Episode #37
Have you ever been in a heated argument with your partner?
In this episode, Doug and Tim discuss what to do after a heated argument with your partner and how to correct it.
One important thing to do first is to find out what triggered that situation to happen, or what triggered you to overreact.
To avoid overreacting, both parties must communicate clearly what they both want without feeling like a victim and without judgment.
Communicate out of love and respect because if you let your emotions and ego drive you during that situation, you will hurt each other.
Take ownership & apologize for what happened and for overreacting. Tell your partner how you felt and what made you overreact and what you will do to rectify it.
In this episode, you will learn:
- How to avoid being in a heated situation
- Importance of communication
- A personal problem VS. a relationship problem
- Being aware and taking ownership
- How to fix an argument with your wife without overreacting
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Episode Transcript
Tim Matthews 0:02
Yeah, it’s a self problem before it’s a relationship problem. You know, for me, for anyone, the listeners to be able to act in a certain way in a relationship, it first starts with them being able to bring a certain level of awareness rather than personal life.
Doug Holt 0:22
Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Powerful Man show. I am your host, Doug Holt, with my co-host, Tim, “The Powerful Man,” Matthew. Tim, what’s happening, bro? You’re traveling right now. How are you doing?
Tim Matthews 0:39
Yeah, I’m doing great. We’re on a little island off of Wales called Anglesey. And you know what, how we ended up becoming a second time we’ve been here. And we come here at least once a year. We’ve got to Wales twice here, but we come here once a year. Amelia likes to position it as a holiday for the dogs. We’ve reached a point in life, Doug, where we now take the dogs on a holiday because Patti came accustomed to living in Europe for a couple of years as we traveled through Europe well and lived remotely basically in the other days of The Powerful Man. He loved Italy, and I mean, one amazing standard, right? The dog used to live abroad, and Amelia gets used to taking him anywhere we want. Upon returning to the UK and setting up base here, the norm is that the dogs must have a holiday. Right? How cool is that? I love it. Anyway, we’re like a little island, just a foil called Engleson. We saw it on a program, Robson Green, like amazing places in the UK. I was blown away by the beauty of the beaches, the scenery, the mountains, the forest, everything when we came here last met it was just breathtaking like it’s small enough so that you can quickly get around and also big enough so that it has a lot of countrysides and great scenery. You know, surrounded by the ocean and the mountains of Snowdonia just in the distance, and it’s just stunning. So yeah, we have a great time hiking every day, different places, and I get to jump on this and record this with my perfect friend and partner, Mr. Doug Holt. Life is great.
Doug Holt 2:28
Awesome, I’m soon as you mentioned that I went to Google, of course, to look up photos – 895 reviews of almost all five stars for the island. Sounds amazing. You know you’re living a good life when the lifestyle your dogs require is better than is what most people listening to this podcast want for their personal life. Location independence, traveling foreign lands, amazing, man. Amazing.
Tim Matthews 2:58
And here’s the caveat, right? So we have rented a cottage right now in a kind of in the middle of nowhere zoning, so no neighbors, that kind of thing with an acre of land. Not only do we go out hiking with the dogs every day, but it’s like blue flag beaches and forests. It’s amazing places weathering come back, and we get to sit in the garden in the sun and throw the ball for potty in an acre of land like he is in his element. Absolute element is phenomenal, and I love how you know Amelia dresses it for the dogs, and you know if she didn’t dress it up like this is for the dog that still comes there.
Doug Holt 3:44
The life to live has been truly living the life you talk about. I love it. Well, Tim, we talked about this a little bit off the air. And this came up for one of the guys, and I thought it’d be a good question for us to broach today. And it’s a conversation that comes up a lot for people in intimate relationships and any relationship. But the way the conversation or question was addressed to me, and I’ll throw it your way, Tim, and we’ll see how you answer maybe you had some different insights, and I gave, uh, let me set the scene. So this guy’s at home with his wife, and his wife makes a comment and comments to them to really ask him to do something. And he gets triggered, starts yelling at her; he’s upset. He’s yelling at her. Not only is he upset, but he rants and raves and goes as far as he builds up. He even goes downstairs after her now sometimes transpired and continues the conversation. Right? And of course, both of them as this happens with any argument. Both partners walk away upset at each other. When I say yelling wasn’t as top of the lungs yelling, but they’re fighting right. And the fighting continued. And his question was, “how do I prevent myself from doing that? From overreacting, even though Doug, I was right. How do I prevent myself from reacting and yelling at my partner?”
