Episode #1044
Feel like every argument with your wife turns into a courtroom battle? You explain, defend, try to fix it, and somehow it only gets worse. In this episode, Doug and Chris answer real questions from men who are tired of walking on eggshells and ready to lead differently.
You’ll learn what DEER Mode really is and why it keeps you stuck. You’ll also get real examples of how to stop reacting and start creating emotional safety so your wife can relax and reconnect. Whether she says she needs space, shuts down for days, or tells you she’s not in love with this version of you, this episode shows you how to respond without chasing, fixing, or folding.
This is about shifting out of panic mode and into calm leadership. It’s about taking full ownership without losing your edge. When your wife feels safe, everything changes. And when you stop letting fear run the show, you finally show up as the man you were built to be.
If this hits home and you want to take the next step, check out the free training that breaks down how to fix your marriage without more talking or therapy at https://fixmarriage.thepowerfulman.com/scales.
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Transcription
Doug Holt 0:00
His wife is probably testing him to see if she’s emotionally safe. The safety tests never end. How you react to them and how long they are and how big they are, that’s what changes. And we don’t want them to feel lonely. We want them to feel like we’re on a team. We want to feel like a power couple. Have a day, a time, an event of when you’re going to be able to have that conversation. “Wait a minute, why is this guy getting up in the morning doing his Alpha Rise and Shine? Huh, that’s different.” What she’s saying is, “I love you, but I’m not in love with this version of you.”
Doug Holt 0:42
Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the TPM show, and once again, we are going to be taking your questions right here on the TPM show, and I’m gonna do my best job to answer them. On the casting couch, we have Christopher Hansen here. He’ll be taking your questions so we can answer them. Thanks for being here, Chris.
Christopher Hansen 0:58
Absolutely. I’m keeping my clothes on for this one. Cool, let’s dive in. So first question is from Luke, 37. He’s an attorney in Colorado. Says, “Every argument with my wife feels like a court case.” It’s an attorney, I was gonna say. “She points out every mistake. I end up defending myself, explaining, and it just escalates. How do I stop falling into DEER mode every time?”
Doug Holt 1:28
Great question. So for those guys that don’t know what deer mode is, DEER is an acronym we use at TPM. It stands for D – Defend, E – Explain, E – Excuse, R – React. That’s what most guys go into. Nice guy mode, I used to go into that all the time. Then we use another acronym called WOLF, which is Wise, Open, Loving, and Fierce. So what do you do? Well, Luke, first and foremost, you get to recognize the state that you’re in. Take some breaths. The most important thing is to practice grounded masculinity to be very grounded and confident in who you are. I’m gonna guess, well,
I don’t know what kind of attorney Luke is, so he might not be in a courtroom, but if he’s litigating, you need to be in a grounded state. You can’t just react to what the other attorneys are doing when you’re litigating. Same thing at home. Also realize that most complaints, I’m gonna say most, in somebody like Luke’s situation, are going to be manufactured complaints or safety tests. His wife is probably testing him to see if she’s emotionally safe. Now, why would she do that? Well, she wants to see if Luke can handle her, right? And the idea behind this is, if you can’t handle your wife, how the heck is she supposed to feel safe?
How are you going to handle yourself, or the man down the street, or the man at the store, or the guy that’s bugging her, if you can’t handle her? And she’s 120 pounds, and Luke’s 220 pounds. Well, then she can’t feel safe with you. She also can’t relax into her femininity, because if she’s always pointing out things you’re doing wrong and you’re reacting, she knows she has control of your emotions. Let’s talk a little about that, because I think that’s where guys get tripped up. What I mean by she’s not emotionally safe is, if she says something to you and you start defending or excusing or reacting right away, she knows that you’re not powerful. You’re not a powerful man. She has control. She can manipulate your emotions just by nagging and pointing out, “Oh, you didn’t do the dishes right,” or “You didn’t take out the trash,” and then you go off and get all pissed off kind of like I did when talking about the oven thing in a previous podcast.
Then she knows that she can control you, and if she can control you, you’re not in control. Now here’s this woman, 120 pounds, probably extremely intelligent. Our guys who join our programs have married very strong, intelligent women. And so, if she can control you at 120 pounds, she’s going to think everybody else can control you, therefore she’s not safe with you.
