12.Man of Action: How Better Communication Can Save Your Marriage and Strengthen Your Family

If your wife feels distant, guarded, or emotionally checked out — this episode is for you.
On this powerful episode of Call Me First, Damian Lewis breaks down why most men struggle with communication in marriage — and how it's silently destroying connection, respect, and leadership at home. From emotional shutdowns to yelling, defensiveness, and dodging hard conversations, these are the habits turning homes into battlegrounds instead of safe havens.

You'll learn:

• The 5 most common mistakes men make when communicating with their wives
• Why emotional connection matters more than financial provision
• How to rebuild trust and connection with clarity, humility, and presence
• The top 4 emotional needs every wife has that many men overlook
• The power of intentional conversations, weekly check-ins, and daily affirmations
• What real leadership looks like in a family — beyond just providing

Whether you're a married man trying to reconnect, a father struggling to lead by example, or a man committed to becoming the rock your family depends on — this episode gives you clear, actionable communication tools that will strengthen your leadership and deepen the bond in your home.

This isn’t therapy. It’s leadership training for men who want to win at home.
Because the strength of your house doesn't come from your income.
It comes from your words, your presence, and your ability to lead through love.

Respect isn’t automatic—it’s earned and given. In this episode of Call Me First, we break down the biggest leadership mistake men make: assuming that respect comes with the title.

True leadership isn’t about control or authority; it’s about how you treat others, especially your family. If your wife and children don’t feel respected, no amount of strength or leadership will matter. We’ll dive into:

. The truth about earning vs. giving respect
. How a lack of respect can damage your family relationships
. Practical ways to lead with respect and build trust
. The #1 thing you must fix before others will respect you

 Listen now if you're ready to stop being misunderstood and start being respected.
And when the pressure hits and your family needs strength, remember…

Look at your family and say: “Call Me First.”

Transcript

 If you knew how to communicate as a leader, your house would feel more like a home instead of a battleground. Today we're diving into one of the most misunderstood, critical leadership skills that every man needs to master. That skill is communication. Now, before you. Start going off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know this, I've heard this before.

I, I've been there. I've already heard what communication is about. Let me stop you right there, because if you knew all about communication, you wouldn't be here listening to this podcast right now. If you knew about communication, your wife wouldn't be distanced. Your arguments wouldn't go into circles.

You wouldn't be sleeping with silence between you two at night if your wife seems frustrated, guarded, or withdrawn. If your words keep leading to tension instead of connection, then this episode is for you because whether you want to admit it or not, the reason most marriages are s. Silently fallen apart.

It is because the men are not stepping up their communication game. And I mean a real communication, not yelling, not fixing, not shutting down, but believing through love, through understanding, through clarity and confidence. Let's talk about, Hey, family. It's your guy, Damien, and this is Call Me First, the podcast where leadership starts at home.

First, I want to thank you for tuning into today's episode. If you're struggling with communication, respect, or a family disconnect, this podcast gives you real life solutions you can apply right away. Every episode tackles tough leadership challenges with practical, no nonsense strategies to help you lead with confidence and earn the trust of those who rely on you.

Now, let's get into today's episode. Most men don't even realize how bad they are at communicating. It's not always our fault. We weren't trained for it. We were trained to provide, to protect. We were trained to go outside and get the money, stay outta the way, and to keep our emotions in check. So when it comes time to express feelings, listen with empathy or stay present in emotional conversations.

A lot of us don't even know where to begin. I've been there. I've sat in silence after a blowup telling myself, I didn't mean it like that, but why can't she just see that I'm trying, but I wasn't trying the right way. What I didn't realize was that silence is not the same thing as peace. You can be silent and still have chaos in your house.

You can be providing financially and still starving your wife of an emotional connection. You can be there physically, but still not be present. That's what kills so many marriages. Not cheating, not money, but disconnection and disconnection comes from communication breakdowns. Let's get into the real.

Here are five of the biggest mistakes men make in communication, and I want you to be honest with yourself here. I really do. I want you to be honest with yourself here. Be real. Just be upfront and be real with exactly what this is. It's nobody here but me and you, so let's, let's be real with it here. So number one, listening to respond and not to understand you ever just cut her off mid-sentence just to correct her or to defend yourself.

That's not listening. That's protecting your ego. Leadership requires listening with humility, and sometimes your wife doesn't want a solution. She wants a connection. She wants to feel like her feelings matter. If she's venting about something that's bothering her, and you instantly go into, oh. You're overreacting.

