Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / Why Isn't Your Wife Happy To See You At The End Of The Day/After You Return From A Work Trip?

Transcript

Why Isn't Your Wife Happy To See You At The End Of The Day/After You Return From A Work Trip? · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:05
  Hi everybody, and welcome to the dr.
• 0:07
  Psych mom show before we get into today's interesting topic,
• 0:11
  which is a source of major confusion for many men.
• 0:15
  I want to tell you as usual to subscribe so that you get access
• 0:19
  to all of my paid episodes and that you can hear all of the
• 0:25
  wonderful topics that I come up with out of my own head.
• 0:29
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  resonate with you and that you are specifically interested
• 0:40
  about. You could also record those by
• 0:42
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• 0:48
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• 0:52
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• 0:57
  Thousands of people. And you can tell me your
• 1:01
  question in your own voice or you could write it in and let me
• 1:04
  know. Anyhow.
• 1:05
  Today I'm going to get to a topic which is a source of a lot
• 1:10
  of frustration and bewilderment Too Many Men which is why when
• 1:14
  they get back from work or a work trip, even worse their way
• 1:20
  of does not. In fact, seem happy to see them
• 1:24
  and they don't really want to touch you and have sex with you
• 1:27
  even though you've been waiting for so long to do that.
• 1:31
  So obviously, you've not been waiting so long when you're gone
• 1:34
  for like a A work day but I mean sometimes, of course, you've
• 1:37
  been waiting a long time despite it just being a work day.
• 1:40
  You've not had sex in a long time anyway, but especially if
• 1:42
  you go on a work trip, you've been gone for like let's say a
• 1:46
  few days. You want to come back and
• 1:48
  reconnect and in fact you think that this would be likelier but
• 1:52
  yet it somehow never is likelier and why is that?
• 1:56
  So the reason, your wife tells, you is usually because you've
• 2:01
  been gone and things have been so annoying.
• 2:03
  And every time there's like, a new Reason.
• 2:06
  Excuse, you know, like the kids were bad and I was overwhelmed
• 2:10
  with shit. We're just doing the work trip
• 2:12
  one now, but it's a little version of this for when you're
• 2:14
  gone all day at work, if she's not, and there's just so much
• 2:19
  shit to deal with. And by the way, this happened
• 2:21
  and this kid had to go to Primary Care, and this kid got a
• 2:23
  mosquito bite and by the way, you know, this thing happened
• 2:26
  with the faucet is leaking and all the shit.
• 2:28
  So I've been dealing with all this shit.
• 2:29
  So how could I be in the mood? Sure, that's true.
• 2:33
  But I mean, one would imagine that that, you know, then she
• 2:39
  would, I don't know, maybe like want to have sex with you anyway
• 2:45
  you know because she hadn't seen you in so long and you hadn't
• 2:47
  you know she could be annoyed. She's usually annoyed, right?
• 2:50
  So sometimes you have sex sometimes you don't doesn't
• 2:53
  really seem to be if she's annoyed but it's even worse if
• 2:56
  you've been gone. So why is this?
• 2:58
  It's usually not just because she's annoyed because should Has
• 3:01
  happened while you've been away. So, there are deeper reasons for
• 3:07
  why some women in particular will not really want to
• 3:11
  reconnect physically and need to seem to have a very long warm up
• 3:14
  period to get, acclimated to you.
• 3:17
  So when women are so okay. So you got to think basically
• 3:23
  about the kind of woman that you're with, there are some
• 3:25
  women that want a lot of space, right?
• 3:28
  And so these are the women that want like the spa day for
• 3:31
  Mother's Day. And they want to go on Mom's
• 3:33
  weekends away and whatever those kind of women may be into you.
• 3:37
  After your work trip, they may be, they are the ones who like
• 3:40
  the separation, like they are more avoidant attachment and
• 3:44
  they are more independent and they really do like to have
• 3:48
  space. And they're the ones when Esther
• 3:50
  perel and her book, mating in captivity talks about like that,
• 3:54
  some people need space to reconnect and to feel romantic
• 3:57
  about each other. Your wife may be in this Camp,
• 4:00
  you may be in this case. Camp.