Christopher Hansen 4:31
For sure. I always look at safety tests as opportunities to move in one of two directions. One is the direction you want the relationship to move in, which is forward progress and growing together. There’s a ton of things that exist on that side of the spectrum, and on the other side are the patterns that have most likely played out for a long time in the relationship, where she feels like she has to be in control. There’s a lack of emotional safety and disconnect. Those safety tests are an opportunity for you to move in one of those two directions. They’re compounding, right?
So the more that you can move in the direction of being in control of your emotions and creating emotional safety, the safety tests will still come, but they’ll start to shift in the way they come. As you start to practice more and more, you’ll get better at identifying when they’re coming and how to navigate that space. The issue a lot of guys run into is that they’ve been going in the other direction for so long, and they expect that to change overnight. It’s like you’ve got ten years of weight on one side of the scale we use the scale analogy quite a bit and it takes time and practice to start moving in the direction you want to move. The safety tests continue to come; it’s not something you do once or twice and it just goes away. It’s something you’re going to consistently have to navigate and build upon.
Doug Holt 6:20
The safety tests never end. How you react to them, how long they last, and how big they are that’s what changes. You can get to a point, Luke, where your wife gives you a safety test, and it turns into both of you laughing, dancing in the kitchen, and maybe even having sex. Because you can imagine, if she doesn’t feel safe and Luke, I’m going to guess if you asked your wife if she feels emotionally safe with you, the answer would be no. Now that sucks, it’s a gut punch for a guy. But if she doesn’t feel safe, imagine what your life would be like if she did feel completely safe to surrender into your arms.
That’s when she starts looking at you with love, admiration, and respect again like she probably looked at you when you first got married. That kind of “I do” look, if you will. You can get that back. Guys get that back all the time; we see it constantly. So one trick that I use, Chris, when I’m coaching the guys I use it myself is to picture your wife like a five-year-old little girl speaking to you. So Luke, if you have kids, this is for you too. But Chris, you have kids, I have kids. If your daughter’s older than five, just imagine she was five again. If she comes over and complains to you, are you going to start defending yourself and reacting, yelling, and screaming? No, not at all. You’re going to laugh and go, “Oh, that’s sweet, honey. I got you,” and you’re going to be very calm and loving. The person that’s complaining and not feeling safe is your wife’s inner child. I’m not putting your wife down, Luke, or anybody’s wife.
But if you look at it like the little five-year-old version of her inside is screaming for safety, if you can picture her as that five-year-old, it takes away that reaction a bit as you’re learning the skills. For me, I’d say 90–95% of the time I pick up on a safety test and I’m able to turn it into a joke, and we have a good time with it. Every once in a while, I react I still have that in me but it’s very, very rare. When I do, I clean it up and it goes away right away, as soon as I recognize it. That’s another thing: if you do react, defend, or explain, clean it up in a manly way. We teach guys to do that in The Activation Method in a number of ways, and we’d be here all day if I went into all of them, but you do have to clean it up.
That’s the important part. It’s a little harder, but still manly, because she knows you reacted. So just call out the obvious. Another thing I tell guys: if your best friend’s wife said the same thing to you, or a friend’s wife said the same thing, how would you react? Sometimes you have to remove yourself kind of go into a third-person view. It takes the sting out of it. The reason you’re reacting is because you believe something about you isn’t good enough, or that what she’s saying is true. That’s the hardest part. Again, if I told you Luke, I’m sure you’re listening if I walked up to you and said, “Luke, you’re purple,” you’d probably laugh and go, “What the hell are you talking about, man?”
That’s because you know you’re not purple. But if I said, “Luke, I heard you’re bad in bed,” and if a part of you thinks that’s true, you’re going to react. It’s going to sting. If someone said to me, “Doug, you’re a horrible father,” I’d say, “You have no idea who you’re talking to,” because I think I’m a great dad. That’s something I’m really proud of. But if someone said, “Doug, you suck at basketball,” well, I think I’m decent, or I used to be, but right now, yeah, I probably do. It may sting a little, sure. There are parts of me that could believe it. Same thing with the reaction piece. Guys get to learn how to get out of that reactionary phase, and those are three ways you can do it.