Oh, that's not what I meant. And that's the mode you're in. You've already lost. You just told her. Without saying it in words, your feelings are inconvenient to me. Number two, shutting down emotionally. I know sometimes it feels easier to just go quiet, to give, give her space to not escalate, but silence can feel like abandonment.

You're actually teaching her that when you're overwhelmed, you disappear. And after a while she'll stop trying to reach you. She'll stop talking, she'll stop sharing, and now you're in a house with a woman who's emotionally checked out. You think it happened overnight, but nah bro, it takes a while for them to emotionally check out.

But the thing about it is, once they do it is almost impossible to get them back once they emotionally check out. I. And you gotta realize that it happened slowly. Every time that you left her alone with her emotions, she subconsciously added that to the container of how she was left out, or, you know what I mean?

What her, her feelings didn't get validated. Number three, using anger as a communication tool. A lot of men think that the louder the volume, the more effective the communication will be, but that is not the fact. If we raise our voices, they'll finally get it. But yelling just triggers, defenses. You're not communicating, you're trying to intimidate another human being.

The human being that you, you love and you want to spend the rest of your life with. Or at least I hope that's, you know what I mean? That's the idea that you have. But it's a sensitive place for a lot of us. We think that, uh, us being bold and aggressive. It gets our points across. And don't get me wrong, sometimes it does come off like that, but you've gotta be aware that even if we don't mean it like that, this is how they see it and you have to correct that.

That is definitely an emotional immaturity. I. Number four, being defensive instead of being accountable. You ever hear this one? You always make it about you. That's what happens when you turn every conversation into a courtroom, when your wife brings up an issue, and the first instinct is for you to defend yourself.

Instead of validating her experiences, you are dodging leadership. Humble men grow. Proud men go in circles, right? So let me elaborate more on validating her experiences. You are not responsible for every experience that she had outside of you. Let me be clear with that. You're not responsible for every experience that she had outside of you, but the experiences that she has with you do count and they add up whether it is good or bad, they count and they add up.

So in so many words, you are ex, you are responsible for the experiences that she had with you. At the end of the day, you can't control how she feels about the experiences that she had with you. If you want her to have better experiences with you, treat her better. It's as simple as that. Just treat her better if you want her to be proud of the communication and the development that you guys had.

Treat her better. Listen, bro, I'm not telling you to lay down and be a sucker or just get walked over or get disrespected or anything like that, but realize that if the aggression is coming from you, mainly if the anger, the, the, the, the frustration, it's boiling outta you. It is your job to bring that down and give her a safe place to communicate with you, right?

Number five, avoiding hard conversations. I am so guilty of this. Well, I used to be, let me say that I was so guilty of this. I could not have a hard conversation. I was always finding a way to run, run away from it. I was, yeah, this is when my immaturity was at its best. When I used to use yelling and and loud talk and to get out of a situation because I refused to talk about it 'cause it was just too hard for me to talk about.

But when maturity actually set in, when age came in, and you know. Experiences came in. I realized that it was so much easier to express my feelings. Calmly, productively. And if you have a person that that can understand you, that that's willing to, to learn, willing to adjust, willing to compromise with you, it is so much easier.

But as men, bro, we gotta get to the development where we are communicating effectively, expressing our feelings in a gentle way, especially with our women. They're delicate, they're emotional thugs. Let's be real. They're emotional thugs. A lot of these women. Some of them, the thug part of it comes from their past experiences.

Let's do better and give them better experiences with us now, leadership means facing the tough topics, whether it's intimacy, money, trust, parenting. You can't lead from the couch while scrolling on your phone pretending that everything is fine. Avoiding conflict doesn't make you peaceful. It makes you passive.

Let me speak on something here that most wives won't say directly, but they feel it every day. She doesn't just want a provider, she wants a partner. She doesn't just want a man to come home. She wants a man who is present with her emotionally, mentally, spiritually. She wants that connection with her man, not just a man that's just hanging around in the house.

Thinking that if he pays a couple bills or he, you know what I mean? He does a couple things around the house that he is doing what he's supposed to do as a husband, as a father, as a protector. She wants that emotional connection, and it is tough for us to understand that because we are really not emotionally wired.

But the thing about it is, let's get out of the fact that this is about us. It is about selflessness. It is about adjusting to the situation that you are in. When you got into this relationship, when you got into this marriage, you chose to get into it with someone else. Someone else, meaning that someone else's feeling, someone else's emotion is someone else else's mental or, or spiritual state.

You have to adjust and be selfless, and you strive to connect with this person. It's not all about you, fellas. It's not all about you. Just be present with who you are, dealing with, with your person. Learn your person, and when communication is weak, she feels alone. Even when you're standing right in front of her, she can feel alone when you're standing right in front of her because there is no connection there.

