90: When Something Small Turns Heavy — That’s Not Connection

You didn’t ask for too much.

You asked for something small…
and suddenly it turned into tension, irritation, or distance.

Your body tightened.
You started questioning yourself.
“What did I do wrong?” 

That’s not connection.

That’s what happens when you’re dealing with an emotionally unavailable man.

Because emotionally unavailable men don’t just say no…
they make you feel like asking was the problem.

They minimize you.
They shift the energy.
They turn something simple into something heavy.

And over time?

You stop asking.
You shrink.
You become more aware of his mood than your own needs. 

In this episode, we break that wide open.

You’ll learn:

•  What a reasonable request actually is
•  Why his reaction tells you everything 
•  The difference between emotional unavailability vs emotional willingness
•  And how this is where self-abandonment begins 

Because a man who is emotionally willing?

He doesn’t punish connection.
He meets it.

This is Part 1 of the Reasonable vs Unreasonable Requests series — and this is where your awareness shifts.

Connect with Darla Ridilla: 

Book a Magnetic Connections Call: https://www.highvaluewoman.info/call

3 Keys to Magnetizing Emotionally Available Men masterclass: https://www.highvaluewoman.info/masterclass

Website: https://www.highvaluewoman.info

Send me an email: highvaluewoman7@gmail.com

Sign up for mailing list: https://www.highvaluewoman.info/newsletter

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61550835718631

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/highvaluewoman7/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@HighValueWoman-m7w

