One Game-Changing Tactic to Reconnect with Your Overwhelmed Wife

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Transcription

Doug Holt  0:00  

Subconsciously, if she sees you back down, then she’s like, well, I can’t trust him. He can’t even handle me, well, how can I trust him, you know, to handle our family to handle everything else he can’t, he can’t put up without my gonna trust him to protect me. And then that protector provider starts to go away. It’s your wife needs to find that somewhere else internally, or unfortunately at times with another man, a fantasy, old high school sweetheart on Facebook, Instagram, you get the idea. And this is why it’s so important for men to understand this concept of diffused awareness.

Diffused awareness, what is it? And why should you even care? Well, I had a coaching call with one of my clients just the other day, and during the call came up really evident to me that diffused awareness was playing a problem in his marriage. Now, so the idea of diffused awareness, right, or diffuse focus is this whole concept that women are constantly aware of their surroundings. So my wife would say to me, as an example, I always know what’s going on around me, I know what everybody is doing or feeling around me. And I’m constantly aware of things going on. Whereas men, we have more singular focus, right? And so these are our superpowers as our genders. Now, of course, can I have diffuse awareness? Yes, can my wife have a singular focus? Yes. But in our natural states, predominantly, my wife is going to have more diffused awareness around her environment, we’re going to have more singular focus. Now again, I can make myself be aware, I can be aware of what’s going on to my right, my left, and in front of me, that’s really switching focuses rapidly for me, whereas my wife is just constantly aware in a more dispersed manner, with everything around her what it feels like, is she safe, things of that nature. Now, some of this comes from, you know, this theory from anthropology, that back in the day, our caveman days, as men, we would go out hunting. And so if you and I were going hunting, you know, we would have to be very focused, we have to be very quiet, we’d also have to be very focused, once we found the prey right to be able to see the prey that we’re going for, you know, let’s just say it’s a woolly mammoth, we have to be very focused on its movement, its patterns, because our life is at stake, in this case, like the woolly mammoth can turn its tusks into us. Now, we’re also not going to talk very much, right, so we don’t want to scare it away. This goes back to the theory of why men tend to grunt and not really talk much. You know, an example might be your mindset, my wife might say, how was your day and as the guy would go, good, right? 

That’s a typical communication for guys. Guys that aren’t trained the guys that aren’t activated for women are very different, right? So women back in those caveman days didn’t do as much hunting, they did more foraging. And if they’re going out to pick berries as an example, they need to go near rivers and streams or wherever else it may be where it’s louder, and they can often be the prey, right, the saber-toothed tiger or another tribe could be there. So they always had to be aware of their surroundings. Also, women will often talk about their surroundings, but they’re always aware of their husbands, their providers, and protectors. So no matter what’s going on in the relationship, my wife would say that a woman is always keenly in tune with her man, her provider and protector, it’s innate within women. So diffused awareness. And why does this matter? Well, you see, for a woman, when she walks into her home, she will say the home is talking to her. And what I mean by that is, when she walks out the door, she immediately notices the dishes not being done, right, the dishes are now talking to her. If you can imagine a little kid talking to you, and my kids can just Yap. But then the laundry has not been folded, and then the toys that are out or the magazines or the mail that’s sitting on the counter. All of these things are constantly talking to her, and it’s fraying her nervous system. This is oftentimes why women will talk about being overwhelmed. Or when I talk to a man, this is where I talk to this coaching client about when I talk to a man they’ll say, Yeah, my wife just she just seems to be on edge. All the time. She’s I go, Hey, is she tired, too? Well, yeah, she seems to be tired on edge, and just distance and intimacy. It’s just not happening. And so something I’ll often ask the guys because I hear this a lot, like, hey, you know, my wife is, is tired. 

