104|How to Be a Better Husband Without Becoming a Doormat

[00:00:00] Being Gentle Doesn't Mean Becoming a Doormat

Here's a question I got in my inbox a few weeks ago: How do I become a better husband without becoming a doormat? Now, a man who has been listening to this show for a while emailed me that question. He shared how, in the past, over time, he broke trust in his marriage and how he's owned that, the deep work he's been doing on himself since, and how much has changed in the way he talks to his wife and shows up at home.

And underneath all of it, it was the thought he wanted my opinion on.

In his mind, and I know he's not alone in this, he's worried that if he keeps being humble, forgiving, and gentle, his wife may take advantage of that, and he actually thinks she might already have. What he wants is to keep his self-respect without turning bitter or reactive.

If you've been doing this work for a while, and I mean really doing it, not just passively listening to the podcast, you might know that fear. You can feel the difference in who you are today compared to who you were before. You're calmer. You're able to slow down in moments when you typically would have reacted.

When you apologize now, you mean it. Everything feels different. And it can still feel like she's waiting for the old you to come back, like none of what you've changed counts yet. That's when the questions start creeping in. Is she taking advantage of me? Am I letting her walk all over me? And the ones that a lot of men never say out loud: Am I doing this wrong?

Am I getting soft? Am I losing my self-respect? And what does it mean to be a man in my own marriage?

Today, we're talking about how to keep your self-respect while you're rebuilding the trust you broke without going back to the old habits of control and overpowering. By the end of this episode, you're going to know why becoming a better husband doesn't mean becoming a doormat and why it can still feel that way.

You'll know how to tell when you're grabbing for control again and when you're giving up your own self-respect, and you'll know how to talk to her about what's bothering you as an equal so trust has a real chance to be rebuilt. Stick around. You don't wanna miss this one.

[00:01:59] I've Owned My Part. What About Hers?

Welcome to Better Husband, the podcast that helps you answer the question: how can I be a better husband? I'm Angelo Santiago, a men's marriage and relationship coach, and my wife Julie and I have an amazing marriage. But for most of our 23 years together, that was not true.

There was distance, arguments, stretches where we weren't even speaking, and our marriage ended up on the brink of divorce, so I went all in. I found the support I needed. I learned the relational skills nobody ever taught me, and I practiced them in my marriage day in and day out. Not only did I save my marriage, but I built one I'm incredibly proud of.

Now I've made it my mission to help other men do the same. This podcast is here to give you clear, practical steps to save your marriage, become a better husband, and become a better man so you can build the kind of marriage Julie and I have today.

I wanna start this episode by inviting you in, because a minute ago, I said really doing this work of becoming a better husband is more than listening to a podcast.

Over the past few episodes, I've talked about the difference between learning and doing, awareness and action, and what it looks like to be held accountable and supported. In Better Husband Academy, men bring exactly the kind of question this man asked in his email. Something feels off. What do I do next?

They're live with me on our group calls, and we talk it out and go much deeper into how they can become better men and the husband their wife is proud to be married to.

If you're ready to take action on yourself and your marriage, go to betterhusbandacademy.com or click the link in the show notes.

Now, let me first respond to the man who sent me that email, and let me just say thank you. My heart goes out to you, and I know how hard it is to be where you are right now. Here is just a little bit of what he shared with me. Over time, during stretches of his own insecurity, he made choices that broke trust in his marriage.

He's owned that, and he's been doing deep work on himself, working hard to understand why he did what he did, what it was like for his wife to live with him the way he used to be, and what needs to happen next. And while he's been doing that work, his wife has pulled away. Then he came across something that made him believe she was flirting with another man.

He brought it to her, and she denied it. And as he sees it, he's still being held fully accountable for everything he did while she won't own any of this. That's where his question come from. So let's talk about what he means when he says he feels like he's becoming a doormat. It's not just a word he threw in.

He's trying to keep repairing the things he did. He's trying to hold his boundaries,

and while he does that, it feels to him like she isn't taking ownership of her part, and he's the one getting walked all over. He keeps giving, and it feels like nothing he says about his own hurt is allowed to count.

And I understand that confusion, and part of the reason is what men are being told out there.

There are a lot of hyper-alpha masculinity coach voices saying things like, "Don't get weak. Don't get soft. Don't tell your woman anything about your feelings because she'll use it against you."

So when a man who's been learning to be more open and more honest starts to feel walked on, it's easy for a voice in his head to say, "See? They were right. This is what being soft gets you."

Now, when I read an email like this, what comes up for me first isn't an answer. It's 100 questions. That's the reason I don't coach anyone over email.