Tim Matthews 5:10
Even though I was right, yeah, we all think we’re right in that situation building. Otherwise, we wouldn’t chase them down the stairs continuing to argue the point. It isn’t perfect in that situation. Oh my god, and I used to be in that situation so often because I didn’t have the tools or the awareness, and two, I was in the wrong relationship. Sorry, can you repeat the question one small for me? I get lost in it even though I’m right.
Doug Holt 5:46
Yeah, so essentially, the question I got was, “My wife said something, we got an argument, how do I stop myself from reacting and yelling at her?”
Tim Matthews 5:56
Okay, cool. So, um, for what works for me in this situation. Usually, if something gets said to us in a relationship, the trigger is either we see some truth in what they’re saying. Or we feel like we are being attacked somehow, like, as a man, we pride ourselves on strength and the ability to provide. So if the woman is saying something and underneath it or interpreted it is a slur on our ability to provide and protect, we can take it quite personally. There are a few answers to the question isn’t, and the first one has been aware of actually, the reaction that’s happening, which is a whole piece around consciousness, and just simply being aware of how you feel and act on what you think on a moment to moment, day to day basis. And there’s an angle within the actual relationship and be able to take a moment, pause, breathe, now take complete ownership, ownership for your side of the street and be able to communicate consciously, because usually, in this situation, if there is a reaction, then I can say is one, it’s either because you see some truth in what the other person has said, and it hurts. So, as a result, you want to go into a reaction mode to protect yourself and defend yourself. Or maybe this guy has just had a tough day in his business, he’s reached full capacity in his business, and he’s not been able to switch off, or he’s not been delegating properly, or he comes home, and he’s bringing all those problems home with him. His wife may say something that isn’t out of line or isn’t a reflection of how he is not showing up for the family? I mean, we’ve had many stories as well, where the wife can ask a straightforward question that’s pretty unrelated to them as an individual guy, and I’m sure I know, I have experienced this, and I’m sure you have too, and even that can trigger you to blow up. Just because you’re at capacity in your business and you’re not, you don’t know how to switch off. So I’m curious about this situation. How would you go about defusing this will be the first step you would take.
Doug Holt 8:22
So right now, or the previous Doug?
Tim Matthews 8:26
Right now.
Doug Holt 8:26
So the first thing right now I do is I catch myself very quickly. Right? And the question I ask, and this has taken me, Tim admittingly, a very long time to get to this point, very long. If you look up the word stubborn, it’s joked that my picture is in the dictionary, and I’m sure you can probably contest that and some things. But one thing I asked myself is, would I rather be right, or what I’d rather be happy? And that’s something I asked myself now. And now the answer is always happy. I know that everything works better when connected with my wife; everything works better when we’re harmonious. And who has to define what is right and what’s wrong anyway. And usually, when I’m going for making sure that I’m right, that’s my ego playing and into the game, that’s a decision I made for my own life after doing work in the Amazon jungle and doing other stuff to step out of in a much greater fashion. So having said that, I can say that previous versions of me much rather be right. Because I’m right this time, and that’s why you laughed, and I laughed when he said that. So that’s the first thing I do is what I’d rather be right or what I will rather be happy with. I asked myself what part of what my wife said in this case for me, what part of what she said did I believe was true, right? And then I answer that because the analogy I always use and I talked about this with the men is if I walked around and to you listening to this now, if I called you purpose, “Hey, you’re purple,” you would look at me like, I’m ridiculous and laugh. Why would you do that? Well, the reason you wouldn’t react with anything other than laughter is that you know you’re not purple. However, if I said you’re fat, and you think you’re fat, you get offended. If you’re skinny, you laugh it off because you’re just like, whatever, or you have strong self-belief. Or if I said, you’re white, or you’re black, and for some reason that triggers you, you get upset. The point being is, the reason we get upset is we, as you said, believe hearts that true. So I asked myself, What part of that, you know, did I think was true? And the third thing I go through, Tim, is I say, Where have I felt like this before my life? Because often what happens, especially in relationships, and happens to this guy when I’m when I brought it up to them, is it’s something that’s triggered from the past. Right? So my wife might say something to me, like, “Oh, can you take out the trash?” And I might snap, like, “What are you talking about? I do everything around here, I bring in the income I cleaned, I vacuum today?” when you were going this whole tirade storm out, like a little child, and all she’s doing is asking me to take out the trash. But in my listening, maybe what I heard was I was lazy, or I’m not good enough, or something that my parents told me or a teacher told me, I never followed through with something in the past. And so I’m trying to figure out where that linkage is, where that comes from. So I still get upset; I don’t get over that. I mean, I laugh a lot more, and I catch myself a lot quicker. Now typically, it’s in seconds or minutes, rather than days, weeks, like it used to be. So those are the three things I start with.
