Men Are Not Allowed To See This

Women don't control their emotions. They weaponize them. That is the female strategy. It's why your arguments go in circles. Her goal isn't growth. She's not trying to rise above. She wants to drag you down. Right now, you're vulnerable to this. But by the end of this video, you'll see straight through her.

>> We can talk about it another day.

>> No, it's not going to be another day.

>> So then it's not going to be another day. Then I don't give a [ __ ].

>> And I'm asking you, can we talk about this? Please.

>> Nothing to talk about. Leave.

>> You were just calling me last night.

>> Show the [ __ ] what? Leave.

Really quickly, let's just imagine reversing the genders and there was a woman who had asked three times for a man to leave and he doesn't. You can imagine the response. He's invasive. He's not respecting her boundaries. He's making her feel unsafe. See, this is why women fear men. He'd be lucky to not have the law involved.

But believe it or not, for so many women, when they see that clip, they don't see a man whose boundaries are not being respected. They see a struggling woman who's dealing with some intense emotions and a cold, uncaring man who's not being sensitive to what she's going through.

This clip continues, "But I just wanted to make the point that our culture has a massive double standard. Only women are allowed to excuse their behavior, violate other people's boundaries because of their emotions. Men do not have the luxury of emotional expression. At all times, men must contain themselves and stay calm. If you lose control of your emotions as a man, instantly you become toxic, unsafe, dangerous, abusive. But if a woman loses emotional control, it's excuses. It's sympathy. She's a victim. And everybody asks, "What did that man do to upset her?"

I don't know the context. I don't know why the woman in the clip is upset. But I do know that it does not matter how much she emotionally escalates the situation. He must remain calm. He has to keep his emotions contained. Even if she repeatedly violates his boundaries. And men do not get the recognition that they deserve for maintaining their call when the woman is doing everything that she can to drag him down into her chaos.

>> What did I do? What did I do for real? I don't I don't know. I don't know what I mean.

>> We can talk about it tomorrow.

Watch this man's face. Look at how much effort he is having to put into maintaining calm. You can imagine his body is racked with anger or frustration or fear or sadness, but he has to keep his cool. He has to keep a lid on his emotions. He doesn't want things to spiral out of control. And so, he's being an adult.

But here's the thing is that as a man, you can be calm, rational, respectful, consiliatory, and in any disagreement with a woman, you can do your absolute best to solve the problem, to move forward, to end the conflict, but you cannot control how she's going to act. And if a woman wants to have a fight with you, she will always emotionally escalate.

>> [ __ ] Jeff. This is [ __ ] ridiculous. Get your [ __ ] [ __ ] straight. Get your [ __ ] priorities together.

>> I only did it because you didn't answer your [ __ ] phone. Like, you never answer your phone and you're never there. God damn. Why can't you just do it for me? Why is it so hard?

>> Prove it. Prove it. There's email. There's text. You don't talk to me. And that's the goddamn problem.

All right, enough Tik Toks. Let's get into the facts. Are you ready? Renowned couples therapy researcher John Gottman has done thousands of hours of research into the way that men and women have conflict with each other in a marriage and he has consistently found the same results. Wives showed more anger and whining than husbands. Wives showed less affection than husbands. Husbands showed more neutral effect than wives. Women also lead the way in contempt and criticism. But I'm going to talk more about that later. For now, just know that the research is absolutely clear. It is women, not men, who are the frequent initiators of emotional escalation.

But you may have noticed that in this culture, despite what the science clearly says, it is men, not women, who have the reputations for being emotionally immature. Men are often the ones who are blamed for arguments spiraling out of control. And this is despite the fact that they are statistically more affectionate and exhibit more regulated behavior. So, how is it that men could possibly be at fault? Well, the accusation is that men shut down or men are uncaring. Do you see what's happening? Men are being blamed for causing the escalation that she enacts because he does not respond to her the way that she wants him to. This is quite literally, yes, I was screaming and yelling, but he made me do it.

In the emotional logic of this culture, his neutrality is framed as antagonism and her escalation is framed as vulnerability. Think about that and then ask yourself, how did that happen? By what standard of logic or justice is that sane? Women start fights. Women escalate emotionally. Men do a good job of staying calm. And yet, men are blamed. Men are not to blame. You have been lied to.

When it comes to fights and arguments in a relationship, usually it is the woman who has initiated it. And it is almost always the woman who escalates it. But through a master stroke of deception, women have somehow managed to avoid accountability. How have they done this? With three key myths.

First myth, women are more in touch with their emotions. That's a lie.

