Many men believe that they simply have “bad luck” with women. Time and again, they end up in similar relationships with similar conflicts and similar disappointments. In the beginning, there is tension, attraction, perhaps even the feeling that this time everything is different. At some point, things turn sour. Closeness becomes increasingly exhausting, conversations become difficult. Connection becomes friction and longing often turns into withdrawal. Passion becomes more and more control, coldness or escape. From the outside, every story looks different. Different woman, different time, different argument, different ending. On the inside, however, the movie is often the same, just with a new cast. This is the point that many men don’t want to see for a long time: Relationship patterns are rarely a coincidence. If you keep experiencing similar dynamics, you should stop just looking at the other person at some point. At this point, it’s about your inner clarity. Because the recurring constant in your own life is yourself.
For many successful men, this sounds almost insulting. They are used to analyzing problems, making decisions, taking responsibility and solving crises. They manage companies, build teams, negotiate with investors, are responsible for sales and make personnel decisions. In business, they see themselves as capable of taking action. In relationships, on the other hand, they suddenly react out of reflexes that they themselves barely understand. They withdraw when things become binding. They become harsh when they are hurt. They often seek affirmation, call it freedom and wonder about this inner emptiness. They want a strong woman, but feel attacked as soon as she is truly independent. They want closeness and sabotage it as soon as it becomes real. This is where the real issue begins: the mother wound.
The mother wound is not a reproach to the mother. Nor is it a cheap explanation to absolve adult men of responsibility. It is the mark that an early relationship can leave on a man’s inner self. In many cases, a man’s first female relationship experience is his mother. She does not shape everything. But it shapes the early image of what female closeness means: whether it warms, holds and nourishes or rather controls, devours or even judges. Whether it is safe or feels unpredictable. Whether love flows freely or is bound to performance, conformity and loyalty. A child does not analyze this. A child adapts. If the mother was emotionally unavailable, a boy may learn to need little. If she was controlling, he learns to associate closeness with narrowness. If she was critical, there may be a feeling of never being quite enough. If she was dominant, female strength can later be experienced as a threat. If she herself was unstable, the boy may become a stabilizer early on. He becomes well-behaved, strong, efficient, well-adjusted or tough. These exemplary strategies help the child to get through his early world. Later, they are declared to be personality traits.
That’s where the confusion begins. A man then says: “I’m just independent.” In truth, he is protecting himself from dependence. He says: “I need a lot of freedom.” In truth, he can’t stand closeness. He says: “I’m very demanding.” In truth, he fears being devalued. He says: “I can’t be controlled.” But in truth, he is reacting to old powerlessness. He says: “I am rational.” In truth, he has learned to avoid feelings. The maternal wound rarely acts as a clear memory, it acts as an internal operating system. Later, the man does not meet women neutrally. He encounters them through an old template:
- A request can feel like control
- Criticism and shame
- Proximity like danger
- Autonomy like betrayal
- female strength such as attack
- Tenderness like manipulation
- Commitment and loss of freedom
Then the man doesn’t just react to the woman in front of him. He reacts to what she touches in him. Therein lies one of the greatest tragedies of male relationship patterns: many men do not fight with the woman they are with. They fight with an old inner experience that they have never properly separated from the present. A woman says a sentence and an old story opens up inside. She asks for commitment and he feels trapped. She expresses criticism, for example, and he hears devaluation. She shows independence and he may feel a loss of control. She needs closeness and he experiences this as pressure. She is emotionally clear and he feels attacked. The real moment is small, but the inner reaction is big.
Many men then call them “difficult women”. Sometimes that’s true. Of course there are destructive relationships, manipulation, emotional instability and power games. But anyone who repeatedly ends up with similar dynamics should take a closer look. Perhaps not every woman is the problem. Maybe it’s just that your own system is always looking for a stage that looks familiar. But familiar does not automatically mean healthy. A man who experienced emotional unavailability early on may later find emotional availability boring. A calm, clear, approachable woman then triggers little in him. A distant or hard-to-reach woman, on the other hand, activates his energy. Suddenly there is tension: longing, chasing and a certain intensity. The man believes this is love. Sometimes, however, it is just recognition. A man who has grown up with criticism may unconsciously seek criticism again. A man who has experienced closeness as control resists every request. A man who took responsibility for his mother’s feelings at an early age may later choose partners he can rescue. A man who is used to emotional coldness feels insecure in warmth. A man who has had to fight for love often confuses struggle with depth. Many people don’t look for what is good for them. They seek what they know.