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Tim Matthews 12:45
Yeah, it’s a self problem before it’s a relationship problem. Because for you, for me, for anyone, the listeners, to act a certain way in a relationship, it first starts with them being able to bring a certain level of consciousness, or awareness rather, to their own life. Amelia and I, whenever we get in these situations these days, look, fortunately for Rose, often get to fuse with laughter because we can both see through the emotion an ego is usually driving the heated conversation at the moment. And then we’re able to communicate clearly what both parties want from a place of love instead of anger or frustration or resentment or whatever. Now obviously, no, by no means are we perfect. We are still on the journey completely; we’re on the path, we’re always working on it. However, if I hadn’t have been through my growth. And if I didn’t, if I don’t stick to my routines, working out meditation, journaling, everything, all feeds into me being in a, in a particular state, then underpins a type of presence, I then tick into the relationship that underpins everything that I am then able to do to communicate without feeling like a victim without judgment, and at the same time, be able to take the lessons that she’s communicating as well. As you said, what’s true here, you know, taking ownership. We’ve spoken a lot on previous shows about taking care of your side of the street before looking at others. And if Amelia is bringing something to me and she may be communicating in a heated way, I’m sure there’s something there that well, there is always something there for me to take from it. I get to do something that I get to improve upon and for me to take that on board. I get to do that without judgment or feeling attacked or victimized, and again, it comes back to me being able to have done the work on myself first and foremost,
Doug Holt 15:02
Beautiful. Does. And then there’s another piece to this, this puzzle. It doesn’t apply to you and Amelia, but it does apply. It does, I guess, but it applies to this gentleman because once you’ve gotten to this realization, Tim, let’s say it’s you and Amelia, are you and this person? Then what? Do you realize that you’ve reacted? And I’ve said something well, not you but him. And now, what do you do?
Tim Matthews 15:31
So, whenever I’ve been in this position before, I apologize. So let’s say that you are Amelia, Doug. Let’s see if he can play that role for a second. Let’s say that I’ve overreacted something you said, and I would then approach you, and I would eat the frog, so to speak, and approach you in a very humble way with my tail, no doubt between my legs. And apologize, they may go something like this, “Hey and I’m sorry for what I said before. I’m sorry, how I reacted. I didn’t mean it. And I just felt that it when you said x y, z, I felt that I was x y z”, I was either, you blame me for something,” or “I didn’t feel good enough”‘, or “I felt like you were questioning my ability to provide,” or I felt like whatever always making it about me. I’m sorry, here’s what you did. And this is how I chose to feel. And I recognize that, and I apologize for that. And I am moving forward. Here’s what I’m going to do to rectify it. And here is what I heard you say you want me to do. So I’m taking ownership of my side of the street and communicating honestly and clearly about what went on within me that caused me to react. I’m saying what I’m going to do differently moving forwards—and also clarifying that it’s in alignment with what she desired as well. Because, you know, the last thing I want to do is say I’ve got it, sorry. And here’s why. And this is what I’m gonna do moving forwards. She wants, I want to clarify as well, that that is actually what she desires. And if it’s not, then cool, I can do what I was thinking and do what she desires as well.
Doug Holt 17:31
So the problem with that is I don’t get to play Amelia’s role here. You just took it all from me. I was getting excited about it, and I was getting warmed up.
Tim Matthews 17:38
I kind of took a step back like, “Shit. Doug is playing as Amelia.”
