Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / How To Understand Why Your Wife Won't Exercise

Transcript

How To Understand Why Your Wife Won't Exercise · 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 today. I am dealing with the topic of
• 0:11
  when your wife won't exercise and like everything else, you
• 0:15
  know, it can be flipped for the gender and whatever.
• 0:17
  But I'm specifically talking about things I see in men versus
• 0:22
  women and I could get to how women feel when the men don't
• 0:24
  exercise in a different thing. Or I'll probably just mention it
• 0:27
  as I go. But either way, as a broader
• 0:30
  issue, sometimes people are like, I mean, not as much.
• 0:34
  Podcast. Because if you're listening to
• 0:36
  the podcast, you probably already agree with this but men
• 0:39
  and women are different generally and that's what I see
• 0:41
  in my practice. And so nobody really likes to
• 0:45
  listen to stuff. That's too General because it
• 0:47
  doesn't feel like it speaks to you.
• 0:49
  So I take turns trying to speak for men and how the majority of
• 0:53
  males feel or a subset like preoccupied man or avoidant
• 0:56
  women. But I don't usually say like
• 0:59
  avoidant people or something, unless I really do see
• 1:02
  similarities and just a main effect.
• 1:04
  Act that is broader than the individual gender effect.
• 1:09
  You know, such as I have a post on issues that used to that
• 1:12
  impact adults that used to be gifted kids, right?
• 1:15
  So that's, that's really cross-gender.
• 1:16
  But in terms of the relational issues that I see there are
• 1:20
  distinct differences and frequently these relate to
• 1:22
  physicality. And so this issue about exercise
• 1:26
  is really no different in certain regards and before we
• 1:29
  dive into that, please do subscribe recently.
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• 1:34
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• 1:38
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• 1:43
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• 1:51
  you know, whatever. I mean you should have listened
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• 1:57
  doing this now since January, which is like a really long
• 2:00
  time. But anyway.
• 2:02
  So why don't men like it when their wife's?
• 2:04
  Wife's wives. When their wives don't exercise,
• 2:09
  why do many men find this to be abhorrent.
• 2:13
  Well, let's just save ourselves some talking.
• 2:16
  It's because their wives have gained weight, like everybody
• 2:19
  shoots the shit blah blah. I want my wife to be healthy.
• 2:21
  Yeah, okay, cool. You rather her be healthy, then
• 2:24
  unhealthy. Sure, I give it to you but
• 2:26
  nobody says this year, when the woman is fit, like let's be
• 2:29
  real. So nobody's like, oh my skinny
• 2:32
  wife, she just sits around on the couch.
• 2:34
  No! Very very few people say it and
• 2:37
  I'm not going to say none but I never seen it in my office so
• 2:41
  maybe you know maybe that's some bias but I have never seen that.
• 2:47
  With an exception of the men who love exercise like this is like
• 2:51
  their reason for being and so they want to share this love
• 2:54
  with their wife. So that's more like sweetheart.
• 2:56
  Do you want to come to CrossFit with me and share this with me?
• 3:01
  The other guys, the ones where the wife is overweight, they're
• 3:04
  like Can you do anything? It can be like a female Zumba
• 3:07
  class. It could literally be anything.
• 3:09
  I don't have to be involved. I will watch the kids for three
• 3:12
  thousand years if you just go to the gym now, why are they so
• 3:15
  committed to this idea of multiple reasons?
• 3:18
  One, they don't like that. The woman has gained weight, but
• 3:20
  they don't know how to say it. So instead, they're up her ass
• 3:23
  about exercise. And number two, they had no idea
• 3:28
  what it's like to be the woman. So that's what I'm going to help
• 3:30
  you with understanding why your wife won't exercise know what I
• 3:33
  don't say. How to get her to exercise?
• 3:36
  I can't do that. Like, I'm not a magician
• 3:39
  sometimes people come to therapy.
• 3:41
  They're like, so what I like to do the like to be more
• 3:43
  confident, I want my wife to want to go down on me.
• 3:46
  I also like my kids to behave better.
• 3:48
  I'm like, man, you know, cool that those are just great to
• 3:51
  have goals, but like there's no way I'm going to snap my fingers
• 3:53
  and make that shit happen for you.
