Why Divorce Sends Men Into Emotional Chaos (How To Stabilize Your Nervous System)

Hey, Cody Butler here, and the question I want to answer today for men who are facing divorce that want to turn their situation around is the difficult situation of, I keep swinging between hope and despair every single day. One kind word from her and I'm elated, one cold word or one cold look and I'm destroyed. How do I stabilize myself? Now, this is a great question because this is something you're going to have to master if you want to save your marriage because ultimately what your wife needs is a stabilized version of you. And if you, if you're up and down every time she gives you a cold look or a warm word, this isn't going to be very good for you. So today I'm going to share with you exactly how to deal with these massive mood swings that are going on and how to stabilize yourself. So the reality of the situation that, that exists right now is in divorce crisis, emotional instability becomes extreme. So one positive reaction from your wife produces an elated sense of hope, relief, excitement. It feels like the sun is shining. But then one cold interaction or an off-color text, or she doesn't put an X on the SMS or whatever, and all of a sudden you swing back into devastation, panic, collapse, and it seems like the whole world is coming to an end again. So Your emotional state is completely dependent on her behavior right now, which absolutely, positively has to change. So let's talk about why this happens. Why does the positive interaction feel so powerful and so positive and the interaction has such a devastating effect? Well, the, the answer is the internal identity collapse that's going on already is already catastrophic. So regardless of what's going on in the marriage, there's also another story being told here, which is what's going on inside of you. And that is what this situation, how you're interpreting this situation, is playing out against your internal identity of who you are, what you are as a man, your self-worth, and all of these things. So for a man, divorce threatens more than just his marriage. It threatens his masculine identity. His leadership, his sense of self-worth, his competency. Uh, when a woman asks for divorce, it, it threatens the thing that we fear the most, which is that we're actually going to be found to be incompetent, and then that is going to be revealed publicly. So there's so much more going on here than just the marriage collapsing. The catastrophic identity of self-value, self-worth, etc., is already at play and is being triggered underneath the surface. So What happens here is your very survival as a man, your emotional survival and your very survival as a man, actually becomes attached to the idea of reconciliation, of hope, and the signs that she may stay. So when she gives you a kind word, it's not just a kind word, it's not just a little piece of a puzzle or a data point in a much bigger situation. This is actually attached to your very survival as a human being as well. And when you understand the nature of what's going on here, and it's not just the marriage that's being threatened, it's your very identity and your ego, then this starts to make more sense as to why tiny moments of hope become emotional oxygen, uh, temporary relief, because it's temporary relief from the collapse. So the men I work with all the time, I'll get a text message from them and they'll say, she said this, and They're so elated, and then the next day I'll get a, but she said this, and they're in collapse again. It's just swinging back and forth, back and forth, like a flag up a flagpole. And this is, this is why it's going on. So let's look at how we can get control of this and get some emotional stability, which is going to be good for your mental health as well as very, very not just beneficial for the relationship, but ultimately absolutely essential to it as well. So The core dynamic, the core emotional dynamic that is playing out right now is that the man, i.e., you, I'm assuming, uh, has one of two choices. The, the tale of two cities here. It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. He feels like he's put in, uh, an impossible place of choosing and feeling either I cling to hope and I risk getting disappointed, or I accept something that's unbearable and unthinkable. Neither one of those is a good option. So what happens is that his nervous system, your nervous system, desperately searches for reassurance, for clarity, and for emotional relief from this situation, because this is just not a position anybody wants to be in. One of the things that we really, really hate as men is a lack of certainty around what's going on. And unfortunately, when your wife has asked for divorce, this is probably one of the most uncertain situations that you can actually be put in, and it's the most or least desirable situation as well. So this is why we start to become controlling, manipulate, manipulative sometimes. It's why we start to pressure, uh, all of these things, right? Not because we're bad men and that's what we do, we're controlling and manipulating, because our nervous system is desperately searching for something that's going to create some reassurance, some certainty. Some emotional relief from the situation. But unfortunately, the relief and reassurance that your nervous system is searching for is actually going to damage the marriage even further, and it's going to push her further away. So we need to understand that so we can understand what's going on, and we can start to act intelligently from a place of understanding versus unintelligently, like a monkey with a machine gun, so to speak, from from a place of fear, panic, and urgency. That's not going to help anybody. So