What Your Wife Says VS. What She Actually Needs ft. Therapist Vanessa Spinarksy | EP 41

Why does your wife say one thing but clearly mean something deeper, and why does defending yourself only make it worse?

Alessandro sits down with therapist Vanessa Spinarsky to unpack one of the most frustrating dynamics in modern relationships. If you have ever felt blindsided by your partner’s reaction, walked away from an argument more confused than when it started, or found yourself getting defensive while genuinely trying your best, this conversation is for you.

Vanessa works closely with women, giving her a rare window into what many wives are actually feeling underneath the criticism, shutdowns, and recurring fights men often misunderstand.

Chapters:
00:04:22 - Women Who Look Fine But Are Drowning
00:06:35 - Men Secretly Want This From Relationships
00:08:42 - Why Women Say One Thing But Mean Another
00:10:40 - What She Really Meant by You Never Help Me
00:12:10 - The Pain Hidden Under Criticism
00:13:05 - Men Hear the Words… Women Feel the Emotion
00:14:18 - Why Vulnerability Feels Unsafe for Women
00:16:10 - The Fight Pattern Most Couples Never Escape
00:17:08 - Your Childhood Is Running Your Marriage
00:19:18 - The Skill Men Are Missing Most
00:21:25 - She Doesn’t Want You to Fix It
00:23:18 - The Sentence That Destroys Teamwork
00:24:05 - Couples Stop Solving the Problem Here
00:26:12 - Why Keeping Score Kills Relationships
00:31:05 - What Finally Makes People Change
00:34:45 - The Fear He Didn’t Want to Admit
00:42:05 - The Hidden Meaning Beneath Every Argument

Learn why women communicate differently under stress, what men consistently miss in conflict, and the one skill that changes everything in how you connect with your partner. Most men never learn this and end up trapped in the same argument for years.

Alessandro also gets personal about his own marriage, including a moment his wife recognized his self-sabotage before he did. Together, they explore emotional attunement, recurring relationship loops, and what it actually looks like to stop reacting and start leading when emotions run high.

Vanessa introduces a framework that can completely change how you read conflict in real time. Whether you are already in the middle of a fight or trying to prevent the next one, it gives couples a practical way to understand what is really happening beneath the surface.

Press play and learn what your wife may actually be trying to say.

Connect with Vanessa: https://www.instagram.com/vanessaspinarsky/

Become a Better Husband in Just Two Minutes a Week for Free: HERE

Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for therapy. Always seek qualified guidance for your personal situation.

Views shared by Alessandro Frosali and his guests reflect their lived experiences and opinions. Every listener’s journey is unique, and no therapeutic relationship is created.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Your wife isn't attacking you. Maybe she's drowning, maybe she feels like she's never been heard, but you're too busy defending yourself to ever really notice what's going on underneath. My name's Alessandra Frasali, and this is Shut the Fuck Up and Listen. It's the podcast for men who are done with boy patterns, ready to take radical responsibility and want to become the husband and man that their family actually needs. Today I sit down with Vanessa Spinansky, a therapist who works with women, navigating some of the harder seasons of their relationships and marriages. And she's here to tell you exactly what your wife is not saying, but desperately needs you to hear. Learn why your wife says things she doesn't actually mean, and what she's really asking for underneath. How to become emotionally attuned to your partner and know that does not mean becoming a mind reader, and learn your defensive response, what that is signaling to her every single time you do it. Vanessa shares a specific tool that will show you exactly where you go emotionally during a fight and what it takes to pull yourself back. Most men have never seen it. And once you do, you'll never look at conflict the same way again. And welcome to the podcast, Vanessa.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Hi, Alessandra. So nice to be here. I'm so excited for this. It's been a long time coming.