You never took time to actually have that connection. Try your best to find out what her love language is and work towards that. Get outta whatever nonsense or whatever belief that you totally had about what. What it is, go take a deep dive and be willing to adjust to something that you never thought you needed to do.

Sometimes the key is hitting behind whatever you thought you were supposed to be doing. Go find out exactly what you need to be doing. In reality, what does your wife need from you? Right? Here are the top four things that I believe that a wife needs from a husband, right? Number one, it is consistency. Not mood swings, not good days.

She needs a steady presence. Number two, this is a serious one, and I realize just from talking to a lot of men that we really don't do this enough. I. We really don't. Your wife needs validation. Not agreement on everything but acknowledgement. I hear you. Oh yeah, that makes sense. That is some of the simplest ways to validate what your wife is saying.

Don't forget, this is your counsel. She is your ride to die, bro. So give her some validation. Number three, she needs clarity. Not mixed signals, not vague plans. Or emotional shutdowns, which we most of us are guilty of because some of us took a while to get to maturity. Be real with you here, right? Talking about maturity.

Full onset of maturity came for me at around age 36, 37. That was three years ago, and it was a switch that it was made overnight. I'm be honest with you, it was made overnight. And studies show that a lot of men don't reach their full maturity until between age 35 and age 50. Well, how crazy is that? What?

How big is that gap? It takes men usually between the ages of 35 and 50 to get to full maturity. That is not a, it's not a thing to be proud of. I'm, I'm happy that mine's actually set in and I noticed it, and even the people in my life noticed it, that it, it came around age 37. And I wanna tell you guys that when you're struggling with where your maturity comes in, it takes a while.

Sometimes it takes some drastic, uh, things to happen in your life that brings a change. When that change comes, don't try to be your old self. Accept the change and use it as a tool to move forward that you, you can use to better your life and better the lives around of the people around you. That maturity is a gift, is a gift, especially when you get it early.

It's a gift. Don't abuse it. Take that maturity and start making some changes in your life that shows that you are honoring that gift that was given to you. Right? And to add onto to that, she needs to know where your head is, where the relationship is, where it is, where it's going, and that you're leading it, right?

Number four. Ooh, another tough one here. That. A lot of us think it's not necessary, but we don't realize how important this is. Affection in words, not just touch, not just intimacy, adult time. She needs reassurance. I. The I love yous, the, I'm proud of yous, the, you matter to me. The, you changed my life for the better.

I wouldn't know, you know what I mean? I wouldn't know where I'd be without you. These levels of validation and affectionate words go so far with human beings, period. Not just women. It goes far with us too as men. You know what I mean? The way we talk to our wives is either feeding their faith in us or starving it.

Let that be clear. It's either feeding the faith and the trust they have in us, or it is starving the faith and trust that they have in us. We gotta feed their emotions the way they need to affect, so we gotta feed it correct. We gotta feed it the right things because without that, without that, they lose faith in us.

Believe me when I tell you. What does communication from a leader actually sound like? Let me break it down to you, right? You've gotta ask more questions than you actually answer, right? Leadership is curiosity. Instead of assuming asker, what do you need from me right now? How can I support you today, baby?

What can I do for you today? What's weighing on your heart? That shows presence, intentionality. It shows strength. Right. You know, and these are things that we look at, like, it's, ah, we, we take it, we take advantage of it. We don't ex do it as much as we should. And gentlemen, let me tell you, like I said before, they're emotional gangsters.

They're emotional thugs, bro. They, as tough as they may seem, they're tough because they gotta deal with a whole bunch of nonsense out in the world. But when they come home to us, we have to give them a space to be soft, to be gentle, to be, be, to be feminine. This is what we need to do. Don't take that emotional gangster coat that they wear and think it's, it's for you to, it's really not.

You have to break that part out of 'em. You have to be the space where they can actually be a gentle, nourishing woman. This is what you need to do, fellas. Number two, use I statements to own your emotions. What does that mean? Instead of saying, you always make me feel like I'm the bad guy, you can say something like this, I feel overlooked when I come home and we are disconnected.

It actually shift the tone from blame to ownership, right? Next practice, the pause. You don't have to respond in the heat of the moment. Leadership means pausing to respond wisely instead of reacting emotionally. Take a deep breath, count to five. Think before you speak. My next tip would be lead with love, not with your ego.

Your role as a husband is not to win arguments. It is to win her heart daily. Let her know I don't want to be right. I want us to be right. Let's be real. If you keep dodging growth, dodging vulnerability, dodging leadership through communication. Here's what's coming. Emotional distance. A disconnect from your kids.

