She Asked For Space…Here’s What It Really Means

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This workshop is built from nearly a decade of working with men in marriage crisis, watching some recover their marriage and watching others fail. The patterns are predictable.

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Have you ever felt like the more effort you make to save your marriage, the more she pulls away from you? Or in other words, she tells you that she needs space or words to that effect, she needs a break, something like that. So most men at this point when they hear that feel like they need to try harder within the marriage, with and they have thoughts like if I pull back now, she'll think I've given up, or she'll think that I've stopped caring, she'll think that I'm not trying for this marriage anymore. This is the completely wrong response to I need space, which actually results unnecessarily in prolonging the process or actually even making the process permanent when it doesn't need to be. Why is that? Because men simply don't understand the female psychology and what she's asking for and what she wants. And the truth is you can never fix a problem that you don't understand. You can't fix what you don't know is broken. So having the privilege now of working with literally thousands of men, there are most definitely success patterns where men succeed in this situation, and there are also most definitely failure patterns where there's behavior that can very predictably predict failure as well. So today we're gonna do a deep dive into the female psychology around the I need space, I need a break thing, and we're gonna understand why she feels the need for space, how most men react to that situation. There are five different archetypes that men go to, and you're gonna see which one of those five you are by by the end of this. We're gonna see what makes the situation work. And the goal here today is to really help you accurately diagnose exactly where you are in the process, what's going on in our mind, what's going on in the marriage, the common mistakes that you that you must avoid that pretty much will bring you to shipwreck for sure, and what you need to do to save your marriage and to win your wife back. So let's start with she's asked for space, what do you do? So when you misdiagnose this, and this is what most men do, they dis start dis they they misdiagnose I need space as it's a distance issue. And if you miss if if you miss the landscape that's going on here completely, then you're gonna go very, very wrong. So what she actually needs is she doesn't need space, she needs emotional relief from the situation. So emotional relief is the felt need that she has. Space is simply the mechanism that she thinks that is that that she needs to actually get her that emotional relief. So when she asks for space, she's actually asking for emotional relief, and that's where we have to start. If we don't understand that, we're gonna give her space. Space is not what she not what she actually wants, it's emotional relief. So understand she didn't jump to needing space overnight. This was a this was a process, right? And in in marriage, there are two elements that are required here. You need to understand at any given point there are two things going on. Who am I and where am I at? So there are different stages your relationship goes through. So obviously, if you're dating, there's that's a different stage and a different behavioral requirement than if you're engaged, and if you're engaged, that's a different behavioral requirement than if you're married, and if you're married, that's a different behavioral requirement than if you're in parenting mode. So these are the stages that we pass through, and there's also who am I in each one of those stages. So you need to understand the stage that the marriage is in and who you're showing up as in each one of those stages. If you can nail both of those, then you have a very good chance of solving the problem. If you don't, then effectively you're lost and you're just operating blind here. So for her to get to the point to where she needed space or is asking for space, she's been through a number of stages. And understand this is a game of snakes and ladders. At any point, she can go forwards or backwards in this process. So the goal here is for you to really identify where you are in the process. So if she's needing space right now, you can rectify the problem, and if she's not at that point, you can understand where you're at to avoid getting to that point, which is the ideal stage, right? So, stage number one is going to be its boundary setting. So the space ultimately is going to be a boundary violation issue. So, just to give you an extreme example, so you can sort of see the landscape that we're operating in, as an example, if a woman, a woman might say to a man, you can stay in the bed, but don't touch me. And inevitably he touches her, so she kicks him out of the bed and says, You can stay in the house, but don't go in the bedroom. The boundary now becomes the bedroom. So inevitably he ignores that, goes into the bedroom, and she goes, You can stay in the marriage, but now you can't stay in the house. Every time she moves the boundary further out, creating more physical space because the boundary has been ignored, been violated. Until finally it gets to the point to where she goes, You're not going to accept any boundaries at all, so the only boundary is total distance. So stage one is the initial boundary setting. So what this looks like from her perspective is she'll she'll start to drop hints like when you do this, it makes me feel this way. I need you to, and this isn't working for me. She's letting you know that something is wrong in the relationship and that it requires your attention. Now, most men's response to this face is minimizing the situation or just flat out dismissal dismissal, logically countering her position, moving to a place of defensiveness, or very commonly just total obliviousness to what's going on. This is this is where a lot of men are, they just don't see this at all, they