An email, even a long, honest one like his, only gives me a piece of what's going on. So this is what coaching with me looks like, because I need to get deep with you so I can get clear on where you need to go. I'd want to know how long you've been married and what the two of you were like before trust got broken.

I'd want to know what the rupture looked like, the real version of it, what she lived through, and how long it went on before she spoke up. I'd ask what she said back then. Did she tell you she was hurting, and what did you do with it? I'd want to know what the work has meant for you. What are you doing differently on a regular night that she can actually see?

Has she said anything about it? Have you asked her? These are the questions I get to ask men on our group calls in Better Husband Academy and the men I work with one on one, and I'd keep going. When she pulled away, what did that look like? Do you still eat dinner together? Do you still talk at night? Is everything just about logistics?

When you found what looked like evidence of her flirting with another man, what happened in your body? What did you say to her, and how did you say it? Were you calm? Were you angry and loud? What did she say back? And then I'd ask you, what do you want right now? What would it look like for you to feel like you count in this marriage again, and what would it take for both of you to feel safe enough to tell each other the truth?

Every one of those answers would change what I'd tell you to do next. If you're the man who emailed me, this is just the start. I'd have so much more to ask you and say to you if I had the chance. If you're listening right now, I also want you to know that you're not the only one. I've heard some version of this from other men.

Some believe their wife was in an emotional affair. Some believe she was flirting with somebody else, and when they brought it up to her, she denied it. All of them were asking some version of the same thing: I've owned my part. When is it her turn? That's the piece I want to go after today, because I think the answer to his doormat question starts with what happens inside a man after he's done a lot of work and starts looking across the room at her.

[00:07:09] Her Healing Doesn't Run on Your Schedule

There's a moment I see over and over where a man finally sees the trust he broke. He goes all in on the deep work on himself, and about a month later, sometimes less, he comes to me and asks, "How long is this going to take her to get over it?" And I understand why he asks. He's tired, he's trying, and in his head, he- he's keeping a list of everything he's changed.

He does something to show that he loves her, and then he watches her face to see if she noticed. He asks about her day, he really listens, and then he waits for her to warm up. And when she doesn't, the list gets longer. "I've been patient, I've been calm, I've been owning, and she still doesn't trust me. What else does she want?"

It makes sense, but the honest answer to, "How long is this going to take her?" is, "As long as it takes." How long did she live with the old you? How long did she put up with the man who wasn't there, or the man who broke her trust before anything changed? For a lot of women, that's a long time of hoping, asking, and getting let down.

So get honest with yourself. Do you have a timeline in your head? Some men, when they're honest, find out they do have a timeline. Something like, "If she's not over it by summertime, I'm done."

But what does done really mean, though? For some, it means they stop trying. They stay in the house, but they check out and let whatever happens, happen. For others, it means an ultimatum. They threaten to leave, or they decide they'll be the one to walk away first. Or for other guys, that deadline leads to some really bad decisions that break even more trust.

That's different from a man who has thought it through, done his part, and makes a clear decision about what he can and can't live with. I'm not here to judge you either way, but be honest about which one you're doing, because a deadline she doesn't know about is still running the way you treat her.

There's a good chance she can feel you waiting and feel you counting. You can't put a timeline on her healing or on her trusting you again. What you can decide is how you're going to show up while it happens.

[00:09:06] From Shame to Standing Eye to Eye

There's a pattern underneath how long is this going to take her. In my own story, and in the stories of a lot of the men that I work with, we all start in the same place. I call it the one-up position. It's an idea from Relational Life Therapy, and it comes from grandiosity, the part of a man that puts himself above his wife.

His needs come first. His way is the right way, and she has to work around him.

One up can look a couple of different ways. Sometimes it does look like checked out. He's home, but he's not really around. There's a, "Don't bother me," kind of energy to him. Other times, it looks like the man who always knows better. He decides how things goes. He controls the house, the people in the house, and the mood of the house.

Different behavior, same position. Either way, he's standing above her, and then it breaks open. There's a rupture in the marriage. Maybe she confronts him, challenges him, and holds her boundaries for the first time. Maybe it all falls apart and separation or divorce is suddenly real. Maybe something that's been hidden comes out, and he has to face all the broken trust that he's built up.

And typically, that's when he drops into the one down position. Now he's below her, buried in shame about everything he did. He apologizes for everything, even things that aren't his. He's walking on eggshells, afraid to want anything, and a man can't live there forever, and he shouldn't. So he does the work, and I mean really does it.

He gets guidance and support. He looks back through his whole life to understand why he is the way he is. He makes changes and keeps making them, and he lets people hold him accountable. And slowly, he comes up out of that shame, and that's supposed to happen. But a lot of men don't stop when they get back to level ground.