• 4:01
  You may feel closer and more romantic after you've been away
• 4:05
  for a long time. But there is a whole bunch of
• 4:08
  women who are not in this camp and they feel very upset when
• 4:13
  you go away, they feel upset emotionally and these are the
• 4:16
  more preoccupied attachment women or the women who have been
• 4:21
  in your mind more controlling or jealous or more up your ass
• 4:25
  about what you're doing all the time and like seem to want to
• 4:28
  cling to you all the time. So these Women usually in their
• 4:32
  family of origin. They did not experience a lot of
• 4:36
  trust and security and a caregiver was always going away
• 4:42
  and that does not have to mean physically, it can mean
• 4:44
  mentally. It can mean that a caregiver
• 4:47
  suffered from mental illness or could be very difficult or
• 4:50
  suffer from, you know, substance abuse issues or depression or
• 4:53
  whatever else that pulled them away from your wife, as a child,
• 4:58
  right? So this is what preoccupied
• 5:01
  attachment. It means when that happens, the
• 5:03
  child becomes very preoccupied, with the whereabouts of the
• 5:07
  caregiver and is always kind of waiting like somebody who plays
• 5:10
  a slot machine, they're always waiting for the moment that the
• 5:13
  caregivers attention will come back to that.
• 5:17
  So if your wife was raised in this sort of way, then she's
• 5:20
  always been kind of like clingy and following you around and
• 5:23
  stuff and you then think sometimes that that is Just
• 5:32
  maybe how she is or she's like annoying or she's bored or
• 5:36
  something, you have to understand it at a deeper level
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  people, don't follow you around and act clingy and want to know
• 5:41
  your whereabouts because they're just kind of bored and that's
• 5:44
  all they can think of to do. It's usually stemming from kind
• 5:48
  of deep levels of insecurity, which originated in childhood.
• 5:52
  And so I would be very surprised if you looked back at your
• 5:56
  wife's childhood. If she's a woman who does this,
• 5:58
  and you did not think. Yeah.
• 6:01
  I Is it relates to that her parents are kind of batshit
• 6:03
  crazy, you know, and in this way or that way.
• 6:07
  So anyhow, if you have a wife who is like this and you go
• 6:10
  away, so whether that could be like a eight-hour workday for
• 6:15
  some women who are high on this extreme or certainly a work
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  trip. They like kind of closed down to
• 6:22
  you because they don't want to keep wanting your presence so
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  they like get angry with you. So the preoccupied attachment
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  babe. E, when the caregiver goes away.
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  So because this same style originates as I've told you in
• 6:39
  infancy and goes all the way up through adulthood.
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  So in a situation, where the baby or child is insecure in the
• 6:47
  caregivers affection and attention, they will get mad as
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  a self-protecting mechanism. So they they, they don't want to
• 6:56
  keep putting themselves out there and getting disappointed,
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  they still need the caregivers at Attention.
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  So they still try to get it. But then they get mad about it
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  because they don't want to just keep putting themselves out
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  there and being vulnerable like Charlie Brown and the football.
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  They get angry that this is the state of the world that they
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  never get enough of the caregiver.
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  So they get angry. Also as a self-protective
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  mechanism because anger is an empowering emotion that makes
• 7:21
  you feel stronger, and sadness is an emotion that nobody wants
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  to have. That makes you feel weaker and
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  more like a victim, so your wife, when you go away.
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  She may be experiencing this attachment Panic or attachment
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  anxiety, and the way that she copes with it, as a defense
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  mechanism, she gets very angry at you.
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  That's why she tells you the Litany of complaints when you
• 7:44
  get home and how how terrible everything has been.
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  She's had to make herself angry at you in order to cope with you
• 7:53
  being gone. And the insecurity there to kind
• 7:55
  of power herself through it. She gets angry so that she
• 7:59
  doesn't just get sad and anxious.
• 8:01
  Anxious that you're not there, right?
• 8:03
  And this is going to be particularly relevant.
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  If you're the kind of person who yourself gets very annoyed, if
• 8:08
  she texts you 20 million times and calls you, 20 million times
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  when you're away, or when you're at work.
• 8:13
  So she's learned that you don't like that and that makes her
• 8:16
  even angrier. So the more you go away, the
• 8:20
  angrier, she gets and usually this can be ameliorated by a
• 8:25
  deeper understanding of the dynamic, and more of a, a team.
