Help! My parents never told me any of this stuff!

Over the years I’ve been writing, speaking, and coaching about the ways in which marriage-minded women can build happy lives, the most common response I hear from them is, “No one ever told me this stuff!”

The topics they’re typically referring to include: how to date, how to choose a flexible career, what to look for in a spouse, how to successfully combine work and family, and even how to manage money.

There has been a collective silence from both parents and the culture on these crucial life skills. The only subjects women (and men, for that matter) get any guidance on is school and career. As if those two things are all that matter in life.

In reality, the life side of the work-life conundrum becomes more paramount as time goes by, especially once marriage and family take center stage—and women lack the roadmap they need to be successful in this sphere. No one ever gave them one because the goal for women is no longer supposed to be marriage and family.

So what, then, is the goal? And how are women supposed to navigate the dating scene in the meantime? Are they supposed to happily move in and out of quasi-committed relationships and even live with their person with no guarantee of a future? And, what, just be satisfied with being single forever because at least they have the satisfaction of a paycheck?

None of this is working.

The underlying problem with the “career first, marriage maybe” narrative is that it deleted the old way, but it didn’t replace it with anything new. It left out the details about how women are supposed to live their lives instead.

This new narrative is also predicated on the lie that men and women are “equal,” as in the same, when nothing could be further from the truth. It may seem that way when we’re young and childless, but once men and women get married and have kids—and statistically, most still will—the differences between the sexes become glaring.

Which is why those who bring trendy views on equality to the marriage, with the assumption that spouses will split everything down the middle, as if they’re roommates rather than married people, set themselves up for major disappointment. The marriages that flourish are the ones that embrace, not reject, sex differences.

The only solution to the lies you’ve been fed is to get comfortable being different. You need to start thinking in a way that goes completely counter to everything you’ve been taught to believe—and make choices that seem wildly unpopular.

I say “seem” rather than “are” because as a relationship coach I can tell you you’re not as alone as you think. Millions of women are suffering with the same struggles, and they’re exhausted.

I receive scores of emails and online comments every week from women who want a different life than the one they were told they should want and who feel trapped in a culture that’s resistant to their deepest desires.

Millennial and Gen Z women are products of a generation that prides itself on having effected social change but that simultaneously set their daughters up to fail in life and in love. It was a fatal trade.

The truth is, you’ve been sold a bill of goods about how to build a happy life—which means your first order of business is to recognize the culture is your enemy. It is actively working against you every step of the way by selling bogus messages about men and women, love and sex, and marriage and family.

Like the idea that women can have sex the same way a man can: without getting attached. This cultural expectation conflicts with human nature. There’s a biological reason why women feel about sex the way they do and why men feel about sex the way they do. It’s not as simple as divesting yourself of gender roles.

You’ve also been told that you can and you should be employed throughout your life, as though men and women should live identical lives in order to be viewed as “equal.”

But that plan ignores an obvious fact of nature: You are the sex that gets pregnant. You are the sex that breastfeeds. You are the sex that will be, or has been, literally attached to your baby and as a result are attune to his needs in a unique and primal way. You are the sex that becomes walloped with a deep desire to “nest.”

Ergo, to expect men and women to map out their lives in the exact same way is absurd. Especially since you’re going to need to depend on a man to provide at some point.

Every week I work with women whose entire worldview as it pertains to breadwinning has shifted as a result of becoming a mother. They learned the hard way that the marketplace feels far less liberating (to the extent that it ever was—most people have jobs, not careers) and much more of a chore once a baby has arrived. Breadwinning just isn’t on most new mothers’ radars.

That is not the case for men. Men are providers and protectors by nature: They’re biologically wired to want to produce on behalf of their families. When a man becomes a father, his providing instinct kicks into high gear.

I know you may be hearing this stuff for the first time. It might even sound shocking. Which is why what you really need going forward is a detox. A detox, you probably know, is the process an addict goes through when he wants to rid himself of toxins that have invaded his body.

When it comes to sex and relationships, men and marriage, and work and family, our culture is toxic. This toxicity is so pervasive you’ve become numb to it. You may not even recognize it when you see it.

Sadly, many women will allow this poison to invade their minds and hearts and even ruin their lives. But you don’t have to.

There are three steps involved in any detox:

1. Recognize the problem.

2. Rid your body of the toxins.

3. Give your body the healthy nutrients it craves.

In other words, you must recondition your brain to think about life and love—i.e. marriage and family matter most; sacrifice is good; interdependence is better than independence; your career doesn’t represent your identity or your self-worth; less is more; etc.—in a way that contradicts everything you’ve been taught since the day you were born. And then build a life that reflects that.

A tall order? Yes. But it can be done. The younger you are, the better. But even if you’re older and have made decisions based on the old script, you can still make a U-turn.

It is never too late to turn your life around. Course correction will be hard, but I know it can be done because I have countless stories in my inbox from women who’ve done it.

If you’re ready to start your journey, I wrote a book to help you. You can read it, or you can listen to me reading it to you while you’re busy doing something else. Either one will get you on your way.