Christopher Hansen 10:22
Yep, absolutely. I love the cleaning up part too, right? I mean, a marker of a great relationship or a relationship that is healthy is it’s not a lack of conflict. It’s not a lack of those moments happening. It’s how quickly and how well you do actually clean those up and come back together.
Doug Holt 10:43
It’s exactly that. So many guys miss calling out the elephant in the room, right? Your wife knows when you screw up, just like you know when she screws up. Or a coworker if you saw a coworker screw up, you’d know it. And the ones that act like it never happened, you lose a little respect for them, right? You’re like, “Hey…” But the ones that raise their hand and go, “Hey, that was my bad. I got this, I’m gonna go fix it,” I’m talking about work you respect them more. You’re like, “Cool, thanks, appreciate that.” At least I do. And as a guy that’s owned businesses since my early 20s, and I’m 48 now, those are always the people I want to work with. I mean, obviously, I don’t want anybody to screw up if I can avoid it in business, but people do. It’s gonna happen. Everybody makes mistakes, and the ones that clean it up and call it out those are the people I want to ride with.
Christopher Hansen 11:30
Yep, 100%. Well, this leads into this next question. It kind of plays off the one we just did. This is from Oliver, 41 years old, hedge fund manager in New York. Says, “My wife shuts down and won’t talk for days after a fight. I’m left in silence while she stews. How do I break through the stonewalling without chasing her like a needy teenager?” This kind of goes to the cleanup part of this. What are some ways that guys can engage without feeling needy in those situations?
Doug Holt 12:07
So there’s at least two things I would definitely do in Oliver’s situation. Stonewalling used to be my competitive sport in my relationship. I would argue with, “You don’t get me,” right? That’s basically what stonewalling is you get the privilege of spending time with me. So there are two things you can do, maybe more than that, but the first thing is to take charge. Take charge and take ownership of everything on your side of the street. So let’s just say Oliver and his wife are fighting about give me an example, Chris.
Christopher Hansen 12:44
They’re fighting because Oliver overreacted when his wife was frustrated with the children.
Doug Holt 12:49
Perfect, awesome. That’s a great one. So what Oliver might do is go up to her his wife’s name is Jen, okay and say, “Hey, babe, look, I’d imagine that me overreacting could make it seem like we’re not on the same team when you’re trying to parent the kids, and that thus divides us and makes you look like the bad guy. I want you to know I never want that to be the case. I always want us to be on a team, and whenever things happen with our kids, I get very protective. That’s something I’m willing to work on and do, and I just wanted to say that I never want you to feel like I’m not on your side and I don’t have your back. It’s very important to me. I also want to make sure that whenever there’s distance between us, we clean it up so we can come back together to be that power couple, but also so the kids can see us together and see that we’re the amazing family I know we are.”
Yep, absolutely. And also, I never apologized for exactly what I did. Now Oliver may choose to do that, but what I did apologize for was how it landed on her. That’s what I missed early on. How many times have we said, “Hey, I’m sorry,” and that just doesn’t change anything? It loses its weight. Most of the time you’re still upset and pissed too, so she can tell you’re not truly sorry. You overreacted because she was doing something that frustrated you or something you thought was stupid or whatever it may be. But the truth is, for all of us men, we love our wives, and we don’t want them to feel lonely. We want them to feel like we’re on a team. We want to feel like a power couple. So that’s all I did said, “Hey, here’s what I want. I never want you to feel lonely, like I don’t have your back, or that I’m pitting you against the kid, making me look like the good dad while painting you as the bad mom.” Kids are tough, man. These things happen all the time, and there’s pressure on both sides, but especially on the moms these days to do it all perfectly. Typically, right? To be Martha Stewart in the home and some mix of Dr. Becky that a lot of moms follow.
There’s a lot of roles and responsibilities, but men have it too, in a different way. So Oliver could start by doing that take extreme responsibility and use The Hidden Motives Technique. But also, the first thing I said is take leadership. What I mean by that is, “Hey, I need to talk to you. We’re going to talk.” If she says, “No, I’m not ready to talk,” or “I don’t want to talk right now,” this is what you do, guys. If Jen says, “I’m not ready to talk,” you say, “That’s fine. Take your time. When can we talk?” So close the loop. Have a day, a time, an event of when you’re going to be able to have that conversation. A lot of men miss that. They go, “Okay, fine,” and they walk away, and now they’re in eternal limbo.