what happens in this situation, divorce situation, is every single reaction becomes emotionally loaded far beyond the emotional load that it actually carries. So why do these negative interactions feel so catastrophic to us even though they can be very small? Well, the answer is because you're experiencing temporal moments as eternal. There's a belief system running below what's going on here that's false, that has to be addressed. And if you can just address this, this will help regulate you, which will help your moods, which will help the situation, which will help your wife. So the belief that's causing this catastrophic feeling is this moment is permanent. When, when we get a cold moment, so proof of hopelessness or proof permanent loss or proof of failure, we interpret— instead of just interpreting that as the data point that it is and saying the intelligent, the emotionally sophisticated thing, which is this is just a moment and it too will pass, and putting no more emphasis on it or giving it no more credibility than it actually has— we interpret that belief as this is how I will feel forever, or this is how my life will be forever, or this is how it's going to be forever, right? Or in other words, we take a temporary moment and we turn it into an eternal experience. And when the temporary moment is hopelessness or loss or failure, and we go, okay, well, this is what— this is how it's going to be now, this is how I'm going to feel forever, and we make that eternal, of course that's going to feel catastrophic. Of course that's going to feel hopeless. Of course that's going to completely emotionally disenfranchise you and disempower you. So to understand, or to get a solution or orientation on a solution here, we have to understand the real psychological problem of what's going on here. You have to go deeper than just asking for, tell me what to say, Cody, give me the script, well, how do I get her to feel A, B, and C? You've got to understand what's going on inside of you, and you have to address that, otherwise nothing is going to change. So the real psychological problem is is that there's actually been not a collapse of the marriage, not a collapse of your relationship, but a collapse of your perspective. Your perspective is what truly has collapsed here. Yes, your marriage is damaged. Yes, your marriage is in trouble. That is true, but it has not totally collapsed at this point. The only thing that has collapsed is your perspective, and now you are reacting to the collapse of perspective, not the reality of the situation. So what What happens here is there's no separation in you between momentary emotional states and permanent realities. When you take a momentary emotional state that is passing, that is unpleasant but nevertheless passing, and you call that a permanent reality, then of course you're going to create psychological issues. Of course you're going to create a collapse scenario and a catastrophe scenario. It's like when we're tired, we all get tired, right? But we don't assume that that momentary experience of being tired is eternal and that's how we're going to be forever. We understand this is just a moment, this is just a passing mood or a passing experience, and tomorrow will be different and I will experience a different reality. This is why events such as tiredness or hunger or cold, etc. Do not create the same collapse psychology because we actually understand that it's a temporary momentary emotional state and it will pass and it's not permanent. We need to take the same philosophy and apply that to our marriage. So when temporary interactions are interpreted as eternal consequences, when she sends an SMS, S-message or whatever, or she sends you an email or she doesn't put an X on a message and you would turn— you, you interpret that as having an internal consequence, and you don't do that in your mind. You don't go, this is forever. It's just a feeling, right? We just interpret it without giving it words. We experience it as eternal. Then here's what's going to happen. This is— or this is what's happening. This is nervous system catastrophizing. Let me ask you a question. You decide the answer to this. Is that attractive to your relationship? Is that attractive Is that something she's going to be attracted to? Does this produce stability, calm, shelter from the storm, the rock, the oak tree? Or does this create an environment where you are the storm that she needs shelter from? If men go, she doesn't want to talk to me. I talk to men all the time in my Win Your Wife Back program and they go, my wife, my wife won't communicate with me. She won't even message me anymore. She won't do anything. Well, the reason for that is not because she doesn't want to. The reason is because You put such emphasis on every single tiny communication, even the smallest communication of whether she gives you a hug when she leaves the house or whether she puts an X on a message or not. You interpret it as a permanent reality, and then it creates an environment for her that is unpleasant. You respond in a way that is catastrophizing, which destabilizes you, and she learns from you that even the smallest interaction with you creates pressure. Even the smallest interac— interaction requires her to manage your moods, and she simply cannot interact with you in a normal way anymore. She can't do something as simple as a phone call or a text or swinging by for a coffee or any of those things because of the way that you're actually interpreting these in the collapse frame that you're in. And hopefully you can see that until you can get a grip of yourself, and change this, then this is actually what's preventing the communication. And it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because, because