The Dog Is Dead

A few years ago we held a summit in Austin, Texas. On the Sunday morning, after a big night out, we sat in a circle and passed the floor around. One of the men said there was something he'd been holding back all weekend.

He'd been with his girlfriend for eight years. When he came to one of our men's weekends, he didn't tell her where he was going. He said he was visiting a friend, and she found out. Since then everything had turned into a fight about trust. That weekend it was a case of wine he'd bought her. She didn't thank him. She wanted to know if he'd really bought it for himself.

He said, "I think the trust and respect are gone. And once they're gone, I don't think they come back."

I told him what I'll tell you. The dog is dead.

What I mean by a dead dog

You have a dog. You love that dog. And one day the dog dies. It's sad. It's really sad. But the dog is dead, and nothing you say or do brings it back.

Most men won't accept that. They keep the dog. They read books about how to save it. They pay people to tell them how to bring it back. They talk to it like everything's normal. "Hey, how's it going?" The dog doesn't answer, because the dog is dead.

It reminds me of Lenin in Red Square, embalmed under glass so people can file past. Chemicals, perfect lighting, everything done to make a dead thing look alive. That's a lot of relationships. That's a lot of jobs. Everybody can see it's over. The neighbors, the friends, usually her too. The man is the last one still pretending.

Some things really are black and white

People will tell you not to think in black and white. Fair enough, most things aren't. But some things are. A dog is alive or it isn't. There's no in between.

A relationship is the same. Once it's dead, it's dead. Fixing it isn't about finding the right words or the right advice, because things don't come back to life once they're gone. So the only real question left is this one: how long am I going to live with this corpse?

When it turns into work

How do you know? Here's the moment I watch for.

At the start, a relationship is like a house party. Nobody's in charge. Nobody's keeping score. You're laughing, you're out late, you'd go anywhere together.

Then one day it changes. Giving turns into demanding. She starts trying to change you: your shirt, the way you drive, how you take your coffee. It stops being fun and starts being work.

I had a friend who translated movies for a living. She interviewed film stars. She loved it so much it didn't feel like a job. Then one day it was a job. Hundred-and-fifty-page faxes in the middle of the night, three days to turn a whole film around, and not much money in it. The fun was over. She kept at it for another couple of years before she closed the company. She should have walked away the day it turned into work.

Relationships are the same. When it becomes work, that's your moment.

It works both ways, by the way. If you're the one trying to change her, her hair, her clothes, her friends, that's the same sign coming from your side. Let a person be who they are, or let them go.

And sometimes it isn't about either of you. Her family loses its money. The economy turns. Life changes what she needs. Nobody did anything wrong. It just changed.

Look at the stars

Look up at night. Some of those stars blew up a long time ago. They're so far away that their light is still reaching you, so they look like they're still there. They aren't.

A relationship that has gone from loving to demanding is like that. You're still seeing the light. The thing itself is already gone.

When you can't tell

That same morning another man said he wasn't sure about his. They fought a lot, but they had a road trip coming up, mountain biking and camping. Was the dog dead, or just sick?

The first thing I told him: if you have to ask whether the dog is dead, that's already a bad sign.

Then I gave him what I use. Be a security camera. The camera in the corner of the room has no feelings. It just records everything. Next time you're with her, watch like that camera. How much do you touch each other? How often does she smile at you? How much does she want to be near you? How many fights? Then go somewhere alone, play the tape back, and ask yourself what the camera saw.

It's almost always obvious. You don't have to be a detective. The hard part isn't figuring it out. The hard part is accepting something my five-year-old niece could see, because it's your life and your feelings are in the way.

You were in it too

When you finally see it, don't climb up on a high horse. You were in that relationship too. Your feet are in the mud. You were faking it and ignoring it right alongside her. So don't show up as Mr. Truth-Teller, like you discovered something from above. You just stopped lying to yourself. Late.

And you don't need a big breakup scene. It's already broken. You can't break up with a dead dog. No accusations, no fight, no going over who said what. It's sad. It's funeral time. Let it be a funeral.

You can even talk about the good times. I once told a woman, at the end, that she had a gift. With a cheap camera she always caught me at exactly the right moment, better than any photographer I'd ever met. It was true and she deserved to hear it. The dog did live. Honor that.

It's not good karma to go around crushing people. Leave the way you'd want to be left.

Let it end in peace

Here's where most men go wrong. They feel it change. They feel they're not loved anymore, and they can't stand that feeling. So they try to fix it. They confront her. They demand answers. It turns into fights, each one worse than the last, and by the end both of them walk away with hurt hearts and things said that can't be taken back. That's how most relationships end, and it's the worst way.

There's a better way, and it's the one I've used my whole life. When you see that it's changed, don't call her out and don't start a war. Just start letting her go. Step back a little. If you see her every day, see her every couple of days, then a little less. Give her room, and give yourself room. Put that energy back into your own life: your work, your body, your friends, the things you've been putting off. Fill your days so full that this stops being the center of everything.

Often she's already on her way out too. Let her be the one to go. She leaves with her confidence and her dignity, you keep yours, and the two of you go your separate ways in peace.

Whatever you do, don't wait until you're so frustrated you can't control yourself. Make your move long before that.

Years later, women have reached out to me just to say hello, because that's how it ended with us: no big fights, no ugly last words, just good times and a goodbye that made sense. That's a good way to leave.

It isn't good for her either

Men think they're being loyal by staying. Look around. There's a lot of unhappiness and resentment in dead relationships, on both sides. The longer you keep up the act, the longer she has to live in it too.

And this isn't only men. Plenty of women stay in a dead relationship for the very same reasons.

Say goodbye

Here's something I noticed after years of traveling. I'd meet people all over the world, and when it was time to part we'd all say, "We'll meet up again somewhere." We almost never did. People will say anything except goodbye.

Saying goodbye is a skill, and most people never learn it. That's why they stay in dead relationships, keep the dead job, keep friendships that ended years ago, keep the junk in the garage. If you can't end things, you can't start things. You have to pour out the cold coffee to get a fresh cup.

A dead tree feeds the forest

In a forest, a tree dies, falls, rots and becomes the soil the next tree grows from. A dead tree isn't a bad tree. It's part of what keeps the forest healthy. A forest full of dead trees that refuse to fall isn't healthy at all.

I used to race motorcycles, seriously, and I loved it. Then one day I knew it was over. I sold the bike. A smart friend told me to get a scooter, something I'd never even looked at, and I've loved riding them ever since. That's the cycle. You say goodbye to things, sometimes to whole parts of yourself, and something new grows in the space.

It's never only about women

That morning in Austin, the dead dogs kept coming. One man's was his business. At an earlier summit everyone had told him it was dead, and he kept playing with it for another three months before he admitted it. Another realized his friends back home, guys he'd sat with since high school lunch, had nothing in common with him at all. Another was still carrying old relationships around in his head, a dog that wasn't even there anymore, haunting him. That one might be the most common of all.

Jobs, businesses, friendships, hobbies, a city you've outgrown, the man you used to be. It's the same question every time.

What are you staying for?

Sometimes the dog dies and nobody killed it. Times change. People change. The economy, a war, a move, your age. It isn't about blame. It's about seeing it.

So here's what I'd ask you to do. Think back to every relationship you've had, every job, and find the moment it turned. Ask yourself what your life would look like if you'd gone right then. Then look at what's in front of you today, with the camera running, and ask the only question that matters.

The dog is dead. What are you staying for?

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If you want help seeing your own situation clearly, that's the work I do one-on-one, and I wrote about where it starts here. This whole conversation happened at a summit, in a circle of good men telling each other the truth. Come sit in one.

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