Christopher Hansen 15:55
You’re putting it right back on her to eventually come to you and take the leadership, or the loop stays open.
Doug Holt 16:03
The loop is open, and she now has to be in her masculine. She has to decide. And she may feel like coming to you is like coming with her tail between her legs, and most strong women don’t want to have that feeling. Whereas if you create the scene and clean up your side of the street, most often and don’t expect this, but most often she’ll clean up her side of the street, and then you guys can come together.
Christopher Hansen 16:26
Awesome. You want to do one more?
Doug Holt 16:27
Let’s do one more.
Christopher Hansen 16:29
Cool. This kind of rolls into this as well. So Ben this is from Ben. He’s 46, works in the tech space in San Francisco. So, Ben the tech bro.
Doug Holt 16:44
I want to buy you a gift. Look, if your marriage is struggling and let’s be real, every marriage struggles at some point but if yours is struggling, where you’ve lost that love, admiration, and respect, I want to help you. I want to buy you a copy of the book that I wrote, A Man’s Guide on How to Save Your Marriage Without Talking About It. In here, I’ve distilled over eight years of programs that we’ve developed at TPM to help men just like you save their marriages without talking about it. There’s no fluff, no BS. It’s an action plan that you can start using today to actually save your marriage and bring that love and respect back into your family, back into your house. You deserve it. Look, all I ask is you pay the postage, you pay the shipping. I’ll buy the book for you. That way, you can take massive action today. Click the link or find it in the bio and get your copy.
Christopher Hansen 17:36
Now she tells me that she needs space to find herself. I want to be supportive, but it feels like code for “I’m done with you.” Do you give her space or fight for the marriage?
Doug Holt 17:55
Both. It is code for “I’m done” most of the time, but not “I’m completely done,” right? If Ben doesn’t step up and become activated, as we talk about, then it’s over. So “activated,” let me just clear that up a little bit. Most men wander through in this nice guy kind of zombie land where they hope things are okay and they’re hoping it’ll get better, but they’re not really pushing it. And we have other guys we call activated, who are actively going after things. They’re learning new skills. We all know who these guys are, right? They’re growing in their business, they’re growing in their health, they’re constantly working on themselves. And so Ben gets to be that, right? I’m sure he’s doing well in tech I hope he is.
So what I would do in this situation and every situation is going to be different is I would define what “space” looks like. What exactly is she going to be doing to find herself, and how can I still stay engaged with her, right? So it could even look like something like this: “Hey babe, oh, I love you. You’re going to work on yourself, that’s absolutely awesome. I totally support that. What does space look like to you?” And then she’s gonna talk about it. Maybe she says, “Well, I need to get my own place. I need to do this.” “Okay, so what does getting your own place do?” These are sales objection-handling questions. And it may turn out that she’s just like, “Well, I just want to be able to have time by myself so I can really focus on my healing.”
“Awesome. What do you think about if we do this Monday, Wednesday, and Friday nights are totally yours, you know, you have the room and everything, and then Tuesday and Thursday we can connect, have dinner, and we’ll see how Saturdays and Sundays go. Would something like that work for you?” She’s like, “I think I could do that.” “Great, that’s what we’ll do. I’ll tell you what it’s Sunday now, Monday will be yours. I have some stuff I wanted to do anyway, and then Tuesday, five o’clock, does that work for you? Five o’clock, I’m gonna take you out to dinner, and I’d love to know more about what you’re working on. So I’ll be here at five o’clock. Just wear something casual and relaxed.