SPEAKER_02 1:14

This is also actually my first podcast interview in five months. So I might be pretty rusty as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

You know what? I was just thinking, it's been a while since I've been a guest on a podcast. So we're both in the same boat today, in the same territory.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

Every everybody out there listening. Yeah. Yeah. It's rusty, it's raw, it's authentic, which is a great segue. Great segue. Oh, I'm good with the segues now. Authentic. Vanessa, what actually pulled me towards you and your content from the beginning is that you are incredibly authentic online. And one of these things that that I can see that you you both get a lot of praise for, and you also get a lot of like shtick for. It's one of those things that that authenticity, you know, we're both in the same boat with that. There's a lot that goes into that. And just so everyone can know, I'd love to, I'd love to get everyone to understand your journey, what you do, and how you got to what you do, which helps, I guess, all of us understand why you are so authentic.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

I don't think I was always authentic, I'll tell you that much. But I think like you're absolutely right. Being online comes with this, you know, I started my account because I wanted to express and I wanted to use my voice more. And I wanted to talk more honestly about life and motherhood and identity and all of that. I'm super interested in all of those topic topics, relationship. But you're right, being on there came with a lot of like me too. Women were seeing themselves in my content, and that felt so good that I could mirror something to somebody else or put words to their own experiences. But with that also came a lot of criticism and a lot of backlash. And I don't, I was not prepared. I was not prepared for the backlash, the backlash and the criticism that came with social media. But over time, you know, I've been trying to get back connected to myself because I feel like I was censoring myself for a bit because of that criticism. I was scared. Like I almost wanted to stop creating at some point. But I'm just getting back to, you know, trying to speak freely without being afraid that I'm gonna say the wrong thing or the bad thing. And I am trying to create conversations that feel real and honest, but it's also a really scary place to be as well.

SPEAKER_02 3:31

Oh yeah. I mean, that's a whole nother conversation. It's a whole nother conversation.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Yes. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:37

So I mean, you're a therapist, right? Yes. Was this what um was relationships or personal development? What are what was always the field that you've been most interested in going into that sort of space?

SPEAKER_01 3:49

Yeah, I love that question. I think it's change it's evolved as I've evolved, right? But I definitely just think at the at the foundation of everything, I've always been deeply interested in people's inner world and why people are the way that they are. Obviously, my personal, I think, you know, when you get asked the question of like, oh, why did you become a social worker? That the immediate answer is that, oh, I like to help people. In hindsight, that was not my experience. I went into social worker, social work because I was trying to understand myself. I had gone through something really traumatic when I was eight years old. And so the reason I went into social work was to understand my inner world and the chaoticness and the dysfunction that I was experiencing. And I was trying to understand myself better. So it really started from my own experience and my own journey of loss and instability in my life. And then I think that just naturally made me more observant of people and emotions, relationships, coping, suffering, all of it. And I just really became curious about how experiences shape us as human beings and how our pain gets carried and how people get stuck. You know, I was stuck in certain patterns for a really long time. I will probably start talking about this more as I've healed from it, but I've had an identity around suffering. My identity was around pain and suffering, and I could not experience living and joy. And so, but I, you know, I'm determined. I'm a seeker, I'm a learner, a grower. And so I'm working on moving through that. And so, yeah, over time in my own journey, I became a mom. So then obviously I was really interested in working with women and mothers and realizing all the silent emotional overwhelm that they were experiencing while functioning on the outside, but something different was going on in the inside. And yeah, I think that that really started my passion of working with women who were going through really big identity shifts in motherhood, postpartum, in their relationships, uh, and in the middle of like the most disorientating, you know, identity shift of their life.

SPEAKER_02 5:59

I love that. And and you're 100% right. I think, I think um one thing which is a caveat or a side to even this conversation and overall is I really do see that what we do in life tends to be what we want for ourselves. You know, even if I if I look at me coaching men on how to be a better husband, it's it's one of my biggest values is to be a better husband myself. And it's it's insane to see how living with this shit every single day, right, makes me notice everything faster, even in my own life. It's that's that's the beauty of it. So that's a definite side note, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

And I agree, and I think that like, you know, as a therapist, something I will always say is like we can only take people as far as we've gone ourselves, right? Like self-awareness and and personal work matter so much for us, and we can only take people as far as as we've gone in the work, right? So yeah, it's it's this delicate dance of like I continuously want to work on myself and be self-aware so I can take people through their journeys as well.

