Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / How To Protect Your Wife Without Being "Sexist"

Transcript

How To Protect Your Wife Without Being "Sexist" · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:06
  Hi everybody, and welcome to the dr.
• 0:08
  Psych mom show today. I am going to talk about an
• 0:12
  interesting topic which never fails to get some people that
• 0:17
  are mad at me, like so many things I talked about, but this
• 0:21
  one is the idea that men should protect their wives.
• 0:25
  Now, a lot of people both male and female say that this is
• 0:30
  sexist and that I don't know. That's pretty much it.
• 0:35
  It's Isis. I mean it's not usually a very
• 0:39
  in-depth critique, but yes, there I do believe full
• 0:44
  disclosure that men and women are different.
• 0:47
  A lot of the time and, you know, they can be more similar than
• 0:51
  different in certain areas. But if you've worked with
• 0:54
  couples and with individuals for as long as I have, you tend to
• 0:58
  notice some themes and different things that people want, which I
• 1:01
  myself a tribute to a lot of evolutionary plus societal.
• 1:07
  Causes so particularly when women are young and they're in
• 1:10
  the child rearing and childbearing years they seem to
• 1:15
  myself included every woman. I woman, I really talked to they
• 1:19
  seem to want a man who will protect them and look out for
• 1:21
  them. This is very evolutionarily
• 1:24
  mediated. You are having a small baby, you
• 1:28
  are nursing. You are carrying a baby around,
• 1:30
  you want somebody who is going to look out for you and if
• 1:34
  you're not doing this yet, you You will be your body believes
• 1:37
  that you will be. So, even if you are child-free,
• 1:40
  there was something in many women.
• 1:42
  If not most women, that wants to be taken care of and protected.
• 1:47
  So, what are some ways since we do not live in the jungle and
• 1:50
  there are no tigers or lions around in most people's
• 1:54
  environment? What are some ways for a
• 1:56
  modern-day man to protect his wife without making her feel
• 2:01
  patronized or making her feel like she's His daughter or
• 2:07
  whatever else the criticisms would be.
• 2:10
  Because let me tell you, men are scared in today's era.
• 2:13
  They are really terrified to do the wrong thing.
• 2:16
  If they do the wrong thing, then they are treated as though they
• 2:18
  are some sort of a rapist even if they are really a nice guy.
• 2:22
  So they never want to act too aggressive.
• 2:26
  And sometimes they throw the baby out with the bathwater
• 2:29
  there and they don't even act assertive because they're so
• 2:31
  scared of acting aggressive. So, there are men who are
• 2:34
  terrified to To hit on their wives at all to make any sort of
• 2:38
  sexual remark men who are scared to even tell their wife, that
• 2:44
  she looks attractive. Basically, because they do not
• 2:48
  want to be thought of in any way as a predator and make her
• 2:52
  uncomfortable. So how can a man reconcile that
• 2:58
  he's being told by the whole world that he needs to be very
• 3:03
  differential and watch out? For not patronizing, his wife
• 3:09
  but also at the same time make her feel protected.
• 3:12
  Well, this is a fine pickle that many men find themselves it.
• 3:16
  So what I say that you need to do if you're a man who's trying
• 3:19
  to protect, his wife is look for ways to protect her that she
• 3:23
  actually says to you that she wants.
• 3:26
  Because, you know, most women don't have, you know, there's
• 3:29
  this all the stuff about how women find it so hard to express
• 3:32
  themselves. You know, find me some because
• 3:35
  the women I I seen couples counseling, they express their
• 3:38
  shit out of themselves, they express themselves, really good,
• 3:41
  A Plus, and they're having these fights with their husbands, and
• 3:46
  the fights will go something like, why don't you ever look
• 3:49
  out for me? Why don't you care, you know,
• 3:51
  your mom, she said that we don't parent well and that we
• 3:55
  shouldn't have sleep-trained the baby and that I shouldn't be
• 3:58
  breastfeeding. All you do is sit there.
• 4:00
  Why don't you look out for me, right?
• 4:03
  Well, so I mean, you know, this is kind of a basic Cue test.
• 4:06
  What does she want him to do? Oh, she wanted to defend her to
• 4:10
  his mom. So that's the way that this
• 4:11
  specific woman wants to be protected.