They go right back up above her again for a new reason. "I've done my work. I'm better now. What's wrong with her? What's her problem?" He's standing over her again, using his own growth to look down at how she's doing it wrong, and I imagine she feels it. This is where the doormat question comes back. He's afraid of ending up below her again, walked on with no say.

But here's the problem. Going back above her won't fix that. You're not here to control her, and she's not here to be your doormat either. What you're after is eye to eye. Neither of you above the other, both of you able to say what you want and what hurts, and both of you treated like you matter because you both do.

Those voices telling men to get harder make climbing back on top feel like the answer. If I'd started trying to save my own marriage with that kind of coach in my ear, I believe it would have killed my marriage. My marriage needed a more tender, humble, patient version of me first, and once that was there, I could become the strong leader in my home who was also kind, trustworthy, and steady.

[00:11:53] Forgiving Her Doesn't Mean Dropping Your Limits

That brings me back to the hardest part of his email, what he found and her denial. Now, I don't know what actually happened. I know what he's told me, and I don't have any other way to know if she did or she didn't.

So I'm not here to take sides. If I decide he's right and she's hiding something, or decide that he's being paranoid and she hasn't done anything wrong, I could lead him the wrong way. And if you've got your own version of his story, sit with that for a minute. You might not know either. So where do we go from here?

What I do know is what happens to a man who gets stuck there. You found something. You talked to her about it. You believe it was what it looked like, and you could be completely wrong or misreading it, or you could be completely right. And if you're right, she may not be ready to admit it. She may not be willing.

She may never admit it. You can stay stuck fighting about that for as long as you want. You can bring it up again the next week and the week after that, going over it in your head at night, getting ready for the next round, and think about what that's probably like for her. Whatever did or didn't happen, every time it comes up, she's being questioned again, and I'd guess she gets more guarded each round, not less.

So what are you really looking for when you need her to admit it? For a lot of men, especially the men who broke trust in their own marriage, there's a fear underneath it. Is this happening to me now because of what I did? Is this retaliation for my actions? And that fear can take over.

It keeps you up at night. It shows up in how you hear her tone and how you read every time she's late, and her saying the words, her admitting it, probably won't give you what you're looking for. It probably won't make that fear go away.

There are more important questions. Do you believe it's still happening now, and have you told her clearly what won't work for you in your marriage?

That's a limit, and if it's a limit you want in your marriage, it's one that you have to keep to also.

What does it mean to flirt, to look at other people, to want somebody else, and especially to act on it? What's the line for both of you, and what do the two of you agree to? Some things can't wait. If either of you is acting out sexually, having an affair, or flirting with somebody, nobody can work on the marriage while that's going on.

It has to stop first. If it doesn't stop and the person doing it isn't willing to stop and work on it, I'm never going to tell a man or a woman that they have to stay in that relationship. But if what you're dealing with is something that happened in the past or something you believe happened, I know how hard it is to let go of something that brings this much turmoil.

So the question becomes, what needs to happen for you to be able to move forward? If the only answer is that she has to admit it, and she won't either because it never happened or because she's not ready to right now, how do you wanna handle that? I don't have a clear answer for you. What I do know is that reliving the same argument every single day with no end in sight is only going to drive the two of you further apart.

And if you've been hoping she'll forgive you for the ways you've broken trust, what would it take for you to offer forgiveness? And let me say it again, you can't forgive something that's still happening. That's not what I'm asking you to do. Forgiving her doesn't mean dropping your limits.

So what will it take for you to get clear on your limits, tell her what they are, and then let go of what you can't control so trust has a real chance to be rebuilt?

[00:15:16] Trusting Her Is Different From Watching Her

So let's say you get there. You find a calm moment, you tell her what won't work for you, she tells you where she stands, and the two of you agree on it. No flirting, no acting out. That's the line for both of you. Do you trust her on that? Maybe a week later, she's going out to dinner with a friend.

You tell her to have a great time, and then the whole night, your mind is running. Who's really there? Why hasn't she texted? And there's no guarantee. That's the whole thing about trust. You trust that the other person is telling you the truth, and then you actually have to trust it. If you hear her say it, tell her you accept it, and then every part of you wants to go through her email, read her texts, scroll through her phone, or look through her purse, you're not trusting her.

You're waiting to catch her, and that will never work in a marriage. Every time her phone buzzes, she can feel your eyes go to it. After a while, she doesn't feel like your wife anymore. She feels watched.

And that goes for every man who's trying to rebuild. If you've ever been the one who broke the trust, you know how much you wanted her to believe you again.

Trust can't grow while one of you is checking up on the other one every single day, whichever one of you it is.

If the two of you have agreed to rebuild, you have to give each other a chance to keep your word. You can be clear about what won't work for you and still leave room to believe each other again.