Doug Holt 17:44
Well, thank you, I appreciate that. Because I can only get myself into trouble with that one you’re spot on, the only thing I do differently, or maybe a junk to that, is I share some vulnerability within the power. I believe that as a man, you can be confident in your power and still be vulnerable. I think it’s the ultimate sign of power when you can be vulnerable. But I share what that trigger is. So you know, in the example we talked about, my wife comes to me and says something, and I’m asking myself these questions. Do I want to be right? Or do I want to be happy? What’s more important to me? One, two, where did that trigger? What did I believe was true? And three’s, where did that come from? In the past? I share that last part, number three, with her. And I might say, Look, I’m sorry, sorry, I snapped just when you asked me to take out the trash. You know, what I heard you say was that I’m not? I’m not brave enough to help out our family, and I’m not good enough. Am I doing the right things? And that made me feel like I was less than a man and less than a provider of the family that I want to be. And so I immediately just reacted, and I apologize. It’s all to say something along those lines, let her know where I’m coming from, what I’m feeling or what feelings evoke for me, or where it occurred in the past. Because usually, it has nothing to do with what the person in front of you is doing. Right? It’s our interpretation of what they’re doing or what they’re saying. That gets us to react, not the actual actions. For this guy, this gentleman I’m talking about Tim, and you know him, great guy. And when I brought this up to him, he just looked dumbfounded, and he’s on the phone like, “Oh, man, if my wife asked me to take out the trash and all I heard was you’re lazy, which brought me back to my childhood. Where my childhood, my parents, my family. All they did was call me lazy. The whole joke around my family was basically that I’m lazy”. And you know, this guy’s a business owner, by all means. Other men would look at him as an alpha leader. Great guy. The last thing is laziness. He just happened to To be lying in bed at the time, and she asked him a question, a straightforward question, which then triggered in his mind, being lazy and brought him back to those old times, and brought that whole pattern, you know, of being this young boy afraid, of course, and then being less than a man. And he just snapped his wife right away, which continued. And when I got off the phone with them, it looked like he would be doing some explaining.
Tim Matthews 20:28
Yeah, and so he should.
Doug Holt 20:32
Yeah, the best part about that, it’s the best part because I can relate to it so well, and I’m guessing you can the men on this call, is when I asked him that he’s just so into being right. I used to be, “But I’m right. But you don’t get it. I am, right, and I do so much around this house, I work so hard” I’d go through all these justifications, not even realizing that that’s not even the point. Two, I probably totally misunderstood what the person was trying to communicate to me. And I didn’t even take any time to get clarification; I instantly snap and react. It’s just so funny to look back at those times. And those can be hard times, and a lot of relationships that you and I get to go into and talk to the men and sometimes the women too we talked to people’s Well if they enter The Brotherhood, or some are more advanced programs, a lot of times we get communications with the wives and partners, and to see what’s going on, you know, these types of communications happen regularly. And it keeps every time these communications happen, these divides and that they don’t get rectified. It’s just another wedge in the relationship that continues to separate until they break off. And what we talked about the next thing you know, they’re a wildly in love couple turned into roommates, who happened to be living in the same house, they don’t even like each other. Right? Start noticing everything that you don’t like about the other person.
Tim Matthews 22:05
And you said something was so key. And it’s often the go-to validation that many of the men we work with, and I used to use it a lot. And no, sometimes I still do, and fortunately, I catch myself, and if I don’t, Amelia is very quick to remind me of this. And that is, “I’m the man I do the work. You just don’t care how hard I work”. You know, it’s almost like that sense of entitlement comes over me and others that we know. And yeah, at the same time, we want to be the provider; we want to provide them protection crazy. You know, the one thing that we love to do, we then use as a kind of weapon to then say you don’t get this. And I just worked so hard. Amelia always likes to remind me, “Look and ask you to do this, this is your dream. I love what you do, and I’m here to support you. But you can’t use that against me”. And it’s so true. But it’s often the goal of validation, and it’s the go-to backup to a go-to card in the back pocket that often the guys will pull out to validate and then feel this way, and but it’s never the truth is never the truth. Once you peel that away and get to the root of it, it triggered me to be lazy because a child I used to get picked on was being called lazy. That’s the real root here. That’s down all this.
Doug Holt 23:39
Yeah, the feeling of self-worth and knowing that you’re not lazy like knowing your core of who you are. If that lazily trigger comes up, you can combat it, speak, or recognize it quickly and laugh at it for a comment made about a child. Hopefully, you’re listening to this. You’re no longer a child. But who knows. But that brings us into our next podcast episode, which I’ll talk about here in a second. But Tim, any last words here before we wrap up?
Tim Matthews 24:13
No. I enjoyed it. I hope this doesn’t take more value from it. I’d love to hear any feedback, any questions and happily answer them for you guys. And thank you for listening. And yeah, the podcast is growing week on week, getting more and more downloads, which is exciting. So hopefully, you guys enjoyed it.
Doug Holt 24:32
Yeah, guys, we look forward to hearing from you about the Facebook community. Of course, if you can leave a review, that always helps us reach other men just like you and hopefully provide more value. And if you have any questions, please go ahead and leave those in the Facebook community The Activation Method; Tim and I will pick them up. We’re in there regularly answering questions along with the other coaches. And guys next episode we’re going to talk about is “What does leaving your clothes on the floor have to do with you being a man?” That’s for us to separate. So until next time, we’ll see you here on The Powerful Man show.