• 4:14
  Now, does he have to go over there and punch his mother in
• 4:17
  the face? Certainly not, but he can
• 4:19
  certainly do something that isn't called standing there like
• 4:22
  a silent potato. So what would he do?
• 4:25
  He would say, mom, leave her alone.
• 4:28
  If you have something to say about our parenting, say it to
• 4:30
  me. She's a great mom.
• 4:31
  All right, that's an easy thing for you to memorize on a
• 4:34
  flashcard. Are some other ones frequently
• 4:37
  women do not want to be doing bad things to themselves, that
• 4:43
  they are kind of stuck in a bad Loop doing.
• 4:46
  So for example, they're staying up too late, and they're not
• 4:50
  getting to the gym. You might think that this is 0,
• 4:53
  this is on the level of horrible, you know, if I told my
• 4:56
  wife went to sleep or went to go to the gym, boy, she would think
• 4:59
  I was a real asshole, maybe not because that's also called being
• 5:03
  supportive. So you could try it.
• 5:05
  What's the worst that would happen?
• 5:07
  Your wife would be mad at you. What's it Tuesday?
• 5:09
  Doesn't she get mad at you like, tuesday-thursday many days out
• 5:12
  of the week. So, you know, who cares?
• 5:14
  You can try. So you could try to say, hey, I
• 5:17
  think you should go to sleep. Now you've been on your phone
• 5:19
  for like an hour. You're always so tired.
• 5:21
  Let's go to bed sweetheart. I love you, right?
• 5:24
  That would be a nice thing to say if you don't think it would
• 5:26
  work. So try it.
• 5:28
  What do you have to lose? Nothing, if you get into a
• 5:31
  fight, if you're listening to this podcast, you probably get
• 5:33
  into fights anyhow or all is not.
• 5:35
  Perfect in Paradise. So, try it try to say, Hey, you
• 5:40
  told me you wanted to go to the gym.
• 5:41
  I think you look awesome. But you said, you wanted to and
• 5:44
  I want to be supportive. Let's go.
• 5:46
  Let's go for a run. Let's go to the gym, more
• 5:49
  people, men and women would be receptive to this sort of
• 5:54
  caretaking. Then you think I just did a
• 5:57
  podcast about re parenting. And one thing it's a bonus
• 6:01
  episode to do, have to be a paid subscriber to listen.
• 6:04
  But anyway, one Thing that many people didn't get were firm
• 6:10
  loving rules and boundaries from a parent.
• 6:13
  That's the ideal type of parenting, authoritative, warm
• 6:16
  and firm, which is distinguished from authoritarian, which is
• 6:19
  strict and cold or permissive, which is warm and loosey-goosey,
• 6:23
  no rules authoritative warm, and firm is the best sort of
• 6:26
  parenting link to the best mental health outcomes in
• 6:29
  children because they have boundaries, but sometimes the
• 6:33
  boundaries can be moved with empathy.
• 6:35
  Z and understanding, they're not just drilled you know into the
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  wall like they are in stricter homes, where there is less
• 6:41
  empathy, I could do a podcast on that.
• 6:45
  So let's not go deep down that rabbit hole but anyhow people
• 6:48
  didn't get this many people. So they wish that a partner
• 6:51
  would finally do it that they had somebody who was actually
• 6:54
  looking out for their best interest in a warm and firm way,
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  you can be this person for your partner and that is a version of
• 7:01
  protecting your wife that she may really love.
• 7:05
  Now Back to like when I said, so what's the Worst?
• 7:08
  That Could Happen. She's gonna get mad at you.
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  Many men are terrified that the woman will get mad at them and
• 7:14
  this is something you can really work on in counseling and I'll
• 7:18
  link you to my podcast. That's not my podcast.
• 7:20
  Yet my blog post, stop caring so much.
• 7:23
  What your wife thinks because you got to stop thinking caring.
• 7:26
  So much, what your wife thinks you really do.
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  It's not helping anybody. You're terrified of her, which
• 7:31
  makes you act like a terrified, little boy.
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  And she's mean mommy. The reality is Is she's just a
• 7:36
  human being. She's probably probably
• 7:38
  irritable if she has children and she's a woman that is
• 7:41
  dealing with children and stress.
• 7:44
  So woman, children, stress, irritable, you know, men, get a
• 7:49
  readable to they usually, though, don't get as much
• 7:52
  irritable if they get, like, angry or aggressive, women are
• 7:55
  just like, kind of snippy and irritable.