SPEAKER_02 6:58

Yeah, it's beautiful. That's really beautiful. And and I I have to say, one of the major reasons why I wanted to get you on this podcast, because I I don't I don't speak to a lot of women on the podcast. You know, it's like it's often, you know, men, men tend to be the main target audience because it's like, okay, let's understand men. But one of my major core tenets within what I do is that we need to understand the feminine as men. And and it's one of those things where even in in what I coach, I coach about like the fact that there are, in my experience, there are like eight major unmet needs uh that that wives usually have. And they won't be able to maybe say it out loud because they'll actually mean something else underneath and and and or they won't have the language for it, and so they'll say something else. And and so part of why I'd love to have you on today is a bit of even a selfish reason to understand more of the feminine from your perspective. And so when I like when we talk about unmet needs, I'd love to hear, yeah, from you for my audience. What what does the feminine mean a lot of the times when certain things are being said? And I I think that's a a great place to be.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

Yeah. So yeah, but and before we deepen in this conversation, I I did, you know, I made a mental note of that. I wanted to share with you that I really love the work that you are doing with men. I think it is so needed. And you're, you know, I was very drawn to your account for that same reason of like, you know, I think a lot of men genuine genuinely want healthier and deeper relationships and they want to feel more connected to themselves and to their partners. But I think men do lack a lot of the emotional and relational skills to be able to navigate that really well. So I really respect your space and helping men become more emotionally aware and responsible because it is a gift to us as women as well. So I think those conversations are incredibly important. So I I wanted to name that before we go anywhere else of like, I respect what you're doing and thank you from all us, from all of us women.

SPEAKER_02 9:00

But I think even that, even even in that, and what I what I hear in that, and and I appreciate the I appreciate that that praise in that way, but even for every man listening here, like that already, what you're actually saying underneath that praise to me is men, we we we love emotional maturity.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

Yeah, yeah. We do. We we love we love it. Yeah. Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 9:25

And so that happens. So then let me dive straight in. Why are the words that are coming out separate to what is wanted underneath?

SPEAKER_01 9:34

Okay, so obviously, again, you kind of name this. I work primarily with women. I don't work with men, so I am coming to this conversation from working with a lot of women, right? From a woman's perspective, not all women, I want to name that very clearly as well, too, but I've worked with enough women at this point to see some common patterns in relationships and when women are struggling in their own relationship. So one of the biggest things that I've noticed working with women is that yeah, we're not always communicating the deeper need underneath, especially when we are emotionally overwhelmed or if we are dysregulated ourselves, or if we're touched out, or if we're feeling really resentful about something or exhausted, disconnection, all of these things. Communication usually does not come out in a really clean and a very vulnerable way. I learned this through my own experience with my husband in postpartum, right? Because postpartum is gonna activate a lot of dysregulation, like you're not sleeping well. You know, you're you're starting to notice a lot of the discrepancies and the load in your in your relationship as well. And so there was like a lot of stuff building up postpartum with me and my husband. We were constantly butting heads, we felt disconnected. It was a very messy time in our relationship. We came from homes where we didn't know how to communicate through conflict in healthy ways and how to stay emotionally connected. And so we were trying to figure all of that out in real time while also in one of the most like destabilizing seasons of our life. So, so this was happening a lot in our own relationship. So, you know, what I would have liked to say to my husband was not always what I was actually communicating to him. Like, of course, it would have been great if I was just like, hey, Adam, like I'm feeling emotionally unsupported right now and I need more partnership. Like that would be great, right? If I could say those things. But that's not what was happening. The emotion was always coming out before the unmet need. So the emotion was the thing like, you never help me. You don't, you don't listen to me, you never think about me, you, you, you never put me first, whatever. It could be many of those, those types of statements. And I think that I classify my husband as a good man. He's a he's a good enough partner. And I think that he would sometimes take those statements like really literally in those moments. And because of that, he would go into defense mode because I think, yeah, it's an attack it felt like an attack. Like, of course, like I'm like, of course you would come back. Defense, like, I don't blame you, right? And he's like, that's not true. I did help, all those things, right? But yeah, what I think gets missed is that for most women underneath the delivery and the cur criticism is often something that is much softer and much vulnerable, and and and probably something more painful of like, I feel really alone right now, or I I miss you. Like, oh my God, postpartum, like I miss us. I miss you. I miss feeling close to you and connected to you. Yeah, I don't feel emotionally held right now. Like that was really what was underneath the emotional discharge.

