You’re Being Honest—But It’s Still Pushing Her Away

[00:00:00] When Small Moments Turn Into Big Distance

There's a moment in your marriage when something small happens. A plan changes, something doesn't go the way you expected, your wife says or does something that just hits you wrong, and all of a sudden you feel something change in your body.

Frustration, irritation, maybe anger. And for some men, that turns into blowing up, getting harsh, getting intense, bringing out the you always or you never.

And for others it's a little quieter, not as extreme, but just as painful for her. It's sarcasm or pulling away that I told you so energy that you don't even have to say out loud.

Either way, when that moment happens, something shifts for you, for her and for your marriage. The conversation goes sideways and instead of dealing with the issue in front of you, working through it and feeling closer, you end up further apart.

If you've ever walked away from a moment like that thinking, why did that get so big so fast? Well, this episode's for you.

In this episode, we're gonna talk about why these moments happen, why you react this way, and why letting your emotions run the show, even when you're being honest, can quietly destroy connection.

We'll look at what harshness really is, including the kind that doesn't sound angry at all. How unbridled self-expression turns into a losing strategy in marriage. And what it actually looks like to express frustration or anger without blowing things outta proportion or attacking your wife's character.

By the end of this episode, you'll have a clearer way to notice when you're crossing that line and a more grounded way to communicate what you feel so your wife feels safer and not blamed. Stick around. You don't wanna miss this one

[00:01:36] How This Showed Up 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, one of the things I've learned the longer I've been married is that marriage has this strange way of pairing you with someone who's similar enough to feel familiar and different enough to challenge you in all the places you didn't know needed challenging.

That's kind of the beauty of it and it's also the curse. Because for most people, a lot of the tension in a marriage doesn't come from big betrayals or obvious mistakes.

It comes from the differences. From preferences. From how each of you moves through the world. For me, one of the biggest differences between my wife and me shows up around structure and plans.

I am very structured. When I put something on my calendar, it's locked in. I like knowing when things are happening, how they're happening, when we need to leave, what the plan is. Once something's decided, it would take a pretty serious reason to change it.

My wife, well, she's much more flexible, she's more free flowing, and when I'm in a good place, when I'm rested, regulated, and not carrying a bunch of stress, I can actually see the beauty in that. I can appreciate how her flexibility helps me loosen up a bit, relax, not grip onto everything so tightly.

But when I'm not in a good place, when I'm stressed, overwhelmed, and already on edge, that same flexibility can drive me crazy.

And this is where things used to go sideways for me a lot of the time. We'd have a plan, I'd organize the whole day around it, and then something would change on her end. It could be that she forgot another commitment she had, or that she wasn't feeling well, or she just didn't want to do it anymore. And instead of staying grounded, I'd feel this surge of frustration rise up in my body and suddenly it wasn't just about this plan anymore, it turned into you always do this, or I can never plan anything with you, or you're so unreliable.

Now if I slow that down and look at it honestly, that level of intensity didn't match the situation at all. But in those moments, I wasn't really reacting to her. I was reacting to my own discomfort with change, with uncertainty, with not being in control. And instead of owning that, I let it come out as harshness.

As exaggeration, as blowing things outta proportion. As attacking her character over something that didn't deserve that kind of emotional force. And here's the part I really want to name, because I know I'm not alone in this. On my worst days, I'd look at everything she did through a negative lens.

Everything she did felt like evidence, proof that I was right to be upset. In Relational Life Therapy, we call that a Core Negative Image, but we're not gonna get into that today. The important part is this. Once I slipped into that mindset, my reactions stopped being about connection and started being about discharge.

And sometimes that discharge was loud, it was harsh, it was intense, and other times it was quieter. It was sarcasm or pulling away or doing the thing, but with resentment that I told you so energy. Either way, the message landed the same and the cost was always connection.

What I had to start seeing slowly and sometimes painfully, was that these moments weren't about being right. They were about how I was handling my emotions when things didn't go my way. And once I saw that, I couldn't unsee it because this wasn't just about plans, this was about a pattern. And that pattern shows up in a lot of marriages.

So in this episode, I wanna slow this down with you. I wanna talk about why these reactions happen, why they actually make sense, why they're so damaging to connection, even when they don't look like anger on the surface, and what it looks like to express what you're feeling without blowing things up or letting it leak out sideways.

[00:05:24] Why This Is So Hard (And Why It Makes Sense)

Before we go any further, let me slow this down and normalize something. If you hear yourself and what I just described, if you recognize the harshness, the intensity, or the sarcasm and the shutdown, that doesn't mean you're messed up or that there's something wrong with you. It just means that you likely learned how to handle emotion by watching someone who also never learned how.

Most of us never sat down and got taught how to feel anger, frustration, or disappointment, and then communicate it in a way that keeps connection intact. We learned by observing, by growing up in homes where emotions were either loud and explosive, or where they disappeared altogether. So we internalized what we saw.