• 8:31
  Approach to you going away. So for example, many women feel
• 8:35
  just a lot better if the guy texts more and calls more and a
• 8:39
  lot of men don't understand why. Because remember, they are
• 8:42
  usually the more avoidant kind of person who really likes
• 8:45
  space. They love it.
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  Like, you could go away, you don't to cheat on your wife, but
• 8:50
  you could go away. Not talked to her for five days
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  straight. When you come back, you see her,
• 8:54
  she looks good and you're ready to rock you to reconnect?
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  Like that would be exciting. If your wife didn't talk to you
• 8:59
  for five days straight, though. If she's The person with
• 9:02
  preoccupied attachment like I'm describing is not going to want
• 9:06
  to even look at you or touch you.
• 9:08
  She's going to be so angry and shut down, and she may not even
• 9:12
  know why, however, if you've been calling and texting and
• 9:16
  saying you love her, and that you miss her, and that you wish
• 9:18
  that you weren't gone, you may get a very different response
• 9:22
  when you get home, and this will probably be the case, even in
• 9:26
  the case of your workday, which to you may seem ludicrous that
• 9:30
  you be in God. The same amount of time every
• 9:33
  day. She could predict where it when
• 9:35
  you go and when you come home, pretty much within the hour at
• 9:39
  least, how could this possibly be an attachment injury of any
• 9:43
  sort? It's predictable, it's constant.
• 9:46
  It's what you have to do to support the family, you know?
• 9:49
  I mean, hasn't you gotten used to it?
• 9:51
  Yeah, like intellectually, she gets used to it but emotionally,
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  she may be plunged back into that earlier state in her early
• 9:58
  life where she never knew when somebody would Return, again,
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  whether that's emotionally or physically.
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  So obviously if your wife has been like left, like actually
• 10:09
  abandoned by a caregiver ever for any period of time, then
• 10:12
  you'll understand this immediately.
• 10:14
  But what if your mother-in-law is just really volatile and
• 10:17
  difficult? Well, then your wife as a little
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  girl, never knew when she would get a nice version of her mommy
• 10:23
  or a mean version of her. Mommy.
• 10:24
  And that's the same thing. When Mommy isn't being nice,
• 10:27
  it's kind of like, she's gone, the nice mommy is not a Sybil.
• 10:32
  Only the mean, mommy is. So this sort of thing, this sort
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  of upbringing can lead to a wife, who's very upset when you
• 10:40
  leave. She does not have access to you.
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  Yes, intellectually, she knows you have to leave, but that does
• 10:46
  not make it emotionally any better.
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  And it does not make your reunions at night.
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  Any easier. She is still very angry and she
• 10:53
  still has her guard up and this happens every single day.
• 10:57
  But as I said, it can be worked on and it can in fact, be
• 11:01
  helped. A lot by more consistent contact
• 11:03
  during the day so that she knows that you're thinking about her
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  and if you're like, well, Jesus Christ, I have a fucking job,
• 11:09
  you know, I can't do that stuff. Well, I mean, you could probably
• 11:12
  do more than you're doing. I mean, what I always say to
• 11:15
  people is picture if you're having an affair, right?
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  Because soon, many people that are unhappy marriages with a
• 11:21
  clingy wife argue that have pictured.
• 11:23
  It already, you know, not your finest moment, but you may have
• 11:25
  pictured it. And if you were having an affair
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  with a woman who was thrilled to see you every time she got to
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  See you for a second. You would text her.
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  You really would you would somehow find the time in your
• 11:37
  busy work schedule to text her. So if you want your actual wife,
• 11:42
  somebody that you want to remain with to act more, like your
• 11:46
  Affair partner, which is every man's dream, then try to treat
• 11:50
  her more like you would, there try to prioritize the
• 11:53
  excitement. Even if you don't feel excited,
• 11:55
  God knows, you. Don't feel excited to say, hey
• 11:57
  honey, how did baby swim class? Go like this is not the Apex of
• 12:01
  Man in your life. However if you text about baby
• 12:04
  swim classes then you text about lunch and then you send the
• 12:07
  cute, you know me more whatever, all this shit, could take you
• 12:10
  literally some total 10 minutes in your day.
