Why you must stop explaining yourself to your wife
Jun 14, 2021
You do not need to explain yourself to those unable or unwilling to listen to you.
I was trying to help her. I was trying to take something off her plate, but she took it the wrong way. She acted offended and angry.
Confused and irritated, I tried to explain myself.
I defended myself. I had to.
She got pissed and stormed out of the room feeling dismissed.
You don't need to explain yourself as a man. All this crap starts falling out of your mouth when you try to defend yourself to your wife. This doesn’t help the situation at all. All this does is make her think that you don’t take her seriously.
- She thinks, “He acts like I’m stupid. He’s not listening to me.”
- She feels invalidated.
STOP defending yourself.
Your wife is not another man. Stop trying to treat her like a guy friend, thinking, “If I get her to think logically, then everything will be better.”
It won’t.
“The proper role of the Magician archetype [psychologist Carl Jung; one of four masculine archetypes] is to stand back and observe, to scan the horizon, to monitor the data coming in from both the outside and the inside and then, out of its wisdom—its knowledge of power, within and without, and its technical skill in channeling—make the necessary life decisions.” - King, Warrior, Magician, Lover by Moore & Gillette.
Defensiveness is the shadow of the Magician Archetype who is either elusive and slippery, feigning naïveté;
- “Who me? I didn’t know anything was wrong.”
- Or blocks others to avoid risk and judgment or talks to get another to give in.
- Perfectionism is used as a weapon to humble others.
When you try to explain yourself logically to a woman and get her to think like you, it siphons out your powerful energy and makes you weak in her eyes. Empathizing and hearing what she is saying is important, but when you give credence to something that isn't logically true and try to explain yourself in the frame of her emotional storm, she's either going to use your reaction to become her own warrior to fight back at you or as fodder to feed her judgmental story about who she thinks you are as a man.
The powerful thing to do is to hear what she says. Is there any truth? Is there anything that you want to change? Take in the new information and consider what you want. Then hold the tension of that. This is what fosters her trust in you. This is what builds her respect.
The Cherry on Top is to break the old pattern and hold the tension of the moment.
1. Tension feels like pressure or tightness in your head, in your chest, or your throat. You have to know what it feels like to master it.
2. Give yourself compassion in that moment and smile a little bit. Process the tension yourself in a healthy way. Don’t vomit it back on her in the form of fixing, defending, or correcting.
3. Allow yourself to make a mistake in that moment and allow her to make a mistake in that moment. When you think, “I need to be perfect or there's a mistake there,” just press pause. Smile about the tension, and allow the mistake. Sleep on it and bring it up later if necessary.
She wants you to be powerful, grounded, and patient even though there's tension. She wants you to be able to lead her forward into an inspiring life full of the awareness and wise presence of the sacred Magician.
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