She’s a stay at home mom, or she’s the primary, you know, caretaker at our house. And even if guys have a chef, a maid, and all of these things, they’ll say their wife just needs space or she needs time away. It’s things like that. And I’ll ask them, hey, when was the last time you were intimate? And they’ll tell me typically, when asked okay, hey, When’s the last time you guys went on vacation? How was the intimacy then? Now, usually when a girl tells me is, hey, we’re on vacation, wow, we’re having great sex, we’re connected. We’re laughing, we’re giggling. She was light, and she was free. And it was amazing. But of course, that’s vacation, right, and you want that back home? Well, the issue is, because of this diffused awareness, when your wife’s at home, she’s got all this chatter going on at her, which drains or strains her nervous system. And she, if she doesn’t have the ability herself or with you to reset, she’s going to stay in this energy, which then becomes a masculine energy. Now you as a default masculine man, and her as a man or a woman becoming masculine with the energy, there’s no polarity. And what happens when two masculine energies butt up against each other? Well, they’re either gonna fight or one has to back down. And if your wife is in this fight or flight mode, odds are you being a good guy are going to back down. And then she also which is ironic, subconsciously, if she sees you back down, and she’s like, well, I can’t trust him. He can’t even handle me, well, how can I trust him, you know, to handle our family to handle everything else, he can’t, he can’t put up an album, I’m going to trust him to protect me. And then that protector provider starts to go away, it’s your wife needs to find that somewhere else internally, or unfortunately, at times with another man, a fantasy, old high school sweetheart on Facebook, Instagram, you get the idea. But when she’s away, when she’s at the hotel, the resort or the lake house, wherever it is, usually provided you don’t own it. That’s the key here. If your way she can relax, because the environment isn’t talking loudly at her. Right? She’s in a new environment, and the stressors aren’t there, especially if you have kids, right? 

And the kids aren’t with you that she doesn’t have things to manage, so she can slip into her feminine energy. And when she’s in her feminine energy, right, then intimacy is much easier, she’s gonna be light, she’s gonna giggle, she’s gonna have fun. Because trust me, guys, women want to have sex just as much as these guys do. But they need the environment to be right. You know, I often say, us guys, we get a connection, we feel connected to our woman when we’re having sex, right after sex, we feel very connected. Well, for women, it’s the opposite. They need connection to want to have sex, generally speaking, right? Women need to be seen, heard, and desired. But they need another environment also to be quiet and calming. This is why we often tell men to figure out a decompression routine for their wives. Right, especially if your wife has a very masculine job. She’s a lawyer, she’s a police officer. She’s a manager or a supervisor and she’s always in his masculine role, right? And the men we work with their wives are very intelligent. And I’m not saying to him, but we wanted her to slip into her natural femininity when she’s home. So we want to create a routine, just like I want you guys to have your Alpha Rise and Shine, and your Alpha Decompression at the end of the day. So you can slip into your role as the chief fun officer, the CFO of your house, we need a way for your wife, to take her diffused awareness and all this chatter that’s coming at her and be able to actually relax. So I’m gonna give you a couple things that you guys can do to create this environment. Okay, so step one is collect her berries, allow her to unload her day onto you. Now you don’t have to keep it you can let it wash over you. So you want her to be able to empty out. So chances are if you’re not doing this, your wife’s doing this with her parents, with a girlfriend. 

And if not, she’s probably doing it with another guy, quite honestly. And this is a lot of times I’ll talk to guys, they find out their wife’s having an online affair or an affair physical affair, and the guy isn’t up to snuff to him. Because like, I’m so much better than this guy who makes more money and is better looking. And why is she having an affair with him? Well, he provided her with the space with the safety fighter with a fantasy of being seen and heard. Now, of course, it’s easy for another guy to do that. It’s it’s temporary. So you want to do it for her. Allow her to empty your berries. And so it could be something as you’re sitting down if like, hey, you know, what was the best part of your day? And she can share it with you and just go well, what else? What else happened? And keep being inquisitive and let her just spill out everything that’s happened. Now the key here is you have to listen. Okay? And use The Hidden Motives Technique, right? But you have to listen, you can’t just go Uh huh, uh huh. As you’re looking at your phone, or you’re looking away or you’re thinking about the baseball game, that doesn’t work, she’ll pick up on that instantly. But allow her to download her day. Then often you’ll see a woman go ah, big sigh shoulders relax, because they’re letting their day go. And if she’s not doing this with you guys, I promise you she’s doing this with somebody else. Hopefully for your sake it’s a girlfriend or, or another family member. So that’s one too, and I do this well, I do the collecting berries, usually after this one. So I’m going to backup, usually what I’ll do is I’ll come in, I’ll look at my wife, read the room, and I’ll come up to and I’ll put my hand on her, you know, touch the smaller backer hand on her shoulder and go bed, go into the room, take a nice, relaxing shower or bath, read for a little bit, and just go relax, right and my wife knows, that’s my sign of telling her Hey, go decompress. She also knows we have some joking comments. And I like to joke with her like, go relax,