• 12:14
  Some total and she's going to be happy to see you when you get
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  home. Another thing that you can do
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  that can help a lot is being very predictable about when you
• 12:24
  come home. This is a super big deal to
• 12:27
  women with any sort of preoccupied attachment.
• 12:31
  You may say, listen, sometimes I get roped in to do this, this
• 12:34
  this call call the same as you would.
• 12:37
  If you were rescheduling a dalliance with your lover, you
• 12:40
  know, you wouldn't leave Tiffany hanging at the Hilton, you know,
• 12:44
  without calling her and telling her you were going to be a
• 12:46
  little bit late because you would still want to get in
• 12:49
  Tiffany's pants the next time. So do the same thing with your
• 12:52
  wife and the mother of your children especially if she has
• 12:54
  trust and insecurity issues call her immediately when your boss
• 12:59
  is not. Actually, I just got to talk to
• 13:01
  you for a couple minutes. There are no bosses.
• 13:04
  It used to be like in a different generation that.
• 13:06
  Then if your boss said to you, you just got to come over here
• 13:09
  for a few minutes. I got to talk to you about
• 13:11
  something. There are nowadays men.
• 13:14
  Totally in most occupations can say sure be right there and send
• 13:19
  out a text to your wife. That's two words.
• 13:21
  That's like boss called me at like literally that can
• 13:25
  transform your marriage if you think to do with the same as you
• 13:28
  would have Tiffany was waiting at the Hilton for your
• 13:31
  Rendezvous, because she now can predict you're going to be late
• 13:37
  and this predicting that you're going to be always around is
• 13:40
  very key. And if you for the length of an
• 13:43
  entire business trip, stay in Fairly Constant Contact.
• 13:48
  Not it not elaborate contact that will take you completely
• 13:51
  away from your conference or whatever.
• 13:53
  But just more constant stream of text and conversation throughout
• 13:58
  the day where she still feels that you are present.
• 14:01
  In some way, and still a secure base, which is attachment lingo,
• 14:06
  that's the ideal for a baby is that have a caregiver who's a
• 14:09
  secure base from which you can explore so you can come close
• 14:13
  for comfort when you need it and then you can explore the world
• 14:15
  when you want to and come back to the secure base of the
• 14:18
  parent. So if your wife feels like your
• 14:21
  that secure base, then she is going to be a lot happier to see
• 14:24
  you when you get home because she did not have to erect this
• 14:28
  defense structure of anger. That that soothes her because
• 14:34
  fuck you. She doesn't want to be with your
• 14:35
  dumb ass. Anyway, like that's kind of what
• 14:38
  her brain does. It's like she wants to be with
• 14:40
  you so much and she can't be. So then she gets angry because
• 14:44
  that helps her through it. You know, it helps her to not be
• 14:48
  said it's also extremely sad to be sad alone because you're not
• 14:52
  acting sad because you do what many men in this do in the
• 14:54
  situation which is incorrect which is the more upset.
• 14:57
  She gets that you're gone. The more you try to reassure her
• 14:59
  that it's okay. So So all that sounds like to
• 15:02
  her that you don't give a shit and that she's alone and caring
• 15:06
  that you're gone. Your she you don't miss her
• 15:09
  during the work day and you don't miss her during your work
• 15:11
  trips and you don't miss her do whatever else you do.
• 15:13
  You may in fact miss her. You're certainly would miss her
• 15:16
  a lot more if she wasn't acting. So, you know, angry all the time
• 15:20
  and a way to make her less angry is to say that you miss her.
• 15:23
  You know, paradoxically because she feels that she misses you
• 15:27
  alone, that feels really stupid. She feels really caught out.
• 15:31
  Exposed and stupid because you're saying it's not a big
• 15:34
  deal. So she's saying, oh my God,
• 15:36
  you're going away for five days, how am I going to do this?
• 15:38
  That the other and you're like, it's okay, it's going to go
• 15:41
  faster than, you know, I remember your mom is coming to
• 15:44
  help with the kids and, you know, what, you're also going to
• 15:47
  see your friend, and I think it's going to be fine.
• 15:49
  You know? You're going to be totally fine.
• 15:51
  You're a rockstar, you got this? Yeah.
• 15:53
  Sounds nice, right? Do you know what she hears,
• 15:55
  you're not gonna miss me at all. You don't even care.
