Why It’s Hard to Name What You Feel — And How to Start

[00:00:00] The Husband Who Says “I’m Fine”

You know that moment when your wife asks you a simple question like, how are you doing? Or What's going on with you? Or are you okay? And you can feel that something is going on inside you, you know that you're not exactly fine, but what comes outta your mouth is, I'm good, or I'm fine, or I'm just tired or nothing, i'm all right.

Lot of men know that moment very well, and the issue for most guys is not that there's nothing there. The issue is that when the moment comes to actually say what's happening inside you, you don't know how to do it, or the only way you know how to do it feels awkward, exposed, or way bigger than you want it to be. And then because you don't know how to do it well, you do what a lot of men do. You shut the door. You go vague. You say something that ends the conversation before it really starts.

If you listened to the last episode, a better husband, then you already know. We spent time talking about why so many men are emotionally restricted in the first place, why that restriction made sense, why it often helped us function, why it got rewarded, and why that same pattern can create real distance in marriage.

But in this episode, I wanna go one layer deeper and make this a lot more practical.

Now, if you miss the last episode, don't worry. You don't have to go back to start this one. You can stay right here because by the end of this episode, I want you to understand what your wife is really asking for in those moments and what it actually looks like to give her something real without shutting down or getting completely lost in your emotional world.

Because being able to share what's really going on for you is not about becoming emotionally outta control. It's just about learning to open up to the one person you should feel safest with. With the one person who's craving a deeper understanding of what's happening inside you. Not so she can fix you, but so she can know you, support you, and love you through it.

If every time your wife asks you how you're doing, you freeze up and you're not sure why, stick around. This episode might show you the exact step you have been stuck on.

[00:01:55] What This Looked Like in My Marriage

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 every week I bring you practical insights to help you strengthen your marriage and become the best husband you can be.

Now, let me start off by saying that talking openly about my emotions with my wife is still hard for me sometimes. And I wanna say that right up front because I know there are men listening to this who are going to feel challenged around this topic. You're going to hear this conversation and think, man, I should be better at this by now, or What's wrong with me? Why is this so hard?

So let me just say it simply, even with all the work I've done in my marriage, in coaching, in my own healing. Being able to clearly share my emotions is still hard for me sometimes. I have gotten much better at it, but there are still moments where my first instinct is to shut the conversation down fast.

I experience that moment in my own marriage even to this day. My wife might ask me how I'm doing and I can feel that little tightening in my body that says: don't go there, just give her a quick answer and let's move on. And if I listen to that impulse, the energy between us changes instantly. One moment my wife wanted to connect, and the next, there's a wall between us. All because I closed the door. She reached for me and I gave her almost nothing to work with.

That kind of moment happened all the time for years in our marriage. She could tell I was angry. She could tell when I was sad. She would try to connect with me, but I wouldn't name it. I wasn't giving her any access to what was actually going on inside of me. And what that did is it made it really hard for her to know me, for her to get close.

Every time she tried to get closer, I would push her further away. All because it felt uncomfortable to open up and talk about what was really going on. And sometimes I didn't even know the words to use to describe what was going on for me. And I know I'm not the only man who's been in that spot.

This is one of the most common conversations I have with men. These are men who love their wives and want to be more connected, but when it comes time to actually put words to what they feel, they have almost nothing. Or maybe they have only the top layer, things like stress or frustration, annoyed, tired, but in order to really connect at an emotional level, you have to go a layer deeper.

And I also wanna point out to the men listening who are also fathers, that this topic is not only important for you and your marriage, but for your children. And here's why.

I watch my son have emotions in real time. I watch him leap for joy so hard, his whole body moves. I watch him cry when he's sad. I watch him move through anger, frustration, confusion, shame, all of it right there on the surface. And that's where I get to make a choice.

Am I the kind of man who teaches his son to suck it up, to push it down, to act like what he's feeling is not a big deal so he can fit in with how the world has told men to act?

Or am I the kind of man who has access to his own emotional world? Who can share it, process it, move through it. Make decisions with a clear mind and a clear heart. Not pretending those emotions don't exist, but learning how to carry them well.

A man who lets his wife into that part of his life as well. A man who shows his son that it's safe to feel what you feel and still be strong. And that's the choice you get to make too.