Misunderstanding and resentment. And unfortunately, it can go as far as divorce, not legally, but emotionally. It doesn't always have to start with something as bad as cheating. It can start slowly with an erosion of trust. A slow collapse of connection and all of it could have been prevented with better communication.

This is how important communication is, and also I want to let, uh, women know that you have to make it available for your man to come and communicate with you and be in a space where he feels safe communicating with you. I'm not telling you to not have an opinion. I'm not telling you to not have a, a, um, say so I'm not telling you to fold up, but be willing to listen and give him an opportunity to express himself.

Give him feedback, not a bunch of attitude, not a bunch of argument, not a bunch of nonsense. Make it so that he is comfortable coming to express himself to you. If he wants to communicate, give him at an avenue to actually do so. Now my question to the men is this, if a man is not in a space where communication is something that he's willing to work on, I want to ask you this question, brother.

I I really do. I really want to ask you this question. I, are you really going to let your pride cost you your family if you decide that? Your pride isn't a worth losing your family. Here's the good news. You can change all of this starting now in three easy steps. Step one, have one intentional conversation today.

Sit down with your wife, no distractions, and say, babe, I want to be better at communicating. I know I haven't always done that well, but I'm committed to learning and showing up. Let her talk. Don't defend. Just listen. That one act can reset everything. Step two, set a weekly check-in one time a week. You can just ask her, how are you feeling about us?

What do you need more of from me? What can I do differently? Fellas, this is leadership, this is love. This is action. Right? Number three, speak life daily. Every day. Say something affirming to her. I know for some of us, this is an an unrealistic goal, right? It's unrealistic because you're not bringing attention to it.

You're not trying. So even through the worst times, right? Even through the worst times, even through the arguments and the disagreements and things like that, do you hate her? Are you done with her? Are you, are you, is this it for you? Because you guys had an argument. Is the relationship over? Are you moving out?

Are you packing your stuff or are you leaving? Hey, listen, man, fights are going to happen, bro. Arguments are going to happen. Disagreements are going to happen. Yeah, you might feel like packing your stuff, you might feel like leaving. You might feel like cutting it off, but the maturity is when you realize that this is an argument, it's a disagreement.

It is not the end of the world. Right. Once you get that into perspective, once you put that into play, you're not moving out. You're not packing your things, running off into the sunset. You're not doing anything drastic. So it is not hard to give her some appreciation. You know what I mean? It could be something as simple as this.

Thank you for holding us down. Thank you for holding the house down. Thank you for your patience. You are still the one I choose. You would be amazed, fellas, of how those words can heal. Bro, let me say it clearly. You don't need to be perfect. You don't need to be some smooth talking guru or anything like that, but leadership in your marriage starts with your words, your tone, your timing, your presence, your wife.

Is not your enemy. She's your teammate, but she can't follow a man who won't speak, who won't listen, who won't lead. The strength of your house depends on the strength of your voice, not the volume of your voice, but the value of your words. Fix your mindset. Fix your communication. Because your family is listening.

They're paying attention to you, bro. They're paying attention. Your kids are watching how you handle things. Your daughter is watching how a man is supposed to treat her. Your kids, I mean, your sons are watching how a man is supposed to treat his woman. They're learning from this, bro. They're paying attention to it.

They want to know that the, the lesson that they're getting is actually, actually a valuable lesson. They want to know that the lesson that they're getting is exactly what they need to do. If they trust you, please, please notice it is your duty to give them the lesson they actually need, not the one that your emotions or your past baggages taught you.

Teach them the right way, fellas the right way. This is what we are here to do. This is our job. This is our purpose as leaders, to teach the people around us, to show everybody around us how to do this thing correctly. Don't get me wrong, we aren't going to be perfect at all. We aren't gonna be perfect, but what we are going to do is we are going to make every effort in our being, every effort in our soul to do what we need to do.

For the people that are dependent on us, for the people that are watching us. Right? And I just want us to understand that the purpose of Call Me first is to give the people around you comfort to say when it's tough, when it's hard. When I need a shoulder to cry and when I need somebody to talk to, I feel comfortable calling my dad.

I feel comfortable calling my husband. This is our purpose, right? This is what we are here for. So I want to end with this. Our jobs are serious. One of the best ways to do our job correctly is to learn how to communicate better. We have to communicate better, and I want to convince you guys to take a look at this video here.

If you want to learn one of my favorite communication skills. Way to communicate better with your wife. I want you to be the man. I want you to be the leader with your words. I want you to have great communication with your family. All you need to do is put yourself in a position that they trust you, and then when they do, look at your family and say, call me first.