Ted Riter

Reader, There is a pattern I have watched in couples navigating impossible seasons… and one I lived through myself. During the years of infertility in my first marriage, we quietly drifted apart… and inside that drift, I disappeared. Not all at once, not dramatically. I can’t speak for her. But my fear, my grief, my loneliness went underground because I had no language for them and nowhere to put them. The focus was entirely on my wife’s experience… and in many ways, it made sense that it...

Sometimes life doesn’t “change,” Reader, it shakes. Butterfly emerging from earthquake; AI created Bruce Feiler, in his book Life is in the Transitions, calls these moments lifequakes: those seasons when the ground shifts under the life we’ve built, and we realize what used to fit doesn’t anymore. Though I first read this book when it came out in 2020 (appropriately, during COVID), it’s a framework I refer to again and again. Chip Conley, also a great teacher in this space and founder of the...

Reader - I’m sickened, and yet not surprised, by the reporting coming out about online communities that teach and normalize sexual abuse…spaces where men trade tactics for drugging and violating women, and getting away with it. Let me say this plainly: this isn’t “edgy.” This isn’t “kink.” This is violence. And the most important thing I want to say, as a human being (not simply because I’m a husband or father of a daughter), and as a man who trains men, is this: Men need to handle men. Not...

On a scale of 1-10…Reader...how exhausted are you in your relationship? Or have you been in a past relationship? If you’ve ever felt quietly exhausted by what it takes to keep connection alive… this one might hit. What We’re Talking About There’s a term for this: Mankeeping. And yes, this pattern can show up in any couple. I’m naming the most common version I see. Mankeeping is the often-invisible emotional, relational, and logistical labor that one partner does to maintain the other...

Hi Reader, Something happened over the past few weeks. In fact, I had three seemingly distinct yet interrelated experiences: EMLT (leading 80 men in the Panamint Desert with John Wineland) The Hoffman Process (a week-long personal dive into patterns learned in childhood) Passover (a celebration of moving from slavery to freedom) Each one a container, each one asking the same question in a different language: What are you carrying that was never yours to carry? And what would it take to put it...

Hi Reader, I keep hearing the same sentence from women… and I can feel the weight of it. Not all women. Not in every relationship. But often enough that I’m paying attention. It sounds like this: “He’s a good man. He shows up. He’s loyal… but he’s not curious about me.” And when it’s said, it’s rarely a character assassination. It’s usually a longing. Sometimes that curiosity faded over time. And sometimes… more quietly… it was never really there. Both of those matter. And they ask different...

Going All In…Even When Your Partner Won’t (or can’t) You don’t get to decide when (or if) your partner grows. You only get to decide who you become while you’re waiting… and how long you’re willing to wait. That singular truth? It’s either the most liberating thing you’ll ever hear, or the most terrifying. Most people hear that and think it means giving up. Accepting mediocrity. Resigning themselves to a relationship that feels half-alive. I’m inviting you into something different. Going all...

Take a breath with me, Reader...this one is for you. There’s a line from an ancient Jewish text that I come back to when life gets noisy or unclear: “If not now, when?” (Avot 1:14) Midlife has a way of bringing everything to the surface. (And you get to define midlife however it fits your life.) It reveals the places we’ve been going through the motions… The ways we’ve been performing “good” while quietly starving for meaning. For many people, this shows up first in relationship. We love our...

Take a breath with me, Reader...this one is for you. It's December. The year is winding down. And everywhere you turn, someone is asking: What are your goals? What's your plan? What are you going to DO? But I want to ask a different question. Who are you choosing to be in the new year? Not: What are you going to accomplish? Not: What are you going to build or fix or finally get right? Who you choose to be shapes every relationship in your life... especially the one closest to you. What are...