Pathbreaker: Peace In The Pause

“Nice Guy” Walking on Eggshells

There comes a time in every “Nice Guy’s” life when everything falls apart — when you wake up and realize the version of yourself you built to keep the peace has destroyed the man you were meant to be.

That was me.

When I met my son’s mother, I slowly stopped chasing the dreams that used to light me up. I wasn’t out there taking action anymore — I was just studying personal growth, planning, preparing, but never moving. My life looked calm from the outside, but inside, I was suffocating.

I became a professional chameleon — always adjusting, always trying to be what I thought she needed me to be. I traded my authenticity for approval, and I told myself it was love. But it wasn’t. It was fear wearing a polite smile.

And here’s the hard truth: that “Nice Guy” behavior — the people-pleasing, the walking on eggshells, the “Happy wife, happy life” nonsense — it kills a man from the inside out.

I believed that saying meant it was my job to make her happy. What I’ve learned since is that no man can carry that weight — and he’s not supposed to. A man’s job is to keep growing, to stand in truth, to lead with love and conviction. His partner’s happiness is her own responsibility, just like his is his own.

Real partnership isn’t about losing yourself to make someone else comfortable. It’s about resonance — two people walking in alignment, lifting each other higher, not dimming their light to avoid discomfort.

But when you build your life around keeping someone else calm, you lose your peace. You start walking on eggshells in your own home, terrified of saying or doing the wrong thing. You shrink a little more every day until you can’t recognize the man in the mirror.

That was me — trapped in the house I built with good intentions and silent resentment.

And then came the pause.

The silence after everything fell apart. The space where I finally stopped performing and started breathing.

That’s where peace began. Not in fixing the marriage, not in proving myself — but in finally hearing my own voice again and realizing God was still there, waiting for me to listen.

Peace in the Pause isn’t about doing nothing. It’s about letting go long enough for the real work — the divine work — to begin.

The Roller Coaster: Sadness/Shame/Blips

So there I was — September 2024 — standing in a mostly empty house.

Boxes half-packed. Walls that echoed. Just me, our dog Max (rest his soul), and the cat, Oliver. Three men of the house, holding down the fort. Sounds kind of nice, right? Freedom, quiet, space to think.

Yeah… not so much.

The silence hit different. It was too quiet. And I missed my boy — bad.

He and his mom had already moved up to Oregon so he could start first grade, while I stayed behind to finish repairs and prep the house for sale. It made sense logically, but emotionally? It wrecked me. Nobody prepares you for that kind of emptiness — when your purpose gets packed up and drives away in the back seat of someone else’s car.

Those first few weeks… man, they were brutal.

The sadness crept in first — that slow, heavy ache in your chest that just sits there. Then came the shame, whispering all the old lies: You failed your marriage. You don’t have your future figured out. You’re broke. You’re out of shape. You’ll probably be alone forever. You’re not worthy of love.

That’s the thing about shame — it doesn’t just speak, it accuses.

And I believed it.

Every morning felt like another lap on the roller coaster — sadness, guilt, flashes of hope, then straight back down again. Some days I could laugh for a moment, maybe even smile at Max or watch Oliver do something dumb, and for a split second it felt normal. Then it would crash back into the pit again.

I kept cycling through denial, anger, bargaining, sadness… everything except acceptance. Because to accept it meant facing the truth — that the life I built was gone.

That was a hard pill to swallow.

It wasn’t fun. It wasn’t noble. It was lonely, quiet, and dark.

But here’s what I see now: that’s where God started the real work. He stripped away everything that wasn’t me — the noise, the performance, the illusion of control — and left me sitting with the only thing that was real: myself.

And brother, that’s the ride no one talks about.
The one that breaks you down just enough for God to rebuild you right.

That’s Peace in the Pause.
Not a happy peace — a holy one. The kind that starts in the wreckage and slowly becomes strength.

Things That Kept Me Going: Inner Child Curiosity

Even in the middle of the chaos, I found little things that kept me grounded — small sparks that reminded me I was still alive.

Softball was one of them. Tuesday through Friday nights, I was out there under the lights, glove on, heart wide open, trying to remember what laughter felt like. The field became my therapy. The sound of a solid hit, the crack of the bat, the smell of dirt — that was freedom.

It wasn’t just the game, though. It was the people. The ones who didn’t care about my divorce or my mistakes. The ones who showed up with no judgment, no blame, no “you should’ve.” They just showed up — to play, to laugh, to live. When you have the right people around you, the ones who love you for exactly who you are in that moment, you feel it. That’s love without condition.

Then there was the quiet stuff — walking, hiking, backpacking. That’s where I found my peace.

I’ve always dreamed of walking the Pacific Crest Trail one day — 2,650 miles from Mexico to Canada. Back then, I wasn’t anywhere near that kind of shape, but I started small. Two miles a day the first week. Then 5. Then 8. Then 10. I had the time — I’d quit my job in August — so I poured it into movement, into breathing again.

On rest days, I’d just stretch, meditate, and do yoga — not because I was chasing a goal, but because my body needed gentleness as much as my mind did.

It wasn’t about getting ripped or dropping weight. It was about feeling alive. My muscles were sore again, and for once, the pain felt good — it was honest pain. The kind that tells you you’re rebuilding.

Around the Sparks Marina, I’d stop at park benches to do push-ups or squats. Sometimes I’d just sit and watch people — families walking dogs, couples holding hands, kids chasing ducks. I didn’t need to talk to anyone. Just observe. Be still. Be present.

That was therapy.

I didn’t know it then, but that simple act — being still in a public place, breathing, watching, being — was exactly what a broken heart needs.

The things that kept me going were simple: my family, lifelong friends, my softball crew, and the trail. The trail was where I could only go by walking — step by step — just like life.

That’s when my curiosity came back.

Remember that little boy from years ago — the one who flooded backyards and asked too many questions? He started to wake up again. The world started to look wide and mysterious again.

My heart was still broken. My body was weak. My spirit was cracked open.
But curiosity… curiosity was the spark.

And God can work with a spark.