SPEAKER_02 12:52

Oh, 100%. I love that. I love that because what you're actually, I mean, there's a few things that we can we can jump on, um, a few different tracks, but I'll reflect what I what I heard and things that I think are really important. A lot of the times this is happening because of emotional overwhelm and dysregulation. Dysregulation is the word I just circled there because I think when something's dysregulated, it's hard to actually then manage how to come out cleanly, right? Clean with with wording. Um But then the next thing is this men take it literally and and and and whereas the women are almost sharing it as oh like the intensity of it is almost showing how intense she is feeling it rather than the actual literal nature of it. So there's there's men going, okay, these are the words, you are literally saying this, and then I'm that. And whereas women going, well, I'm saying it like that because that's how strongly I feel it. That's almost the language that I see is the difference between. Would you agree with that?

SPEAKER_01 13:53

Absolutely. Yeah, a hundred percent. Like, I and and you know, it's funny because I feel like if I were a male in a relationship, I'd be like, like, why don't you just say what you need directly, like common sense, right? Like, why don't you just say what you actually need? And I think that's a really fair question. But like you said, I like ideally I would have loved to say these things, but humans don't always communicate from their most like regulated, self-aware state. Like there were moments where I didn't even know what I was feeling in that moment. Like I knew like the intensity of what I was feeling. But sometimes I didn't even know what was going on in myself. I didn't even have the language for it. So how am I supposed to communicate that to him? I was communicating mostly from emotion. And and the other piece of this I want to speak about too is that vulnerability is also very hard for women, especially women who've come from homes where it wasn't safe enough to be direct about a need that you have, right? And so if you grew up being dismissed, emotionally unsafe environment, if you were responsible for others, if you were afraid of rejection, to go and be vulnerable with somebody, yeah, I know this is your husband, but we have these old beliefs and these old filters kind of running the show, right? So to be vulnerable is actually gonna be really risky. And so I'm gonna come in with a more protective communication stance, right?

SPEAKER_02 15:19

And 100%. You're right, because the moment you come in with that protective stance, he's coming in with a protective thing as well. And both of you, like, and yeah, it's it's it's definitely they play into each other.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

100%. And I mean, I think that that's important to talk about too, right? Is that I think it's not just men having to do the work. I think we both had to grow in different ways. And I want to be really clear about that. It's like we both had to learn how to lower our defensiveness. We both had to learn to become more emotionally curious of one another instead of just reacting to the wording. And that was a lot harder said than done. It took a lot of conversations. Like we were having the same conversation over, over and over and over and over and over again and budding heads. But I think that that's like common when you're kind of trying to sort these things out, right? Um 100%.