• 7:56
  This is Manifest differently either way if your wife gets
• 8:00
  irritable with you. So who cares who died?
• 8:03
  Really? If your wife gets mad at you,
• 8:05
  you Need to go on persevering and being the man that you want
• 8:08
  to be in the relationship, no matter what.
• 8:11
  So, this is a good partner, a strong presence, a strong leader
• 8:17
  in the home, which women tell me, they want.
• 8:19
  But then, of course, whenever I say that women want that
• 8:22
  somebody tells me, oh, that's sexist.
• 8:24
  So let's show the sexist and you can think I'm sexist, but I'm
• 8:28
  telling you from my clinical experience.
• 8:30
  What seems to work and really speak to women is a man who
• 8:33
  takes assertive Command of a situation and cares about the
• 8:39
  family and is looking out for everybody in the family.
• 8:43
  So that's her and the kids, right?
• 8:46
  So what are some other ways that you can protect your wife?
• 8:49
  You can also protect her when she from from negative emotions.
• 8:54
  So she is sad or she is scared. You can try to cheer her up.
• 9:00
  I've written about this in this age of over, validation,
• 9:04
  everybody thinks that Somebody who's upset is now bad, this is
• 9:08
  crazy cheering up, somebody who's upset is good, I don't
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  know how it got to be. That this is bad, it's not bad.
• 9:15
  If somebody is upset, you can say, oh, I'm sorry that sucks,
• 9:18
  but why does it end there? Many people have their
• 9:22
  validation end there and they just sit there basically morning
• 9:30
  with the person. Oh, I'm sorry, and that sucks.
• 9:33
  And I'm sorry, and that sucks thinking that.
• 9:35
  They're doing a good job with validation and empathy they may
• 9:40
  be, but at the end of two people, Keening and moaning over
• 9:44
  the same problem, the person feels worse, not better.
• 9:47
  This is why therapist don't do that.
• 9:49
  Their purpose will say, oh, I'm sorry or you, that's terrible.
• 9:54
  Oh, that sounds so hard for you. But guess what?
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  We're also trying to figure out ways to feel better and to
• 10:01
  reframe the situation. And to not endlessly, everybody
• 10:05
  talks about sitting with the emotion, sitting with the
• 10:07
  emotions, great sit within 45 minutes after that, though.
• 10:11
  Let's try to move on with our lives at least a little bit.
• 10:14
  So when your wife, let's say she is, let's just go full out with
• 10:19
  the sexist, right? The sex is, that's actually
• 10:21
  true. Let's seize the day before her
• 10:23
  period aka the day that I personally burst into tears,
• 10:27
  over the fact that my children are larger than they were last
• 10:31
  year or any other thing, right? That will trigger me.
• 10:35
  Because in that state, you're very hormonal.
• 10:37
  You're very easily upset. So, let's say that it's your
• 10:40
  wife and it's the day before her period and she is crying and
• 10:44
  saying you never loved me. If you had really loved me, then
• 10:49
  you would have spoken at our engagement party and you're
• 10:54
  like, what is this new hell? I didn't even know.
• 10:57
  That was a thing. People did what in the hell, and
• 11:00
  if you're like many men, you're going to go down this crazy path
• 11:03
  of she's been thinking about this for Teen years.
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  And this is something that I can never make up to her.
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  And now, I'm first of all, not gonna have sex in the next 36
• 11:13
  days. And, or she's going to leave me.
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  And this is a horrible situation.
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  No, no. She's mad.
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  She's mad. So, she picked something that
• 11:22
  she's mad about. I'm sure she's thought about it,
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  not for 15 years straight, but periodically, she thinks about
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  it and she's crying about it. So, instead of getting
• 11:31
  defensive, of course, don't do that or the Which the more
• 11:36
  evolved men would do, which is, I'm so sorry.
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  I'm so sorry. I must be so terrible.
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  Yes, say that. Say that for like 5 minutes is
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  so sorry. I'm so terrible.
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  I'm so stupid. If I could do it again and The
• 11:47
  Time Machine, I would, you know, sing you a song at the
• 11:51
  engagement party but then try to get up and get moving and
• 11:55
  protect her from this tendency to slip down into these murky
• 12:01
  depths of depression from this bad thought that she had, right?
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  So get Get up and moving you, she's upset.
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  She's crying, say sweetheart, you know what though?
