Why Men Struggle to Seek Help in Marriage with Dr. Dean Sunseri

Introduction to Better Husband

Angelo Santiago: Welcome to better husband. The show that helps you answer the simple question. How can I be a better husband? I'm Angelo Santiago.

Meet Dr. Dean Sonseri

Angelo Santiago: And today I'm joined by Dr. Dean Sonseri. Dean is a licensed professional counselor and coach who, along with his wife, HollyKem coauthored a roadmap to the soul, a practical guide to love.

Compassion and inner peace. He has worked with individuals and couples for over 30 years, helping them achieve lasting personal growth that directly impacts their marriage.

The Importance of Mentorship for Men

Angelo Santiago: And in this episode, we'll be talking about the need for mentorship for men as husbands, how men's groups have impacted both of our lives and opportunities for you to take action in your marriage to help you.

Become a better husband. Stick around. You don't want to miss this.

Um,

Angelo Santiago: Dean, thank you so much for being here. Uh, it's an honor to have you on the show. As a guest, you have so much important stuff to share. As I've read through your profile and your website and watch some of your videos. I'm like, this is definitely somebody that personally I would love to talk to as a husband.

Who's. Constantly asking myself the question, how can I become a better husband, but also for the audience, for anybody who's watching or listening. I'm really excited to get going.

Dr. Dean Sunseri: Absolute pleasure. Thank you, Angelo.

Angelo Santiago: So let's go ahead. Let's just get going.

Why Men Struggle to Seek Help in Marriage

Angelo Santiago: You know, you are not only like I mentioned into the introduction, uh, a counselor, uh, professional counselor, but you're also a mentor to men and couples in marriages. You know, I've reflected on this and we've talked a little bit about this, that I see that men tend to lean on mentors when it comes to professional development, when it comes to their physical health, when it comes to, you know, certain things, even their spiritual life, but when it comes to their marriage, it seems like there's like a closure that happens.

There's a desire to, you know, keep the, whatever's going on in the marriage. Private and not lean on the support of others, particularly other men who might be in the same situation, or maybe have gone through a similar thing that could help them. So let's open the conversation there. Like, why do you think marriage and relationship is a thing that men kind of keep the cards close?

You know, they don't like to ask for help or talk about it unless things are in like dire straits.

Dr. Dean Sunseri: Yeah, that's a good question. I think as men, it's part of the way we're enculturated that we are taught how to exercise our bodies. But in terms of exercise in our hearts, you know, that's usually not part of the programming, right? There's such an over emphasis on developing our minds, developing our bodies.

But really, the aspect of love, connection, relationship, the quality relationship has to do more with the heart. And so, in order to, um, learn those skills, those don't always come easy to us because we just oftentimes don't have the training. And so, if we have to venture into the training of that area, then it takes a certain amount of risk that's different.

Then a physical challenge.

The Role of Courage in Emotional Growth

Dr. Dean Sunseri: And so I, you know, one of my favorite words in the English language is courage and courage comes from the Latin root, uh, core, which actually means heart. And so, so it means to be, to be in your heart, to, to live from your heart, to be connected to your heart. And I think that the opposite is true too, is that some of the most dangerous people in the entire world are those that are disconnected from their heart.

And we, we call that sociopaths, the psychopaths,

Angelo Santiago: Silence.

Dr. Dean Sunseri: the challenge is to say no, no, not only is my physical self important, not only is my intellectual development important.

But I need to learn to live from a place of my heart. And that's, that's a challenge. And I think sometimes men take that challenge and go with it, but sometimes it's really intimidating. And I think that's part of the resistance. Yeah,

Angelo Santiago: the word courage, because when you first, you started talking about the risk, being willing to take the risk. I was writing a note down and I was literally lighting the word courage as you started talking about it. And what came to me is you then started talking about your heart and being, allowing your heart to be open.

The risk is knowing that. This could break my heart. Like it stings. There's no protection there. The only way I can protect my heart is to close it off so much so that it's not giving or receiving.

Personal Stories of Heartbreak and Healing

Angelo Santiago: Um, and I, in, in that short kind of reflection, I thought back as a kid, I remember like my first heartbreak and a heartbreak.

