086|You're Doing the Work — What If She Won't?

[00:00:00] You're the Only One Doing the Work

Most of the time when I sit down to make one of these episodes, I've got one man in mind. He's usually the guy who got dragged into or pushed into this, into coaching, into therapy, into working on himself, usually because his wife finally hit her limit.

He took a long time to even admit there was a problem. He's just getting started. He's been struggling for a while, and honestly, he doesn't know what to do next. If that's the only man I ever talk to, I miss somebody, and I don't wanna miss him, even though I know he's not most of you.

But some of you are standing on the complete opposite end of this. So for the next little while, I'm talking straight to you. You're the man who's been at this a long time.

You've put the marriage first. You've carried the weight of it on your back, and you've kept trying to build something closer with her, and she hasn't wanted to do that with you, or she hasn't been able to for a handful of reasons I'll name in a minute. Most of my audience isn't standing where you're standing, but you are, and this one's for you.

And here's what it looks like. You've been treading water for a while now. You're doing all of it, the house, the kids, the schedule, the stuff that falls through the cracks. And it's not just the chores.

You're the one trying. You've read the books. You've listened to the podcast. You've been working on yourself, working on the marriage, trying to build some kind of language the two of you can actually talk in, and she's not. Most men in this spot know exactly what I'm talking about. Maybe she's unwilling.

Maybe she's checked out. Maybe she just doesn't get it. Maybe she's not really there for you right now. And honestly, it doesn't matter which one it is because the question this episode answers isn't what's going on with her, it's what you do.

Today we're talking about what to do when you're the one carrying the marriage and she isn't carrying it back. But we're not gonna talk about how to get her to do the work. I'm not going to promise you that, and honestly, you should be a little suspicious of anyone who does. This is about you.

By the end of this episode, you're going to know how to get clear, clear on what you're actually afraid of here, and clear on where your bottom line is so you can stop slowly disappearing inside your own marriage.

And let me tell you what this isn't. This isn't the episode where you listen once and you go blow up your marriage tonight. We're not doing that. This is the get clear episode. Clarity first. What you do with it after that is yours on your own timeline.

So if that's you, if you've been the one carrying this and you're not sure what to do next, you don't wanna miss this one. But if it's not you, if you don't see yourself in any of this, don't tune out either. I've never made an episode where there isn't something in it for everybody. There's something in this one for you too.

So stick around, let's get started

[00:02:30] When I Was the One Who Wouldn't

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, before we go any further, I wanna tell you where I'm standing because it matters for everything I'm about to say. Earlier this year, I did an episode called Your Wife is Years Ahead of You in Growth. Now what? That one was mine. I lived it. I was years behind my wife, Julie. She'd been doing this work for the better part of a decade, and I was just waking up to it. And a lot of men heard that one and felt seen because they were the guy three months in staring up at a wife who'd been climbing for 10 years.

So I'll be straight with you about something. The seat you're in right now, the one doing the work, reaching, waiting on someone who isn't reaching back, I've never actually sat in it. That wasn't me. In my marriage, I was the one who wouldn't do the work. My wife was the one reaching. She was the one carrying it, waiting for me to wake up while I stayed checked out and defensive and told myself I was fine.

So when a man comes to me pouring everything he's got into his marriage and getting nothing back. I'm not going to tell him I lived his exact same spot, because I haven't. But what I did was I put myself in my wife's shoes, because she's the one who sat where you're sitting.

I had to sit with what it was like for her when I was the one not showing up, and then I went and did the work to understand the rest of it. The reading, the studying, the years of sitting across from men who have lived exactly what you're living. And here's what I want you to take away from that, because it matters.

You don't have to have lived something yourself to understand it and help somebody through it. I work with men every week who are walking through things I have never walked. And what I've learned, what I've worked on, and what I've sat with, it still applies. It still helps them, and it'll help you here. Because here's what I found over there in her shoes. The move doesn't change based on who's who. Whether I'm talking to the husband doing all the work or the wife who's been waiting for years for him to wake up, it comes out the same.

Get clear, get honest, stand for what you actually need.