• 3:55
  Like, there are ways to better understand your life to reframe
• 3:58
  it and even to make Behavior change that can give you some
• 4:01
  forward motion on some of those goals, but like there's no Oh,
• 4:04
  just snapping your fingers and I get your wife into CrossFit
• 4:09
  doesn't happen. So what we're trying to
• 4:11
  understand is at least, don't hate your wife and resent her so
• 4:16
  much for not going to CrossFit or whatever the case may be.
• 4:21
  Okay. So number one thing a lot of men
• 4:23
  don't realize is a lot of women are depressed.
• 4:25
  And they don't know that they're depressed because they have
• 4:28
  atypical depression. And I've written post about this
• 4:30
  atypical depression, here's the symptoms you have fatigue.
• 4:34
  In paralysis, which means your arms and legs feel very heavy.
• 4:37
  So you sit on the couch a lot, you are rejection sensitive,
• 4:41
  which means that she's upset by anything, you say that's a
• 4:43
  possible insult. Even if it's like, you don't
• 4:46
  notice her hairstyle, or whatever, anything rejection,
• 4:50
  sensitivity, right to any perceived, Slide by you, or
• 4:55
  anybody else or the kids, and a temporary lifting, and mood and
• 5:00
  response to positive events, which is why people don't
• 5:03
  categorize themselves. Usually, As depressed, when they
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  have atypical depression because of your kid comes home and with
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  a smile and a hug, your wife's mood will lift, but it goes back
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  down and also overeating and oversleeping.
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  So this is like, being like a slug like sitting and you feel
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  like a slope when this is the sort of depression that you feel
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  and this is the one that women feel when they are depressed.
• 5:24
  They most usually have atypical depression, which is not a
• 5:27
  typical at all. But it's just contrasted with
• 5:29
  melancholic depression in which you don't eat.
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  Don't sleep and your mood never change.
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  In response to anything, you basically feel like the undead
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  all the time, women don't usually you like a pathetic
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  completely women. Don't usually get that one, they
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  get the one where they're crying, they're eating, you
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  know, kind of like how she has before her period, but all the
• 5:47
  time, and pmdd premenstrual, dysphoric disorder or PMS are
• 5:51
  more highly associated with atypical depression and so a
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  seasonal affective disorder. So she's probably worse in the
• 5:56
  winter too. Anyway, when you try to exercise
• 5:59
  when you're depressed, all these men are like oh but exercise
• 6:03
  preventative of depression It helps depression.
• 6:05
  I saw this article. It's on health line.
• 6:07
  Yeah. Okay first of all there's a lot
• 6:09
  in those articles and I've looked at them, many of them,
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  there are also obviously there's there's first of all, in most
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  social science research, there's treatment, drop out, right, like
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  to see, there's a lot of dropouts, then there's a lot of
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  making a mountain out of a molehill in terms of data.
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  So, people score on a depression index could go up maybe by a
• 6:31
  couple points, if there are exercises versus not But this is
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  also not really meaningful in terms of how they feel really
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  about, you know, maybe it's statistically significant but
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  possibly not clinically significant as well.
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  So, I mean, I could go down a rabbit hole of saying, what I
• 6:48
  think about social science research, especially the fact
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  that most of it is not replicable like that
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  embarrassment to few years ago when people tried to.
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  Replicate even the Milgram study, all of these studies.
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  And like, it was impossible, you know, and instead of casting
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  doubt on social science research as a Whole people just kept on
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  Truckin with it anyway, this isn't a sight, the point is
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  depression. If it's intractable, it doesn't
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  really respond to exercise super much because that there are you
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  can't exercise when you exercise, you feel like you have
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  the flu on your exercising. So I make a big deal out of
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  empathy. So this is a new way to
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  understand why your wife doesn't exercise if she has any
• 7:28
  depression. And remember, I explained to a
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  depression is many of you were shaking your head up and down,
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  knotting it, like, That's my wife.
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  She feels like she has the flu when she tries to exercise her
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  body's telling her to hibernate. So for you, I know you love to
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  run or whatever you like to do. If you had the flu though, you
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  wouldn't. And so that's how she feels.
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  So you got a very easy empathic click.
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  Oh, it's like she's sick. It's like she's sick.
