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15 - What to Do When She's Emotional Without Making It Worse · Masculine Containment

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  This is a mistake that I made in my marriage for almost 20 years.
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  When my wife was emotional, I felt like I had to do something.
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  I had to say something, fix something, change something.
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  And almost every time, I made things worse.
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  So here's what we should actually do as men in this moment.
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  But first, let's talk about why this moment is so difficult.
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  There's intensity in the room.
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  You feel pressure to respond.
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  I would always feel pressure to respond in the moment as fast as I could.
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  I feel like I needed to handle it to make things better.
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  And underneath that, there was always this feeling of, I don't want to get it wrong.
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  I don't want to have to escalate.
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  I don't want it to get out of control.
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  So I would move too fast and I would do all of those things.
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  I wasn't responding.
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  I was reacting to pressure.
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  And here's what most men, myself included, do.
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  One of four things when she's emotional, when emotions are present.
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  And probably the least challenging is I would try and fix it.
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  I would tell my wife things, oh, you shouldn't feel that way.
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  Or I would say things like, here's all this evidence of the opposite.
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  Or here's what we should do.
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  And that didn't resolve the problem.
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  Oftentimes it would end the discussion, but it didn't resolve the problem because she didn't feel seen, heard, or validated.
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  Or I would defend.
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  I would say things like, that's not what I meant.
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  You're misunderstanding me.
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  I didn't mean to say that.
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  That's not how I wanted you to feel.
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  And that felt like opposition, like I was pushing against her.
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  Now, the next thing I would do is withdraw.
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  If I was in a good place, I would say, I'll give you space.
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  And if I wasn't, I would just say, I can't do this right now.
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  And I'd walk away or it would escalate.
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  And I'd walk away without saying anything, which feels like abandonment.
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  That leaving the room, walking away triggers all of her wounding around abandonment, which every woman, every man has.
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  We all have abandonment wounds.
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  Or, worst of all, I would escalate.
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  She would get emotional and I would get emotional and I would match or even worse, exceed her emotions, which feels like a threat.
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  For us as men, we are stronger than our wives.
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  We are more physically capable.
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  We're more capable of violence.
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  So when we escalate and match her emotions, she feels a much higher level of threat than we do.
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  You just have to admit that to yourself.
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  And when we exceed her emotions, she is actually, her nervous system is under threat.
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  And if this goes on over and over and over again,
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  her nervous system is going to stop trusting you.
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  Some of the most heartbreaking comments and direct messages I get from women sound something like, Alex, I love him.
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  He's my person.
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  I've always loved him.
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  But for some reason, my body is saying no.
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  And what I interpret that as,
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  and I've heard it hundreds of times, is that her nervous system has started to stop trusting you.
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  I know that in the case of my wife, her nervous system started to stop trusting me.
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  And it was in a quiet moment when she finally said, Alex, I don't feel seen.
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  I don't feel heard.
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  I don't feel safe.
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  And if something doesn't change, I can't do this anymore.
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  That I finally woke up to the fact that me trying to fix it or convince her otherwise or explain it away or escalate or withdraw that none of that was fixing anything.
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  And here's what I discovered.
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  What she actually needed was not solutions or explanations or logic.
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  And she certainly didn't need me leaving or escalating and getting out of control.
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  What she really needed was to feel seen, to feel heard, to feel safe, to feel validated.
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  Her nervous system was activated, not her logical mind.
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  So here's what I actually started doing.
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  Masculine containment is a martial art that over time gets better.
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  So step one is slowing everything down.
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  Step two is I would stay in the room, don't leave, and be physically present, but I would actually be mentally there.
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  Stop checking out and disengaging.
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  My presence became the first signal of safety to my wife, Katie, that she was okay.
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  And then step three is I would get curious.
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  I would say, what's going on?
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  And help me understand.
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  And what are you feeling right now?
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  And is there anything else coming up for you?
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  And I wasn't doing this to try and fix it.
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  I wasn't doing this to try and change her opinion.
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  What I was actually doing it for was to actually understand what was going on for her, to understand what emotions were happening.
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  And the more that I did this, I actually started to understand that when my wife was emotional around me, it was her being vulnerable.
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  It was her sharing her inner world.
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  It was her sharing the chaos that might be occurring in her body at that point in time.
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  And after a while, I started to see that her emotions are beautiful.
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  And she's sharing them with me because she trusts me.
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  She loves me.
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  She wants my help.
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  She wants to be seen.
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  She wants to be heard.
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  So step four is I would reflect and stop correcting.
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  I would say, Katie, that sounds really frustrating.
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  I'm sorry you're going through that.
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  And I can see why you'd feel that way.
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  And if she told me something about me that was her truth,
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  I would tell her it was valid because it's her truth.
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  And I don't need to argue with her truth.