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  Why don't we why don't you come over here?
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  Why don't you come over here? Because we needed to bake
• 12:15
  cookies for the kids thing, right?
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  We needed to do that for the party.
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  Let's start doing that now. Or here.
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  You know what we could do? Hey, we could play this game.
• 12:24
  Got this game for the kids. I would be kind of fun.
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  Wouldn't it? Or hey, I saw this funny YouTube
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  thing. Let me show this to you.
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  Let me try to cheer you up sweetheart.
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  I know I was wrong. I was very wrong.
• 12:35
  About the engagement party. Let me try to cheer you up.
• 12:38
  So here you are trying to move things along, move things along
• 12:43
  and I've talked about using confident momentum to move
• 12:46
  things along. I could link you to that too.
• 12:49
  So these are all ways to protect your wife that you may not
• 12:53
  really think of as protecting but this makes her feel loved
• 12:57
  and secure and safe and valued which is what she wants to feel
• 13:02
  women, want to feel taken care of Safe valued and loved right?
• 13:09
  So this is a way that you can, these are ways that you can make
• 13:13
  her feel like you are there that you are a strong presence that
• 13:18
  she can count on, which is her fantasy is to be able to cede
• 13:22
  control to a strong presence. And now if I say it like that,
• 13:26
  right, you could tell where this is going because she's going to
• 13:29
  get a lot more into you. She going to be a lot happier
• 13:33
  and feel more romantic shall we? A great and really a lot more
• 13:38
  affectionate because you are finally stepping up and doing
• 13:42
  something that maybe short-term she doesn't want you to do, but
• 13:46
  you have the strength to understand that that gives her
• 13:49
  long-term benefit. So think about taking care of
• 13:53
  your wife and way that gives her long-term benefit.
• 13:57
  Even if in the moment you do not say something that she wants to
• 14:02
  hear such as why don't you get off your phone?
• 14:05
  Right, and go to sleep, because you are always so tired.
• 14:08
  So, short term, she may be, like, don't tell me what to do,
• 14:11
  and if every single time you say it, by the way, if she said,
• 14:13
  don't tell me what to do, don't tell me what to do.
• 14:15
  Well then, I mean, what can you do?
• 14:17
  You can tell her. I'm trying to look out for you.
• 14:19
  I'm trying to protect you but if she really says no fucking way,
• 14:23
  I'll be on my phone if I'd want to.
• 14:25
  Well, I mean, you're only human, you're not Houdini.
• 14:29
  So but in the case that she looks up and she says, okay,
• 14:32
  you're right then she makes smile at you, she made.
• 14:35
  Our to feel like you have her back, like you are somebody who
• 14:39
  is looking out for her. If every time that she tells you
• 14:43
  that your mother just going to use your mother, as the example
• 14:47
  of all that is evil because it might resonate with your
• 14:50
  personal experience without conversations.
• 14:52
  Go, if you are mother said something to her Beyond her side
• 14:58
  you don't have to say yeah my mother's most horrible person in
• 15:00
  the world but you could say, wow, that sucks.
• 15:03
  I'll talk to her and talk to her.
• 15:05
  Her, you know, easy. It is, by the way, this is like
• 15:08
  a useful tangent. You how easy it is for guys to
• 15:11
  talk to their mother, mother's love their sons so much men.
• 15:16
  Don't even try to to talk assertively to their moms
• 15:22
  because they're scared of hurting their moms feelings.
• 15:24
  Or they think this one is crazy that their mom won't listen.
• 15:27
  Dear, Mom will listen more times than not, their mom.
• 15:31
  Actually, we'll listen unless she's like some real true
• 15:34
  narcissist. Which most people are not.
• 15:37
  So if you say to your mother, hey can you literally never
• 15:40
  talked to her my wife about sleep training again ever?
• 15:44
  This is causing me marital problems.
• 15:47
  Nine out of ten times your mom will be like oh my god, really?
• 15:50
  Oh I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Okay.
• 15:52
  Okay no. All right, well you know I
• 15:54
  didn't mean it well you know well you know you and she'll get
• 15:57
  real flustered and again, you that's that's not your problem.
• 16:02
  You don't have to be codependent with every unhappy woman and
• 16:04
  solve her emotional problems in the moment.
• 16:07
  That's what we just learned about your wife.
• 16:09
  So this would be a little corollary stop.
• 16:11
  So, caring too much with your mom.