unknown 16:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:12

Yeah, I talk I talk often, you know, when I whenever I talk to men in in when I coached, like I talk about this dynamic that I used to have with Julia, like where my family always used to well, my family never fought. And in actual fact, my when my mother and father fought the first time, the next day they called us into the bedroom, and I was like 12, and they called us into the bedroom and said they were gonna get a divorce. So quite literally, I equated anger and shouting with, you know, it's gonna end up in divorce. And you know, one of the things with my my my wife's family is is they threw pots and pans at each other, you know, when when she grew up, and and and they just got louder in order in in order to get heard. And so you can then see how dynamics come later on, and it's really good, I think, for everyone listening to understand your dynamics from your past, because I also think that's what you're saying here. Understand your dynamics from the past, because if you do, you can look at that and you can go, oh, well, she's just wanting, she's getting louder when she's d doesn't feel heard. And me, I feel repulsed when there's a getting louder because and I don't want to listen even more because I'm terrified of the the the pain of what anger and and all of that's bringing. And so she's just gonna get keep getting louder and I'm gonna keep like retracting. And so by knowing that, you can cut straight to the you can cut straight to the point of like what's the actual thing underneath.

SPEAKER_01 17:36

Yes, a hundred a hundred percent. And I think I think people underestimate how much our past relational dynamics show up in our present ones. So, you know, we're reacting to something that is happening in the present moment 100%, but I think we're also reacting to things that have happened in the past, old experiences, old fears, old conditioning, old survival strategies. And so two things are happening at once, right? And I think that even that the if we talk about intensity, that's gonna create more intensity in those moments because we're responding to what's happening in the present, and we're our nervous system is also remembering things in the past. So it becomes, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:16

It gets even more crazy because the the the future is then also determined by what you're the meaning you're placing on the present based on the past.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

Yes. Yeah, it's it's a messy, a mm, a messy combination.

unknown 18:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:29

It gets really messy. It gets really messy. So so what are ways that that you suggest, even from the from the women's side of this? Like, so obviously, I actually what's really amazing, and I'm I'm really grateful for this, my podcast has a majority male listening following. So I have a majority female like Instagram, Facebook, everything is like majority women. But the podcast, men. And I'm grateful of that. That's awesome. With that, with that knowledge, speaking to men, how can men actually get to the need underneath in your perspective?

SPEAKER_01 19:09

Absolutely. So the the most underrated skill is emotional attunement. The skill of emotional attunement becomes really, really important here. And what emotional attunement is, it's the ability to recognize, understand, and emotionally respond to what is happening inside of another person, underneath their words, underneath the behavior. It is not mind reading. I want to make that very clear because I also get a lot of comments from, I don't, I'm not expected to read her mind. Yes, I hear you. And that's not what I'm saying. That this is, it's not, it's also not agreeing with everything that your wife is saying, because I think sometimes that gets distorted too, of like, well, I don't agree with her. You actually don't have to agree with her. Okay. And it's also not fixing somebody else's emotions. So if if somebody is emotionally attuned, what that is, it's like, I can sense what is emotionally happening for you, and I am willing to stay connected to you in that, right? So it's a combination of responsiveness to your partner in that moment, but also emotional awareness. So instead of just hearing what's on the surface, we are also paying attention to her tone, to her body language. What are the stressors that are going on in her life right now that I'm aware of? What's yeah, and it's getting curious about like what might be underneath that reaction. So, for example, if I say to my husband, like, you never help me, a non-attuned response might be, that's not true. I helped you yesterday, right? Like that's you're not being attuned to me and validating the whole argument.

SPEAKER_02 20:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

Yes. Where if he was practicing emotional attunement, it would be okay, something feels bigger than the chores right now, or are you feeling overwhelmed? I I kind of think it it leads with a question versus like a statement of like, oh, what's going on right now? What's going on in her world? So the the difference there is that in one situation, you're just reacting to the wording of what's coming out of my mouth. And then the the other one is you're trying to understand the experience underneath, the emotional experience underneath the wording. And for women, again, I speak for a majority of women, not all women, emotional attunement is one of the main ways, not only women actually, men too, how how they feel emotionally safe and connected in relationships. And I'm in a because I'm speaking for my own example, I rarely, rarely want my husband to solve a problem when I go to him. I that is not what I'm looking for. Rarely. Sometimes, sometimes, but it's very rare. I want to feel understood. I'm going to him because I want him to understand me. I want to feel seen. I just want to feel partnered with or accompanied with in that moment. I want to just feel less alone in the experience. And I think that that is what women most again, most women really want. We don't want immediate fixing in the moment. We want emotional understanding. And I think that that is where men miss women the most often.