completely miss this stage. Now, the impact that this has on her nervous system when she's ignored in stage one boundary setting is it creates a mild threat activation for her. So there is still hope present at this point, there's probably a lot of hope present, so she has a high tolerance for the behavior. So again, this goes under the man's radar, and he really doesn't understand that he's just stepped into uh quicksand basically, and this is not going to get better unless he does something. So the diagnostic question to ask yourself in this phase is did she raise concerns repeatedly that you treated as negotiable? She told you not to touch her, and that was a negotiation. She told you to stay out of the bedroom or not to look at her when she was getting changed. You treated that as negotiable. This is this is stage one boundary setting violation that is going to cause her to escalate into stage two, which becomes boundary enforcement. Now, what this looks like for her is you you'll recognize this through language such as such as I've told you this before, if this doesn't change, and I can't keep doing this. This is this is threat language now. I can't keep doing this means unless you stop, something's gonna happen. If this doesn't change, we're now moving into much more serious language. And typically a man will respond to this phase by explaining himself, maybe promising change. He's starting to realize that the situation is escalating a little bit. He's still not taking it seriously at this point. So he'll promise change. Some men will start to emotionally collapse at this point when she starts to withdraw. He can get angry, she's not giving me intimacy, she's changed this, she's done that. And he can go into blame shifting at this point, saying, Well, it's her fault, she's done this, she's the one that's changed, etc. So the impact that this is having on her nervous system at this stage is the perceived threat is now becoming chronic to her. She's really starting to see this as a serious threat and really starting to weigh up her options as to how she's going to handle this threat. So effectively, what is going on in this stage, in layman's terms, is emotional safety is really starting to deteriorate rapidly rapidly through this stage. So the diagnostic question to ask yourself here is when her tone escalated, did you stabilize or did you escalate with her? And often the man destabilizes at this point because he realizes the situation is deteriorating and he's becoming aware that the marriage is on shaky ground, or he just escalates, which is exactly the opposite to what he needs to do at this point to de-escalate her increasing need for space. So now we go into stage three, which is the request for space, separation, etc. So what this looks like for her is emotional disengagement. This is this is emotional space. She's just not going to engage with you emotionally. She's going to withdraw from the relationship, possibly physically, possibly emotionally, possibly both. This is where you're going to start to hear, I need space, we need a break, etc. And you may hear stuff like, I don't know who I am anymore. Now, this is going to be her trying to protect your feelings and to de-escalate the situation. She doesn't want to trigger you into more chaos by telling you that she's withdrawing from the relationship. She doesn't want to tell you that you're the problem or the relationship is the problem because she knows that she knows from experience now that that can be very triggering for you and be unsafe. So she'll take the responsibility of the fracture of the relationship and say, It's on, this is me, it's not you, it's me. It's not your you haven't done anything, I just don't know who I am. I need to figure out. And often men will say, I'll hear things like, Well, we did get into the relationship at a very young age, and she didn't have a chance to really figure out who she was. That's not the problem. This is stage three boundary enforcement, is what's actually happening here. So, what is her psychological state? Well, at this point, hope is falling below an acceptable threshold, and her concern is no longer the relationship, your emotional welfare, any of that stuff. Relief from the pressure now becomes her primary objective. So the critical understanding to take away from this is that she's not choosing distance and asking for space and distance because she hates you. She's choosing distance because proximity is overwhelming for her at this point. She's tried everything she can do to stabilize the relationship to a point where she feels emotionally safe in the container that she's in at that point, and you are just not responding in a way that is reducing the threat levels to a point to where she feels safe. So the proximity is now overwhelmingly threatening to her. So at this point, the man typically becomes aware that there's a real problem in the relationship and he will move into an instability phase where he panics, he begs, the urgency becomes apparent to him, he starts to apply timeline pressures, he becomes emotionally volatile because he realizes the stakes and he realizes he's losing his wife, his family, etc. And this is where he will start to go into Mr. Fixit mode and start to force conversations, force solutions, etc. So, what is that doing on her nervous system at this point? It's not doing anything good. It's it's confirming the threat that she already believed was there, and it is also accelerating her exit. So the diagnostic question to ask yourself here is when she did ask you for space, or she implied or suggested that space was what was needed, did you prove her nervous system correct in asking for that? Did you prove her right in her threat analysis, or did you de-escalate the situation? So those are the containers, those are the stages that the marriage moves through in the space drama. Now let's look at the man that you can show up as. So there are typically five male archetypes that come to the forefront when space is asked for in any really late-stage marriage crisis. And the first archetype is the oblivious man. So most men, 70% plus