like, where's the disconnector? So
Anna Goff: Mm-hmm.
Max Trombly: what I first do is I help men really come into the emotional body, which is a beautiful thing. Like happiness, joy, play, sadness. These are all beautiful emotions and they're actually like a really important part of the human experience. And then there's like rage and anger and stress and those are difficult emotions. But like being able to register those and regulate them and self-kind of soothe when you're having that experience is the first stage of masculine sovereignty. The second stage is teaching just relational dynamics. And so how do you actually work with a woman who's enraged, upset, resentful, you know, confused, angry, like whatever? Like, how do you work with that? And so working with that in an effective way, where you go, like, okay, look, I want to hear you. Like, let's actually get into a conversation. And then you go, like, that makes sense. Like, I understand how you feel. I understand how I impacted you in that way. Like, I understand how we can do this differently. Let's try. Like, to be more competent in how we resolve conflicts is a game changer. As soon as you start getting competent in that, instead of feeling Like you guys are fighting each other all the time, you're feeling like okay, like we can get better at this, which brings in faith and hope in the relationship. And so when a woman can believe that there's change happening in relationship, it's like the whole resentment cycle stops, trust starts to build, and then after that, it's just the real positive aspects of relationship. Like, how do you flirt with her? How do you light her up? How do you touch her body? How do you get her like fuck yes, life is good, both physically, spiritually, and also just like experientially. So, you know, are you doing
Molly Rubesh: Mm.
Max Trombly: Things with your wife that have her feel like, fuck, I love this life with you. You know, I just took my wife
Molly Rubesh: Yeah.
Max Trombly: and kids to Portugal and like my wife is just like, I cannot believe this. That was not a possibility in her life a decade ago, you know, and neither was it in mine. And so it's
Molly Rubesh: Mm-hmm.
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: like, how do we create a life where emotionally competent, sexually viable, and vital, and just a fuck yes experience. Like that's what I create with my wife, and we're in it, and it's awesome. And when men hear that, they go, okay, how do I do it? And I just outlined it for you guys.
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: Well, and it's perfect because at the y men often want to flirt or or grab
Max Trombly: Yeah. Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: or, you know, they want to have intimacy, but they're missing the first two things. And women are like, I have so much resentment towards you. The f don't touch me. Don't rub my back. Don't I mean,
Max Trombly: Yeah, don't touch me. Yeah. Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: and they're like, when he puts his arm around me, I like actually retreat. I do not I'm so resentful, I'm like not receptive to that. And so then they double down and she has so much resentment. I had a client send me a message last night and she's bas I mean she's very close to filing for divorce and she's continued to tell him He texted her and said, Can I ask you for a favor? And she said, Sure, what's up? He said, Can you wear that black shirt because your boobs look fantastic in it? And she's like, I'm so what?
Anna Goff: Like what what
Max Trombly: Yeah.
Anna Goff: in the world?
Max Trombly: Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: What? And and
Max Trombly: Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: I don't know if that's his attempt to flirt with her or compliment her. I'm not I have no idea. Like trying to send her a she's like
Max Trombly: It is. Yeah, he's trying to create energy. But but what you said, I know, I know, I really get that. But
Anna Goff: She's gonna go burn that shirt. She's
Max Trombly: yeah, like he's just trying to bring energy the only way he knows it, and she's got the resentment in the the like wall. And like
Molly Rubesh: Yeah.
Max Trombly: you have to actually deal with the resentment in the wall first. And the
Molly Rubesh: Mm-hmm.
Max Trombly: wall is just a lack of trust, a lack of safety, you know. So anyway, yeah, I really get that. That's a bummer.
Molly Rubesh: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Anna Goff: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I hear I hear that so much from women.
Molly Rubesh: it it's so good.
Anna Goff: Yeah. From women about like once they get divorced and they're like, I didn't think I liked sex. I didn't think I liked flirting. I didn't think I liked making out and all this but when it's not their husband anymore and there's not that resentment then they're like, I do yeah, like I do feel that again.
Max Trombly: Yeah. It's amazing. I can actually enjoy sex. I can actually be present in the moment. I can actually enjoy this person in the experience, even if it only lasted like a month or two. The reawakening is pretty incredible. I went through I
Anna Goff: Yeah, absolutely.
Molly Rubesh: we're hardwired for love. We want it. We want it. We're not trying
Max Trombly: Yeah. Yeah, we want love. Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: to like push it away, but we're not mm-hmm.
