Transcription
You. There's going to be a lot of you here who are with an avoidant man or have been, and you want to learn how to communicate with him. There's also going to be a lot of avoidant men here who actually want to learn what are people supposed to be saying to communicate effectively with me. They might be thinking, "What are people saying about me behind my back?" But also, one thing I found is that there are a lot of men who have avoidant tendencies who actually want to learn how relationships are supposed to work and how to function properly in them.
Today I want to show you both sides exactly what works and doesn't work when it comes to communicating effectively with a man who has avoidant tendencies. Okay, this comes from years and years and years of work that I've been doing on my side. Comes from there's a lot of brain science behind this. There's a lot of brain chemicals and hormones that you need to know about. But in particular, we need to talk about the language area of the brain, uh, and how that forms and how it runs through the prefrontal cortex.
A couple things you need to understand with avoidant attachment style. First, right up front, before we can teach the language that avoidantly attached people learn and speak themselves and what they need also to be able to receive, we need to understand what avoidant attachment style does inside the brain. There's a couple things. Understand that avoidant attachment style in childhood forms usually when a person is massively overwhelmed by the demands that somebody else places upon them emotionally. So it could be an over-emotional mother or father, a very combative, critical, harsh mother or father, or a very anxious, fluttering, scared, nervous, worried, again, over-emotional kind of person that the, the avoidant boy then has to try to take care of and manage. Or it can be total emotional isolation and distance from other people. Could be harsh punishments and abuse, criticism. There's a lot of things, but ultimately what that child learns is a couple key lessons.
One, nobody is ever really going to love me. It could be because other people are incapable of it. It could be because other people are too selfish or or stressed out. Doesn't have to mean that they're bad, but it's not going to work. And no one is truly going to love me or care for me and how I feel. Number one.
Number two, I have to endlessly perform and fight and claw my way through life. Maybe not hurting other people, but I have to claw my way forward and survive on my own. Which means any heavy emotions I experience, nobody's going to help me manage them, and they're just going to get in my way and distract me, even from myself and from my own survival. So, I have to numb out all of the pain and suffering I'm likely to feel and stop feeling it so I'm not bothered or distracted by it. And I'm not going to be solving problems with other people either because they won't do that. And if they would, then we would have built a different relationship. But I don't live in that kind of world. So I have to do this on my own.
All of this leads to a couple of key things. One, they're, they're receptors for the bonding hormone oxytocin. These are very sensitive to cortisol. And when cortisol is present, the cortisol goes on blocks the receptor sites for oxytocin. The more cortisol you have, the more it blocks those receptor sites. So the less oxytocin a man is supposed is likely to get. Now, very, very, very low oxytocin creates unregulated high cortisol because you don't have the GABA that comes along and releases with the, with the oxytocin. So endless flood of unregulated cortisol, which shifts you into what's called a sympathetic nervous system dominant state, endlessly buzzing in survival mode. This is the operator mode, the war mode that never turns off. It can turn down, but not off. And you can never click into a second mode, peace mode.
Also, this makes you very mechanical in how you think and relate and connect with others. So, you're not likely to seek hugs, handholding, closeness, warmth, safety, and you're not ever likely to have the experience of being loved, feeling loved, feeling safe, feeling like a priority, and all the other other things that women tend to ask for in a relationship using those exact explicit words. So he's likely not to understand what any of those things feel like when you ask him for them.
There's also the prefrontal cortex, which tends to overdevelop in the case of, of avoidantly attached people to purposely squash emotional expression during times of stress. This means he will have a much more limited ability to feel positive and negative emotions. What we would consider positive and negative. So his ability for joy, passion, happiness, fulfillment, all of that diminishes, and so does his ability to feel pain and suffering and anger and shame and disappointment and hurt. All of those negative emotions, all those can be muted during times of stress to dissociate, block them out. They don't go away. We dissociate from them and they are muted and blocked out, but also so can positive feelings. So he's less likely to have much experience of good feelings much at all because he's always stressed out, always dissociating a little bit almost, and always tuning out all of his feelings.