Mental decision to go and say to myself, like, I never want to feel that again. That was so painful. That was more painful than any physical pain I ever felt. And that was like the early years of my development into young manhood that kind of kept me in that place. And it took, uh, it actually took more pain to eventually.

Remember to open up my heart again. So I don't know if you can relate to that, or you've seen that with clients that you've worked with of, of early childhood trauma, kind of preventing the heart being open,

Dr. Dean Sunseri: I do. And I, I think that, uh, it's not just that things happen. It's how we manage what happens. I remember, I remember years and years ago, it illustrates it so well. Yeah. When I was a teenager, probably 15, 16 years old, I had a girlfriend and I, you know, was seeing her for about three or four months. And she suddenly broke it off.

And so I was really deeply hurt by that. But part of the way I was trained is to act like it didn't matter. You know, it's not a big deal. And the next night after she broke up with me, uh, she was with a good friend of mine at a party. And so I'm putting it together, right? So she breaks up with me. She's with him.

I can see they have a history together. And I was really devastated, but I acted like it wasn't a big deal. Now, 20 years later, I'm walking down the street and I happen to see her. I haven't seen her in years and years. She's coming down the street and I get hit by this emotional bullet. Like I'm paralyzed.

Like I'm 16 years old again. I'm 36. I'm 16 years old again. And I walked to the other side of the street to avoid her. And I'm telling a group of friends of mine, I was in a men's group at the time.

The Impact of Men's Groups

Dr. Dean Sunseri: And they're saying, dude, you got to deal with that. I said, what do you mean? I got to deal with that. I haven't seen her in years.

And I, no, no, no, no. You can't even say hello to her. So, so I said, well, what do I have to do? And he said, I want you to write a letter to her and to talk about how hurtful that was for you and how you felt about it. And I want you to write in that letter to your friend that basically betrayed you and how you felt about that.

And then I want at the end for you to offer that up. And to, to, uh, declare that you forgive her. So I'm like, I'm not sending that to her. You know, they said, no, no, no, you don't send it to her. You're going to read it to us. So, so I said, all right, you know, I was just like, I trusted these guys. So I wrote this letter and I was just writing, you know, about how I was hurting really saying what was in my heart that I was denying.

And when I read that letter to, to my group, now this is 20 years later, I'm like snotting and crying and, you know, boohoo and, and I was so surprised we came up for me. But as, uh, and they just loved me through it and, and, you know, released it and I just declared forgiveness. Now, as God would have it, a week later, I'm walking into this, uh, it was actually to a church, and as I'm walking in with my wife and son, guess who's walking out?

The woman, right? I haven't seen her in years, and a week later, I'm seeing her. And do you know, uh, nothing happened on the inside. Like I was able to hug her and tell her hello. I mean, she was a 16 year old kid, you know, just like I was. I mean, and I was able to greet her, introduce it to my beautiful wife, you know, and son, and, but she couldn't look at me in the eye, like she was still carrying it and, you know, I actually felt compassion for her, but, um, I was saying, isn't that amazing that this is something like you were describing that happened years and years ago.

And that's an important characteristic of our wounds. Is that our wounds have no sense of time. So the wounds that we carry on the inside don't know the difference between 20 years ago, yesterday, and today, and there's certain symbols that can trigger it. And so it could be entering into a significant relationship again.

If I haven't dealt with that. that issue in my heart, it's going to impact my ability to open to my wife, my ability to open up to different relationships. And I really felt like that wasn't about her, the work that I did, but it was about me being able to move to a deeper level with my wife that I had at that moment.

And that's what I challenged, challenged, man. I say, I say, look, If you don't learn to manage your heart, your heart's going to manage you and it's going to cause problem. And, and so I really learned an important lesson from that, that, that as I begin to work my heart and release it, it, it softens my heart to relationships today.

And it's not hardened from the situations of yesterday. And they say time heals. And I think there's, there's some truth to that, but there's also a with wounds, don't go away unless you manage them.