of men, statistics claim, and I believe it's true after talking to thousands of men in this situation, say, I didn't see it coming. It was it sideswiped me, I had no idea. A large percentage fall into the oblivious man category. Now, he missed the early signals, he keeps saying things like, We're fine, it's just a season, it's not a big deal, she's just going through something, yada yada yada. And quite frankly, he is shocked by the separation. He is completely sideswiped, he didn't see it coming, and he is taken aback at that point. So, what it looks like in real time is she goes quiet for extended periods. He assumes things are fine because she's not arguing. He goes, Well, there's uh our marriage is fine, we don't argue. No, that's not fine. Healthy couples argue, but they argue in a ha healthy way. The reason she's not arguing is because she doesn't feel emotionally, she doesn't have the emotional safety required to express herself anymore. And he mistakes that for everything's going fine. So he blames problems in the marriages, stress, hormones, she's going through something, it's the change, it's that time of the month, this is just women. He just puts this down to this is what happens in every marriage, everyone goes through it, I'm good, you're good, everybody's good. And what this looks like in real time is he just continues his normal routine with her, even after very serious conversations has taken have taken place, and she's indicated that it's a problem, and nothing measurably changes after major fractures within the relationship. So the impact that this has, the oblivious man, has on her nervous system is she learns from him that my stress, my distress, my pain and suffering does not register with him. He doesn't see it, he doesn't feel it, he doesn't understand it. So her body shifts from protest into withdrawal. The second archetype is the refuser. Now the refuser sees the boundaries as challenges. He doesn't he recognizes the boundaries, but he sees them as challenges. When she says, don't touch me, he sees that as a challenge. When she when he says stay out of the bedroom, he sees that as a challenge, and he actually pushes back harder. When she looks for that space within a healthy way within the relationship, he pushes back. He dominates conversations. What that actually looks like in real time is she will be quite direct with him and say, I need you to stop doing X. And he will do things like argue the accuracy of her memory. He'll move into logic, he will do pretty much anything to avoid the direct requests that she's making. So what happened here is she'll set a boundary, he just he reframes it as disrespect, she's disrespected me, or something along those lines. What does he do? He doesn't listen to her, he doesn't try to feel her experience, he'll interrupt her mid-sentence, he'll turn every discussion into a who's right, your memory's wrong, he'll apply logic, and he'll walk away mid-conversation to reassert control. So her nervous system, the impact on her nervous system is she learns that speaking up makes it worse. And her body shifts from trying to negotiate a healthy space into self-protection. It stops being a partnership and starts being a self-protection situation. Now, the archetype number three is the explainer. He over-justifies his position, he rationalizes everything, he wants to be understood more than he understands. So, what does this look like? She'll tell him that she's in pain, that she has issues with the marriage, and he'll give a 10-minute explanation as to why that's not right, why she shouldn't feel that way, why that's incorrect, etc. So he uses logic to communicate when she's looking for emotional understanding. He says, Let me explain what's actually happening here, you've got it wrong. He will correct the wording of the situation instead of addressing the impact of the situation. So, for example, she'll say, last Tuesday you did this to upset it, upset me. And he'll say, Well, actually, I think you'll find it was Wednesday, not Tuesday. He's much more concerned with the accuracy of her memory than he is the impact of his actions. And he will use language like, That's not what I meant, you misunderstand me, you've got it all wrong, if you only understood that's not correct, etc. So, what does he do? He'll do stuff like this is the man that sends long paragraphs, he'll write long explanational emails, he'll send long SMS messages, etc., to explain himself. And he needs her to understand his intentions before he actually will address her experience in the relationship. So, what does she learn in this? What's the impact on her nervous system? She learns that I'm not going to be met by him, I'm going to be managed. And her body shifts from engagement to that this man is exhausting to her, she becomes emotionally fatigued. Number four is the paniker. When he finds out that she wants out or she asks for space, etc., he begs, promises, drastic change, collapses emotionally. What does that look like in real time? Well, he'll say, when she says I need space, he immediately pushes for reassurance. How much space? How long? What does that mean? What do you, etc., etc. What do you need from me? He'll send multiple texts after she withdraws, trying to get clarification, trying to get reassurance that everything's going to be okay. He shows up uninvited to talks. He will push for conversation to reconcile the situation. He will ask, how do I initiate conversation? How do I get her to talk to me? How do I show her my changes if she won't talk? etc. This is the panicker. This is the panicked man. He cries, pleads, bargains, promises extreme change overnight to her. And he's saying in his mind, his mentality, his psychology is, I can't lose you. Instead of recognizing that it's in his instability and unpredictability that has caused the fracture and recognizing that he needs to stabilize himself. That's the solution to the problem. So again, he'll he'll monitor her social media obsessively. That's a very common one. Monitor her messaging, etc., trying to understand where she is and what's going on. This is the paniker. Her nervous