of your incorrect interpretation and in viewing the, in viewing the temporal as eternal, this actually prohibits her communication with you. This actually prohibits her interactions with you. And then again, you interpret that negatively. You interpret that as a sign that this marriage is over and it causes you to go into a deeper spiral. So you absolutely have to get a grip of this, and this is one of the things that we really work on a lot inside the Win Your Wife Back program with myself and the coaches, is how to get an accurate perspective of the situation. The goal here is for me to help you to see the situation as it truly is, not better than it is and not worse than it is, but as it truly is. Because when you see the situation as it is, that gives you clarity. Clarity is a force multiplier, and it allows you to move forward with precision, not a catastrophizing nervous system that's desperately just trying to find some relief from anywhere it can find it. So why this makes the situation worse, why this catastrophizing and this obsession with every little interaction makes the situation worse, because emotional reactions, emotional reactions become disproportionate to the event. So if you say, "Hey, do you want to come go out for coffee?" and she says no because maybe she just doesn't want a coffee today, or she's got other plans, or she's going out with a friend, and it actually means nothing, she's just literally, it's a data point. You've asked her, "Do you want a coffee? Would you like to come out for coffee?" and she's factually responded, "No, I would not." This causes a total collapse. This causes the man then spirals for days out of control. Reinterprets everything from that tiny little data point. So these small interactions create massive emotional swings in the man, create massive instability, a massive— and create massive unpredictability within him. Again, I ask you, brother, is that attractive or unattractive to your wife? So when you do this, she experiences you as emotionally volatile, dysregulated, unstable, emotionally unsafe be around. And guess what? She's absolutely right. Instead of destabilizing her in a way that causes her to destabilize her certainty around her decision to leave, you're reinforcing it. You're saying that— you're telling her that you're emotionally volatile, dysregulated, and unstable. Otherwise, you're telling her that you're another one of her dependents that need managing, and all she can, all she can experience when she's around you is she needs to manage your emotions. She needs to manage you like she would manage a child. If you, if you cannot get a grip of this, then unfortunately, like, reconciliation is going to be very difficult at this point. This is a non-negotiable if you want to save your marriage. So let's talk about the emotional time distortion as well. This is just another aspect of this. So neutral moments are interpreted as catastrophic. Moments that mean nothing are interpreted as deeply meaningful. They're determining moments that are just inconsequential to her become relationship-defining to you. And again, if she can't have a simple conversation that is just what it is, a simple conversation, it becomes relationship-defining. She's going to choose to not have conversation with you. She's going to choose not to interact with you. One of the questions that I get asked all the time is, how do I— my wife won't talk to me, how do I show her these changes, how do I do all of these things if she won't talk to me? It's like, well, well, how do I get her to talk to me even? Well, the question is, are you even in a position to talk to her yet? Are you emotionally regulated enough? Has your nervous system been brought significantly to a state of regulation to where you are going to actually— if an interaction with her is going to be neutral or positive versus an interaction being negative or detrimental, right? Like, the answer to the question is don't try to, to manufacture these interactions because who's showing up? What are you going to do when you interact? And this might be the very first time you're actually being exposed to information like this and actually seeing why you react or seeing your behavior in this stuff. And that's powerful, right? But seeing it is not enough. You have to internalize it and you have to change it. And the philosophy that I suggest, that I give to the men that I work with, is when the question is posed, how do I get more interaction with my wife? The answer is not do this, this, and this. The question is, don't count the opportunities to communicate with your wife. Make the opportunities to communicate count. That's the solution. And until you really understand this and recognize what you're doing here, and again, this is why we have a community layer to the Win Your Wife Back program, is because it's very easy to see when a man comes to the community and we do a coaching call in a group environment, it's easy to see that he's blowing, he's taking things out of proportion and catastrophizing. So what happens here as a result is the reaction's quite, quite simply they're disconnected from reality. You're not functioning in from a place of reality at this point, at this point. And you wonder why things are not going well and why she's not making steps in the right direction or even progressing in the wrong direction still. Well, it, it's that. And as hard as that is to hear, is because the way that you're seeing the situation simply is disconnected from reality. Emotional, uh, the emotional proportion no longer matches the circumstance, the intent, or the consequence of what's been said. Or in other words, you're getting a level 10 response to a level 1 situation, and she just is not going