Then you get this man into an emotional relationship with somebody who thinks and feels emotionally. Often times, it's an anxiously attached woman whose brain is actually developed in a different way. The, the prefrontal cortex underdevelops in the area of self-discipline and self-soothing and self, uh, regulation and says, "I need other people to regulate me for me." She has about a 30 to 40% more sensitivity to oxytocin than a securely attached woman will. And she feels her way through her environment. Her emotions are sensory data about how things are. Am I safe? Am I comforted? Am I loved? Am I, am I cared for? Am I cherished? Am I, am I safe? Really? Are, am, are we giving each other good feelings that indicate that this is likely to last? Right? Am I a priority? Am I loved? Am I adored? Am I pretty enough? Am I right? All these feelings. She senses her way through her environment with emotions, which his brain does not understand.
He, he, he lives in a cloud of perpetual fear, which he does not call fear. He calls cautiousness, a, and vigilance, and it's fear in the system. It's fear, but he doesn't recognize it that way because real fear for him is overwhelming panic. That's the only place he has to go up from here. That's usually the process.
So what we have to talk about today is the language that we use to communicate with an avoidant man. Most women try to communicate with an avoidant man like this: "I just really need to feel like a priority. I really need to feel loved. I want to be close to you. I want to feel safe. I want to feel like I matter. I want you to want to talk to me. I want you to want to spend time with me. Can you just touch me without an agenda at all? Can you just be close to me without wanting anything to happen?"
And this is how you drive an avoidant man out the window. Because all of those things, none of those make sense to him at all. "Help me feel safe." "I have never felt safe in the, in my life and I never will. And safety doesn't exist. So why are you asking me this?" "Help me feel loved." "I don't know what that feels like. Do you want a diamond bracelet? Are you asking for chocolate? Do you want time together? Do you want a vacation? What do you want? A car?" "I need to feel like a priority." "Okay. Is that just time? You want me to spend three hours sitting on the couch staring at the wall with you for three hours? Is that what you want? Like, what do you need? Right? How do I make you feel a thing that I have never felt? I don't know how to feel those things. And I don't know how to give you a feeling that makes you feel that thing."
This right here is the problem. This right here is why the communication doesn't happen. This right here is why avoidant men get so massively overwhelmed and don't know what to do. This is why the struggle happens. This is why misunderstandings happen. This is why he begins to say, "Look, I, I, I don't think I can give you what you're looking for."
Now, what she perceives is him saying, "I don't love you enough and I don't care about you and you're worthless, so I'm not going to help you feel loved, even though I could. I won't." That's what she's hearing. And he's trying to convey, "I don't know what that feeling is. I don't know what would make you feel it. I, I don't think it's something I can provide. So, I'm sorry that I can't. I'm going to be honest with you 'cause I don't want to lie to you. I don't think I can give you that." In his eyes, she's asking for a pet unicorn. In her eyes, she's asking for the smallest thing that makes perfect sense to her. "I need to feel like a priority." Okay, that means I got to put you on my schedule and when I'm with you, I have to have my phone away. I need to be emotionally engaged, having a conversation with you, eye contact, and I need to be sharing and initiating the emotional connection. To me, that makes sense.
But again, I went through nine years of schooling and lecture, nine years to become a marriage and family therapist. Then I focused for years into attachment and trauma, and now I'm the attachment specialist. So, if you look at my big giant long career in mental health, yes, I, as a man, can sit here and tell you what I know you need. But most avoidant men have not been through decades of training and experience in mental health and relationships, talking with tens of thousands of women by this point about their emotions and needs. Most men don't have that. Most men have no idea how to make that work.
So, how do we do this? Well, I coach men and women all the time. I coach avoidant men actually quite often in my practice. People think that I only coach women. I coach a lot of avoidant men and, and I coach women as well and couples as well, individuals, couples, everybody. And so do my coaches. And I coach a lot of avoidant men who say, "Adam, I saw your video and I heard you talk about this. I want to understand what my wife or my girlfriend needs. I want to be able to open up in different ways." Great. I coach a lot of women who say, "I want to understand how to talk to my husband. He doesn't seem to get it. He's a good man, but he just doesn't seem to understand." And I say, "Okay, let's, let's give you the ability."
So, the language that I'm going to teach you here is things that I often teach in coaching. We have to make things measurable and observable. Those are our two key words here. Okay? Now, what I'm going to teach you is something that's going to sound very professional. It's going to sound like I'm teaching you something that they would use in a boardroom. And that's correct. I'm teaching you something that they would use in boardrooms. It turns out a lot of avoidantly attached men excel in business. And it sounds, and it turns out that a lot of business language is perfect for avoidant people because it's observable and measurable.
