I was speaking to my wife last night and we discussing about how far we had come in our relationship. From the early days where one little glance at the phone to check the cricket scores would land me in the dog box to the present time, where we share a passionate, loving marriage where putting each other first is just a daily occurrence – our marriage just keeps growing from strength to strength.
There were no doubts on either of our sides that we were each other’s soulmates, but throughout the course of 2014 and 2015, ‘heavy’ chats were a common occurrence. Inevitably it boiled down to me not making her a priority in my life – yet I felt like I was because I was working and slaving my butt off for her and our future family. For me, it seemed like there was a major issue around perception.
Now I write this article primarily for the females because it’s my job to help women learn and understand about men and our psychology.
Whilst talking to my wife, I explained to her about where I felt it all changed for me and where everything just went to a completely new level. It all changed when we both made a conscious decision to lighten everything up.
That didn’t mean that we didn’t honour some of the problems that existed. It just meant that we attempted to handle the problems from a completely different emotional place. So long as we were stressed, anxious, angry, frustrated and annoyed at each other, we were never going to address the elephant in the room in the best possible way.
We had to both drop our ego
My wife needed to remember that it was ok to tell me what her needs are rather than hoping that I would read her mind. I had to learn not to shut myself off and twist it around and make it about me whenever we had any problems – hence making it about me.
Stop being selfish
We both had to learn to put our partners first, rather than being selfish and making it all about ourselves. As human beings, we MUST remember that love is about giving, not getting.
We had to ensure that whenever we felt that our needs weren’t being met, we broke each others emotional pattern by making light of the situation and using humour.
We would find unique and silly ways to express our needs but not in such a way to make it serious. The end result? For a masculine man, it brought out the need to protect and provide in me. Anytime she would make light of the situation, I would end up wanting to serve her.
I wanted to make her happy because she was basically saying to me in an indirect way that I was capable of it – just come here and do it. Inevitably it was about spending quality time and just giving her attention, but the light hearted approach meant that I wasn’t looking at myself as a failure.
You see, for a man, criticism is like cancer. I can’t tell you how many men I have observed and coached who struggled in their relationships cause their partner kept criticising them for something. At the very core of it, they felt they weren’t good enough. Even though it wasn’t the intent of their partner to make them feel like that, men tend to interpret these events in these ways.
By applying these three steps, our relationship went to astronomical levels where we simply just don’t have any of these ‘heavy’ chats anymore. Our priority was to understand our needs but at the same time, lighten everything up so that we could address any problems or needs in the best way we could – from a place of love!