The mother wound can create two opposite movements. Some men seek women who resemble the early dynamic. Others fight any woman who even remotely resembles that dynamic. Both bind them to the past. One repeats, the other rejects. Neither is free. This is particularly visible in female strength. A man with unresolved maternal wounds can desire strong women and fight them at the same time. He wants a partner at eye level, but as soon as she really disagrees, he becomes tough. He admires independence as long as she confirms him. As soon as she sets her own boundaries, he experiences her as a threat. He talks about equality, but reacts to female authority as if it were an attack. This is not just a relationship issue. It is also a leadership issue.
Many men build a whole life out of their protective mechanisms. This can be impressive in business. Discipline, toughness, ambition, resilience, speed, high standards – it is precisely these qualities that often take men far. They found companies, rise through the ranks, take on responsibility, become CEOs, partners, board members or entrepreneurs. But not every strength is freely chosen. Some strengths are old survival strategies. This is particularly relevant for men in positions of power, because power reinforces inner patterns. Those who control are given more opportunities to control. Those who avoid closeness can shield themselves with work, travel and responsibility. Those who seek affirmation find an endless source in success. Those who are afraid of weakness build an environment in which no one is allowed to see their weakness. A personal pattern then becomes a corporate culture.
A CEO never leads with strategy alone. He leads with his inner system. With his ability to deal with conflict, with his relationship to trust, with his ability to withstand criticism, with his way of regulating closeness and distance as well as with his way of dealing with uncertainty. Every unresolved pattern at the top will sooner or later find an organizational expression:
- Fear of loss becomes control
- Distrust becomes reporting
- Shame becomes hardness
- Avoidance of commitment becomes a culture of distance
- Inner restlessness becomes actionism
- Old powerlessness becomes dominance
An unresolved maternal wound does not end at the office door. It can influence how a CEO deals with women in the management team. Whether he really takes female competence seriously, whether he evaluates criticism from women differently than criticism from men, whether he promotes strong women or subtly keeps them down, whether he recognizes emotional intelligence as a leadership competence or devalues it as a weakness. And also whether he allows closeness in the company or creates a culture in which everyone works but no one really speaks. Many companies today talk in modern terms: buzzwords such as diversity, psychological safety, trust, leadership and culture are well established. Beneath the surface, however, they are often managed in a patriarchal, controlling or emotionally cold manner. Not at all out of malicious intent, but often due to unresolved and unconscious patterns at the top.
The company then calls it processes, governance, performance standards or leadership style. Sometimes this is true. Sometimes it is just the professional packaging of a private reflex. Many CEOs underestimate this connection. They treat their emotional inner life as a private matter that has little to do with the company. That is comfortable, but naive. Those who lead people always act as a whole person. Employees sense whether a CEO is really listening or just waiting until they can take control again. They can tell whether dissent is welcome or will be punished. Of course, they recognize whether trust is genuine or just written on presentation slides. They observe very closely how the CEO deals with pressure, mistakes, closeness, loyalty and power. Emotional maturity is therefore not a soft issue, but an important business factor.
In relationships, the same pattern is often seen earlier and more directly. A partner does not react to the title. She reacts to the person in front of her. She senses absence, even when the man is physically present. She notices when control is disguised as care. She feels when withdrawal is sold as sovereignty. She notices when a man speaks but does not show himself. Many successful men therefore find intimate relationships irritating. In the company, they can shape things. In relationships, they have to show themselves. In business, they have a role, power, competence and resources. In intimacy, other things count: Truthfulness, vulnerability, presence, listening, self-regulation. This cannot be delegated. Nor can it be compensated for with status. A man can scale a company and still be unable to honestly say: “I’m scared.” He can read a balance sheet and overlook his own loneliness. He can convince investors and at the same time not express what really hurts him. He can conduct tough negotiations and disappear emotionally in the partnership as soon as things get serious. Then the relationship feels empty.