If you grew up in a house where conflict came with yelling, criticism, or character attacks, then harshness can feel normal. It can feel like that's just how problems get addressed. That's how things get resolved. And if you grew up in a house where emotions were avoided, where no one really talked about what they were feeling, then strong emotions can feel overwhelming as an adult.

They don't come out in measured ways. They come out all at once or they leak out sideways. Either way, most men were never shown how to stay connected to their emotions without letting those emotions take over the interaction. And marriage has a way of exposing that. Because marriage doesn't just bring up your feelings.

It brings up your patterns, especially when you feel disappointment, challenged or out of control. When something doesn't go the way you expected. When a plan changes, when your wife does something differently than you would, your nervous system reacts before your thinking brain ever gets involved, and that reaction isn't random, it's familiar. It's what your body learned was necessary at some point in your life to protect yourself, to get heard, or to regain a sense of control.

So when you get intense or when you exaggerate, or when you jump to you always or you never, or when you pull back, get sarcastic or shut down. Those aren't character flaws they're learned strategies. They just happen to be strategies that don't work anymore.

And until you understand why they show up, it's almost impossible to change them in the moment. That's what we're going to look at next. How emotion crosses the line from something that wants to be understood into something that starts doing damage.

[00:07:35] When Emotion Takes Over the Conversation

Now, a lot of men struggle in these moments because once strong emotion shows up, they don't know how to stay in relationship with it. Anger comes up, frustration hits, and instead of being something you notice and work with, it starts running the interaction. You can feel yourself speeding up. Your tolerance drops. The situation feels bigger than it actually is.

That's usually when exaggeration enters. One moment turns into a global conclusion. A specific frustration turns into this is how you always are. What you're reacting to in the present gets mixed with everything you felt before.

And from the inside, that escalation feels justified. It feels like you're finally saying what you've been holding back. It feels like honesty. In the personal development world, some people may even describe it as sharing your truth, but once emotion takes over the delivery of that truth, the goal begins to change.

The conversation stops being about understanding and connection and starts being about release. That's unbridled self-expression. It's when intensity becomes the vehicle. It's when emotion is used to push, to emphasize, to make sure the point lands and the impact of that is predictable. Connection disappears.

The issue isn't that emotion showed up. The issue is that emotion took control of the exchange. Once emotion starts trying to force agreement, to force understanding, or force change, it becomes a losing strategy, and most men don't recognize that shift until the damage is already done.

That's why the next part matters so much. Learning how to spot when intensity has entered the room and taken control.

[00:09:13] What “If It’s Harsh, It’s Off” Actually Means

There's a simple phrase I use that helps make sense of these moments. If it's harsh, it's off. I wanna be really clear about what that means. I'm not saying your feelings are wrong.

I'm not saying you shouldn't feel angry or frustrated. I'm talking about the delivery. Harshness shows up when emotions start adding force. You can hear it in your voice, you can feel it in your body, and there's an edge to it. A push behind the words. The goal shifts from sharing. To making a point. That's the moment when things stop landing.

Do you know the moment I'm talking about? Can you picture yourself in it? You see, harshness doesn't mean yelling. It doesn't require raised volume. It's about intensity. It's about urgency. It's about that extra charge you add because you want the message to hit harder. And as I've said before, the problem is the harder you push, the less room there is for connection.

Once harshness enters, your wife isn't tracking the details of what you're saying anymore. She's responding to the emotional force behind it. Her system shifts into protection. She braces, defends, shuts down or pushes back. That's why you can be technically calm and still be off.

You can be explaining something logically and still feel sharp. You can be naming a concern and still sound accusatory. You can be just being honest and still come across as attacking. Harshness isn't about the words themselves, it's about the energy underneath them. It's the difference between saying something because you wanted to be understood and saying something because you need it to land a certain way.

When intensity is present, it changes how everything is received. Even reasonable points start to feel threatening. Even fair requests start to feel unsafe. If the delivery carries edge, pressure or force, the conversation is already off track because harshness pulls the focus away from the issue and onto protection.

And most men don't notice the shift while it's happening, they notice it afterwards when the conversation already collapsed, when the distance shows up when they're left. Wondering why something small turned into something big.

[00:11:19] How Harshness Shows Up Without Yelling

Now at this point, some men are listening and thinking, yeah, but I, I don't get angry like that. I don't raise my voice. Uh, I don't explode.

I don't see myself as intense, and that might be true, but harshness doesn't always come out loud. Sometimes it shows up sideways. It shows up as sarcasm. Short answers, pulling back, doing the thing, but letting resentment tag along with it. Sometimes it shows up as silence. Because you're frustrated and don't know how to say it without turning it into a fight.

And sometimes it shows up as that I told you so energy. You don't even have to say the words. It's in your tone, it's in your posture, it's in your lack of engagement, and all of that carries the same message. Something in me is angry and I don't know how to bring it out directly. So it leaks. Passive aggressiveness is still aggression.