Doing this work of understanding your own emotional world and actually being able to talk about it has a ripple effect that will not only change you and your marriage, but also generations that come after you.

That's what this episode is about. So if this is hard for you, don't worry. You are in good company and in all of this is learnable. You just have to be willing to try and continue to lean in when it gets hard.

[00:05:34] What She's Actually Asking For

So here's where we start. When your wife tells you she wants more from you emotionally, all that she's asking for is access. She wants to know what's real, what's actually going on in you before it turns into distance or defensiveness or that tone in your voice she's learned to read as something's wrong, and he's not going to tell me.

Whether something hurt you, whether something scared you, whether you're carrying something and saying none of it. And here's where a lot of men get tripped up. They hear, I want more from you emotionally and they run it through this filter that makes it sound like she's saying, I want you to talk about your feelings all the time.

That's almost never what she means. What she means is, I wanna be married to you. I wanna know you, not the wall you put up when things get hard. I wanna know what's happening on the other side of that wall.

Here's an example of what it looks like. You come home from a rough day, your wife can see it on your face. She asks what's going on. And in one version you say nothing, I'm fine. It was just a long day and then you disappear into your phone or the garage or the tv, and she's left standing there knowing something is off and having no way in.

Another version of you says work was rough. Today I'm frustrated and I think I'm a little discouraged too. I don't want to go into all the details right now, but I wanted you to know. That's the same man with the same hard day, but the second version just gives her something to work with. It lets her in just enough. It lets her know that how you're feeling isn't about her, and that changes the entire feel of the dynamic.

[00:07:04] Why So Many Men Only See Two Options

Now, here's where I see a lot of men run into problems when it comes to their emotions. They think there are only two options. Option one: stay shut down. Keep it locked up. Give her the short answer and move on. Or option two: Open the floodgates, spill everything, let it all come pouring out in a way that overwhelms the room.

And think about what your wife gets in each of those. If you stay shut down, she gets a man. She can't read. She can feel that something is going on. It's in the room, it's in your tone, it's in how you withdraw. But every time she reaches, she gets the same flat, nothing. And after enough of that, she stops reaching because she's tired of extending her hand and getting nothing back.

If you go to the other direction and dump everything, she gets buried. Now she's trying to hold you together and manage her own response at the same time. And that's not connection. That's emotional dumping. But those are not the only two options. There is another way, and this is where most of the real work happens.

It's not shutting down and it's not spilling everything. It's just being honest enough to let your wife into what's actually going on. And that doesn't sound like some deep emotional monologue. It sounds more like this. Yeah, I'm feeling a little upset how things went at work. Or it was a weird day, i'm really happy about one thing, but something else is still bothering me. Or I was talking to my sister and she said something that really hurt me and I didn't like how that felt. Or I think I'm more annoyed than I should be, so something else is probably going on.

That's the middle. You're not disappearing. You're not flooding the room, you're just telling the truth in a way she feels you opening up. Most men have never seen that done. They grew up watching men who are either completely shut off or completely out of control. So a lot of this work is learning that there's a third way that you can be honest and grounded in the same breath.

[00:08:55] The Lie Men Are Being Sold About Emotions

Now, I wanna pause here and say something that really frustrates me, because I know that some of you are getting conflicting messages online and in social media right now. There are coaches out there, these masculinity gurus, these men with big platforms telling other men that the answer is to get harder, get stronger, get more in control.

Shut that emotional stuff down because it's weakness and your family needs a leader, not a man who talks about his feelings. And in my opinion, those men are destroying marriages because they are taking men who are already emotionally shut down and telling them to shut down further. They are taking a man who already cannot reach his wife and handing him an idea that says he should not have to.

I wanna be clear about where I stand. I'm not telling you to throw away your masculinity card. I'm not telling you that your emotions should run your life. Steadiness, strength, responsibility. All of these belong in a man's life. They are part of what makes you the man your family needs.

But if the version of strength you're being sold makes you harder and harder to reach, that's not helping you and that's not helping your marriage, that's slowly starving it.

[00:10:03] How to Actually Name What You Feel

So if we're gonna make this practical, you need better language for what's happening inside you, because this is where most men hit a roadblock. They want to be more open, but when they look inside, all they can find is stress, frustration, annoyed, tired, maybe angry. And beyond that, it's just a blur.