This emptiness is rarely caused by too few people in your life. Many men really do have enough contacts: Business partners, investors, employees, acquaintances, women, networks, events – the calendar is full and contact is plentiful.
Connection is something else. Connection begins where a person not only functions, delivers, is strong, provides and decides. It arises when truth becomes visible. When someone is not just a role, but a person who is naturally vulnerable and touchable. This is precisely what many men find difficult because they learned early on that openness can be dangerous. Anyone who has experienced needs being ignored, ridiculed or used against them as a child develops an inner logic:
- Using is risky
- Feelings make you vulnerable
- Proximity costs control
- Dependence is dangerous
So closeness is measured. You let someone get just close enough to make the relationship possible, but not so close that you feel at their mercy. That works quite well for a while. It protects you. It keeps you stable and efficient. In business, it can even look like strength. Those who need little and control their emotions appear independent and resilient. If you don’t let anyone get too close, you appear to remain confident. But in private life, this turns into loneliness. And in the organization, it eventually leads to coldness.
Many companies do not suffer from a lack of strategy. They suffer from too few honest relationships. The top is controlled, the bottom is covered up. Mistakes are hidden. Bad news is reported late. Managers say what is connectable, not what is true. Teams feel pressure, but little trust. Everyone talks about culture, while the actual culture consists of unspoken fears. The quality of relationships at the top determines the quality of collaboration in the organization:
- Those who do not allow genuine closeness in their private lives will often not generate genuine openness in the company.
- Those who experience criticism as an attack will not build a strong management team.
- Anyone who confuses control with security will lose decision-making speed.
- Those who perceive strong people as a threat will gather mediocrity around them.
You can then see the symptoms in the market: slow decisions, political coordination, high fluctuation, a lack of innovative strength, overworked top performers and managers who manage upwards and pass on pressure downwards. On paper, everything is professional, but beneath the surface there is a lack of trust. Trust is not a cuddly concept. Trust lowers costs, reduces security and shortens distances. It brings bad news to the table earlier, which is important. It makes conflicts more productive and increases speed. A CEO who cannot live trust pays for it in meetings, reports, control loops and political behavior.
It’s similar in relationships. Where there is a lack of trust, the internal costs increase. Every message is interpreted. Every pause is given meaning. Every tone of voice is scrutinized. Closeness is monitored and distance is feared. Minor irritations become major inner movements. As a result, relationships do not become a place of strength, but a permanent risk management. Many men call this “complicated”. Often the relationship is not the actual problem. The issue is that your own attachment system is on alert.
The maternal wound often creates a deep ambivalence towards female closeness. The man longs for it and mistrusts it at the same time:
- He wants to be held, but not dependent.
- He wants to be seen, but doesn’t want to show himself.
- He wants care, but not neediness.
- He wants a woman who understands him, but not one who gets too close.
- He wants love as long as it doesn’t disarm him.
This ambivalence makes relationships empty. In the beginning, everything can seem intense. But as soon as real closeness develops, the old protective system kicks in. Then the woman is scrutinized, controlled, devalued or kept at a distance. The man may say he needs space. Sometimes that is true. But sometimes he simply needs distance from his own fear. Many conflicts escalate not because of the content, but because of the importance that is placed on them internally.
These mechanics are highly relevant for CEOs. The same thing happens in the company:
- A board colleague expresses doubts and the CEO hears disloyalty.
- A manager brings a risk to the table and he hears incompetence.
- A strong employee demands clarity, and he listens to attack.
- A female manager disagrees, and suddenly her tone, manner or “fit” is problematized.
The reaction seems rational, but stems from an old emotional pattern. Decisions then become worse. Self-awareness is therefore not a luxury. For CEOs, it is risk management. If you don’t know your own triggers, you confuse them with facts:
- Those who do not recognize old wounds build structures to protect them.
- If you can’t read yourself, you read others less well.
- Those who cannot stand closeness will limit trust in the company.
- If you can’t regulate your inner insecurity, you create external overdrive.