Now, if you ask me, "Help me feel loved." And in my brain, I've never felt loved in my life and don't know what that looks like as a man, I'm going to go, "Wow, what, what would make, what would make me feel loved? I don't know. Sex, a hamburger, like leaving me alone if I'm an avoidant man. Like, these are the things." So he's going to be like, "Buy you a burger, have sex, and then leave without a word." Like, 'cause him this is love, right? Like, throw a burger at you, have sex, and run. And he's like, "It's perfect. I've given her love." And you're like, "I have never felt more abandoned and alone in my life. This is a disconnect."
Okay. So clear, measurable, and observable. I teach what we call the what, why, and how often method. This is one method of doing this. Okay. "What are two measurable and observable things that help you feel loved?" "I would like to feel loved. Let me explain what that means before you panic. These are two exact things that help me to feel loved." So the what, what are two exact things that help me feel loved? And avoidant men can ask, "What, why, and how often?" Right? "Avoidant men can ask, 'Okay, you want to feel loved. I would love to help you feel that feeling. What are two things, two specific behaviors that help you feel loved? If someone was watching through the window, how would they know that I was making you feel loved?'" "I would be doing two specific things." Okay.
"What? And then why? Why are those two specific things important for you? So, what do they do for you?" This helps me reverse engineer other things that might help understand. And it makes it not arbitrary. You're not just yelling at me, commanding me to do what you want. You're actually saying, "If you can do this, it will help me achieve this feeling." So I can understand. Number one. Uh, and number two, uh, number two is why the second why. So, why is, what does it do? Why is it important for you? And number two is, why is it important for the relationship?" He has to have some kind of investment. You can't just be yelling at him to do things that make no sense to him. That's arbitrary. That's what people did in his childhood. "If you can do this for me, it will help me do this and return this to you and the relationship will grow like this. This will happen. I'll do this and this will feel great."
It doesn't have to be a transaction. "If you give me a hug, I'll have sex with you." That, that's a transaction. "If you give me this closeness and help me feel loved, I will be able to feel so much warmer and safer with you. And that's where my playful side will be able to come out. And I'd love to give that to you." Okay? That's what we call a capacity-based conversation. Okay? "So if you can do this for me, my capacity to be playful and relaxed will go up and then I can give that to you the way I want to." Okay.
So there's the why, and then the how often or the how much. "How much of this do you need? How often do you need it? How long do you need it?" "I need one hour a night, five nights a week where we are together and your phone is off and you're talking and we're actually sharing and you're able to kind of be mostly relaxed, be present. It helps me to feel like you love me and care for me, like I'm a priority and I'm important enough for your time. But it also helps me then feel closer and safer with you so I can be playful and relaxed and give you all the warmth and love and affection you're needing, too, because I want to give that to you. I need that five nights a week for about an hour. Can we set that up?" If you're living together, that's pretty doable. Typically, 45 minutes to an hour, five times a week of close, intimate conversation, like with no phones. It's pretty doable. That's what, why, and how often.
Now, that's measurable. Keep in mind that avoidant men project that your expectations are up here. When you make your expectations explicit, they're down here. And he goes, "Oh, wow. I can probably do that and I'm benefiting from it. So, it's a great cost investment. It makes sense. I can do that." This is the same language I use with avoidant men when they say, "Adam, should I get married because I'm afraid to?" Well, they don't say, "I'm afraid to." They say, "I'm hesitant to. I'm hesitant to because it seems to have no ROI for me. Return on investment." Now, I say, "That makes sense because you don't, you don't track the benefits to you. You haven't felt them. You aren't even open to them. Your receptor sites are closed for them. You're probably dopamine focused. You're endlessly looping cortisol, dopamine. You're missing the other four chemicals. There's six and you're only playing with two. So, that would make sense. Let's talk about the rest of the equation. What that needs to look like for you to make an actual educated investment if you choose to engage in commitment. Let's talk about that, right? What the benefits of marriage to men, especially even avoidant men. Um, it's how I convince a lot of avoidant men to get married, but not, not convince them like she's paid me to convince him to because I firmly, fully believe in marriage myself, but only when it's done right."