Angelo Santiago: I think it's a combination. Like you said, like time is needed, I think, in my personal opinion for healing, but time alone won't heal time. We'll mask, you know, the pain for sure. But like you said, 20 years later, time had passed and yet that pain was still there. It was just hidden away. That you wouldn't allow yourself to be.

So I love what you talked about, like that, those things that we carry. And in a lot in the men's workspace, we talk about those things of like, what are the things that you're carrying every time that something that happens to you or for you, or you, you know, an uncomfortable situation and you don't confront it.

You just kind of take this rock and you just put it in the backpack and you just carry that thing until you start taking those things out and actually looking at them and. Trying to figure out, like, what is this about? Why am I still carrying this thing? How can I let it go? And your story about the men's group and writing the letters is one beautiful way to do it. that brings us back to the beginning question about mentorship and marriage. And you seem to have found this and I can relate because we've talked about this. We both found so much support in men's groups. And so maybe the opportunity for men, and if you're listening or watching this, it's not necessarily the need for a one on one mentor.

Cause we don't have all the answers. One, one person will not have all the answers, but the collective of a group coming together and being able to listen to other men, being able to share in a group of other men, being able to connect at that heart level that supports us in. marriage. And so, you know, for you, you, you shared that one story, but maybe take us back a little bit more.

Like what has been the impact of men's groups in your own development as a counselor, as a man, as a husband? And like, what would you want to say for somebody who is hesitant to step into that space?

Dean's Journey and Emotional Intelligence

Dr. Dean Sunseri: think it started way back when I was, I was in the Catholic seminary. I had some really strong spiritual encounters. I went to the seminary and at a certain point, I think there was also a lot of emotional turmoil I was dealing with at the time too. And it became a safe place for me in terms of.

disconnecting. So it had sort of a purity to it but also had this impurity to it. But as I continued to grow, what happened was that my father made a very courageous decision to go to treatment. He had been struggling with alcohol. We had did an intervention. He went to treatment, been sober ever since. I mean, he's 85 years old and it's 40 something years, which is a great gift.

But at the time, You know, we were really struggling and one of the results of addiction in a family system is the don't trust, don't feel, don't talk. That's kind of three rules that begin to get activated. And so there's this disconnection from our emotional life that begins to evolve over time. And so when he went into his own process, It really plunged me into my own process and challenged me because I started to recognize how I started to not only have my own issues around substance use, but I also started looking at, at the impact of that, that it had on me being part of the family system.

So that began a journey to say, no, no, uh, I need to work on this. And part of that was about being able to to be aware of my emotions, manage my emotions. And to express my emotions. So that's what sort of led me into some of the men's work that I did. And, and a lot of the men that I met, I met in some of the support group meetings that we were having that were also involved in some of the men's stuff.

And, and it was. Wonderful and terribly uncomfortable.

Angelo Santiago: Yeah.

Dr. Dean Sunseri: the wonderful part of it was that I went to a workshop and I was kind of hungry and you know, I, I see something, I want to learn something and I'm going after it. And so I was at this workshop, they had this guy, uh, Terry Kellogg was speaking.

He was real big speaker back then. And he was talking about emotional health, psychological health recovery. He said something really, uh, disorienting to me. He said, He said, as man, he believed that you truly can't love a woman until you first had been loved by other men. And so I was kind of like, it spoke truth to me, but I was like, what does this mean?

what he meant was that I need to be blessed and connected to men who seen me, who mentor me, who loved me. And that when I start to have that fulfilled, it really, frees me up to truly love the woman I choose in my life. And the opposite tide too, is that if I don't have that blessing and I don't have that experience and I don't have that validation, then I often look for those things from my wife and it often creates a lot more problems than it solves.

And so there was this something I got hold of at that moment that started me on a quest that no matter how uncomfortable this is, I'm going to learn how to do this thing. And when I met this thing is, is to really grow in emotional intelligence and grow in emotional health. So I started with the real basics.

I mean, I would have these little feeling wheel and like something would happen, it's like, how do I feel? You know, I'm like, oh, well I was upset about that. Oh, I said, I was angry and would journal. I was journal on a daily basis about. I was just learning to connect my thoughts and my experiences with my emotions, becoming able to communicate that and just becoming more intelligent about that.