The most important leadership question is not only: What strategy are we pursuing? It is also: From which inner state do I lead? From clarity or fear? Out of responsibility or control? Out of trust or mistrust? From creative power or compensation?
These questions are more decisive than many business schools admit. The old management myth is that leadership is above all a method: setting goals, building structures, making decisions, measuring performance. Yes, that’s partly true, but it’s not enough. Leadership is always also about relationships. If you don’t master relationships, you have to compensate with processes. The less trust, the more control. The less clarity, the more coordination. The less maturity, the more politics. This applies in the company as well as in the relationship. Many men try to solve relationship problems with the same tools they use to solve business problems: Analysis, control, optimization, conversation as negotiation, closeness as a project, conflict as a problem that needs to be sorted out as quickly as possible. This can work as long as it’s about organization. When it comes to real intimacy, it falls short.
A relationship doesn’t need a perfect strategy. It needs:
- Presence
- the ability to listen without immediately becoming defensive
- the ability to withstand tension without fleeing or dominating
- Truth
- the courage to not only show the strong version of yourself
Many men struggle with precisely this because strength was associated with untouchability for them early on. Being strong meant not needing anything, not going soft, not being dependent and not showing weakness. Functioning, delivering and persevering – these forms of strength were socially rewarded. Especially in business. It has built careers, founded companies and survived crises. But it is limited because it leaves out a part. It protects from pain and blocks connection. It makes you capable of action and lonely. It generates respect, but not necessarily closeness. At some point, respect is no longer enough. Then a man sits in a life that may look objectively successful and feels little. His performance is top, he has a good network, perhaps his own home and an attractive partner, possibly a family. And yet something is missing. It often doesn’t manifest itself as a dramatic emptiness. Rather as a silent absence of touch. This is the moment when many men reach out once again: New relationship, more success, bigger goal, more freedom, more excitement, more validation. They hope that the next outside will finally solve the inner deficit. But it usually only triggers a new round.
The real leverage lies elsewhere. It lies in the question of which relationship pattern is sought again and again:
- Which dynamic feels familiar?
- What kind of closeness makes you nervous?
- What kind of woman immediately creates tension?
- Which criticism is disproportionate?
- Which request sounds like control?
- What kind of silence is experienced as rejection?
- What autonomy of the partner is perceived as a danger?
These questions are uncomfortable. They do not lead to quick answers and they scratch our self-image. That is precisely why they are valuable. A grown man does not have to accuse his mother in order to understand his imprint. He does not have to dramatize his past in order to take its impact seriously. This is not about victim identity, but about pattern competence.
Pattern competence means: I recognize when I am reacting from the present and when from the past:
- I recognize which people attract me for healthy reasons and which only activate old tension.
- I recognize when to set boundaries and when to avoid closeness.
- I recognize when I am clear and when I am controlling.
- I recognize when I am really free and when I am just fleeing.
For CEOs, this is one of the most underestimated skills of all. A CEO without model competence builds his company around blind spots:
- He hires people who confirm his inner world.
- He avoids people who challenge him.
- He holds on to loyal but unsuitable people because separation activates old feelings of guilt.
- He ignores strong personalities because they disrupt his control system.
- He confuses harmony with alignment.
- He confuses contradiction with disloyalty.
As a consequence, this costs growth, culture, speed and truth. The higher someone rises, the more important a clean self-perception becomes. CEOs do not have to be better people. But their unconscious patterns have a greater impact. An insecure employee may be a drain on a team. An insecure CEO may put fear into an entire organization. An avoidant partner hurts a relationship. An avoidant CEO, on the other hand, builds a leadership culture where no one really speaks. Power makes inner life scalable.
The way out begins with a clear cut: stop explaining your own relationship experience exclusively in terms of the other person. Of course there are unsuitable partners, toxic dynamics and only one side is ever responsible. But if you find yourself in the same movie over and over again, you should check the script. This script was often written early on. It may contain sentences like:
- Proximity is dangerous.
- I have to perform in order to be loved.
- I can’t trust anyone too much.
- Controlling women.
- Needs are weakness.
- I will be abandoned if I am not enough.
- I am only safe if I stay in control.