Now, let me tell you about a man I worked with, because he's going to show up all the way through this. When he first came to me, he was drowning. He was doing everything, the house, the kids, the animals, the errands, the stuff nobody notices and still it doesn't get done.

And the thing that makes him such a good example, the thing I really want you to hear, is that he wasn't one guy. He was two. Some days he came in hot. He would say things like, "I do everything around here. She sees the one thing I didn't do and never the hundred things I did. I try and I try and I try and I get nothing back, so why keep trying?" That's the man up on the ledge looking down on her, fed up and done.

And then other days, sometimes 10 minutes later in the same conversation, he was a completely different man. Quiet, careful, saying things like, "If I just keep my head down and don't rock the boat too much, maybe it works itself out. I've gotten really good at not starting fights. I just appease. I keep the peace." And that's not a man on the ledge. That's a man hiding under the table, scared. Same guy, same marriage, same complaint.

I'm doing all the work and she's not. Coming out two completely different places. One was looking down on her. The other was scared to death of her. Hold onto him because we're going to need him. The very first thing we have to figure out before anything else in this episode is which one of those two men are you right now?

[00:05:46] Are You Hot or Are You Scared?

So we start with one question, and right now it's the only one that matters. Not what's wrong with her, not how do I get her to change, just this: Where are you? And I don't mean it as some big philosophical thing. I mean it as simply as it gets. Right now, when you think about your wife and all the work you've been doing that she isn't, are you hot or are you scared?

And let me paint both because most men won't pick a box. They just hear themselves in one of them. The first man is hot. When he thinks about it, the whole list comes up. He can recite it cold. Everything he does, everything she doesn't, the hundred things she never notices. He's not scared when he pictures her.

He's done, fed up, and there's a voice in him that says, "I'm the only adult in this house. I carry all of it. She's the problem here, not me." If that's the temperature, if thinking about her makes you feel righteous and finished, not afraid, that's hot. Hold that thought. We're gonna come back for you in a minute.

The second man is scared. He knows there's something he needs to say, and the words die in his throat every time. He's been quietly doing more and more, hoping she'd notice so that he wouldn't have to actually say it out loud. When he pictures sitting her down and telling her the truth, his stomach drops.

So he doesn't. He picks up another book instead. He queues up another podcast. He runs the whole thing back one more time in his head. Anything but actually say it out loud. And there's a third version of that second man, and I wanna name him too because he might not feel scared anymore. He's just gone quiet.

He stopped bringing it up a long time ago. He'd tell you he's made his peace with it, that, "It's fine. I don't fight about it. I just handle things." But that's not peace. That's just fear that got tired and gave up. It's the same lane.

Now, you heard about the guy in this story. He was both. Some days hot, some days scared, ten minutes apart. So this isn't a label you wear for life. It's a reading you take in the moment. Where am I right now? And I'm starting here for a reason. What you should do next is completely different depending on your answer.

The hot man and the scared man need opposite things. If I hand the wrong man the wrong tool, I don't help him. I make him more dangerous. So before we go one inch further, we get honest about your temperature. Not who you wish you were. What's actually running in you right now when you think about her.

Hot or scared? Because this whole episode is about to sort you, not her. You.

[00:08:08] What's Really Underneath the Heat

So when you checked your temperature, if that came back hot, if when you checked you felt the heat and not the fear, this next part's for you, so stay with me. Because we have to cool you down first, because nothing you decide from up on that ledge is true.

When you're up there looking down, certain you're the only adult in the house, certain she's the problem, it feels good. I'm not gonna pretend it doesn't. Being right feels good. Being done feels good. But that good feeling is the trap, because you can't see straight from up there. You can't love anybody from up there, and you can't lead anybody from up there.

The view is wrong. Every decision you make while you're looking down on her like that is going to be the wrong one. So before you do anything, you have to come down, and I mean that almost literally. Picture it. You're up on that ledge looking down on her. Bring yourself down off of it. Pull yourself down until you're standing on the same floor she is, until you're eye to eye with her, until she stops looking like the enemy and starts looking like your wife again,

Because you can't be in a relationship from any other position, not up above her and not down underneath her either. You have to get level with her first. Everything else comes after that. And what you're going to find on the way down is this. Underneath that heat almost every single time is the exact same thing the scared man is sitting in, fear.