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darla-ridilla-3179b110/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Because our body always knows and it reacts. If his reaction to your request makes your chest tighten, your muscles tighten, you start ruminating and asking yourself questions like, oh my gosh, what did I do wrong? Did I ask for too much? Should I stop asking for this? Welcome to You Have the Power of the Road to Truth Freedom and Real Connection. This podcast is for women who are done asking why emotionally unavailable men keep showing up and are finally ready to change the way they relate. The chemistry is always there, the potential looks promising, but the consistency, depth, and emotional presence just never fully arrive. You are in the right place. And when you stop managing relationships that require you to disappear, emotionally willing men are magnetized to you. Let's begin. If you've ever asked for something simple and then walked away somehow feeling like you were the problem, or after asking for something, you felt your body tighten and it was just something small. Or maybe you wondered how asking for something which seemed so normal to you turned into this big deal and felt really heavy. If you've ever experienced any of that, today's episode is for you. Today we start a new series called Reasonable versus Unreasonable Request: The Truth About Emotional Availability. And in this first episode, we're going to be talking about the awareness of what is a reasonable request and what is not. And then in the next episode, we'll talk about the patterns that are involved in those requests. And then finally in episode three, we'll talk about how you will learn how to set boundaries. I'd like to share a couple examples of my own life of when I had a reasonable request that was treated as unreasonable. I went to Texas with my ex-husband. We were going to spend a holiday with his family. And during that time, we did a side trip to Galveston. It was a beautiful day. I love the beach. There's just something so romantic about the setting. And I made a simple request. Everyone was going to walk on the beach. And I said, Come on, come walk with me. We can hold hands while walking along the shore. And he became extremely irritable and unreasonable and didn't want to walk with me. He just wanted to sit in a car by himself. I wasn't asking for anything big. We were on a vacation. We were with his family, and I was looking for this beautiful memory that we could create. But instead of him wanting to create that memory, he decided to gaslight me to act like this was unreasonable. And in that moment, I felt so much confusion. There was this kind of whiplash moment of what just happened? I thought everything was fine in the car on the way here. What the heck did I do that he doesn't want to walk on the beach with me? And I kept begging and just saying, come on, we don't know when we're going to be back here. I really just want to have this wonderful walk with you. Please come. So he did finally say yes. But the entire time he was mad, he was kind of stuck in his funk, he totally ruined the moment. Essentially, he punished me for asking for what I wanted. And so many things ran through my mind during that time. In addition to, you know, the um the rumination of what did I do or say to piss him off? I also felt embarrassed. Because I had just met his family a day or two before. And he was treating me like crap in front of them. And I know that was his intention was to create shame so I would shrink and be small and not ask things of him. It was a power move on his part to exert control over not just the situation, but his family's perception of me to make me look like I was the one who was unreasonable. And there was nothing romantic that came away from that walk. I left that beach feeling disappointment, anger, shame, and confusion. If you go to a more recent event, a couple of years ago, I was dating a guy that I met online. I really liked him. He was a lot of fun, had a great sense of humor, he was very intelligent. He initially was love bombing, which I didn't know, but the end result was he really only wanted a situationship. I wanted a committed relationship. We had some discussions about it, and I'll be honest, he was clear with me that he didn't want that. But instead of me accepting that, I continued on with the relationship. I was asking something of him that he couldn't give me, and I latched on to hope, I latched on to how much I liked him versus what he was really saying to me. What he was saying is, this is where I'm at, this is what I can give you. And I was thinking that isn't what I want. But if we have enough fun, if we have enough great sex, if I show you that I can accept you just the way you are, because he was a little bit overweight, and I didn't care about that. He was very self-conscious about it, but he still was able to keep up with me on the hiking trails. He was fit because he walked every day. He just didn't have, you know, society's image of the perfect body, but who does, to be honest? But I kept telling myself that if I showed him how much I liked him and was starting to love him, that he would come around. But I was being unreasonable in that instance. I wasn't being unreasonable for asking for my needs. It was okay for me to say, I want a committed relationship. Where I crossed the line is that I continued to ask for something he already had told me he wasn't willing to give. And I did eventually walk away from that relationship because of that and realized this was going nowhere. But I could have saved both of us time and heartache if I had accepted his terms from the beginning. So what is a reasonable versus an unreasonable request? If it's reasonable, it's going to invite that connection. That connection that I was looking for on the beach. It's going to respect both people. And it's also not going to require either one of you to self-abandon. An unreasonable response could be about someone's ego, about their needs, regardless of the other person's. And it creates withdrawal. You often feel irritation. One of you has a mood shift, and you end up feeling like a burden. Give you the example of the beach. I made a reasonable request that created connection. I wanted a romantic moment with my ex-husband that incorporated his family. I was showing not only do I want a memory with you, I want a memory with your extended family because that's important to me. But he turned it on me. He instantly got very indignant and surly. He ruined the moment, and he made it look like I was the one who was wrong and unreasonable. The Galveston story is actually a perfect example of how emotionally unavailable men don't just say no, they contaminate the moment. He ruined it. He punished me. I'm gonna invite you, whenever you make a request of someone that you're dating or in a relationship with, that you listen to your body because our body always knows and it reacts. If his reaction to your request makes your chest tighten, your muscles tighten, get tunnel vision, you start ruminating and asking yourself