Hey brother,
Why doesn’t anyone want to talk about this subtle, sneaky cause of divorce?
Because they are STONEWALLING!
This is the 3rd predictor of divorce and one of the hardest to fix.
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Why??
Because we’re too busy playing games with stonewalling, sometimes referred to as “The Silent Treatment.”
There’s this guy named John Gottman who does a ton of research on marriage.
He’s kind of a big deal because of all the detailed analyses he’s done on what makes relationships last and marriages survive…or crash and burn.
I’m putting his research into easy-to-understand language and easy to implement actions to stop the madness!
He came up with the term “The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse”. These are the FOUR BEHAVIORS that can predict divorce with about 90% accuracy.
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In other words, if these things show up consistently in your relationship, you can bet things won’t be going your way in the future.
The four behaviors are:
Criticism
Defensiveness
Stonewalling
Contempt
In this video, I will break down stonewalling to show you:
What it is
What it’s not
What is looks like or sounds like
How it poisons your relationship
How to change your behavior now and start doing something different
Stonewalling is the deliberate attempt to withdraw from interaction in order to manipulate and control the situation.
Stonewalling erodes trust, respect, connection and attraction.
Stonewalling also breeds hopelessness. Whenever you get into any type of conversation or interaction around problem solving, and you know that she is going to go quiet, you begin to believe that ‘this will never work’, you begin to believe that ‘it’s hopeless’ and you start to resent the other person.
So how do you change stonewalling?
When you’re the one doing the stonewalling, avoiding her and giving the silent treatment, you have to know that the stronger man will stand strongly on both feet and stay present, calm and confident.
Stop believing that what’s happening is going to hurt you.
Stop thinking that the best relief of the pressure you’re feeling is to run away from it or avoid it because that reaction causes more fear than you standing there with her.
Women always say that they feel more fearful when you run away and can’t stand there with her in a conflict – stonewalling is eroding her trust and confidence in you.
What if she’s stonewalling?
Many women do this, give us the silent treatment, cutting you off fro connection and safety, maybe she’s locked the bedroom door and tells you to go and sleep on the couch – yes, that’s stonewalling!
First of all, call it out.
That’s why it’s good to understand these terms so that when you let her know how to respond.
“What you’re doing right now is not acceptable. I don’t treat you like that and I don’t want to be treated this way.”
Call it out. Make sure she knows that YOU know what’s going on.
But you also need to release the pressure.
If she’s stonewalling, she’s feeling pressure and she’s moving away from that pressure.
You have to back away.
You have to wait for the clouds to clear and the pressure to reduce before you come back together.
Then you can hopefully have a conversation where you can talk about this stonewalling not being acceptable and how it doesn’t help anything.
Want to understand what’s happening in your relationship and how to handle it? Here are some ways for you to get started straight away:
Free: If you’re serious about building your masculine mojo then apply for a coaching call with us we will help you identify what to focus on and what to avoid to get you feeling confident again.
What do I mean by “SERIOUS”?
- We take YOU and your struggles seriously…because we’ve been there
- We know living in a sexless marriage is serious…and so is showing your kids what a healthy affectionate relationship looks like
- A lack of intimacy of all kinds is serious now and for the long term health of your marriage
- We believe your personal emotional strength and well-being is serious
- We seriously show up 110% to our conversations with you and expect you to be as serious as we are about changing your life
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$69 Monthly Subscription: Join Dan and I in our Men’s Roundtable Group Coaching membership. We meet three times per month for live group coaching and we support you in a powerful group of men facing the same issues you are. Get instant access to 5 years of recorded sessions. Try it for one month. What have you got to lose?
$397 One-Time Payment: How to Defuse the Divorce Bomb is a self-paced course with me, Tim Wade, and a community of men learning how to lead when you’ve just heard, “I love you but I’m not in love with you” or “I want to separate or divorce.”
As Teddy Roosevelt said:
“In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.”