And when I did, you know, all of a sudden things, relationships began to have a higher level of meaning, a higher, a greater depth. greater connection, higher levels of fulfillment. And so that continued to grow and it sort of turned into helping others do that. And that sort of evolved into going into counseling and other things.

And so there was all these things I started to learn and start to put together and I started to see that when I'm connected to my heart, I can connect better with my spouse. When I'm connected to my heart. I can perceive and connect spiritually when I'm connected to my heart. I can, I have a greater clarity about my purpose and my passion and direction that I'm going.

And when I'm connected to my heart, I can connect to, to people around me on such greater levels.

Angelo Santiago: Dean, that was beautifully said, and I am in full agreement with what you just closed up on, on the power of that heart connection. Like it's not just this, you know, this one, you're not just doing this one thing so you can talk about your emotions. It's like, no, no, no. There is. There is. A huge array of things that open up in your life, spiritually, relationally, personally, like, like to love yourself is another thing to touch on, like you interact with strangers, your generosity, like all of it is connected.

To what you're describing here, the heart, um, I took a couple of notes as you were talking because you said so many amazing things. I love your description of, of your first steps of into men's groups being wonderful and also terribly uncomfortable. Like, I can relate to that. And so for anyone who's thinking about, you know, focusing on how uncomfortable it may be to step into.

It's like it is, it is, and nobody's pretending like it's not everybody. The first time they step into a men's group or any sort of, uh, even if it's a retreat experience, it's uncomfortable because you're about to face parts of yourself that you haven't faced and you're about to show parts of yourself that you don't typically show.

So that's the uncomfortable, but then. You get to that wonderful part, which, you know, I've seen it personally in my own life. I've seen it in men who I've worked with. I've seen it in men who I've spoken to on my previous podcast. We are the men and their stories. when it all comes down to, I think what the speaker was mentioning that you mentioned about being able to be loved and, and to love other men, it's like this coming of age that happens, that is no longer present in our current society of, of young men coming of age through the mentorship and the guidance of, Of the elders of older men who have experience who become their mentors, who become their guides, you know, who don't hold their hands to the process, but like allow them to make mistakes and help them along the way.

A Roadmap to the Soul

Angelo Santiago: I want to now transition a little bit to the work that you and your wife Holly can do together. Um, the book specifically, and also the work that you do through the book, a roadmap to the soul.

And I want you to share with the audience, like what is all this based out of, , what are people, uh, getting out from the experience of going through the book and using it, um, as that roadmap.

Um, and what do you want them to know?

Dr. Dean Sunseri: Yeah, so my wife is blessed with the gift of dyslexia. And so, you know, I was in school studying to be a counselor studying all these psychological theories and some of them were good and some of them were absolutely goofy and everything in between. And so I'm trying to get my identity as a counselor and she's been functioning in a private practice doing work.

And she's amazing. She's absolutely amazing in the work, the results that she gets. And so I was asking her one day, I said, I said, how do you work with people and being dyslexic? She, she doesn't see in words, she sees in pictures. And so when she said, when I work with somebody, I see three different pictures.

I see their wounded self. I see their coping behaviors, and I see who they really are. And when I'm working with them, I see them switch from one to the other. And so I work with each one, and I really caught it was very simple. But I said, Understand that. And so we began to put a language to those three parts.

And so what we do is we, we have the, the true self is who you are, your destiny, your purpose, the very best part of you, your conscience. And then we also have a part that we say is what we call the wounded child. It doesn't mean I was wounded in childhood, but it's the part of me that carries my emotional pain about life that hasn't been externalized.

When I, when I experienced painful events in my life. I will either, if it's safe, externalize it, give voice, release, begin to heal. If I, if I don't, I internalize it and it goes into that bucket. So going back to that relationship, I had internalized the pain that I had about that breakup and it just went in that bucket and it was dormant until it was triggered.

So we have this part called the wounded child part. And then we have another part that we call, we call it the protective, but it's our coping behaviors.

Understanding Coping Behaviors

Dr. Dean Sunseri: It's the behaviors that I developed to help me cope with life that actually worked for me, but over time they work against me. So for example, when I was a teenager, if I was upset, I'd go for long walks in the levee, come back clear my head, I was fine.