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  I don't need to win that argument.
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  She needed to be validated.
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  She needed to be seen.
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  She needed to be heard.
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  And so I would tell her it was valid.
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  And instead of what I used to do, I would hold the space, not try and control her.
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  I'd let her feel.
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  I'd let the emotions move.
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  I wouldn't try to end it too quickly.
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  Emotional expression is not the problem.
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  It's our challenge as men with emotional expression that is the problem.
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  Because you, me, and every man I know have been taught that emotions are unsafe.
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  How many times in your life have you heard, stop talking so loud, stop moving so much, stop raising your voice, stop talking so fast, stop doing something that taught you that your emotions weren't safe.
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  So we learn that ours aren't safe, and then we project on her that hers aren't safe.
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  So here's what happens when you do this consistently.
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  When you slow things down and you stop reacting and you actually hold space instead of controlling the situation and let it move through, intensity starts to drop faster over time.
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  Masculine containment will help you understand that emotions are safe and it will help her know that she can express herself and feel safe and be seen in her.
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  And when that happens, she opens instead of escalates.
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  conversations go deeper instead of wider and scattered and rupture.
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  And over time, she trusts you more.
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  She shares more.
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  She softens more.
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  Because her body learns, I'm safe here.
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  That's how it worked in my relationship.
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  You know, I can be honest with you and tell you that for most of my relationship, if I walked in the room and my wife had emotions present, I would go to one of those four things.
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  I'd try and fix it or I'd try and invalidate it or I'd try or I'd start escalating
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  the room.
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  And it's gone from that to when I walk in the room and there's emotions present, I walk over to Katie and say, hey, I've got you.
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  What's going on?
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  I love you more than anything.
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  You mean the world to me.
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  Tell me what's happening for you.
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  Just happened recently when I walked into our bedroom and one of our daughters is 19 years old, recently moved out.
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  My wife was feeling a lot of emotions about it.
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  And I walked in, she was sitting on the edge of our bed crying.
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  And in that moment, I had the recognition that if this has been a few years ago, I'm
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  I probably would have walked out.
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  She hadn't seen me.
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  Or if I walked over, I probably would have told her she didn't need to feel that way.
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  Or I probably would have tried to fix it, which makes her feel unseen and unheard and invalidated.
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  And worst case scenario is I would have escalated and then walked out and withdrawn and then waited to repair later.
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  But this time I walked over and I said, Katie, tell me what's happening.
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  Calm in my body, present.
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  And she moved for her emotions.
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  She felt better afterwards.
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  Here's what's intense and like pretty amazing for us as men.
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  When I learned to do this, when you learned to do this, and you can help your wife through an emotional reaction like that, you actually feel this feeling of masculine power, of being in your body and understanding your capacity.
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  You'll feel more in control.
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  You won't get pulled into chaos, not just in your relationship, but in the rest of your life.
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  And you'll stop regretting what you've said later on.
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  Again, not just in your relationship, but everywhere.
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  Because when you understand masculine containment and you stop reacting and you start responding and you lead with curiosity, you actually become a stabilizing force in every relationship you have.
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  See, you're not there to win.
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  You're not there to fix.
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  You're not there to dominate.
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  You're not there to control.
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  You're there to hold space so that the emotions can resolve.
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  So the next time she's emotional, don't try to be right.
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  Don't try to fix it.
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  Don't try and end it quickly.
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  Don't try and do everything all at once and right away.
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  Slow down.
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  Stay present.
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  Get curious.
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  Because in that moment, you're not managing a conversation.
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  You're shaping the entire relationship.
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  You're shaping the level of connection that the two of you have.
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  You're shaping the level of intimacy, either increasing or decreasing the level of intimacy between you.
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  increase it.
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  She will soften.
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  She will open.
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  She will see you as a solution.
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  She will come to you and you'll feel that closeness that all of us want to feel with the partner that we have.
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  You'll feel that true secure attachment knowing that anything comes up.
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  You can be the stabilizing force, not the man who brings chaos.
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  And so I want you to know, you don't need the perfect words.
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  You just need the capacity to stay.
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  You just need to make the decision.
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  You're not going to respond to the triggers anymore.
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  And you're going to get better at this every single day.
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  I started an organization called the Brotherhood Society for Men, where we learn masculine containment together.
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  And we walk this path together to understand how to show up grounded, present, curious, and aware, not just for our wives or girlfriends, but for everyone in our lives.
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  And for most importantly, ourselves.
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  Because the calmest man in the room really does win.
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  And this is the way you become that man.
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  Go to thebrotherhoodsociety.com and join our wait list.
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  I'd love to see you there.
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  And if this landed for you, please take a moment and leave me a comment and tell me why.
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  And hit the subscribe button.
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  I'd love to see you again.