SPEAKER_02 22:26

They miss the mark completely. And you know, it's um it's an interesting thing that I can already hear, because you know, you do this work long enough on social media, you start hearing the the comments of what people are gonna say before you've even posted the piece of content.

SPEAKER_01 22:40

Yep. But I know I have nobody in there. That's why I have to like I had to enter these disclaimers in because I am literally tainted from social media.

SPEAKER_02 22:49

Well, I've learned that it's gonna happen anyway, no matter what. So I just go, fuck it. But um I like it. Essentially, the the thing that I would hear men say straight away, which is actually segue us really beautifully into our second topic, is why should I do that? Why should I do that? You know, she should just be able to learn. And for me, I feel like that is the quintessential line from somebody who is an enemy with their partner, not in a team with their partner. Which leads us into team thinking. How important is team thinking in the relationship?

SPEAKER_01 23:25

I want to like kind of segue back to something you said because it will go into this conversation as well. Is that I think what happens often in relationship, and this is kind of what I've seen working with women, and and I did some couples' work for a little bit, but cycles and loops are really big in relationships, right? So like I think that we all get stuck in different cycles or leaps in our partnerships. So, for example, like here, if like I come to you with pain, you get defensive, I feel dismissed in that moment, I escalate or I shut down, whatever happens next. I think eventually what happens if that pattern goes on so much in the relationship, eventually both of us are gonna start feeling emotionally unsafe with one another, right? And I think in start instead of like solving the problem, most couples are gonna start adapting to that pattern and figuring out like a way to work like work around each other instead of like solving the pattern. So I always like to look at like what loops are we stuck in or what cycles are we stuck in in the relationship? And I think that that kind of helps me like stop viewing the relationship as you versus me and like what loop are we are we inside of together? Because I think that once we start moving into that blame game, like whose fault is it? Who started it? Who deserves the apology? I do more than you, who's right, who's wrong? The relationship is gonna stop feeling collaborative in that moment, right? So I I I kind of see it that way. Like, yes, things are gonna be messy, but we are both participating in this loop and in this cycle. And it goes both ways.

SPEAKER_02 25:16

100%. I mean, and the funny thing is, it might go 5% one way and 95% another way, but there is always it takes two to tango. Yeah, it takes two to tanker with that loop. There's always something, you know, like something that I hear from men, which I I'd love to get out somehow, and this is where I even talk about the archetypes of boy to man and everything like this, is this idea that everything needs to be fair. Everything needs to be fair. I'm only gonna do work on me if she does exactly the same amount of work on her.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 25:48

Have you seen this in your line of work?

SPEAKER_01 25:50

Oh, yes. Yes. And I see it the opposite. Like, yes, I see the woman like, why do I have to do all this if he's not doing it? Yes, yes, I see it. Yes. We get we get we get this trapped in this idea that things always need to be fair. And it's so funny right now because my daughter, she's five, and this is this is this is life right now. That's not fair. And I'm like, but yeah, I I that's not how relationships work, you guys. Like relationships don't work at, you know, 50-50, equal, perfectly fair at all times. And if that's the way that you are positioning yourself in the relationship, like that's the first thing that we need to look at because you know, there's gonna be relationships are seasons. Like there's gonna be seasons where where one person is gonna have less capacity. For example, postpartum. Like I am not functioning, you know, at a hundred percent or whatever. You know, I've also had a lot of medical issues in my life that allow me to, you know, not be able to show up as as great that I would like to as a partner. So sometimes I have less capacity, I'm struggling more, I'm caring more, but sometimes he is as well too, right? Like, and and we gotta stop focusing on keeping the score.

SPEAKER_02 27:03

It doesn't help anyone.

