When a CEO falls in love with someone else

Recently, a CEO spent three days with me around the campfire. 🔥

He told me he had completely lost himself. It had all started when he unexpectedly fell in love with another woman. He hadn’t been looking for it.

His life revolved around leading a technology company. He worked relentlessly, believed he had a happy marriage, and was the proud father of two beautiful children.

And then this happened.

He didn’t want to destroy his marriage. So why had this happened to him?

Over the years, working with so many men, I’ve learned that there is always something deeper beneath the surface. It was no different for him.

As I guided him into deeper breaths, the emotions he had been fighting so hard to suppress slowly began to emerge. He tried to stay in control. He wanted to remain strong. Gently, I encouraged him to move toward what he was feeling instead of away from it. To make contact with it. To discover that it was safe. That he didn’t have to be afraid.

Then, without warning, he broke down in tears. A profound grief came to the surface. He found himself reconnecting with his daughter. She had died from illness ten years earlier. He had loved her beyond words.

Although there was nothing he could have done, he had never forgiven himself. But beneath that grief was something even deeper. Without realizing it, he had made a promise to himself. A silent contract.

He had decided that he would never allow himself to love that deeply again. Because if he never opened his heart again, he would never have to experience that kind of loss again. So he buried himself in his work.

And that was exactly why this other woman had crossed his path. Not because she was the answer. But because she reopened a heart he had unconsciously kept closed for years.

It was never really about her. Nor about falling in love. She had simply arrived to make him aware of the contract he had made with himself. That realization brought him to my campfire. Because he didn’t want to lose his marriage.

He wanted to understand what was really happening inside him. Together, we went to the place where that contract could finally be broken. It was intense. It was painful. But it was also one of the deepest experiences of love he had ever known.

Sometimes, that is exactly what is needed to release a promise that has been shaping your life for years. To allow yourself to receive the love you have been longing for all along.

“If I had known beforehand what was going to happen,” he told me afterwards, “I never would have dared to come.” He smiled. “But it was exactly what I needed. It may have been the most beautiful experience of my life.”

A few months later, we spoke again. He was doing remarkably well. He had made some radical decisions in his work. Because he finally realised it was never the life he truly wanted.

For the first time in years… he had found the courage to choose himself.

🔥 Michel