The heat was just covering it up. It's easier to feel the heat than the fear. So if you get down here and you find out you're actually afraid, good. Welcome. You're not the problem guy anymore. You're one of us. Come on in. But if you check and you're still hot, still up on that ledge, still certain she's the whole problem, then I'll be straight with you.

The rest of this isn't for you yet. It won't work from up there, and in your hands right now, it could do real damage. Come back when the heat's gone and you can feel what's underneath it.

[00:09:59] The Three Fears That Keep You Quiet

Okay, so now it's just us, the scared ones, the men who feel the fear and not the heat. This part of the episode is actually for you, and I wanna start somewhere that might feel backwards. I'm not going to ask you what you need to do. I'm going to ask you what you're afraid of because the fear is the thing that's been running the whole show.

It's the reason you go quiet right when it counts. It's the reason you stay busy, stay stuck in your own head, do anything at all except say the hard thing out loud. Name the fear, and you start to get your feet back under you. So let me name the three I see in almost every man in this spot. Listen for the one that's yours.

The first one, if I say the real thing, she's going to blow up. She's going to come at me. The man I told you about said it like this, she fights ugly, and I don't like fighting with her, so he just doesn't. He swallows it.

The second one, if I push this, she's going to leave. This is the fear that whispers, "What if this is the straw that breaks the camel's back? What if I finally say what I need out loud, and that's the thing that ends us?" So you stay quiet to keep her, and you lose yourself doing it.

And the third one is the one men don't admit as easily. If I'm honest with her, she's going to fall apart. She's barely holding on as it is, and if I push, I'll break her, and then I'm the one who hurt her, so I'll carry it a little longer. I'll protect her from me.

Now, there are real reason the ask feels this scary. You have to believe you even have the right to want something in the first place. You're risking that she says no, and you're risking shaking up the whole careful arrangement you've been holding in balance. That's all true. It is scary. I'm not going to stand here and tell you it isn't. But this is the thing I most want you to hear in this whole episode.

Naming the fear, just naming it out loud to yourself, that is the work right now. That's the whole job today. You don't have to do anything with it tonight. You don't have to sit her down this week. You don't have to be brave on a deadline. If you've been bracing this entire time for the moment I tell you to go confront her, let that go.

I'm not going to say it. We're not there yet, and we may not be there for a while, and that is completely okay. Right now, your only job is to know the name of the thing that's had its hand over your mouth. Is it the blowup, the leaving, the breaking? Which one is yours?

[00:12:18] What Doing Nothing Is Costing You

So by now you've named the fear. You know which one it is, the blow up, the leaving, the breaking. That's the work I asked you for, and if you've done it, you've done the hard part. Now I'll show you where that points, because the one lever you've never pulled is the simplest and the scariest one there is.

Not doing more, your own voice. And here's the truth underneath all of it. A marriage with any honesty or any passion left in it needs somebody willing to rock the boat, somebody willing to say the hard true thing and let it land, even when it shakes the whole thing up. If you've spent years doing the exact opposite, keeping the peace, doing more so you wouldn't have to say more, staying quiet so the boat would stay still, and the stillness you've been protecting so carefully is the thing that's been slowly killing it. But hear me because this is where men get it wrong.

You can't rock the boat from just anywhere. You can't do it from up on that ledge, one up, looking down on her, certain she's the problem. You try to rock it from up there and you don't rock it, you flip it. You blow the whole thing up, and you can't do it from down underneath her either.

One down, where the words die in your throat and you go find something else to do instead. From down there, you never actually say it. You only rock the boat from level, the same floor she's on, eye to eye, the way we talked about. That's the only place this works from, and there's one more thing you have to have before you can do it.

You have to be clear on your bottom line. A bottom line is just the honest answer to a question most men never let themselves ask. What has to change for me to stay in this and not slowly disappear?