So I want to give you an on-ramp. Let's call this your emotional roadmap. If you have no idea where to begin, if this whole conversation already feels like too much, start with just four emotions. Mad, sad, glad, afraid. That's it. A lot of men can grab onto those four faster than anything else because they're simple and you've heard them your whole life.

So when your wife asks What's going on with you? How are you doing? And you honestly don't know, try this first. Am I mad right now about something? Am I sad? Am I glad or am I afraid? That alone can give you a way in just naming one of those four out loud is more than you were giving her before.

And then ask yourself if I'm feeling any of those right now, can I pinpoint when it started or what it's about? And if not, that's okay. Just being able to acknowledge the emotion is a great first step. Mad glad, sad, afraid. Those are your four emotions to put on your roadmap.

Now. Once that starts feeling doable, I want you to expand it.

In Relational Life Therapy. We work with seven core emotions, joy, pain, anger, fear, shame, guilt and love. That's the fuller roadmap. And yes, I know it sounds like a list.

That's okay. A lot of men actually need the list because without it, every emotion just gets flattened into fine, stressed or pissed off. There's more nuance in the human emotional world than these seven, but I don't wanna overwhelm you. If you can start to recognize these seven in real time, you're already doing more than most men ever learn to do.

So let me walk you through them so you can see what I mean.

Joy is not always some big obvious thing. Sometimes it's relief. Sometimes it's gratitude. Sometimes it's that warm feeling of being with your wife and your kids and not saying a word about how good it feels. That's joy without any language around it, and your wife would love to hear it.

Pain is hurt, sadness, disappointment, grief. Your wife says something small. Maybe she wasn't trying to be hurtful, but you go cold. On the outside, you look annoyed or distant. But what's actually happened is you felt unseen. You felt dismissed. You felt alone in that moment, and none of those words ever came outta your mouth.

Anger is one of most men can name, but the work is getting more precise. There's a difference between irritation and resentment, and there's a bigger question underneath a lot of anger. Is this actually what I'm mad about, or did anger just move faster than the other emotions underneath it?

Now fear is massive for men and it almost never gets named. Fear is about failing. Fear is about not being enough. Fear about the future. Fear about losing the people you love. Most men don't walk around saying, I feel fear. They say I'm stressed, or they get short, or they get controlling. I know this one from the inside. There were seasons where I was scared about money, about whether I was good enough as a father about whether my marriage was going to survive, and the only version of that anyone saw was me going rigid and quiet.

Now shame says something is wrong with me. Feeling exposed, feeling stupid, feeling small. And most of the time shame does not come out sounding like shame. It comes out as defensiveness, withdrawal, or a hard tone because it's an uncomfortable feeling that most of us want to hide.

And then guilt. Guilt says, I don't feel good about what I did. I miss something. I let her down. I don't like how I handle that. A lot of men carry guilt from a fight or from a moment where they checked out when their wife needed them, and instead of saying, I feel bad about that, they move on and hope it goes away, but it doesn't go away. It just sits there between the two of you.

And then there's love. Love is not just, of course, I love my family. Love here is tenderness, warmth, protectiveness. That feeling where you care so deeply and still can't figure out how to say it. A lot of men feel that kind of love all the time, and their wives have no idea because it never makes it past the surface.

Here's the thing, by the time most men open their mouth, the real feeling has already been converted into something flatter.

Fear comes out as irritation. Pain comes out as frustration. Shame turns into defensiveness. And love sometimes becomes awkward silence.

So here's the move. Ask yourself, what am I feeling right now? Use whichever roadmap fits where you're at. The four, if you're starting fresh, the seven. If you're ready for more precision.

Then stay with whatever you named long enough to ask the next question. What's this actually about? Don't let a roadblock stop you from accessing your own emotions and naming them, because that's where this gets useful. Not just I feel something, but here's what I feel and here's what it's connected to.

Maybe you land on pain. Okay? What hurts right now? Maybe you think I feel like I keep getting it wrong, or that hit me harder than I thought it would. Or maybe you land on anger. Okay, what's underneath it? Maybe fear got there first and anger just moved faster.