Otherwise, I’m always here for you if you ever want to talk or anything, just reach out. But I’m gonna give you some space to do what you’re gonna do, and I’m looking forward to seeing what happens.” I keep saying I’m curious about her, so I’m bringing curiosity. So she’s sensing desire. I’m also leading. And I already said, “Hey, we’re doing a date on Tuesday, five o’clock. This is what I want you to wear.” You know, it’s a suggestion. And so there’s going to be interest, and I’m gonna guess he’s not doing that. So she’s gonna be like, “What the f*** is going on?” And if he starts working on himself if she’s still in the house she’s gonna notice that. “Wait a minute, why is this guy getting up in the morning doing his Alpha Rise and Shine? Huh, that’s different. Whoa, he’s got stuff to do on Monday.” And if he leaves the house and goes to read a book, or he’s sitting on the couch watching training videos or something to better himself, like she sees him bettering and investing in himself and doing something really fun, she’s gonna notice that stuff too, and that’s gonna raise his sexual market value.
Christopher Hansen 21:10
For sure. And I mean, I read that as “I’m done with you” it’s a call to action, right? That’s the way that I see it. I always look at it, and when I talk to guys, like, if your wife is expressing these things to you, they’re opportunities. They’re just calls to action. This isn’t the end of the road for your relationship. This is her saying that, “Hey, something needs to change. I can’t move forward in this relationship the way that it is currently.” Those are shots across the bow.
Doug Holt 21:43
Man, “I’m done with this version of you.” Yep, “I’m done with this version of you” is what guys need to hear. Like we did one earlier where we hear this all the time a wife says, “I love you, but I’m not in love with you.” What she’s saying is, “I love you, but I’m not in love with this version of you.” The reason she still loves you is because she fell in love with an old version of you and with the man she was hoping you would become. And the truth is, Chris, that’s the same man guys want to become. They just don’t know how, or they’re scared. They’ve got one foot on the dock, one foot on the boat, and the boat starts to leave. And dude, I don’t know about you, man, but I’m not that flexible. You’ve got to pick you’ve got to get off that ledge, or you’re going to be in the water.
Christopher Hansen 22:30
And it’s an interesting gap that guys find themselves in. So funny, I was thinking about this earlier today. A lot of times the thing that keeps somebody from taking that jump onto the boat I’ll get guys saying that it’s just not the right time. I talked to a guy the other day who wanted to take some space after our call to go have a conversation with his wife. His wife was in full support of him coming and working with us, which is not always the case, but she was like, “No, I think this is great.” She’d listened to your podcast, gone through all the material with him. He said, “But the timing, it’s just not right for me.
I’m gonna go try X, Y, and Z, or do whatever.” He was completely talking himself out of moving forward and taking the next steps. And I hear that all the time from guys in that space. But then when I talk to the guys that have gone through our programs or started their path of self-development, gone to an Alpha Reset, whatever it is, universally the thing they say is, “I wish I would have done this sooner.” 100%. Just that gap that exists for somebody I don’t necessarily know the answer for it, I think it’s different for all guys. I always look at it for myself as belief my belief in what I’m capable of or what I’m worthy of or whatever it may be but it manifests out in all these different stories that guys tell themselves around why now isn’t the time. Or, “If I do these things that I’ve already tried before, then they’ll work again. They’ll work this time when they didn’t in the past,” or whatever it may be.
Doug Holt 24:12
You know what that is? That’s fear. They’re afraid. And a lot of guys are afraid of one or two things, in my experience with this one, Chris. One is they’re afraid they’ll fail they won’t finish. And two is they’re afraid that this has worked for so many men, and if it doesn’t work for me, then what does that mean about me? That is actually one of our biggest problems in getting guys to enroll. Our program has been so successful for men that guys are like, “Oh crap, this has worked for thousands of men, and if it doesn’t work for me, what does that say about me?” The truth is, if you just jump in and you’re 100% right if you ask any guy that’s been to, say, an Alpha Reset, any guy, and I do mean any, all of them will say, “I wish I would have done this sooner.” It’s a universal 100% thing.
They’ll also say it was one of, if not the most transformational experiences they’ve ever had. And yet, guys sit on the fence like this last Alpha Reset. This happens every time. Guys pay it costs money to go, no surprise about that and they’re looking for every excuse not to show up. And one guy admitted it. He’s like, “I was just scared. I was scared.” And I get it. Change can be scary. We’re prewired to stay the same. But I believe wholeheartedly that we’re also not designed to be average.