Max Trombly: Totally. And sex and intimacy are a need. It's not like a
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: bonus. It's not like a thing that we get to d like it it's actually a need, you know? And w and I think we
Anna Goff: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Max Trombly: forget that or we make excuses as to how it's not a need
Anna Goff: you have to feel like you want it and like it's not a ch a chore to check off the list and and and it can. And the more connected you are and the more emotionally connected you are, the more she'll want it.
Max Trombly: That's exactly right. And that's the key to why I learned all this. Like years ago I was like, I wanna create a forever vital relationship that feels happy,
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: alive, and the sex is good. Like that's literally the primary three things I wanted in a relationship. And I was like, So what does that mean? Like what what do I need to build in my relationship to ensure that that happens? 'Cause I mean I can flirt with my wife for the rest of our days, but there's other pieces that are if they're missing, like it's not gonna work.
Anna Goff: Yeah.
Max Trombly: And so this is why I developed all this. Like essentially so that I could have the best relationship I could create for the rest of my life. And as I realized it, I was like, Wow, fuck, men would love to know this information. Like this is really the missing piece for men. Does that make sense? Yeah.
Anna Goff: Yeah. I love that. I it makes absolute sense. And I think that, you know, if you can have a partner that you get to choose every single day that you're madly in love with, that you're passionate about, that you're connected to, that you trust, like and you have amazing sex and want that, like, yeah, that's what we all want, right? Like there is
Max Trombly: Yeah, like what else is there to life? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Molly Rubesh: Right.
Anna Goff: nothing better and then you don't have to go out and find somebody else and you're like, Man, I'm married to the hottest guy. I you know,
Max Trombly: Yeah.
Anna Goff: we wanna just Yeah. No
Max Trombly: I don't wanna date. I don't wanna try to find things I don't have. I don't wanna spend my life feeling like I'm unfulfilled. I just wanna be like, Cool,
Molly Rubesh: Yeah.
Max Trombly: my life is good, my wife is amazing and it's hot as fuck. Like that's my life. Yeah. And like you can do that. Yeah.
Anna Goff: Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Well,
Molly Rubesh: Yeah. And to feel like
Anna Goff: I am
Molly Rubesh: loved and seen sitting next to your partner. I mean, just
Max Trombly: Yeah.
Molly Rubesh: just to go to bed at night and know and and that's the beauty of having two different marriages is one I can really, really, really appreciate the depths of my marriage now because of how different I felt in my first. And some of that is on me. I will not sit here ever and blame it all on him.
Max Trombly: Of course. Well the only way it's gonna work now is when you take responsibility for your side of it. So yeah, of course, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's amazing.
Molly Rubesh: Correct. it's so good. I love it.
Anna Goff: Yeah. Well that is an amazing s place to stop. And now that
Max Trombly: Sure.
Anna Goff: we're all like fired up about going out and finding this and building this, I'm so excited that you are on and I know that what you're teaching men is resonating and women are thanking you everywhere and so
Max Trombly: Yeah, thank thank you.
Anna Goff: tell us where people can find you and follow you.
Max Trombly: Well, my name is Max Trombley. So you can find me online pretty easily if you just search for that. My company is a shiftinbeing.com and that's where you can find access to my programs or my different things. I run a men's program once a year from January to June. And that's kind of my primary like education tool for men. And it includes emotional integrity and then you know, building really effective relationships. it's also the interesting thing about my men's work is that even though I framed it through creating better relationships, for most men. It's really just finding themselves again. It's like learning who they really are, like learning what is inside their kind of operating system of life and then coming into an empowered self state first. so really the cool thing about my program is that it's not just about the wives, even though it dramatically affects the relationships. It's really about these men. And so at some point I'll run, you know, stuff for teenage boys and I'll run things for elders as well. But right now I've got the way of man, which is my program from January to June. And yeah. Shift and being dot com is where you can find me. Or Instagram.
Molly Rubesh: We have all the links and we will provide them in the show notes. so Max, thank you so much. On behalf of both Anna and I, we deeply appreciate your time. And for our listeners, I'm sure they're gonna appreciate this, but mostly thanks for doing the work in the world to try to change the shift and elevate us as humans to have better relationships because all of us will have better human experiences if we learn how to love one another better.
Max Trombly: Yeah, more kindly, starting with ourselves. Yeah, thanks. I really appreciate that. Yeah, my
Molly Rubesh: Yeah, yeah.
Anna Goff: Right, awesome. Thank you.
Max Trombly: pleasure.
