Tim Arrigo argues that men often personalize their partner's emotions, become defensive, and try to solve problems with logic instead of listening. Real support means doing your own emotional work first, then standing present without judgment while your partner feels what she feels.
A lot of times our wives get frustrated, our wives get upset, and we instantaneously personalize it, get triggered by it, and see it as an inconvenience, see it as a burden, or react as if it is. A lot of times we try to give our feedback, we try to give a multiple choice equation about how to solve it, we insert what we would do, we try to overcome their emotion with logic. And we don't know how to stand in the space. The deeper the pain, the fewer the words. We don't need to get defensive. We don't need to get reactive. We don't need to personalize it. We don't need to make it about us when it's not. What it's really about is how she's feeling. And in order to stand inside that space, to truly validate your wife and allow the power of your masculine presence, your masculine energy the energy, the presence of who you are to truly be felt and ground her in that moment, you got to be stoic. You got to be calm. You got to be certain. You got to be confident. And you have to have gone to that place inside yourself. See, standing in your wife's sadness, standing in your wife's pain, standing in your wife's grief, standing in your wife's anger with her requires you to stand in those emotions inside yourself. See, don't you get it? It's not about developing self-awareness and developing the ability to manage the emotions that surface within you just so you can be better. It's about doing that so you can stand in the space with somebody else. So next time when your wife gets upset, as long as she's not upset with you, Try getting upset with her. Try standing in the emotions with her to let her know what it feels like to be validated. Because if not, then a lot of times the message that you send is, you shouldn't feel this way, or you should feel differently, or I don't know what to tell you, or I can't help you there. And the only reason we put off that energy as men is because we refuse to stand and our own emotions. It's not just about your IQ that makes you successful. It's about your EQ. It's about your emotional intelligence. The quality of your relationships is enhanced by your emotional intelligence. The quality of your relationships exponentially grows when you can stand in the space inside yourself to look and examine your heart, to look and examine your shadow. The sadness, the grief, the hurt, the anger, the pain inside of you. To not deflect, to not deny, to not defend, to not use your ego as a defense mechanism for all those— from all those things. It's to be able to stand in that space inside of you, to understand it without judgment, without criticism, to just stand in that space inside of yourself between you and God, because that allows you to operate in love. And love drives out fear. Love drives out anger. Love drives out whatever else is there. See, that's love— standing in the space with your wife. And guess what? When you stop getting defensive and you start getting curious— when you stop getting defensive and you start getting curious, like, what is she feeling? What is she going through? I'm curious about this. Things change. There's a shift that happens, and you are more than capable of that. But the reality is, it's like an iceberg, and you got to be willing to go beneath the surface inside of you first.