to want to deal with that, quite frankly. So the shift that needs to happen, the internal shift in how you see this situation— it's a paradigm shift that needs to happen— is that stop viewing every situation as a verdict, an indictment, proof of permanent outcome, and a final answer. It's a temporary moment. Stop viewing everything that happens is permanent, is eternal, forever. As long as you do that, you are going to be a danger to yourself and your family. What every interaction truly is, it's just a data point. That's all it is. It's useful information. It's emotional feedback, and it's part of a larger process. So again, the core process that we use within the Win Your Wife Back program is Try, fail, analyze, adjust. That's it. When, when you adopt that philosophy of the path to reconciliation is try, fail, analyze, adjust. Your job is to try and fail. My job is to help you analyze what's happened and adjust a better plan moving forward and then repeat the cycle. When you can move into that, then it's not failure anymore. It's just a data point. Whatever she does is no longer meaningful other than it's a data point and it's useful information that allows us to analyze what's happened and adjust the situation. And that's all you need to do is be prepared to try and fail because it's going to happen. You're going to get this wrong. If you, if you were skilled in the art of relationships and marriage, you wouldn't be watching this video. So it's inevitable that you're going to interpret the information wrong. You're going to try, you're going to fail. But again, don't interpret that as eternal failure. Temporary, it's temporary setback. It's a data point. It's useful information and it's part of a much, much larger process. So the critical principle, the takeaway from this is, is that emotional stability, it requires perspective. It's always, and it's very difficult to get that by yourself. It's very difficult to get perspective of the relationship when you're in the relationship. And that is one of the most valuable aspects that the community layer to the program provides. We give you a different perspective of the situation because what that perspective actually allows you to do is to separate the temporary from the permanent, the temporal from the eternal. And when you can see that this too is just a mood and it will pass, this too is just a blip and it will pass, this is not the destination, this is just a temporary setback, that's all it is. It gives you a different perspective and it gives you, allows your nervous system to begin to regulate itself again. So one moment in time from your wife or from you or whatever it is, it does not define your identity, it does not define your future, and it does not define the outcome of this situation. One of the key, uh, corrections that I have to make with the men that we work with is that the statement, I feel like, I feel like this, I feel Feelings are really unreliable. You cannot rely on your feelings. Your feelings will lead you astray. And when you allow those feelings to guide you, it just causes problems. So nervous system regulation matters more than emotional reactions. You have to learn how to regulate your emotional system here so you're not in a constant state of fight or flight, anxiety, chaos, and collapse. Obsession. You can't live like that. Well, I guess you can, but I don't recommend that you live like that. The nervous system is designed to be in that high-intensity state for probably 15 minutes every 2 or 3 days. You, brother, are probably in that— out of that state 15 minutes every 2 or 3 days. This is not good for you. This is not good for your family. This is not good for the situation. Nervous system regulation for yourself and nervous system regulation for your wife, which how can, how on earth can she believe that you can help her regulate a dysfunctional system when you can't even regulate yourself? How are you going to lead her to a place of stability when you are the chaos? So what does stabilization actually look like, which is what we're going for here, which is the goal when we work with men in the program. It's internal emotional regulation. You control your environment. You are not controlled by your environment. Your internal state determines what you experience, not what you experience determines your internal state. Most men have it backwards. If they're having a good day, they're internally stable. If they're having a bad day, they're not. This is not how it should be, brother. You should determine your internal state by choice. I am stable. And then everything around you reflects that in your world. So start observing instead of catastrophizing. Just observe the facts, do not apply any meaning to them. Detach identity from interactions. So this is, again, I've said it many times, this is not an indictment of who you are. How she acts is, it's got nothing to do with your identity. You have to separate the two or you're going to be in trouble. Seeing moments as information, not destiny. Already explained that. And emotional discipline and uncertainty. This is the difference between men and boys. Everybody can be emotionally disciplined when they've had a good night's sleep, a full belly of food, and they feel great. Your wife's, uh, giving you hope that there's reconciliation. That is not when we find out who you are. We find out who you are when you're tired, cold, and hungry, and your wife's just told you it's over. That's when we find out your level of discipline. That's when we find out your stability, your emotional sophistication, who you really are. That's when we find out. And this is what I know, this is what we all work towards within the program, is create an environment where emotional discipline is a