This is how you have a professional, measurable, objective conversation with an avoidant man. This, this is mandatory. This is required. This is how it has to operate. If you can't have this kind of a conversation, nothing else is going to make much sense. Nothing else is really going to work. You have to be able to have this level of a conversation. If you can, great. This is how you build a functioning relationship with a man where you go forward and you help him understand. This is how you help him understand how to help you feel loved, how to help you feel safe, how to help you feel like a priority, how to help you feel cherished. Right? This is how you help him understand how to give you the feelings you're looking for.
This is also how you can then start telling him, "I'd like to give you a positive experience. I'd like to you for to help you have deeper feelings that maybe you never thought you could. Can we put some thought into what would make you feel loved and safe and shared cared for and cherished in those ways and prioritized? How can I, as your wife or girlfriend in this case, help you to feel like a priority in my life? And what feelings would you like to avoid?"
"How can we help you avoid some negative feelings that you're having?" That's actually an easy place to start with most avoidant men. "Well, I don't want to feel like I'm the only thing in your life because then if I even if I spend time with friends, you're sitting there in a rocking chair wrapped in a shawl, rocking, crying, and looking out the window waiting for my return. And I can't live that way. I'm thinking that you're going to be miserable and angry at me the whole time and I feel like I'm betraying your trust and and hurting and abusing you by just going out with my friends and I can't live that way. I need time on my own. I also have a hard time asking for time on my own. So, could we just get it scheduled so I never have to wonder when I'm going to have time or feel like I'm kicking a puppy by asking you to have an evening to myself? Can we have that on the schedule?"
"Yes, we can schedule couples time together and solo individual time apart where, let's do that. Let's do it for both of us, right? Can we work out a system wherein you will, you don't have to feel like you're begging for time off and time on your own. It's, it's an easy system where we get to win together. Let's build that together. I don't want to feel like I'm the only person in your life." Most avoidant men say, "So, you should go get a career where you work 80 hours a week and you need a thriving life with family, friends, hobbies, interests. Even if you are a stay-at-home wife, you should have a thriving life outside of him so that he can look and say, 'You are living so well without me. I know I'm not your sole source of life. You're not going to enslave me for your well-being.' Number one, and I get to see you being so vibrant and alive, and I get to share that with you. Right? Most women with an avoidant man collapse down into just hyper-fixating on him and it's, it's, yeah, that's his living hell. That is his living hell. Especially if he's an ethically avoidant instead of manipulatively avoidant. Maybe a manipulative avoidant, he likes it maybe because it gives him control, but ethically avoidant men, that's, that's their living hell right there."
So ultimately, what we need to do is help him understand the feelings he wants to avoid and make measurable progress to do that. Help him understand the feelings he's that are even possible for him. Keep in mind, he doesn't even know that those, those good feelings. When I say he can feel loved, he can feel safe, he can feel cherished, he's like going, "That sounds like guru self-help like happy fuzzy manifestation talk online. What are you selling me?" That, that's, that's the vibe because he's like, "You're promising me weird happy fuzzy feelings. The only people that do that are people that are trying to harvest you for cash or organs or something. What's happening here?"
When he can help you feel good feelings and you can say, "Thank you. This has meant so much to me. I would like to help you have those feelings as well. Can, do you know how to get there?" And if you don't, "Can we explore what feelings maybe are on the table? Can we explore the money you're leaving on the table? Business language, the money you're leaving on the table, the opportunities you don't know are available to you because I would like to give that to you. That's really important."
Okay. The most avoidant men have never encountered someone who actually legitimately cares for their well-being. It doesn't make sense to them because nobody altruistically cares about anybody else's well-being in their eyes. There is no loyalty. Nobody has ever been loyal to them in that capacity. So you actually even have to use a fairly selfish sounding language. Right? "What? Why? And how often?" Right? "Why is it of benefit to you that he does well?" "When I look at you, it makes me feel like I desire for your well-being. I feel that and I want you to be well. I'm not saying I'm abandoning myself and sacrificing myself just to make you happy. That also, it's not, that's not a good fit. That's not a healthy thing. I do want you to be well and I don't know if that translates to you. It's okay if it doesn't. It makes me feel good when you are doing well and I feel wonderful when I know I have contributed that to you. So sure, in a sense, me taking care of you makes me feel good. We can do that. But I legitimately also as a human being want you to do well. Even if I didn't benefit, I would want you to. I do get to benefit. There's some loyalty. There's the mechanism. They understand. But I still care about you and I want you to feel even better. I'm not sure how to get you there. I need your help to do that. Can we explore that together? Are you open to that?" Right? That's a professional, measurable conversation.