Such sentences are rarely consciously in the mind. They work in the body, in the reaction, in the tone of voice, in the withdrawal, in the attack, in the choice of partner and in the way a man conducts conflicts. Change begins when these phrases become visible. Not as an intellectual exercise, but as a daily practice. In the moment of irritation or in conversation, when the old reflex kicks in. In the situation in which you want to flee. In the moment when you want to get tough. In the second when you inwardly devalue your partner because she has touched something that hurts. Maturity shows itself right there. The old reflex feels safe. Withdrawal feels safe. Control feels safe. Toughness feels safe. Work feels safe. A familiar emotional distance sometimes feels safer than a healthy closeness. This is why insight alone is not enough. A man must learn to act differently, even though the new feels strange at first. A stable woman can feel boring at first if her own system is used to drama. An honest conversation can feel threatening if you associate vulnerability with danger. Trust can feel risky if control has been the only safety strategy for years. Healthy doesn’t always feel good right away. Sometimes it feels unfamiliar at first.
This also applies to companies. A culture with more trust may initially feel unsafe for control-oriented CEOs. A strong leadership team may initially feel threatening to power-driven CEOs. A clear handover of responsibility may initially feel reckless to over-responsible founders. True openness may initially feel chaotic to conflict-avoidant organizations. Growth often feels like a loss of control before it feels like freedom.
In the end, many men are not looking for a new relationship at all. They are looking for a relationship in which they no longer have to use their old protective system. For example, they are looking for connection without struggle, closeness without narrowness and trust without losing themselves. A love without constant testing. To achieve this, they need to become more capable of relationships themselves.
Relatability does not mean being soft or limitless. It means,
- to be true
- Clear and approachable
- Taking responsibility for your own reaction
- Setting boundaries without hurting
- Allowing closeness without giving yourself up
- Listening to criticism without immediately going on the defensive
For CEOs, this is exactly what modern leadership is. The old leadership was often hierarchical, controlling and unapproachable. The new leadership requires internal stability. People do not permanently follow roles. They follow managers who:
- Exude clarity, presence and confidence
- Do not become emotionally primitive even under pressure
- can decide without humiliating
- Being able to listen without losing power
- Being able to manage conflicts without destroying relationships
A man who has learned this privately leads differently. He no longer has to win every argument or control every uncertainty. He no longer has to put on a show of strength. He can tolerate strong people next to him as well as maintain closeness. He can share responsibility and he can hear the truth.
This is not a romantic ideal. This is entrepreneurial maturity.
The question “Why do my relationships so often feel empty?” goes far beyond partnership. It leads to the core of a man’s life, because it asks:
- Where am I really present?
- Where am I playing a role?
- Where do I look for confirmation instead of connection?
- Where am I confusing tension with love?
- Where am I managing old injuries instead of allowing new experiences?
Perhaps the palpable emptiness is a signal. An indication that success, status, stimulation and control are no longer enough. A hint that an old system has had its day and that the next step is not on the outside: Not the next woman, not the next deal, not the next title, not the next growth. Perhaps it’s about the more honest question: what feels familiar – and what is really good for me?
Anyone who takes this question seriously will begin to make different choices in all areas of life. Both in private relationships and in the management team. In issues relating to conflict, closeness and power. They recognize more quickly when they are being pulled by an old pattern. They are less likely to confuse drama with depth. He is better able to withstand stability and no longer has to control every uncertainty. He builds relationships that not only work, but are sustainable.
In the end, this is perhaps the most mature form of strength: not becoming tougher, but truer. Not becoming more successful to drown out the emptiness, but honest enough to allow connection. Because the quality of your relationships is not separate from the quality of your leadership. It is a part of it. If you cannot maintain closeness in your private life, you will limit trust in your professional life. If you avoid any vulnerability in your private life, you will make openness more difficult professionally. If you defend old patterns in your private life, you will only assert a new culture at work. Everything follows a logic.
A man in charge should not reject this truth. He should use it. Relationships are mirrors. So are companies.
Sooner or later, both show how much connection a person really allows.
written by Yasmin Floria Kreß – Business Partner of Frank Rechsteiner