Tim Arrigo explains why a wife acts out childhood wounds on her husband instead of discussing them: he's not providing emotional safety. A man can either become the target of her pain or create a secure space where she can heal. Responsiveness and vulnerability transform the marriage into a healing environment.
A gentleman earlier in the comments section, he says, Tim, my wife takes out her daddy issues on me. She takes out her daddy issues on me. And my response back to the gentleman is, why doesn't she take her daddy issues to you? Why are you not the man in her life? Providing her security? Why are you not the man in her life that she always needed? Why are you not the man in her life that can love her unlike anybody else has ever been able to? Why aren't you the man in her life that she learns to organize around and learns to heal in the relationship with? Because check it out, your wife may have been damaged in a relationship, but she can also heal in a relationship. And you know, the only difference between a damaging relationship and a healing relationship is one thing, and that's safety. Why aren't you a safe person? Why doesn't your wife want to come to you and express what's going on with her? See, your wife, does she take the daddy issues out on you? Or, or are you just not recognizing the fact that it's coming out and being projected onto you because you act a lot like that individual? Maybe the reality is, is that you're antagonizing all of those deep core wounds within your wife, and so she's reenacting and reliving the experience all over again. So you're sabotaging your own marriage by being closed off, by being insensitive, and by being walled off and a person in her life that she can't trust. Why would you want your wife to feel isolated, alone, and afraid? See, I don't know, call me crazy, I want my wife to feel amazing. I want my wife to feel like she's so beautiful, so special, so unique. I want my wife to believe in herself. I want my wife to feel amazing about herself, have high self-confidence, self-esteem, self-worth. Call me crazy, but I want my wife to feel like that. Why don't you? What is that about? No, what is that about? Where is that coming from in you? Because if she's taking out her daddy issues on you, then what does that say about you? What type of behaviors are you engaging in where you're bringing out that part of her in a negative way and not a positive one? Because you could be the guy that she either takes her daddy issues out on, or you could be the guy that she comes and talks to, opens up with, learns to heal in a relationship with, and learns to to finally find love for the first time in her life. Which man do you want to be? Or is your mind already made up?