• 15:59
  You don't care about going away at all.
• 16:00
  You don't think. Think about me the way that I
• 16:02
  think about you. You don't value being close to
• 16:05
  me the way I value being close to you and of course, you could
• 16:08
  see what that would lead to again, is building up these
• 16:11
  defenses against you as a self-protective mechanism.
• 16:15
  So that when you walk through the door, she doesn't have to
• 16:17
  act like, oh my God, thank God. You're home.
• 16:19
  She acts like well, I didn't even need you to come home.
• 16:22
  Fuck you, you know or here's the kids.
• 16:24
  I guess I needed you for that but I don't need you for
• 16:26
  anything else, but that's like what her brain is doing, in
• 16:30
  order to protect her from the side.
• 16:31
  Mia that you she loves you more than you love her, which is how
• 16:34
  she felt all the time as a chat. So if this sounds like the sort
• 16:39
  of dynamic that you have with your wife then why don't you
• 16:41
  share this podcast with her and ask her?
• 16:43
  If any of this resonates with her and more about potentially
• 16:48
  the links between her upbringing and what she learned about trust
• 16:51
  growing up and how those lessons are affecting your relationship
• 16:57
  now and your interactions and this sort of deeper analysis,
• 17:01
  There's a lot of What's Done in couples counseling.
• 17:03
  So if you do not find yourself equal to the task of asking, all
• 17:05
  these questions then, that's where couples counseling can
• 17:09
  really come in and where people can understand on a deep level,
• 17:13
  why they are interacting in certain ways given their
• 17:15
  history. Now, by the way, of course you
• 17:17
  have your own history too. And so in your history, you were
• 17:21
  basically raised in an environment likely if you're the
• 17:23
  man that is responding to this and that this resonates with you
• 17:27
  were, you were raised in an environment where Independence
• 17:29
  was prized and you, Supposed to be completely self-reliant.
• 17:33
  So that's what you do you really can't even imagine being your
• 17:36
  wife you know and being so put out by another person leaving
• 17:39
  for five days. You feel like that would be a
• 17:41
  challenge to solo parent for five days and something that you
• 17:44
  would rise to and you probably right?
• 17:46
  Because you're totally different kind of person.
• 17:48
  You are a person that thrives on being alone and you were taught
• 17:53
  to be this way and it probably was some other things were
• 17:57
  sacrificed and teaching you to be this way.
• 17:59
  Such as your softer more. Emotionally expressive
• 18:02
  vulnerable side, which your wife has been trying to find for
• 18:05
  probably a decade and has not yet.
• 18:07
  So if she receives more of that softer, vulnerability, that I
• 18:11
  miss you too, sweetheart. I'm going to miss you so much
• 18:14
  for these five days. I don't know how I'm going to
• 18:17
  live without you for five days. Then you're going to get a lot
• 18:20
  different of a response from her because she will not have to
• 18:23
  self-protect in that way. But anyway, these links between
• 18:26
  your upbringing and your current relationship are a lot of what's
• 18:30
  explored and couples. Counseling on a deep level and
• 18:32
  they can help both of you. Understand.
• 18:34
  And empathize with one another in new ways that allow new
• 18:37
  scripts to finally be created. So you don't have to be in the
• 18:41
  same fight all the goddamn time which is I'm sure what you feel
• 18:45
  like because it's what most people feel like here we fucking
• 18:47
  go again, here's another fight, same one I could do her part,
• 18:52
  she could, do my part, why are we doing this thing again?
• 18:54
  But yet somehow you can't get out of it.
• 18:57
  So anyhow again, if this was instructive and helpful to you,
• 19:00
  please do Share it with your spouse and please do subscribe.
• 19:04
  If this added any value to you and helping you understand your
• 19:07
  relationship better, all right? And I will talk to everybody
• 19:12
  soon as I was going against a good work, which I say at the
• 19:15
  end of some sessions. But nobody did any work.
• 19:18
  I did work, good work. And I will talk to everybody at
• 19:22
  the next podcast, which may well be a subscription only one and
• 19:27
  maybe I'll do that attachment for that.
• 19:29
  One try to get more into that because I always refer to
• 19:32
  attachment then I realized, I never actually did the Baseline
• 19:36
  level podcast although I've written post about it.
• 19:38
  All right, talk soon.