Christopher Hansen 25:41
For sure, and I think one of the biggest things that stand in men’s way is actually admitting that they’re scared. Because I know for me, some of the most transformational moments of my life have been moments where I have just submitted to the idea that I am actually scared. As a man, I feel like I’m not supposed to be yep but I am. And then once I own that piece, the stories that lived above that just dissipate, right?
So in this instance, I would imagine, and I’ve experienced this, that a story may be that this has worked for these thousands of other men, and I’m scared that it may not work for me. But the story that gets spun is that, well, I’m different. My problem can’t be the same problem that all of these other men have experienced, or I would have already solved it, right? Yep. And at the end of the day, there’s not that many problems in the world.
Doug Holt 26:40
Well, that’s it. So I heard this a lot of times at The Alpha Reset this last one we did and I had a chance to talk to some of the guys, and two of the men told me that in buying and reading my book, they were like, “Oh crap, other people are going through this.” And that alone gave them a little hope, like, “Oh, I’m not unique.” You know, I told these guys, Chris, I feel so bad now. I go, “You guys all think you’re snowflakes.” I wasn’t talking about being weak; I was talking about being individual. I told somebody else and they were like, “You told all the guys they’re weak.” I go, “No, no, individuals like, we’re all unique, and we are more alike than people think.” And that’s why we’re able to codify The Activation Method.
Christopher Hansen 27:24
People get it twisted, and they think that what makes them unique are the problems they experience, not the person that they are. They’re absolutely unique people. Yep, there’s no question. Every single person has their own unique flavor in the true sense of who they are. They believe that the problems they experience are the things that make them like the special little flower. At the end of the day, we all experience the same problems, and there are solutions to them.
Doug Holt 27:49
There are solutions to them, and you do deserve more than average. You know, even if you’re not religious if you are religious or you’re not it doesn’t matter. You’re not designed, you’re not here just to go through the motions. You’re here to thrive, to live the best life you possibly can. It doesn’t mean it’s gonna be perfect. I mean, I’m very open that my marriage isn’t perfect. Is it good? Is it a nine out of ten almost all the time, if not a ten out of ten? Yes. Does it drop? It doesn’t go down to a five or a six like it used to be. Shoot man, mine was at a one for a while. But that was a long time ago, and it can sustain and stay there, and then it allows you to focus on other things.
Like right now, I’m on a mission to get a book in the hands of as many men as possible. We’ve given away a ton of those books for free. This last Alpha Reset I was like, “Dude, guys, just get these books in hands. Here’s a box.” And people don’t realize that I have to buy the books from Amazon and then ship them out to people, which sounds kind of weird, but Amazon’s a big printer, right? So we buy them we buy a thousand of them at a time and then we have to turn around and mail them, literally put the envelope on, put it in the thing, sticker on. I’m sure if we get bigger, there’ll be a better system around it, but right now we’re doing it. And we’re doing it because we’re on a mission to help guys, because there is a system to allow you to get your family back and have that relationship that you deserve to have.
Christopher Hansen 29:18
No question. And I mean, we’ve given away hundreds of books at this point, if not thousands thousands which is great, and I love the push to just do more.
Doug Holt 29:29
Yes, feeling one’s brewing. Yep, awesome, brother. I love these questions. Thanks so much for grabbing them and coming here, reading them they’re succinct and the dialogue is awesome too. Thanks. So guys, keep those questions coming. I absolutely love them. It’s fun. I don’t know any of the questions coming into this, so it’s fun for me. Keeps it exciting. And if they’re questions you guys have, then I’m assuming they’re actually helping you. So if you have questions, there are two ways to get them to us. You can email VIP@thepowerfulman.com that’s Very Important Person at thepowerfulman.com. If you heard the last one, we figured out that the P phonetic sound is “Papa,” by the way we had to look that one up. But VIP@thepowerfulman.com, send your questions in.
Also, you can do it on the app. We have our own app for people who are involved in the movement. If you’re in the app, you can just go to the general channel and post there. I do my best to get to as many questions as I can, guys. I know Chris showed up with many more today, and we’re gonna try to get through as many as we can. We’ll keep at it. So please be patient. We do get a lot. But either way, make it a great day, and remember you deserve more than average. See you next time on The Powerful Man Show.
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