"I just want you to feel loved. You're so important to me. I just, I need you to know how much I love you. I know everyone's been mean to you, but I promise you I'm so different. It will never be that way, and I will never hurt you. I will always be there for you. You just matter to me more than life itself." What you've done is actually send his system into a panic spiral where he is now running for his life. He is trying to get out of this conversation as fast as possible. He thinks that you are either spiraling out into delusion and insanity or that you are tricking him. You're either lying to yourself or you're lying to him. But you're lying to somebody. That's, that's what that spiral is.
And most women will text a man 18 paragraphs that sound exactly like what I just wrote or what I just said and then complain that he reads it and doesn't respond. And then she'll text him another 18 paragraphs and another 18 paragraphs and another 18 paragraphs and another 18 and then he doesn't respond for a week. And then she goes on TikTok and leaves comments on videos about avoidant men about that scum. He won't even reach back to me. What a jerk. What an awful man he is. Right? Or she doesn't do that. Maybe she's just sitting there miserable in her home thinking, "Why doesn't he love me?" In, in what she's actually doing is triggering the worst-case scenario of fear and terror for his nervous system again and again and again and again and again. That's what she's actually doing over and over and over.
So, what we actually need to do is get to a place where you use calm, professional, measurable language. Now, the ticket to this usually is managing your own nervous system so that you're not feeling so overwhelmed by your own emotions that you write 15 poems and sing them to him in a voice note. Right? I'm looking at those of you who have done this, right? Or those of you who have strongly considered this. Uh, we need to make sure this is not happening because his nervous system takes that in not as positive data, but as very, very high risk sign of danger. "This person is so emotionally irrational that they're not thinking clearly and if I don't respond well, this could trigger an explosion where they turn on me or do something that hurts one or both of us. I got to be so careful here. I don't even know how to respond. This is overwhelming me. I'm in the middle of my workday. I don't know what to do. I'm, I'm already stressed out with these projects. I'm so tired. Why did she pick today to do this to me? What is she doing? I don't think I can do this anymore. I, I, I just, I, I can't do this right now." And he puts the phone down and then he tries to block out that you even exist. That's an ethical avoidant man ghosting you on the phone when you have sung poetry to him to try to show him your love. That's, that's his system.
Avoidant men out there, I know you exist out there as you're watching this or watching a replay. If you would drop me a comment, give me a yes or no. Let, let me know. Adam, this is spot on for avoidance or no, it's not. I'd love to hear. But I'll just be bluntly honest. This, this is the biggest problem I see in relationships right here. Even marriages, even between people that love each other, this is one of the biggest problems I see because the woman is trying with all of her heart and soul to communicate her love to him. And she's convinced that if she can just say the right word, something will click and he will finally get it and it will unlock everything. And ultimately, that's not going to happen because he doesn't have a frame of reference to even understand what you're telling him. You're speaking a language not only that he can't understand, but that his brain absolutely rejects and runs from. You are sending danger signals as hard as possible to him and he feels like it's hopeless and it's activating his deepest childhood disappointments and fears when you're telling him how much you love him.
I'm not going to say that the answer is to not tell avoidant men how much you love them, but the answer is to tell avoidant men you love them as if you were sending a memo between board members. "To whom it may concern: I have deep-seated affection for you, and this affection drives me to seek after your well-being in a way that may not make sense to you at this present moment, but ultimately brings pleasure to me when I see it fulfilled. Yes, I find joy in your joy. So, one could think that I could be selfish in this endeavor. I also strongly desire for your well-being even in cases where it does not lead to my personal pleasure because I do legitimately care about you and I'm aware that this is a process you may not have encountered before. That is perfectly valid and acceptable and I am willing to wait an amazing amount of time for you to come through on this because I do believe that we can share a most prosperous relationship down the road. I would like to help you understand what that prosperous relationship could bring to you because I believe this is a very smart ROI for you. This investment into what we could call commitment should bring a tremendous bounty of prosperity to you and your portfolio. If you would like to discuss your portfolio and the offerings that I am prepared to make, let us set a luncheon date wherein we will discuss a relationship in practical matters with bullet points that I will bring prepared. I would love to hear your concerns and your objections so that we can handle them appropriately using professional means and professional language and not devolving into emotional jargon. Thank you for your attention to this matter. I look forward to engaging with you post haste at our luncheon. Please activate the yes button at the bottom of this section if you wish to engage with me in our luncheon discussion and discuss your opportunities." Right? Like this level of communication.