Second myth, women are the protectors of connection. That's also a lie.

And the final myth is that the solution to these arguments is more emotional intensity. Not only is that one a lie, but it is devastating on a practical level. It causes so much pain and suffering. All three of these myths are complete nonsense. And once you see it, once you understand it, you'll never look at interpersonal conflict between a man and a woman the same way ever again.

And you know what's even more interesting than these lies? Is the truth that they're covering up the reality of what's actually going on. Let's go through this one at a time.

Myth number one, women are more in touch with their emotions. Society tells us that men are emotionally repressed. That women are more intuitive. They feel more. They're just more in touch with their emotions. And everybody accepts this as gospel. Like nobody really disputes this as a fact. But this claim is not supported by the science. Numerous studies are absolutely unequivocal in their findings. Women do not report experiencing more emotions than men.

And you think, well, how can that possibly be? I've obviously seen women be way more emotional in my life than I've seen men. Understand, men and women are experiencing the same intensity of emotion. The key difference is in expression, not experience. You see, women externalize emotion through words, tone, tears, facial expressions. There seems to be a direct link between a woman's emotional center in her brain and her body. She just expresses how she feels with very little self-restraint.

Men are different. Men internalize emotion. This is through action, withdrawal, problem solving. So, you've got women on the one hand encouraged to express everything that they feel, but men have to contain themselves. They have to self soothe. They do not have the same freedom of emotional expression.

But just because women have the privilege of not being expected to show self-control when it comes to their emotions, why have we assumed that that means that they are more in touch with those emotions or are emotionally more mature? Just because somebody is comfortable expressing their emotions, that does not automatically mean that they understand them better, that they manage their emotions more wisely, or that they are more connected emotionally with others. In fact, it's the opposite. Often, a high emotional expressiveness actually indicates very low emotional regulation.

Women like this are emotionally reactive, not emotionally reflective. Contrast that with men who often feel things very deeply, but they reflect on those emotions and choose to not act impulsively. That's difficult to do. Sometimes men just want to vent, explode, express their emotions, but he knows he has to keep it under control. But rather than show any appreciation for his restraint, a lot of women paint this emotional regulation from men in a really negative light, saying, "Oh, he just doesn't have emotions, or he just doesn't care. He doesn't feel anything." It's salt in the wound because in addition to the original grievance that has frustrated him, he gets no recognition for how much emotional labor he is performing to try and actively deescalate this situation.

Far from being an emotionless robot, what his calm demeanor actually reveals is that he has a lot of emotional maturity. He doesn't just get swept away in the moment. He has impulse control and a strong sense of teamwork. He knows that if he escalates and gives into his emotions, any chance of a cooperative outcome or a solution to their problem is just gone. He's focused on trying to get them to resolve whatever the issue is. But in this culture, we don't reward male restraint. It's so unjust. Instead, we do the most morally heinous thing. We condemn it and we shame it. H he's so emotionally unavailable. No, that's not it. Men aren't the problem. Men are just as emotional as women, but we are more disciplined in its expression.

The truth is that it is women who are less in touch with their emotions specifically because they act upon them without reflection. When you are used with your emotion, you have no distance from it, no perspective, no understanding, no capacity to reflect. The emotion hits you and you just get swept away by it. But that's not emotional maturity. That's nothing to be admired. Real emotional intelligence is measured by regulation, not by fusion.

And this becomes very relevant when considering myth number two. Women are the protectors of connection. In this culture, we are told that women are the emotional glue of relationships. That women are the ones who track and maintain the quality of connection and that men by and large are just aloof or just disconnected. They're lagging behind emotionally. It makes it seem as though women are these treasured caretakers of intimacy and men are these kind of bumbling, emotionally absent passengers just along for the ride. It's not true. In fact, it's the opposite.

I know this is different from what you've been told your entire life, but women are actually not good at connection. Men are. We're really good at it. Understand that social bonds and harmony in relationships is extremely important to women. It's a top priority. I absolutely don't dispute that. But the reason why it's so important is because as a default, women feel disconnected all the time. They have this innate fear of abandonment which causes them to anxiously track the quality of their relationships and their connections constantly. They need to keep tabs on everybody and how everybody's feeling. But the reason for this is because they feel so chronically unsafe.

Most fights that are initiated by women are because she does not feel secure in her connection. She wants the argument to test it and to try and resolve that insecurity. But here's something that should be absolutely obvious, which is that just because she is terrified of losing connection and she is extremely dependent upon her relationships in order to make her feel safe, that fear, that paranoia, that doesn't automatically confer on her some expertise on the subject.