system learns that the distance that I need to create calm is actually creating more chaos. Distance increases chaos. So her body shifts from ambivalence about the situation to now she's planning exit. She's learned from the paniker that she can't have peace with you, and the only way that she can think she can have peace is to create space. And when she creates that space, instead of creating the peace that she's looking for, it actually increases the chaos within the relationship. You've given her a very bad choice here: stay with you or leave. Either way, it's chaos. And the final archetype here, number five, is the controller, the controlling man. He forces conversations. He wants to force counseling. He'll book counseling sessions without her permission. He'll force timelines. He will recruit allies. So he will want to get family involved, etc. So he schedules counseling without consent and then blames her for not showing up and say, I'm doing everything to I'm I'm willing to work on this. I even scheduled counseling and she didn't show up. She won't do it. This is her fault. He tells friends or family to intervene. He may uh involve the church at this point, if it's a Christian household or spiritual household, and applies spiritual pressure saying she's not being a godly wife, or try and get the church to involve and tell her that she's spiritually incorrect at this point. He will recruit allies, friends, family to intervene and tell her the damage that she's doing, to help have her try and understand. He pushes for daily check-ins, she didn't request. He wants to force communication. And again, I'll hear a lot of times how do I initiate conversation with her? How do I show her my changes? How do I make her do this? He demands clarity before she has it. She can't give you what she doesn't have. Part of the space is for her to form the clarity that she needs to move forward. And if you demand that clarity before she has it, you're increasing the confusion that she's trying to escape from, compounding the problem. This is the controlling man. He insists on finishing conversations tonight. We're going to work through this tonight. We're going to talk about this tonight. She'll say, I don't want to talk about this right now. And he will absolutely insist on having the conversation. Sets ultimatum. He tries to negotiate access with her. If I do this, will you stay? If I do X, will you do Y? It's a negotiation. What does she learn? What has her nervous system learned from this? She learns that I'm not free here. I have no freedom. And what happens? Her body shifts from strain into complete shutdown. This is a very, very negative archetype to be in because she's just going to completely shut down at this point. So the common thread through all of these archetypes is all five men do the same thing. When she's upset, they become harder to be around. They interrupt, they defend, they explain, they push, they panic, they try to control outcomes. And again, you don't have to wait until you've she's asked for space to recognize this. Recognize if you're becoming harder to be around, if she's escalating emotion, recognize these patterns that are happening and do something about it, and you'll avoid this the space conundrum altogether. So when pressure goes up within the marriage, he becomes unstable is the common thread through all of these archetypes. So the diagnostic here is which archetype have you been operating from? Which archetype are you still operating from? Now, be clear here, multiple archetypes can be present simultaneously. Multiple aspects of these behavior behaviors can be present simultaneously. You can be the controller and the paniker simultaneously. You can be the controller and the oblivious man simultaneously. And this is really doubling down on trouble. This is double trouble. If you are a controlling man and when things don't go your way, you also go into panic mode. You're going to really double down on the instability, and this is going to really accelerate the exit from the relationship, or it's going to increase the instability dramatically. So what are the required shifts here to turn this around? It's very simple. You need to give her relief without distance. Remember, she's not looking for distance. Distance is the mechanism, space is the mechanism that she's using to get the relief. So if release relief exists in your presence, space becomes unnecessary. She can have that emotional space, and remember, it's not physical space necessarily that she's asking for. She's asking for emotional relief. When you present that in her presence, that request for space becomes completely unnecessary and you neutralize that threat, which is very important because it's very difficult to fix a problem when she's not talking to you because she feels like talking to you is going to be all of the things that we've just talked about, right? So if there's one big idea to take away from this today, it's this. She doesn't need space, she needs relief. She doesn't need space from the relationship, she needs emotional relief from the relationship. Space is a symptom, instability is the cause. So again, this always comes back to fix the man, fix the marriage. And if you fix the man, you fix the marriage. So when you give relief in her presence by becoming stable, emotionally sound, you create emotional safety, which essentially is what she's asking for here, it removes the need for distance within the relationship. And again, this can be applied out through many scenarios. She doesn't want to talk to you, she won't have a conversation, blah blah blah. We've got to fix all that stuff. So the conclusion here is she's not asking for space, she's actually asking for emotional safety. And if you want to learn more on how to create emotional safety, goes beyond the scope of this video. I'll put a video on exactly what causes the breakdown of emotional safety and how to fix that here. If you want to watch that, and I'm gonna end the presentation for anyone watching this on YouTube. I'm gonna say bye bye to you and I'm gonna join the private group now, and we'll have a QA.