• 16:12
  Thanks. And you would be like, okay,
• 16:14
  thanks so much and really, honestly, she's going to try Try
• 16:17
  not to talk about sleep training anymore because she doesn't want
• 16:20
  to ruin her relationship with you, her child, her son, the
• 16:25
  light of her life. So, you know, that's how you
• 16:27
  would go about doing that. And in any way, we're in any way
• 16:33
  that your wife seems to want help.
• 16:35
  If she says, I am so overwhelmed.
• 16:38
  You step in and you do the thing you could say.
• 16:41
  But then I'm going to be doing everything because being
• 16:43
  overwhelmed is constant. Well, honestly being overwhelmed
• 16:47
  as a And for her, then she's probably struggling with
• 16:49
  depression and or anxiety. So, you got to help, it's just
• 16:54
  like if she was diagnosed with cancer, if she is in any way,
• 16:57
  emotionally physically, mentally suffering, this is what, this
• 17:01
  is, what marriages? So start doing more stuff and
• 17:04
  when you start doing more stuff, this is a secret.
• 17:07
  If you start doing more stuff but things start doing
• 17:10
  everything, right? You say, oh, I can't do
• 17:12
  everything. Sure you can, if she really had
• 17:13
  cancer, you would do everything. So let's say that you did
• 17:16
  everything in the House. All the housework, all the child
• 17:19
  care. If you took that much shit off
• 17:21
  of her plate and she's still upset at some point, it's going
• 17:25
  to occur to her or you may be able to say seems like you're
• 17:29
  pretty depressed. Seems like you're pretty
• 17:31
  anxious, maybe you should speak to someone because otherwise she
• 17:36
  can blame it on the straw man. If you don't do enough or maybe
• 17:38
  you really don't do enough then it's no strawman.
• 17:40
  Either way, if you do more stuff around the house, if she feels
• 17:44
  overwhelmed, then she will be wrong.
• 17:47
  About why she's overwhelmed to the point that she will start to
• 17:51
  see it? Well, he does this, and he does
• 17:53
  this, and he does this, and I don't feel any better.
• 17:55
  So then she may be able to say, oh, I have to work on my own
• 17:59
  self. My feelings of overwhelm.
• 18:01
  Maybe more intrinsic to me. So, that's just a little hint
• 18:06
  all the time. If you want your partner to
• 18:09
  start focusing on stuff internally fix your own shit.
• 18:13
  This is such a magic trick, right?
• 18:15
  So, if couples coming to counseling, Let's say that the
• 18:18
  guy gets really mad and he yells.
• 18:20
  So every time we come in and she says he yells him yelling is
• 18:23
  bad. So great.
• 18:23
  So we talk about that because he's being aggressive and Loud,
• 18:26
  which is of course, bad specially.
• 18:28
  If there are kids in the house. So I say to him and he says, but
• 18:31
  you don't understand. She Bates me, she says this
• 18:34
  crazy thing. That crazy thing she doesn't do
• 18:36
  this, she doesn't do that. I even think that she's texting
• 18:38
  with an ex-boyfriend, I don't know what's going on.
• 18:40
  So I say, listen, if you want us to talk about all that stuff,
• 18:43
  stop yelling, right? Stop yelling for one week.
• 18:45
  Next time I meet up with you Yeah, we can talk about you
• 18:48
  yelling because out of all the things you called her, you
• 18:50
  didn't say she's like a psychopath.
• 18:52
  She's not gonna lie, pathologically and couples
• 18:55
  counseling. So I'm going to say, did he yell
• 18:57
  this week? She's gonna say no.
• 18:58
  And then, guess what? Guess where the focus is going
• 19:01
  to be, maybe it's going to be on some of her stuff.
• 19:03
  So always the trick to making your partner focus more on them
• 19:07
  is be better, not be worse, be better be better and then the
• 19:14
  smoke will clear and their issues will.
• 19:17
  Um Salient ones to deal with, so that's always something you
• 19:21
  could try. Now if you've been trying to be
• 19:22
  better and be better and be better forever and it doesn't
• 19:25
  work, then you're in a very dysfunctional relationship and
• 19:27
  you need to get out. But anyhow, that was that's a
• 19:31
  wrap and I will talk to you guys soon and I hope you enjoyed this
• 19:35
  podcast. Please leave me feedback and
• 19:38
  have a great day.