Women think men are terrible at this because they don't notice men engaging in the same behaviors that women do, you know, fueled by their chronic paranoia. But it's like it never occurred to women that maybe men have a completely different method of feeling connected, that we have our own way of managing relationships that works for us and that is a lot less fear-based.

The female style of connection prioritizes emotional intensity and mirroring. They want to see the emotions that they're feeling show up in the face and body of whoever it is that they're speaking to. That's what's reassuring. And it can be frightening for them if they don't get that instant validation. They feel like, "Oh, we're not connected unless you're feeling exactly what I'm feeling. We need to fuse." It's not validating to me emotionally if you're not feeling the exact same thing.

This is very different from the male connection style. Men connect through a shared purpose, through calm and trust and just shared physical presence. Men can feel connected with other humans just sitting in silence together, watching a movie, fishing in the river, solving a problem as part of a team or just sitting around joking and bantering. I can understand the psychology that says that most women are just passionately jealous of how easy this is for men. Because the truth is that as men, we don't require any emotional volatility in order to feel close to each other. Men can feel very connected to their friends or to their girlfriends without any strong emotions being present at all. It can be complete silence. Just everything's peaceful. Everything's calm. Just like, oh, this is lovely. I feel so connected to everybody here. And that feeling of connection is so important to men that it's one of the reasons why we try and protect it so strongly. We try and preserve connection through emotional regulation by staying calm under pressure and avoiding any spirals of escalation.

What women don't understand is that if a man is staying neutral during a conflict and he's keeping his emotions contained, it's not because he is emotionless, he is working very hard to try and preserve the relationship to protect the connection. It's really difficult work and instead of getting any credit for what he's doing, the fact that he's not screaming and crying in the same way that she is, somehow that's a mark against him. I know that that sounds absolutely crazy, but it makes sense when viewed in the context of the third myth.

The solution is more emotional intensity. I know that to your male brain that sounds crazy, but I'm telling you, if you want to understand how women think, you want to know how to interact with them, you need to realize that they actually believe this. This makes sense to women and it explains how they interact with their boyfriends and husbands.

That John Gottman research I was referencing earlier, they've identified the four horsemen of a marriage. So named because they're the bringers of destruction. Like four toxic traits and behaviors that are going to destabilize your relationship and cause all sorts of issues. The research has found that two of these behaviors is most commonly displayed by women and the other two by men. And as you can see, criticism and contempt are the female strategies, whereas the male strategies are stonewalling and defensiveness. If you don't know what stonewalling is, it just means like an emotional shutdown. And the research shows that 85% of stonewallers are men. But you can see the pattern, right? Like the trend is obvious. Women attack and men defend. But somehow in terms of like who's initiating the arguments, it seems reasonably clear, does it not? But yet men are still blamed because women interpret men's neutrality as being antagonistic or provocative in some way. He's doing his best to stay calm and to not lose himself into a spiral of escalating emotions, but the fact that he is calm, that seems to infuriate her.

"Stop stonewalling. Just be real. Open up. Tell me how you feel." She just gets louder and louder, and her demands get more and more extreme because what she's trying to do is provoke him. I know that's not maybe what you're meant to say. Like, this is just one of those things that everybody knows, but you're not meant to say it out loud, but let's be real. That's what she's doing. Escalating things. She's trying to get something from him. And what she wants is she wants to see some emotion. She wants to crack him. She wants him to match her emotional energy.

This takes us back to the previous myth, you know, where a woman's sense of connection comes from her and the person she's speaking to experiencing the same emotions. And so if she's just out of control and chaotic and angry and screaming or crying or whatever like that, him staying calm, that makes her feel disconnected from him. She'd feel a lot more connected if he was acting as crazy as she is. This is just extraordinary. But women feel righteous and many women genuinely believe this. Trust me, or at least verify in your own life, but this is true. So many women believe that if he was to emotionally intensify the argument and escalate at the same pace that she does, then the conflicts would resolve quicker and intimacy would grow because she would feel connected to him and deep down that's what she wanted all along. The blame belongs on the man for staying calm. That's the real issue.

I am a man and so I am biased and I admit that. But from where I'm sitting and looked at this as rationally as I can, can I say that the female method makes no sense. Emotional intensity does not resolve conflict. It amplifies it. I understand in the short term it might give her that feeling of connection and that's what she's seeking, but zoom out in the long term. Always resolving arguments by emotionally escalating them is going to destroy any sense of trust or respect or safety. I don't need to tell you this. You're a man. You know that this is not going to work. That's why you try and stay calm. And it seems so obvious to us that staying calm is the best way to make sure that cooler heads prevail and whatever the problem was, it actually finds a solution and the conflict can get resolved.