So if I was in pain, I would isolate and not talk. Work beautiful. I get my marriage. We're getting a little argument. True self says, go talk to her. The other part says, go for a long walk, come back, don't talk about it. Something else happens. Go for a long walk up, come back. Don't talk. I do that four or five times and all of a sudden all these problems are piling up that I'm not dealing with.

And it's very behavior that worked for me. is now working against me. And so we need to identify what those are. It's really easy to to see when you struggle with any kind of addiction or I mean, I remember a guy that was using cocaine and he said, man, can you help me quit? I heard you can help me quit. I said, Well, when's the last time you used?

He said, last Wednesday, I said, never again. I'm spending my money fighting with my girlfriend and starting impact work. I gotta quit. He said, the following Friday, I went to my buddy's house. My girlfriend was working and a voice in my head said, because when I walked in, it was some cocaine on the table. A voice said, get out right now.

You're going to use He said, the other voice said, nah, just go hang out with the guys. Get out right now, you're going to use. Just go hang out with the guys. So he said, he went to hang out with the guys. Get out right now. You're going to use. He said, the other voice said, look, use today, quit tomorrow, be a brand new day.

Get out.

Angelo Santiago: Yeah.

Dr. Dean Sunseri: He ends up using and he gets home. His girlfriend could see he was using, they get in a big fight and he wakes up the next morning with sincere remorse and guilt. Because he, but I was excited because he was describing so beautifully the dialogue between the true self and the protected the coping behavior.

And when the coping behavior takes a life of its own and has more power than than us. Then if I have 100 percent power, say, and my coping behavior has 80 percent and I have 20%, then it's calling the shots. I'm on for the ride. Just saying, what are you doing? This is not who you are. And it's right. But if it's opposite, I have 80 percent power.

My coping behavior is 20%. Then it's just a voice in my head. Let's go do this. Let's go do that. No, no, no, no, no. I know where it goes. And so we, we work with individuals to help them begin to separate in a sense these different parts. And what I found over the years is that If my wounds, if I'm carrying a hundred pounds of emotional pain, my coping behavior is going to be a hundred pounds strong like their teammates.

If this goes up to a thousand pounds, for whatever reason, my coping behavior will be thousand pounds strong. And I begin to get lost between the two. So the men's work, the therapeutic work, the coaching work. is I need to contain my coping behaviors, be aware of them, separate them from who I really am.

And secondly, I need to do some healing work with that, which I'm carrying. And as I do that, then I start recovering who I really am. You know, there's a lot of talk about recovery. Well, what are you recovering? You're recovering who you really are. And, and that process happens. It makes it, uh, easier when I give these parts a name and we, and that's kind of the process that we do is we, we name it, we claim it, we separate it because we all have that inside of us.

You know, if my wife gives me a sour look, true self looks at her and says, she must be distressed and upset. Be kind, see what's happening. The wounded child's like, you must have messed up again. You're never good enough. Why is she mad at you? Why is she upset? Protective part might say, You know, tell her to get the smirk off her face and quit complaining and whining.

Alright, so depending on who gets my mouth, I will get three very different reactions from her, right?

And so, I need to know who's talking in a sense. I have all that going on, but I need to know who's talking and I need to know who's going to get my mom and that's a self management issue and that's that's what we're talking about.

It's like separating. That's just part of our humanness. It's part of it. And so when we reflect on that, we realize that our coping behaviors. change and shift over the years and they work for us. But then they begin to work us. They're really survival behaviors. And once those survival behaviors we start, sometimes we start working on taking away one and then another one pops up.

So, you know, I quit using drugs, but I'm drinking like a fish and I quit drinking and now I'm gambling and you know, whatever. And it just goes to another baby. If I don't deal with the root, you're not going to get freedom from the coping behavior. So it's all that has to be done with. So what we do is we just bring people down that roadmap of doing some healing work, containing behavior, empowering true self over and over again, and helping a person have a tools to manage that.

