I've been speaking to male audiences for years, mostly at conferences and retreats. Most of the time I talk about recovery from compulsive sexual behavior, and I usually wind up telling my story of addiction to porn and hookers. It's a subject I'm comfortable talking about -- especially when the only people in the room are other guys. Guys understand.

If my wife doesn't accompany me on a trip, I always take another guy along, and sometimes that fellow joins me on stage. Again, this is something I'm very comfortable with. Guys love road trips. A guy can be ready to go anywhere in five minutes, and he brings very little luggage. If we want to, we can talk about baseball the whole way.

But this time I'll be working with a woman. And we'll also be talking to girls.

I'm bringing another guy along on the trip to Indiana too, of course. My good friend Scott Phillips, a dazzling talented musician who has covered many miles with me over the years, will be there for the whole thing. Scott will play a song or two, and we'll have a good time together.

But this time I'll be sharing the stage with Constance Rhodes, who just happens to be a woman. We'll be speaking to audiences of men and women, and we'll be talking about the most secret and shameful struggles women and men face.

Right there. On stage. Together.

A few things about Constance:

• Constance is a mom, and she's married to a friend of mine.
• Constance is considerably younger than I am, but she has already written more books than I have.
• Constance likes to make fun of me because of my age, but deep inside she's envious of my superior life experience.
• Constance doesn't make fun of my weight. because she's sympathetic to that kind of ridicule, even though she's skinny.
• Constance was the first person to suggest to me that the typical male obsession with sex and the typical female obsession with weight and appearance are actually RELATED — that men and women do different things for the same core reason.

Constance and I kicked this idea around for awhile, and I eventually became convinced that she is right. We've been segregating guys and girls for years because we've believed, wrongly, that their struggles are completely different and they will never be able to understand each other. As a result, we've helped to perpetuate a cycle in which men unwittingly aggravate women's misery while women, entirely without realizing what they're doing, aggravate the misery of men.

This has got to stop. Which means we've got to do something different.

So now ... I'm working with a woman.
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