Maybe you land on fear. Okay. Fear about what? Fear that I disappointed you. Fear that I'm failing here. Fear that this is bigger than I know what to do with. That's the part your wife wants to connect with and you don't need it to sound perfect sometimes. The strongest thing you can say is just I think, uh, what I'm feeling is fear, and I think it's fear about failing or I think I'm more hurt than I realize, or I'm not fully clear yet, but I know I'm not okay.

[00:15:50] What This Changes in a Marriage

So what does this change in a marriage over time? A lot more than most men think. Let me tell you what it has looked like in my marriage.

There are conversations now that would've gone sideways five years ago that don't go sideways anymore. Not because the topics have gotten easier, my wife still brings up things that are sometimes hard for me and she should, but I got better at tuning into my emotions and being honest about them before my reaction took over.

She asked me something and I feel that tightness I talked about just a second ago, and that pull to shut the door and give the quick answer. And instead of doing that, I slow down long enough to say what's actually there. Even if all I have is, I don't know what I'm feeling right now, but something's going.

And here's what I keep seeing in my own life and in coaching, when a wife can feel what's happening inside her husband, something settles in her. She stops guessing, she stops pressing. She can actually be with you because you finally let her in. She's no longer walking on eggshells because she has no idea what's going on with you.

But it changes more than that. It changes conflict. The fight stop being two people arguing about the reaction and starts being two people dealing with what's actually underneath it.

It changes repair. You're not spending the first 20 minutes trying to crack through each other's walls before you can even get to the real thing. And the safety she feels with you starts to come back because she stops having to brace for what you might do every time something vulnerable gets touched in you.

You become a different kind of presence in your house. And this is the other side of it that I don't want men to miss. This is empathy training too, because right now, when your wife gets emotional, most men don't just feel her emotion. They feel their own panic about her emotions.

That rising pressure. That idea of, I need to fix this. I need to stop this. I need to get away from this. I need to defend myself against this. That pressure is not really about her. It's about the fact that emotion still feels dangerous to you. When you start learning your own emotional language, that panic starts going down.

Not all the way, but enough to hear what she's actually saying instead of bracing against how she's saying it. Enough to be curious about her instead of instantly reactive. And that changes everything about how the two of you fight, repair, and come back together.

And like I said before, your kids see it too. They see a man who is grounded and strong and honest about what he feels that gives them something. Most of us never got a picture of what it looks like to be a man who can carry what he feels without shutting down or blowing up. That's what we're building here, a marriage where both people can actually be known.

[00:18:28] Awareness, Action, Accountability

Now let's make this practical. Here are your awareness, action, and accountability steps for this episode.

For awareness, answer this question. When your wife asks what's going on with you, what happens in your body first, and what do you usually say or do next. The purpose of this question is for you to start seeing your own pattern so that you can interrupt it and choose something else, and that's where your action steps for this week come in.

First, choose your roadmap. If this whole thing feels overwhelming, start with the four. Mad, sad, glad, afraid.

If you're ready for more, use the seven. Joy, pain, anger, fear, shame, guilt and love.

Now, here's the second step. The next time you feel the need to reach for the quick answer that shuts everything down, the, I'm fine, or I'm okay. Pause and ask yourself what you're actually feeling underneath it.

Third step. Once you name the feeling, ask the next question, what's that feeling about right now?

And then the fourth step, say one sentence out loud this week instead of your usual move. It doesn't have to be long. It just has to be more true than the answer you'd normally give when you're protecting yourself.

And for accountability, if this episode is helping you see your patterns more clearly and you want real support learning how to show up differently in your marriage, go check out my workshop, the Three Secrets to Becoming a Better Husband.

You can get it at betterhusbandsecrets.com or click the link at the top of the show notes. Again, that's betterhusbandsecrets.com.

[00:20:00] Closing Takeaway

Now, here's what I want you to take away from this episode. Your wife is not asking you to become some other kind of man.

She's asking for more access to the man who is already there. And the place to start is not by mastering every single emotion. It's by slowing down long enough to just name one more honest feeling than you did yesterday.

That's how this changes. That's how trust deepens. That's how a marriage starts feeling less like two people living beside each other and more like two people who can actually connect and support each other.

Now thanks for listening and being willing to do the hard work that most men avoid.

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