SPEAKER_01 27:04

It doesn't help anyone because resentment, that's how resentment builds, right? Like that is how the resentment is gonna build. And I think instead of instead of like, is everything equal in our relationship? Like, do we just genuinely care about each other? Like, do we generally care about each other's well-being? Are we both trying? That's another thing that we talk about a lot with women, is like effort. Effort looks different between men and women. What your effort is may not look the same. So we have to have conversations about that. Like, is he trying in his own way? Are we being responsive to each other? Like, do we trust that that that support flow can happen both ways over time?

SPEAKER_03 27:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:45

I hear this very, very, very often. But again, it comes back to that emotional maturity, right?

SPEAKER_02 27:50

It does. It does. And I mean, I think I think the the less emotional maturity we have, the more we Yeah. I mean, but it also comes back to safety, as you were saying as well, because if you don't feel safe with your partner, then you easily can be in competition with your partner or in in in, you know, they're they're they're the enemy, so to speak. And and it's one of the biggest things that I want to get people to is just like, look, if if your partner's having an issue, right? It's it's she's part of your team, so it's part of your problem to care about that issue. Not just like, look, I cared about that three times out of out of three. Now I shouldn't, now she's on her own. It's like this it's a real, it's a real danger. It's a real danger.

SPEAKER_01 28:33

I was gonna say, and it just goes back to the emotional tumor piece as well, right? Like if we can start practicing, both men and women start practicing that, you know, I think both people just want to feel valid. Like they want to feel valid in their experiences and like allowing both people's experiences to exist, like not just man, not just women, but allowing both experiences to be valid. And again, it doesn't mean you have to agree with somebody, you have to, you know, take their side. It's just we want our emotional experiences to be validated.

SPEAKER_02 29:06

Or that it needs to continue.

SPEAKER_01 29:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 29:10

You know, like but at least seen, you know, that's actually it's an interesting thing because let's say um that's what you said there is that I need this experience to be valid. I see a lot in women that come to through my content that go, like, why do men do this? And the interesting thing is I understand a lot why my why men did it. I I look at my own life, why I was passive, for example, and didn't and didn't actually step up and and help. And from my experience, I had a different world of view. My world view at that time was that, well, I need to spend time doing this specific thing or spend time making money or trying to cause some kind of status or purpose in my life, because once I do that, then everything else will come together. And if you have that as a world view within a relationship where you go, no, we are the relationship that needs to go ahead, right? They're they're at odds. And so the interesting thing is, from my perspective, I was like, that was why a lot of this behavior I felt was coming out through me. But once you actually get in a team and you start seeing each other and you see the experience as valid, I think then you can, as a team, work out what's a what's a more valid thing moving forward, right?

SPEAKER_01 30:22

Yeah, I I love that. I love that. And and I think it goes like, I think I I actually just feel like I just posted about something about this the other day. But I genuinely think what allows people to change and what allows people to metabolize their experiences and move on or or or break something down is after that they after they've been seen, understood, and emotionally acknowledged. Then, and sometimes people need that for a little bit longer in the process. Like there's clients that I have been with who've needed their experiences because they've been so complex to be seen, understood, and emotionally acknowledged for years. And I sit with that in them. Like that is my job, right? But I think that once people get that, people start to move, people start to change. It's like something incredibly wild happens in regulation and healing when somebody is finally understood by another human being. Like I I think it is, I see this all the time too, right? It's it's magical. It's it's it's like an awe of like, wow, like, yeah, suffering intensifies like when people feel unseen or defending yourself intensifies when you're unseen.