you know, I’ll be in 30 minutes. And she knows that I’m prepping her for the intimacy lecture, I’m prepping her to have sex, and to have some fun. But I also know that she needs to decompress. Then after that I might empty her berries, right, I might go through that whole empty bearing routine or somewhere in there. Or I might stop by the back where she’s taking a bath, and just sit down and chat with her for a little bit. But what I want to do is move her out of this environment where her nervous system is on fray, where our nervous system is, is overactive. Because her nervous system is overactive, she’s in stressed mode. And that’s never good, right? That’s how fights happen. And little bickering happens over nothing, right over nothing over the trash or the dishes that have been yelling at her all day and talking to her about not being done, she’s going to turn to you and go, Why did you leave your dishes in the sink, you never do your dishes, right. And if you go into DEER mode, we start defending explaining reacting, defending, excusing, explaining reacting, I’ll get it right, you start doing that, now you guys are really going to fight, right? And it’s just gonna be this whole environment where not only is intimacy out, because there’s gonna be a rift between you two, this can all be solved by creating again, that environment that she’s in when she’s on vacation, which is an environment where a nervous system can physically react, relax. If you have kids, young kids, give young kids you know, get a babysitter or set up the environment for her where the kids are taken care of. They’re not going to be going mommy, mommy mommy all day with her, right? So take that away from her. And what I’ll do sometimes, because I do have young kids is I’ll set them up, I’ll get them snacks, I’ll get them, whatever they need to do toys an activity, I’ll get them set up or a play with them. Right, that’s fun to do. And I’ll get that all done. So that’s off of her plate, right? And if you have older kids, what you might want to do is get their homework ready, get them going, hey, guys get the table, you’re doing homework, you’re doing this, Hey, guys going outside playing basketball, whatever it is, the point is, is she is no longer on duty at that point. 

And you are least giving her a restless break, where she can reset herself. Typically, in my experience and talking to a lot of women, they only need about 20 minutes of this break to actually reset back in their femininity, and they can go and you might want to say hey, let’s just go for a walk or, Hey, go for a walk and call your girlfriend, Judy, or whatever it may be. And you can do that, too. You’re providing her the space, the space to do so and she’s gonna love you for it. And then when she comes back, she can focus on you, she can focus on you during this time, but you have to hit the reset button. And this is why it’s so important for men to understand this concept of diffused awareness. You know, again, whatever environment your wife’s in, she is paying attention to everyone and everything around that environment. And if you want her to focus in on you, you get a calmer nervous system down, get grounded yourself, so she can feel your energy. Alright, collect her berries, and also help reset that nervous system. And if there’s kids, or there’s a lot of things around, just make sure that’s done. And sometimes it can be as simple as, hey, I know the laundry is over there will that laundry will get folded later. Or let’s fold it together or I got it, whatever it is for you. But acknowledge what’s happening in the environment and acknowledge a closed loop, right, this is how the laundry will get folded by tomorrow morning, then she can at least close down or quiet the laundry or quiet the dishes and quiet all this attention around her. So then she can be in a calm state and focus on you guys give this a try. I think you’re going to see this as a magic bullet. Once you have awareness around this issue of diffused awareness, you’re going to find out that your wife is gonna have more energy, she’s going to be calmer. She’s gonna be happier, which makes her more fun. And when she’s happier and more fun. If you’re also making her feel seen heard and desired, as we often talk about in the show, then you’re gonna find that intimacy is going to come a lot easier, and you and your wife are going to be more connected, you’re gonna have more fun, your home environments can be better, it’s gonna be better for you, it’s gonna be better for your wife. And most importantly, in my eyes, it’s gonna be better for your kids as well. Gentleman is always saying the moment of insight, take massive action, right? 

Create this, get this diffuse awareness, and quiet things down for your wife. Make sure you do this today. Recognize where this is happening in your home. Recognize if there’s undone projects, undone things, write them down, and go about creating this environment where it feels like a vacation. And of course, there’s stuff to be done, but it feels like a vacation on a regular basis in your home and you’re gonna find your life being much more fun, guys. We’ll see you next time on the TPM show.