And then how to communicate that to my partner in a way that they can hear.

nice question to ask If you're trying to identify your coping behavior is what are three things that you do when you're stressed out or upset that and to help you cope that you would consider more unhealthy. And so, or you can ask yourself, if you're in a relationship, what are 2 or 3 things.

behaviors that you do that your spouse complains about, you yell too much, you, uh, you, you, you clam up and don't talk or, you know, you do. And those are start giving you some indication of what those coping behaviors are. The other interesting thing to reflect on, which is, um, we'll tell you about that is part of part of who can make up your coping behavior is your primary caretakers at their worst, not at their best.

like at their worst. And sometimes that becomes part of that. So if, if my father was kind of emotionally disconnected and checked out, well, that can easily become an option. If, if, you know, a parent was, uh, drank a lot that can easily become an option. Oftentimes, if we reflect on the behaviors, not at their best part of who they are, their best becomes part of your true self, but who they are at their worst.

Often becomes an option for that part of you. So as you start to identify, you start to unfold that, but there's really great power in ownership, right?

Angelo Santiago: the, The last step that you talked about after coming to the awareness, making the name, separating the parts, really coming to that realization is then the healing work. And I want to, we're, we're kind of closing out on time here, but I want to just give the opportunity because I know. Because you can look at, you know, therapy and see that there's not a lot of men as therapists, as counselors, like it's not a male dominated area. And you look at who's actually going to therapy and in even couples counseling, it's typically, you know, the numbers show that it's the, the woman who's bringing the man to therapy.

And so there is a like resistance that men carry. And I want you to speak to anybody who's watching or listening right now, who Has that resistance, you know, maybe they have that internalized belief that I don't need help from somebody else. Or this, this guy or this gal across from the couch is just going to blame me for all the problems in our marriage, right?

Encouraging Men to Seek Help

Angelo Santiago: It's like, what is the healing work and how can we invite more men into it from a place of like, Hey man, I'm here with you. I'm not here to tell you that you're wrong or to change you. This is actually good for you.

Dr. Dean Sunseri: I would say that, and this is a working definition I work from in terms of a spiritually mature manhood. And that definition is to be powerfully vulnerable. And what I mean by that is to be able to stand in our power as a man and at the same time to be connected to our heart and to be able to, to be vulnerable in the midst of our power.

Thank you. So, we, we often have two extremes. We have the powerful, the powerful man who's strong, who's big, who's untouchable, the muchissimo, right? And that has its own inherent problems. Then you have the other extreme where, oh, no, we just need to be impressionable marshmallows who are so in touch with our feelings and we're just mushy.

And we have no spine, right? And I say, I say, the ideal is to be able to stand in both simultaneously. And that's what mature manhood is. So you look at all these epic stories about men like Braveheart and stuff. That's what they were. They were powerfully vulnerable at the same time. So my challenge is to say, as you grow, you're going to be challenged to grow into those two areas.

Sometimes it's to grow into greater power and strength and standing up. Sometimes it'll be more connected to learn to be vulnerable in the midst of your power. And if you are struggling in either of those areas, there's assistance available to help you move into that place. And by the way, that's what women find most attractive.

You find a man that's standing in his power and is able to be vulnerable at the same time. Like that's, you want a woman learn how to do that. Right? So, so in a sense, you have that as the ideal, our training oftentimes will emphasize maybe the power part and underemphasize the vulnerable part. And so sometimes we have to intentionally go about finding skills, finding connections that will teach us and help us move into that.

And so that's, that's available. The other thing about that is. There's a price to pay to do it because it takes courage, but there's a bigger price to pay by not, it's okay to be proactive about this. You don't have to be reactive. You don't have to wait until you hit the midlife crisis or that you. You land on the backside and that there's, if you're proactive about it, , you'll be walking into the destiny of who you're called to be and who you meant to be, and you end up becoming life giving.

to those around you instead of life taking. And so when, when you commit yourself to your own process of healing, you commit yourself to your own process of dealing with the stuff on the inside. When that stuff gets transformed and you work through it, then it becomes healing. The very avenue that you give life to others.

And that's the value of doing the work is that you go from a taker to a giver. And that's what mature adulthood is all about, is making that transition from taking to giving. Because we're not real attractive when we're 15, 50 years old and we're still taking from everybody.