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  That's how she feels when she tries.
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  Also, he can tell you, you can't imagine how frustrating it is to
• 8:02
  the majority of women who try to lose weight via.
• 8:04
  Sir sighs when the husband can drop pounds immediately via
• 8:08
  exercise. It's much harder for women that
• 8:10
  don't have testosterone. They don't have the muscles.
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  So it's very, very hard to get to the level of exercise.
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  You would need to lose weight. When remember another symptom is
• 8:20
  eating overeating. Also, when you exercise, you get
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  hungry. So, a lot of women do not see
• 8:25
  anything like immediate results, which brings us to another issue
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  for women, exercise is in the realm of weight loss and body
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  stuff. It isn't, they can switch it
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  over time and with helping with therapy 20, I work out for my
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  mental health. Even a little bit of walk, is
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  better than nothing. This will over time, maybe help
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  my my depression or my at least my cardiovascular health or what
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  have you, but women have been trained by Society to put
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  exercise in a bucket of working on your body.
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  And when you do not see immediate results in that
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  regard, or when you feel like shit about your body, it is
• 9:01
  really hard to separate those out.
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  So it's not like the The more overweight you are, the more
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  motivation you feel to exercise is the opposite.
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  You feel like Nate, nothing good.
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  This walking could do shit. It's going to make me feel worse
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  about myself honestly, trying to fit into my damn workout clothes
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  and failing. So I should just honestly not
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  even bother. And then of course, women also
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  don't want to exercise because the man is up there as to
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  exercise and they feel like this is such a lack of acceptance of
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  who they are as a person that they did, it's very
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  demoralizing. So it would be like You know,
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  you acting like exercise is easy and she could just go to do
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  whatever whatever she sees it as you saying and she may not be
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  wrong. I am repulsed by your body and I
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  am willing to do any sacrifice in order for you to make
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  yourself less repulsive to me. You can see how this would not
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  put somebody in a wonderful giving and loving mood because
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  they feel like the guy doesn't love them and you may love your
• 9:58
  wife but also you may have to do some deep work on.
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  What if she doesn't lose weight? What are you gonna To do then,
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  you know, are you going to leave her?
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  Might as well then leave her. Now, honestly, the younger she
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  is the, the believe me, there's plenty of men who would be with
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  her, no matter what Vici is. So let her go.
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  Now, instead of demoralizing, her for many years, telling her
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  to lose weight, lose weight, lose weight, which you say
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  you're not doing but that exercise exercise, exercise
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  Mantra is really comes out like that for most women.
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  That's what they hear. Now, let's say that you love
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  your wife's body. Anyone, no matter what you think
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  that she's great you just actually Is very responsive to
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  exercise. And you have noticed that when
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  she's exercising her mood gets better.
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  A let's examine causality, and since you're looking at a
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  cross-section of data here, maybe it's when she feels
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  better. Is when she has the energy to
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  exercise, maybe your vector is going in the wrong direction
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  there. However, let's say somehow God
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  himself said to you if only she would start walking moderately
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  her attitude toward life would improve and she herself would be
• 11:04
  Pure cool. So let's say, God has a direct
• 11:07
  line to your braids and says that.
• 11:09
  Then what do you do then? You would say to your wife, I
• 11:12
  love you. I love how you look.
• 11:14
  I really feel like you would do better if we took walks at
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  night. You've always done better, you
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  know, when you've been exercising, I don't really know
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  the direction of that, but maybe we could try it.
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  And also initiate sex act like you love her act like she's hot
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  to you. And then maybe you're going to
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  get somewhere with your overall. Goal is to make your wife less
• 11:33
  repulsive to you. Man, get out of the marriage
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  because it's not. It's only over time.
• 11:38
  Good were rotor self-esteem further.
• 11:41
  So, what did you get from this podcast?
• 11:44
  Exercise, for men? And women is not the same.
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  There's this whole thing about using exercise as a weight loss
• 11:51
  mechanism, where you are constantly fighting your body.
• 11:56
  And remember, I've said this many times for women, if they're
• 11:58
  5 pounds up on the scale, they feel like a terrible person and
• 12:03
  hopefully this is going to go away.