Not what would be nice, what you actually need to be okay in your own life. And I wanna be careful here because naming your bottom line is not the same as reaching it. You might name it and realize you're nowhere close, and that's okay. Reaching it was never the assignment. Getting clear on it is. That's the whole job.

Now, here's the part I can't do for you, and I mean that literally. I can't do it for you, and nobody else can either. You can get clear, get level, name your line, even say it out loud one day, and she still might not turn. There's no guarantee waiting on the other side of this, and I won't pretend there is.

So the question was never will it work? The question is the one you've been ducking. What's the cost of doing nothing? Picture another year exactly like this, then another five. You doing all of it, saying none of it, going a little more numb every year, and nothing changing on her side because nothing changed on yours.

That's the road you're standing on right now if you stay quiet.

So hear what I'm telling you, and hear what I'm not.

I'm not telling you to turn around tonight and go shake the whole thing up. I'm not. What I'm telling you is this: start looking honestly at what it's costing you to do nothing, and name the biggest fear that's keeping you from it. That's the spot. Clear about where you're standing and clear about what staying there is costing you.

[00:15:05] Awareness, Action, Accountability

Let me give you something to actually do this week. Awareness, action, accountability. That's the frame. Let's take them one at a time.

First, awareness. I want you to start with this one honest question, and I want you to really sit with it before you answer

When you think about all the ways that you're showing up and she's not, have you actually told her straight, calm, without making it a case against her or blowing up what you need and what's at stake for you? Or have you just been doing more and waiting for her to notice? Really think back and be honest.

Now, for actions, and I wanna be clear about what the action is here because it isn't go talk to her. Don't skip ahead. The action this week happens inside you first, on paper, in private, and it's getting clear. I want you to write down four things. Not think about them, write them.

There's something about getting it out of your head and onto a page that makes it real in a way just thinking about it never will.

One, write down the three fears, the ones we named. She'll blow up at me, she'll leave me, she'll fall apart, and it'll be my fault. Write the one that's actually yours. Name it on paper

Two, write down what happens if nothing changes. Picture the marriage a year from now exactly like it is today. Let yourself feel how much you don't want that, and don't let that be despair. Just let that be information.

Three, name your bottom line, not as a threat to her or an ultimatum, as a fact for you.

What's the thing you can't keep living without or the thing you can't keep living with? And four, ask yourself the honest question: Have I already reached it? And if the answer is not even close, good. That's allowed. You're not behind. You're getting clear, and clear is the whole job this week. That's it.

You don't have to solve her. You don't have to fix the marriage by Friday. Getting clear is enough for today, and that's the work.

And last, accountability. Because here's the truth: You're on your own with your wife. I can't get into that room with you, and neither can anyone else.

But the getting clear part, you don't have to do that alone. That's exactly the type of work we do inside of Better Husband Academy.

And here's the thing about the men inside that academy. There are men on both ends of this in there. There are guys who just started whose wives are years ahead of them scrambling to catch up, and there are men who've been at this for a long time, carrying it, trying to figure out how to call a wife back in when she's gone cold or checked out.

And wherever you land on that spectrum or somewhere I haven't even described, you'll find your people in there, and you'll get the support you actually need. If that's what you want and you're ready for it, come join us. Go to betterhusbandacademy.com or click the link in the show notes. The door's open whenever you're ready to walk through it.

[00:17:40] Closing Takeaway

I want to leave you with one thing, and I want you to hold onto it. The win here was never getting her to do the work. It never was. The win is that you stop slowly disappearing inside your own marriage. That's the thing that's actually been at stake this whole time. So you can set it down today, not because you figured out the right thing to say and not because anything got solved.

Most of this probably didn't get solved in the last half hour, and I'm not going to pretend it did. But you can set it down because getting clear is enough for today. That's the work, and that's the whole assignment. She might come back to the marriage. She might not. I can't tell you which, and any man who promises you one way or the other is lying to you.

But here's what I do know. Whatever she decides, you get yourself back either way, and that part is yours So before I let you go, I just wanna say thank you for being here. I know you're in a hard place right now, and I know you're doing the best you can with it. I'm here and I'm in your corner. You're not in it alone.

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