questions like, oh my gosh, what did I do wrong? Like I did. Did I ask for too much? Should I stop asking for this? What that creates is a form of self-abandonment that over time makes you shrink. Because you start second-guessing yourself, which is exactly what an emotionally unavailable man wants you to do. Because they don't want you to continue to ask. And as you shrink and you break down over time, you stop asking for what you want. You stop asking for the invitation, you stop expressing your needs, and you start becoming more aware of his mood and what his reaction is going to be because you are more afraid of what his reaction is versus what your needs are. And this is what self-abandonment looks like and how it starts. An emotionally unavailable man is gonna interpret participation as pressure, and a secure man, he's gonna see participation as partnership because this isn't about capacity, it's more about willingness. And to explain the difference, let's go back to that moment on the beach. Let's say that my ex-husband was an emotionally willing man. A couple days before that, we had done a long overnight drive. Let's say it wasn't about control, but it really was about capacity. What that would have looked like would have been, hey hen, you know what? A walk on the beach sounds amazing. I would love that. But right now, I am still really so tired from our long drive. I was up all night and I feel like I just really haven't gotten enough rest. How about you go take that walk? You get your time in on the beach. I'm gonna sit here and wait for you, and then we'll sit together on the beach, and we can still create that memory. That's what emotional availability and willingness looks like. I would love to do this, but I don't have the capacity. So how about we try this? He tries to meet you in the middle. He wouldn't have been angry, he wouldn't have been irritable, he would have been wanting to create some form of connection in the moment. At that time in my life, I had no clue what a magnetic connections pathway looked like. So I wasn't able to embody presence in that moment. I wasn't able to actually see what he was doing, that he was minimizing me. But now I do. If I were to go back to that moment, how I would have handled it now is to say, this doesn't work for me. I made a simple request. I would have liked you, even if you couldn't meet that request, to speak to me in a respectful manner. I am going to choose to take that walk on that beach without you and create my own memory. And if you want to choose to sit in a car and miss out on a moment, not only with me, but with your family, then you do that. That's on you. I made a reasonable request, and you have just given me an unreasonable response that's unacceptable to me. So I'm going to end this conversation right here. If I could go back and exercise presence in that relationship from two years ago, that would have looked like, you know what? I'm really disappointed to hear that you're not looking for a committed relationship and that we aren't going to be able to meet each other's needs and desires. This is something that's really important to me. I really enjoyed getting to know you, but I've decided to not proceed and I'm not going to be dating you anymore. And I wish you the best. I would have chosen not to live in hope. I would have chosen not to continue to ask him for something he couldn't give me. The very first step to us being able to change patterns is to be aware of what the pattern is in the first place. If we don't know that there is room for improvement and change, how can we change it? So I'm going to invite each of you just to really be more aware. When you make a request, is it reasonable? Not based on what they think is. What do you think? Because you deserve to have your needs and desires met. You're not too much when you say, This is important to me, and I need this from you. And it's okay for you to say, this doesn't work for me. I'm going to choose to walk away, whether it's for the moment to do a walk by yourself or from a relationship altogether. And we can talk about that more in a future episode. I'm going to invite you over this next week to just really be in touch with your request, how the person reacts, and how that reaction makes you feel. Because I'll say this over and over again: their reaction tells you everything you need to know. Because presence is really about the ability to tell yourself the truth about what you are experiencing. And if this is hitting you, if you are just saying, wow, you know what? These things have happened to me too. I really resonate with what you're saying. Then I'm going to invite you to come back next week because we're going to go a little deeper into it. We're going to talk about the patterns that emotionally unavailable men display when you make a reasonable request and they react in the unreasonable way. Their reaction is to dismiss you, to minimize you, to shut you down, to make you question yourself, and to train you to stop asking because it makes them uncomfortable. Because once you start to see this pattern, you're going to stop blaming yourself. You're going to accept the reality of the situation and you're going to continue to ask for your needs. And if you're listening to this today and you are really starting to come to the realization of how many times you've silenced yourself, you've made yourself small just to keep the peace. This is exactly the type of patterns that we talk about in a magnetic connections call. It's a free 30-minute call where we look at your patterns and what the next step is. What is your next step to realizing that your requests are reasonable and it's okay to ask for what you want? And how do you use discernment to determine if a man is emotionally willing or if he's emotionally unavailable? And when you break those patterns, you learn how to trust what you feel. You don't abandon yourself anymore, and you know you're not too much. And you're not asking for too much that you have been accepting too little. So if you're ready for that, book a call. The link is in the show notes. Let's just talk about those patterns and what your next step is. Because what you asked for, it was normal. It was okay. It was not over the top. But what you got back, that wasn't normal. That was not validating. And that was unreasonable. And if that has been your experience, what matters more than anything is accepting that you are not too much. You're just being told that you are. You have the power, and now it's time to live like it. Thank you for listening to You Have the Power, the Road to Truth, Freedom, and Real Connection. If something landed while you were listening, pay attention to that. Emotionally unavailable men aren't a mystery to solve. They're information. They show you exactly where you've been waiting, minimizing, or tolerating what doesn't actually work for you. This podcast isn't here to help you have to stand that dynamic better. It's here to help you stop participating in it. Share it and subscribe. Stay connected to what too much. You're just done betraying yourself.