Does your wife or girlfriend sometimes act like she would rather be anywhere on this planet but with you?
Does this get under your skin and make you boiling mad?
Do you feel hurt, unappreciated and ignored?
Let’s talk about how men, women (and horses, of course) feel the PRESSURE to get away.
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Let’s talk about how we can reduce the pressure and create an environment where softness, relaxation and closer INTIMACY is possible.
Watch or listen to this video to find out WHAT we do to cause this and what it looks and sounds like.
Then below I’ll talk about WHY we do this and how change things up.
Today I want to make a very quick point about being you and sometimes why it’s not good to just be yourself.
Men often say, “I’m just being me, can’t she take me as I am? That’s just the way I am. Why can’t she accept that?”
There are times when “Just being you” is not okay.
Let’s talk about horses again…I always use horses.
When is it not okay to be yourself around a horse?
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If you’re around a horse that has some baggage, and all of them do – (warning, you will hear me draw a lot of parallels between horses and women) – you can’t just be yourself, if being yourself is kind of loud. If it’s kind of dominant, if it’s kind of impatient or urgent.
You can’t just be yourself around a horse, if being yourself is kind of impatiently expecting stuff to happen fast.
If you like to just be you, just the way you like to be, then you’re not going to have very much success with a horse.
I always say that if you can’t accommodate the environment that a horse needs to feel safe and connected and joined up with you, if you can’t accommodate the energy required from a horse, in order to have it feel like he can trust you, and feel safe in your presence, you probably shouldn’t get a horse.
In that same sense, you probably shouldn’t get a woman, right?
Because if you think just being you is okay in the presence of any woman and that she should be able to accept that and put up with it. You’re kind of crazy, just like you would be with a horse.
Now let’s talk about the other side.
Let’s talk about women who are demanding and loud and critical and demeaning or cynical or sarcastic. And sometimes they nag way too much. They’re pointing out your flaws and criticizing how you do stuff and nagging while you don’t do things better, why you don’t step up while you don’t man up.
It’s an Urgent, critical dominant, pulling and pushing energy that sometimes women can do to men.
And guess what?
You freaking hate that.
You hate it with a passion.
You can’t stand it.
The only place you want to be when that’s happening is somewhere else, somewhere away from her. Right?
Flipping the tables again, if we get around a horse or a woman who wants to feel a sense of safety, who wants to feel a sense of connectedness, a sense of trust, of patience, something that they can count on, something predictable, so they can just relax, which is what horses and women really like to do – just relax – so they can soften, feel safe and grounded and easygoing.
What kind of man do we have to be if we want to have a woman in our life that feels safe and grounded and happy and connected and affectionate?
What if you want a horse to put its head on your shoulder and to come up to you and treat you as if it’s your very good friend?
What if you want a woman to do that?
You can’t just be yourself if being yourself is precious, pressuring, critical, impatient, condescending, dominant, aggressive or violently pulling and pushing, either emotionally or physically. – if you’re being those things, you won’t have any success at all with a horse or a woman.
You will be totally ineffective if that is your natural state.
So if we choose to have women in our lives. If we choose to stay married and be in this one important, monogamous, exclusive, committed romantic sexual relationship called marriage…if that’s what we choose.
We’re also choosing that we’re going to have to learn some stuff in order to live in harmony in that marriage.
You can’t just expect that your partner is going to accept you exactly as you are.
And the problem is, we don’t learn much of this in our 20s and 30s and 40s.
We don’t have grandfathers or uncle’s or dads who are really good at teaching us these skills on how to be the kind of man who gets the kind of warm, soft, loving affection and attention from partners in his life.
How do you do that?
Well, that’s what we talk about in coaching.
All the time.
I’ve given you clues in this article and video.
If you do anything that creates tension, expectation, criticism, condescension, sarcasm, impatience, poutiness, unhappiness and negativity, that’s emotional pushing and pulling, and the woman in your life would rather be anywhere on this earth, but with you when you’re coming across that way.
So that’s my tip for you today – if you want this, if you really want to be in this relationship, the very first step a man has to take is make sure he’s being the kind of man who creates the kind of environment where women can soften and relax and feel safer and more connected, which leads to more affection, and more closeness and more intimacy, which is what I think you all want anyway.
If you’ve chosen to be in a relationship, make sure you choose who you are being and not being a victim of who you think you are.
In the video I talked about the kinds of things women can do to make YOU want to run for the hills.
It’s that constant aggressive, loud, nagging, disappointed, disapproving, urgent pressure to do something you’re not doing or to be someone you’re not being. They are “just trying to help” or “just trying to see if you care”.
It feels awful and there’s just no amount of “communication” that’s going to fix it in the moment. All you can do is try to ESCAPE it.
Yeah, that.
That’s exactly how some women feel when we are “just being the way we are”.
Why do some guys apply a similar kind of pressure to women?
Why do we sometimes express a constant nagging energy of impatience, urgency, neediness, anger, criticism, poutiness, disapproval and/or disappointment?
Sometimes it’s just being loud, aggressive or dominant. Sometimes it just in the way we close the front door!
I can’t speak for you, but I can speak for me.
It ALWAYS came from an underlying, insidious insecurity.
Insecurity feels like a nervous inner vibration of self-doubt, inadequacy and fear of the unknown.
The “cure” to my insecurity – and probably yours – is to directly face those hidden childhood shadows of feeling weak, abandoned, unloved and dependent on external validation.
I’m talking about intentionally exposing them, talking about them, sharing them, laughing about them and acknowledging the guilt of hurting others.
Sounds like fun, right? It actually IS when you’re doing it with other men just like you.
It’s positively liberating to detach from the grip of unresolved, boyhood crap and starting living in the skin of a cool, calm, confident and self-reliant MAN.
This is where you find out you’ve being TRYING TOO HARD to get your needs met.
You’ve been trying to engineer outcomes through your expectations instead of simply creating connection by sharing your secure, healthy masculine value.
When you release your insecure expectations of how others should treat you, you finally RELAX into the security of knowing who you are…and liking that. A lot.
A really simple way to get started immediately is to join us in the Goodguys2Greatmen Live Coaching Roundtable. One member recently sent us this email about the Roundtable:
“Without this group and your videos I would probably still be the old insecure “child” around my wife. I am doing better and now can engage her on a level field and not care what she thinks about me, and still be compassionate with her. Thanks for being a life-changer!” – (Mike C.)
The Men’s Live Coaching Roundtable is a powerful collection of men from around the world working together to transform themselves and their relationships. Dan Dore and I lead this community with 5 other professional coaches. We have live coaching video calls twice per month. The camaraderie in this group is something missing from the lives of too many men in the world.
Our online course How to Defuse the Divorce Bomb is a deep and intense dive into handling yourself when you hear, “I love you but I’m not in love with you anymore.” Tim Wade and I host monthly live Q&A calls with all the students in this course which includes many other bonuses as well. Find out more here.
We love teaching men these tools – how to be better, how to know who you are, what you stand for, what you want and how to CREATE it in your life through our Masculine Confidence coaching programs.
What if this next year everything changed for you?
That’s what we want for you brother.
My new book Straight Talk Tools for the Desperate Husband will help you to lead yourself and your relationship back to good health. Understand why your partner acts the way she does toward you and learn how to lead your life in the direction you want it to go. You CAN have the relationship you want, fulfilling all your desires while maintaining love and respect.
I wrote a free e-book to help men learn how to lose their fear and be more bold in their marriage to create the love and connection they want. Get The Hard to Swallow Truth About Saving Your Marriage.