Can your heart trust in her? You're working toward a marriage where you can count on each other without having to check up on each other. Trusting her may feel like the riskiest thing you've done in this whole process.

It might even feel like being a doormat. But you said what won't work for you. She's agreed to it, and you know what you'll do if it's broken. That's a decision you're making with your eyes open as her equal. And if something new and real comes up, you can still bring it to her. And if the urge to check keeps coming back, look at that in yourself.

It might be pointing at a problem in the marriage or at what's still unhealed in you. Either way, it's yours to work on.

[00:17:18] Awareness, Action, Accountability

Now, if you're still listening and something in here made you look at where you've been standing with your wife, above her, below her, or somewhere you didn't want to admit, let's take this into your marriage this week.

Let me help you with an awareness question, action steps, and accountability. To get honest with yourself, answer this one question. When something is bothering you in your marriage, do you feel able to talk to your wife about it as an equal? Think about what happens inside you. Are you looking down on her, wondering when she's finally going to do her work?

Or are you afraid to say anything because you feel like your past mistakes means you don't get to have concerns anymore? Now, here are the steps I want you to actually take this week. It may not be easy, but I believe every marriage needs this.

One, pick the right time and have a real conversation about what trust means.

Not in the middle of a fight. Read the room and wait for a time where you're both calm, willing to talk openly, and you know you can stay cool. Then ask her what trust means to her and share what it means to you. What would it look like for the two of you to trust each other with all your heart?

Now, two, ask her where she doesn't fully trust you yet.

Ask where in her heart she's still not able to trust you, and then listen. Don't defend yourself, don't explain, and don't take it as criticism. Take it as a chance to build. What she tells you is where your work is.

Three, share where you struggle with trust. Tell her where trust is hard for you in your marriage.

Do it without blaming her or telling her she needs to change. Share what it's been like for you and what you're doing to work on it.

Four, close the conversation honestly. Acknowledge how hard this is, given the ways trust has been broken in the past.

You can't change the past. How you move forward together and how you support each other from here can change. If either of you gets too worked up along the way, stop and come back to it another day.

And five, practice trusting her. After that conversation, practice trusting her fully without expecting that it's going to be broken again.

Give the two of you room to build something new without ignoring anything real that's happening right now. And catch yourself whenever you're not trusting her, when you're checking up on her or assuming she's going to forget, mess up, or do what she said she wouldn't

And for accountability, I want you to think about what happened in this one episode.

I got one man's email, and look how deep it went, how many questions came up, and how much clarity there was to find. Now, imagine what it would be like to have that kind of support for whatever you're going through in your marriage, to have somebody in your corner who doesn't just open that door for you like we did today, but walks through it with you and keeps going toward the marriage you want, toward becoming the man you know you can be, surrounded by other men doing this exact work.

That's what Better Husband Academy is. It's men who are committed to becoming better husbands, better men, and better fathers. Men building trust in their marriages, working through the hard moments together, and celebrating together when things move forward. Every week, we get live on group calls where you bring what's actually happening in your marriage, like the trust conversation from this week, ask your questions, and get coached through it with me and with other men.

And you've got all the resources right there to keep walking this path between calls. That's your next step. Come join us. Go to betterhusbandacademy.com or click the link in the show notes.

[00:20:46] Closing Takeaway

Cause here's what I want you to take away from this episode. Let's go back to his question:

how do I keep becoming a better husband without becoming a doormat? A lot of us started out in a one-up position, above our wives, then came the rupture, and we dropped below them, buried in shame, one down. We did the work, and slowly, we came back up out of it.

That's the moment to watch because it's so easy to keep going right back above her, this time telling yourself you've earned it.

The answer to his question is eye to eye. When you're standing there, you can tell her what's bothering you.

You can tell her what won't work for you in your marriage and keep that line yourself.

And you can listen when she tells you where she still doesn't trust you, without dropping back into shame and without needing to win, because then comes trust.

Trusting her once the two of you have agreed on what you're building together. Trusting the process, the work you're doing, and whatever she's working through, even when you can't see it. And trusting the timing, because her healing doesn't run on your schedule any more than yours ran on hers. None of that means you ignore something real that's happening right now.

It means you stop checking up on her and start rebuilding the marriage with her. A man who can do that keeps his self-respect. He can speak up, keep his limits, and still be gentle enough for her to trust him again.

That's the husband you're working to become.

Now, to the man who wrote in and to every man going through the same thing, thank you for being honest about where you are, the hard parts, and the parts you're still figuring out.

What you're carrying matters and so does the work you're doing. Keep showing up and keep taking the next right step. Join us at betterhusbandacademy.com.

You're listening to Better Husband. I'm Angelo Santiago, and I'll see you on the next one.