Angelo Santiago: Well said, Dean. Well said. Um, absolutely. I have so much more to say on this and I will continue to say it as I, uh, share more of, of my heart and my experience on this show. And, um, have people like you on here who are just going to emphasize more of this, like we're all in it together, and the power of us doing it collectively in conversation, in connection, in supporting each other. Is amplifying this desire that we have to give to give. And that is definitely true.

So. One way to lean in is to connect with you, Dr. Dean and your wife and the work that you do with the roadmap to the soul. So in that, like, just where can people connect with you? Where can they find more about your work? We'll have all the links in the show notes, but tell us a little bit more about, um, connecting with you.

Dr. Dean Sunseri: Yeah, thanks. Um, well, we have a free resource, it's our YouTube channel, I Have a Voice. Lots and lots of videos a couple of hundred on on on this stuff We also have our book a roadmap to the soul which you can get on Amazon or you can go to our website I have a voice calm and at that also is not only do we have our book but we have Our online coaching program, which is a three to four month program for individuals and couples, and it's just been transformational.

We walk you through the process from A to Z of going through this process, and we do some coaching calls a couple times a week. so that's really starting to take off and it's a wonderful way to do more of a deep dive into doing the intensive work of becoming who you're really meant to be.

Q&A: Improving Communication in Marriage

Angelo Santiago: as we close out, as I've been doing with other guests on this podcast, I want to give, uh, uh, an opportunity to answer a question that's been posed by somebody who's in a marriage and just to get your take, uh, on it, Dean. And I think it has a lot to do with what we were talking about, about that protective part.

Once you come into adulthood and use that protective process, very short, we don't have a lot of information, but just. are a few steps you would, would you would guide this person? And this is actually coming in from a woman who's writing in about her husband. And she writes, my husband rarely talks.

He doesn't ask about my day or anything about me. I ask questions. I get a one word answer outside of our family life and home. There's not much conversation. Is it my marriage or is this men for the most part? I feel so lonely when my coworkers seem to care more about talking to me than my actual husband. So what would you encourage her, um, to maybe either speak to her husband or about, or just for her to have a better understanding of maybe what's going on with her husband and what maybe if he's listening, what you would want to say to him?

Dr. Dean Sunseri: Yeah, that's, uh, that's a, a challenging thing because you're, she's willing to really talk and, and, you know, we don't know where he's at, but I do think that when I work with couples, it's really important to have. You know, 10, 15 minutes that they dedicate each day to unwind. And sometimes men work better with formulas.

And so, uh, I will give them like, uh, share what is the highlight of the day? What is the low light of the day? And, um, a couple of things that you're grateful for that happened that day, you know, just kind of filling in the blank and sharing it. It could be other questions, but, uh, I do think that that's very important.

I know that even with my son and my wife, that was always a standard question when we ate dinner together. Is highlight and low light. And so you kind of kept a pulse on how he was doing the best and the worst. But we would share that also and created connection. So I think the rhythm of trying to find some type of quality time together would be that's consistent.

And that's non negotiable and we can agree to is, uh, important. And I always tell the man, I say, look. Number one, you have to become good at asking questions. Honest, caring questions and allow her to process. But you also really need to work on letting her in on some of the conversations you're having in your head.

Like you don't think it's important. You don't think she wants to be bothered by what happened at work. But she wants to, like, work on intentionally letting her in on those conversations, and it'll meet a need that she has. It's very, very important. So, you know, communication conversation is definitely a high need for a woman, oftentimes more than the man, but not always.

And that, you know, it's important to facilitate ways to do that.

Conclusion and Resources

Angelo Santiago: Thank you, Dr. Dean for being here. Thank you. Uh, if you're watching or listening for joining us on better husband, if you feel like you got any value from this episode, make sure to hit that follow or subscribe button. And if you have any questions, comments, or a situation in your marriage that you want for me to cover on the show, you can text or email using the links in the show notes.

I'm here every week to help you become a better husband. I'm Angelo Santiago. Thanks again for being a part of this community and I'll see you on the next one.