He may laugh if you bring it up this way, and you can be silly about this if you need to, but it needs to be at a level of professional communication that he does understand. Using emotions will actually turn his brain and nervous system against you in that moment and he cannot hear you.
People will say, "Adam, why do you teach people to cater to so many avoidant people? Just break up with them. Can't they go live on an island and then we nuke that island and then throw the island into the sun?" And I get that a lot in the comments sections and I will say this: this is not about catering to somebody. This is about meeting your partner where they are able to be met, and then yes, having expectations for them to conduct themselves correctly and ethically and communicate appropriately with you. Yes, an avoidant person does have responsibility to manage their nervous system, to learn to speak with you, to learn to ask you questions, to learn to be able to say, "Okay, you want to feel loved. I need to understand what that looks like because I have no frame of reference. Can you help me understand what are two visible objective signs that you are loved? What are two behaviors I would be doing? Why do they matter to you? And what benefit do they bring to the relationship so I can understand? And by the same token, how much of this or how often are you looking for this? Help me understand. And what am I able to ask for in return? Not as a transaction exactly, but in a relationship framework so that I'm also getting my needs met. What can we do here? How can we work a business deal out together?" That would be an avoidant person's responsibility as well.
So, I don't teach catering or walking on eggshells or babying and mothering. Go watch my video that says, "Stop Mothering Him." I don't think I could have a more direct title than that. I will say that if you are going to have a partner who has avoidant tendencies, you at least need to learn to work with them as a human being to the level they can work with you. If you don't like that, then go somewhere else. Find someone else. But if you're engaging with an avoidant partner, you probably like it and you probably have your own issues that you want them to cater to as well.
I'm looking at the very few of you in the comments section who are going to be leaving me these nasty messages later. The majority of you are amazing and wonderful and you love your partner and you actually understand everything I'm saying clearly because everything I've said here today is actually just how to build a securely attached relationship. Nothing I've taught you here today is how to cater to anyone. This is actually calling someone into a secure relationship. What I'm doing is teaching most likely anxiously attached women to communicate in a securely attached manner and demand that the avoidant man reach out in the same securely attached manner. If he doesn't engage with you with these securely attached communication protocols, then he probably isn't interested and you probably do need to move on. All I'm teaching you is how to have a secure relationship. I'm framing it in the context of how you can reach out to an avoidant man. I'm aware of that, but none of this is catering. This is how you have a securely attached relationship with an avoidant man where you also get your needs met. Very important.
If you need help with this, if you're the avoidant man or the partner or a couple and you want to learn how to grow through this, me and my certified coaching team are here to assist you. Absolutely. Reach out to us on adamlansmith.com. My website, you guys. It's in the about section. It's in our, it's in the description, the bio, everywhere. Um, we do have a retreat in person coming up. It's in less than three weeks. Actually, I think it's three weeks to the day we begin. It's April 23rd, um, math. So, I think it's tomorrow, actually. Three weeks from tomorrow down in San Diego. There's only a few seats left. If you want to learn these in person with me as a single or as a couple, I am there for that. You can reach out to us on adamlansmith.com. Send us direct messages on any of our platforms or email support@adamsmith.com. You can learn these very quickly at the retreat or you can space it out and learn it as a couple or as an individual from the safety of your own home on your couch, on your couch, in your car. A lot of our couples and a lot of people take their calls in the cars also totally fine. We, we deal with people. Just don't drive while you do it. Be safe while you do it. Parked is fine. Um, with that in mind, guys, if you need help on this, we are here to assist. Absolutely. We're here to assist.
Give me a shout out in the comments if this was helpful here today. If you're going to start practicing this framework, please let me know. I'd love to hear from you.