It's anger that doesn't feel safe to name or you don't know how to name. But the impact on your wife is the same. She feels the distance and tension. She feels like she's being punished without knowing why. And from your side, it might feel controlled, measured, even justified, but from her side, it feels confusing and unsafe.

When emotion isn't expressed clearly, it doesn't disappear. It finds another way out. If you don't consider yourself an angry person, I want you to really hear me on this. Even if you don't yell, even if you don't blow up, the edge is still there. The harshness doesn't go away. It just changes form.

That's why learning how to express emotion cleanly and clearly matters so much. That's what we're going to talk about next.

[00:12:52] What Clean Emotional Expression Actually Looks Like

So let's talk about the part most men were never taught. How do I talk about emotions that I'm feeling without starting a fight, without blaming, without having it used against me?

Let's start with this: clean, emotional expression doesn't mean staying calm at all costs. It doesn't mean suppressing what you feel it means knowing what's happening inside of you and choosing how to bring it into the conversation. It starts with awareness. Before you speak, you have to notice what's going on in you.

Most of the time, you can tell you're irritated. You can tell you're angry. You can tell you're frustrated or disappointment not in your head, but in your body. That awareness gives you a moment of choice. The problem is that for most of us, that moment is short and we quickly move past the awareness and into the reaction.

This is how we've always done it, because nobody ever taught us another way. So here's the move you have to practice. The moment you feel it come in, you slow it down. You don't say anything. You recognize the emotion. You acknowledge it. You take a deep breath, not to push it away or shove it down, but just to give yourself the opportunity to choose what comes next.

From that point, you stay connected to the emotion and to the relationship, knowing that the words you choose can either bring you closer together or push you apart. Instead of letting the emotion spill out as intensity, exaggeration, or accusation, slow the delivery down. You stay with the feeling without turning it into a verdict about your wife.

Clean expression sounds like ownership. It sounds like I'm feeling really frustrated right now, or I can tell I'm angry and I don't want to turn this into an attack or a fight, or even this matters to me and I need a minute to say it without blowing it up. You're naming the emotion without assigning blame, you're describing your experience without turning it into her character.

That's the difference. If that one deep breath is not enough, take a time out, but commit to returning to the conversation. And that can sound like I want to talk about this, but right now I'm feeling some intensity that I don't wanna spill out on you. I need five minutes, or I need to step outside for a moment. Or can we just take a few deep breaths together and then we talk about this?

When emotion is expressed cleanly, it invites connection instead of defense. Your wife doesn't have to brace herself. She doesn't have to decode sarcasm, or protect herself from an emotional swing. She can stay present. And here's the part that matters.

Clean expression does not guarantee an agreement. It doesn't guarantee immediate change, and it doesn't guarantee that the conversation goes perfectly. What it does is keep the relationship intact while the issue is being talked about. That's the real win because once emotion is no longer being used to push or punish, you can actually deal with what's underneath it.

The frustration, the disappointment, the difference between you. Over time, this becomes a new pattern. You trust yourself to feel what you feel. Your wife trusts you to bring it without making it unsafe. And the distance that used to show up after hard moments doesn't have to anymore. That's what clean emotional expression makes possible.

[00:16:02] Action Steps

Here are a few simple things you can start practicing this week. One, pay attention to your early warning signs. Notice when your body tightens, when your patience drops, or when you feel that urge to speed up, exaggerate, or make a point that's your cue to slow down.

Two. Name the emotion before it turns into intensity. Say what you're feeling out loud without attaching it to what your wife is doing wrong. Keep it about your experience, not her character.

Three, say it once and then stop. Share what you need to share clearly without repeating it or stacking examples or pushing for a reaction. Let the words stand on their own.

And finally, four, if you feel yourself getting harsh, pause the conversation. Taking a break is better than letting frustration turn into sarcasm shut down, or an emotional explosion you'll have to clean up later.

[00:16:55] Reflection Question

Take a moment and honestly reflect on this one question to help you build your emotional awareness. When I feel frustrated or angry in my marriage, how does it usually come out for me? Do I get harsh and intense? Do I shut down? Do I become sarcastic or passive aggressive, or do I let it leak out in ways I don't always notice?

[00:17:15] Closing Takeaway

Here's what I want you to walk away with. Your emotions aren't the problem. It's the way that they come out that determines whether they create connection or distance. When frustration turns into intensity, exaggeration or sideways aggression, it pulls your marriage off track. You don't have to get rid of your anger.

You don't have to shut it down or let it take over. You can feel it, understand it and express it in a way that keeps your relationship intact. If it's harsh, it's off. And learning how to bring your emotions without blowing things up is one of the most important skills you can build as a husband. So if you're ready to go deeper into this work, this is exactly the kind of skills we practice inside of Better Husband Academy.

It's where men learn how to stay grounded, emotionally honest, and connected in the moments that matter most without blowing things up or shutting down. You can learn more at betterhusbandacademy.com. Thank you for listening, and thank you for doing this work. You've been listening to Better Husband. I'm Angelo Santiago, and I'll see you on the next one.