choice, not a result of circumstance. This is what your wife needs. And this really is the foundation of a) your mental health and happiness, and b) the, the restoration of the marriage is a secondary consequence of that. So let's cover why stability matters in divorce crisis. Well, she's already overwhelmed, and let's just be clear, let's be clear very quickly about why she's leaving this marriage and why she's asked for divorce. Not because she wants to get away from you, because she needs relief. She's overwhelmed, she's stressed, and she needs relief from the situation. If she can get that relief within the marriage, well, then that's where she starts to reconsider the certainty of a decision. But right now, she believes that the only way she can get that relief is to leave you. And when you act in a way that obsesses over every detail, you increase that emotional overwhelm. So when, when you're doing this, she, she— you're requiring— you, you are requiring her to become the regulator of your nervous system. She's— you are requiring her to become the stabilizer of your emotions. These are the things that she needs from you desperately, and these are the reasons she's leaving. She needs you to regulate her nervous system. She needs you to stabilize her emotions, not the other way around. This is a role inversion going on right now, and unless you can get a grip of this She is in the leadership role right now, and she's leading this relationship, this marriage, to hell in a handbag. Only when you can control your— regulate your own nervous system are you able to stabilize hers. Then she can start to feel safe again. The emotional steadiness that results as, or, or results from controlling and regulating your own nervous system creates safety, predictability, and reduces the pressure that she's looking to escape from. It creates the environment in which she can stay that causes her to question whether the decision that she's made is the right one. And probably right now, I know there's going to be a large number of people that are immediately going to catastrophize and go, well, she said that she's 100% certain, Cody Butler, that she's leaving. She's already talked to a lawyer. She's already done this. You're doing it right now, brother. You're already doing it. So the core internal shift to make here, the questions, the better questions to ask, is stop asking yourself the question, what does this, what does this moment mean about my future? It means nothing. It's a data point. Bring it to a coaching call and let's analyze it and let's adjust the plan based on the data point. Start asking, what information does this moment actually provide me? If she doesn't want to return your message, what is that telling you? It's telling you that communication is painful, pointless, or both. Okay, well, that's useful. We can use that. Doesn't— her not wanting to return a message does not communicate she doesn't want to talk to you. It communicates that the communication is painful. Well, if we took that as the data point, we adjusted the communication plan and made the, made the communication not painful, we made it productive, painless, or both, would she change her mind about talking to you? Of course she would. But if you just take that and you catastrophize it to mean she doesn't want anything to do with me, you're making a mistake, brother, and you are causing the destruction of this marriage, not her. You can save this, you can turn this around, but you need skill, you need psychological understanding of you and her, You need to understand what she's leaving the marriage, the reasons why she's leaving the marriage, and you need to understand how to remove those elements that she's saying no to. So the conclusion here is that most men suffer because they experience temporary emotion as a permanent reality. It's a distortion of reality is what's going on. You're not seeing the world as it is. Emotional, emotional instability. This causes emotional instability, and that emotional instability Instability does the exact opposite to what you need to do in the marriage. It creates emotional instability. You need to create emotional safety. What actually creates perspective is regulation, self-regulation. So stability comes from separating identity from interactions. We've talked about it, from separate, from separating temporary moments from eternal conclusions, from understanding that every interaction is simply a data point. It's simply information. It is not the final destination of your marriage. Now, if you want help in analyzing these data points to create a better plan, I have a free masterclass for you called You Can Win Her Back. It covers what actually works in late-stage marriage crisis and divorce. It teaches you how to stop reinforcing the emotional exhaustion, which, exhaustion, which is what she's wanting to escape from. It is in fact the reason for divorce in the first place. Remove emotional exhaustion, exhaustion, and chances are she will stay. Good possibility. How to become that emotionally stable, masculine, grounded leader when you're under pressure. And we're gonna— it's gonna give you an oversight of what is the best path forward to stop making this worse and start making it better. Link's in the description. Watch that, watch that masterclass. And if you got some value out of this, if you found this useful and you'd like to repay that in some way, then if you could like the video, leave a comment, subscribe, and share, that is the, that is the nicest thing you can do for me to say thank you for this content and to encourage me to keep making it. That helps get the word out. And if you could share this, that's awesome as well. So thank you, brother, and we'll see you in the next video.