And I know this because you guys have told me in the hero circles and in the private consultations that so many of you guys have tried this, tried explaining this to your girlfriends or to your wives. "Hey, if there's a disagreement, let's just keep the tone respectful. Let's stay calm and we'll work through it." Only to find that there is a complete unwillingness on the part of the woman to try anything different. She doesn't want to stay calm. She doesn't want to approach it rationally. She wants to emotionally escalate it and she wants you to join her. She refuses to challenge and question that feminine logic that's in her operating system that says, "If I can just get you to feel what I'm feeling, then I'll feel connected to you and all the problems will go away."

I mean, when it's given that clinical description, it almost doesn't sound that bad. But let me remind you what this looks like in real life is her screaming, yelling, crying, launching accusations, throwing stuff. All the while, he's trying to stay calm, make sure that this does not escalate. But then his calmness just pisses her off more and it just gets worse. She thinks that what she wants is a companion to go with her into the chaos and she's angry at him for not doing that. But there's no other way to put it. He's right. They were much more connected back when things were calm. And so as difficult as it is for him to watch her spiral and and get all emotional, he is staying the course. He's trying to stay calm, stay grounded so that he can guide her back to that place. He knows that losing control and escalating emotionally is not going to fix whatever issue is going on between them. It's only going to erode trust. But he can't expect any thanks or gratitude for his role. It's the ultimate case of his virtue being used against him.

So gentlemen, now you know what's going on in your relationship. When your partner is breaking down and sobbing, accusing you of not caring about her, bringing up past wounds that seem to have nothing to do with what you're actually talking about, screaming and yelling at you, understand what she's trying to do is pull you into her emotional world so that she can feel connected to you, but it's not going to work. Escalation is a terrible strategy, and Gottman found that it is one of the top predictors of relationship failure.

When they studied healthy couples who've been together for a long period of time and have a happy relationship, they found that those couples, they manage intensity. They don't create it. They don't seek it. The correct strategy when it comes to emotions is regulation, not reactivity, not uncontrolled expression. It is regulation that forms the core of emotional resilience.

So, what is the solution? Well, the bad news is that women need to change. Like, I don't know what to tell you. Like I know a lot of men, they want to see some data that shows them what they can do. You know, they're like, "Oh, I can just fix this and I can do self-improvement and fix this." In a relationship, you're only 50% of the couple. Doesn't matter how good you do it. If your partner is hellbent on following some ridiculous strategy of emotional escalation, it's going to be very hard for you to ever feel truly connected to her. It's going to be hard to resolve conflicts. For the love of God, I don't care how much you're being emotionally blackmailed. Do not give in to her strategy. It won't work. It will sink the relationship. It's incredibly toxic.

If you want to help her, your role is to help guide her into regulation. If you can sense at the early beginnings of like a rumbling disagreement, oh, I can feel some tremors. I think I know where this is going. Act fast. Keep her regulated. Keep the whole situation grounded. And explain to her this is not about demonizing your emotions or saying that they're not welcome. It's okay to feel scared. It's okay to feel sad and angry. All of that's fine. But you need to regulate your behavior. You have to learn to control your emotions. Otherwise, they're going to end up controlling you.

And of course, women need to stop blaming men. This is not his fault. He's the one doing everything he can to keep the situation calm. Yes, he's a man, and yes, he handles things differently to you. But instead of demonizing those differences, perhaps just show some humility and consider the possibility that you could actually learn from him. The discipline that he's showing in the emotional realm is not a weakness. It is a strength and you're lucky that he has it.

This video is already pretty long, but I actually have lots more to say on this subject. So, I'm going to put all of that in the extended version of this video. I'm going to talk about the real reason why women open up old wounds, like what psychological purpose there is in refilling emotions from the past. Why this often turns into emotional looping where nothing ever gets resolved. Like why aren't women viewing this as a problem to solve? And how to tell as a man when that moment occurs where you can sense the change from a genuine emotional expression from her to the more subtle dynamics of a power play. All of this is extremely important. I'm excited to talk about it.

If you've enjoyed this video, you found this useful and this is clicking for you, you're like, "Yes, there's more to learn." I do encourage you to come over to my Patreon and check out the fulllength version of the video. Lots of great practical tips. Fast. It's a great way to support me and the.