• 12:04
  A over time and it will be less concordant with your general
• 12:07
  self-image. The way it is for men are 5
• 12:09
  pounds up on the scale. Most healthy men will be like a
• 12:13
  guess I shouldn't have drank and ate so much this weekend.
• 12:15
  Got to take a couple runs. It is not like that for women at
• 12:19
  all, and it's not just because it's harder for them to lose
• 12:21
  weight. It's because of everything that
• 12:23
  Society tells him about the essentiality of the skinny Fit
• 12:28
  Body for being a lovable woman. And in fact, as a proxy for
• 12:34
  feminine, Itself for men. There's so many other proxy
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  variables for whether you are a person with any self-worth, your
• 12:42
  income, your career, Prestige, distinct from income, your
• 12:47
  intelligence do, whether you're like a good dad, a good guy, and
• 12:53
  how you perform and acquit yourself in the bedroom, whether
• 12:56
  you're having sex for women. It's basically like, how do you
• 12:58
  look like that? Other stuff is gravy and, and
• 13:02
  the mother thing to good mother and are you Attractive and
• 13:05
  that's unfortunate that that's how Society is and but let's not
• 13:10
  pretend that it's different right now.
• 13:12
  So if that's how your wife thinks about it, when you extort
• 13:15
  her to exercise, she feels like you're saying you are not a
• 13:17
  lovable feminine or attractive woman and so you got to
• 13:21
  understand that if you could deeply understand that and maybe
• 13:24
  have an epiphany about therefore what an asshole you've been
• 13:27
  coming off like all these years unintentionally or that you
• 13:32
  really secretly have been By her body and she's picking up on it
• 13:37
  in a way that you didn't realize because you thought your
• 13:39
  wonderful actor will. Then now you can maybe
• 13:42
  understand why she doesn't want to and if you add in any
• 13:44
  depressive symptomatology such that she feels slow lethargic
• 13:50
  and worse when she exercises, which is a damn truth.
• 13:54
  If you struggle with depression as I have when you're
• 13:57
  exercising, when you're depressed, you feel like shit,
• 14:00
  you not like running. You don't feel free and
• 14:03
  liberated and And, you know, like like it's fun or anything.
• 14:07
  It feels like quicksand and it's more depressing than less.
• 14:11
  So if you even could just have that Epiphany, then you could
• 14:16
  say, oh my god. Well, until my wife treats her
• 14:18
  depression, yes, she probably not going to want to exercise
• 14:20
  and I understand that and it sucks that I'm not attracted to
• 14:23
  her right now. And I'm gonna do a deep dive
• 14:25
  personally to see whether I could remain attracted to her
• 14:28
  through this period and or if she remains this way, can I just
• 14:31
  never be attracted to her again, in which case on SLI refer back
• 14:35
  to my podcast, someone you're not attracted to your partner
• 14:38
  because I've seen many people that divorce in a woman who felt
• 14:42
  like garbage about herself. Imogen one relationship.
• 14:45
  Feels awesome about herself and another one and ironically
• 14:48
  starts to work out because she starts to be happy with a man
• 14:52
  who loves her body, how it is now, which believe me is
• 14:56
  possible, even though if I may not be possible for you.
• 14:59
  So, think about this. And if you have, if it's a
• 15:03
  tremendous This issue in your marriage and you're telling your
• 15:06
  wife to exercise. Then this is the podcast to
• 15:09
  listen to you know, because this can reframe it into man.
• 15:14
  I've not been really understanding how bad it is for
• 15:16
  her. That doesn't mean that I
• 15:18
  suddenly become attracted to her but maybe my empathy can make me
• 15:22
  think man, I'm probably making things worse.
• 15:25
  If only I even just shut up. Let me see what she does.
• 15:28
  Perhaps you'll even start exercising on her own if I just
• 15:31
  shut up about how easy it would be to go to a stroller.
• 15:33
  Strides, Class or whatever else. I've decided myself through only
• 15:38
  introspecting about myself and how I respond to exercise would
• 15:41
  be quote, unquote easy for her. Despite the fact that she
• 15:44
  repeatedly says it wouldn't be. All right.
• 15:47
  So hope you guys got something out of this and please do
• 15:51
  subscribe. If I'm adding value to your life
• 15:53
  and I will talk to everybody soon.
• 15:55
  Have a great day.