So you’re sitting down with your husband or partner…
You guys are talking and connecting and then suddenly something catches his eye on tv or FB notification goes off on his phone…
You’re continuing to talk but you notice that he isn’t as focussed and paying the same attention he was a few minutes ago…
Your blood starts to boil.
But in addition to being angry, you’re also feeling a little rejected.
Feeling as if the phone or TV is more important than you.
It’s a pretty shitty feeling isn’t it.
So the question is how do you turn this around?
How can you get him to give you more attention?
Here’s the thing. Guy’s attention span are pretty poor.
In addition to that, their communications skills are average at best as well so in a lot of ways, what this is about is actually coaching them!
Great question! Well the first thing to do here is to truly understand what is happening here.
So many times, we are trying to look for that quick fix but often that approach ends up falling flat out on our face.
Hence we need to get to the core of the issue…
Ok, so as I mentioned above, Guy’s attention span and communication skills are typically pretty average.
You get a guy to explain how he feels and he’ll say “Not too bad” or “Pretty Good” and leave it at that.
Not the kind of response that you would probably give right?!
Of course not.
So what this means is that if you want to get your man to give you the attention and the love that you desire, you need to coach him a bit because on his own, he’s just going to do what guys normally do…
He’s going to be a guy and he’s not going to have much of a clue on what you actually need.
This is not manipulation…it’s just about understanding how guys function and then altering your communication styles to serve that.
BUT…
However, to do that, you need to first need to see the situation for what it is and not worse than it is.
When a guy checks his phone or watches sport, it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t love you.
It doesn’t mean that you are the bottom of the priority list.
It doesn’t mean that the relationship is falling apart.
It just means that in that moment, there is something that has captured his attention. Nothing more, nothing less.
However, where I see so many couples falling over is that when a guy acts like this, the partner tends to perceive this as him not loving her.
Then a fight breaks out and the guy is left wondering – “what the hell did I do? I just checked out the basketball score. So what?”…
Now just so i’m clear, i’m not defending the guys out there. If there is a moment of connection between the two of you, he should be giving you his undivided attention.
BUT…
So many guys just don’t get it…
And so rather than getting into fights and argument, the best way is to begin reframing the situation and then coaching him…
Reframing. In short, it’s when you shift the context of your situation and see it for exactly what it is, rather than creating unnecessary pain in your mind by looking at all the negatives.
So in this moment, if your man is on his phone you can just think to yourself – “he’s just a guy. He loves his sports and he’ll come out of his cave soon” or something like that!
What that does is help you shift your emotional state and then from there, that lightness in your energy will then encourage him to want to spend more time with you.
Then when you have a moment with him where he is completely attentive, you can just ‘anchor’ in those moments where he is doing great and then say “honey, I love it when you give me this sort of love and attention. You make me so happy and no-one in the world has ever made me feel like this”….or something like this…
And guess what?
When a guy knows he’s succeeding and he is making you happy, guess what he wants to do?
MORE OF IT!
And I don’t mean power in a negative sense.
It allows you to truly own yourself by learning to empower yourself and your emotions.
By shifting your emotions, you can then create a greater degree of light hearted energy within you which then makes him associate more joy with spending time with you.
No guy enjoys being around a debbie downer…
It’s the kiss of death in a relationship.
Bring more lightness…Reframe the small situations in your relationship and watch the magic occur 🙂