SPEAKER_02 31:34

It prolongs the the autopilot, so to speak. Like you're always you're in that kind of loop of that you have no idea. And then you're right, it does go in seasons because the moment you notice it and you see it, and then it's been seen, and it it's like you've pulled the monster out from under the bed and you've realized that it's actually just a furry little thing that wants to be loved, you love it, you actually go, Oh, I can change my behavior now.

unknown 31:57

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:58

I I totally believe it, right? Because I think you're right. Your nervous system does something different. Like if you're in survival mode, you're gonna be so zoomed in on something. Whereas if you can have that experience of of yeah, of emotional attunement and being acknowledged, over time your nervous system is gonna soften. Your body's gonna soften, you're gonna, your defensiveness is gonna lower, your chances of escalating is gonna decrease. And that is what makes change possible. You can't change in survival. Like you can't change when you're in survival mode, zoomed in. Like you have to have expansion in your body. You have to have openness to that change, right? So I think that that is what makes change possible is the emotional attunement aspect on both sides.

SPEAKER_02 32:38

100%. And and and that even for themselves, even specifically for self, to go, you know what? This is who what I am. Like what's one of the major things that I teach, and I love that you've you've just literally brought it straight out without me even saying this is that emotional attunement, I think, is fantastic. It's a wonderful word for it. I've always just said it's the understanding of your wife and understanding of yourself. And when we truly understand those two things, you would literally realize, oh, I actually don't need her to drop down on her hands and knees and praise me for everything I've done in my life as well. I actually understand myself, I understand her, and we can and in even in the process, they've been seen. Because ironically, once they know themselves, they also share that with their wives, and then their wives can see the emotional tune in full effect.

SPEAKER_01 33:24

I 100% agree with that. You have to have that combin combination. It has to be, I'm glad that you brought that up to the conversation because 100% it's like, yes, I can I can understand what's happening in my partner, but I also need to understand what's happening inside myself in this moment.

SPEAKER_02 33:40

Yeah. Yeah. Because we're we're all complex and and new things happen, you know? We're all like these interesting. I was I was finding myself even in in my business, like there's some things I could do in my business that would literally make it work, right? But I I bottleneck the whole thing. I have a few things that I control and and I my my schedules and everything's really out of date. I have like a million email addresses, so I don't even know how to sign into all of these. And Julia, she's fantastic and she's very emotionally uh attuned. And she's just like, so what are you what are you self- what what is the self-sabotage that's going? And I'm like, what are you talking about? She's like, what are you what are you scared of? What are you scared of? And I'm like, oh for fuck's sake. It's not always about fear. And then it hits me, oh gosh. If I get all of this sorted, then it's gonna grow even bigger. And then if it grows even bigger, I fear that I won't be able to handle it.

SPEAKER_00 34:31

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 34:33

And then you see the you pull the monster out the bed. It literally happened yesterday. Pulled the monster out the bed, and I was like, okay, I see that. I can I can let go of that. Let's move on. You know? And then now I'm sorting out my shit.

SPEAKER_01 34:45

I love that so much. I think it's it's so incredibly powerful when like a partner can just like do that, right? Like, what what's going on with you right now? What are you what are you protecting yourself from? Like, what what feels risky about this? Like that, what a like what a beautiful, incredibly powerful thing for a partner to do.

SPEAKER_02 35:01

Well, I I I think it's literally um something that when we had a pre-chat, you you spoke that um something that men can do is be like detectives.

SPEAKER_00 35:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 35:10

Uh and so so I I think it's exactly that, right? It's to to to understand. But to explain this idea. What is uh men as detectives?

SPEAKER_01 35:19

So I'm gonna actually use another therapist's model here. Have you heard of I'm sure you've heard of Terence Real. Have you heard of Terence Real? He is uh a couples. Okay. So have you heard of his concept of the relational the relationship grid?

SPEAKER_03 35:34

I think so. I think so. Go for it. Go for it.

SPEAKER_01 35:38

I I like this, this, this concept, right? So this it's actually a tool, but um basically what the relationship, let me see if I can explain this. So is it's basically a tool that helps you mentally locate where you are emotionally during conflict and where you need to move in order to come back to your center or to your like your your anchor or your groundedness. Okay. So usually if we are fighting or if we're getting into conflict and it's escalating and we're getting nowhere and we're looping and all this stuff is happening, we are no longer at our center in that, in that conversation. We're activated, we're being protective, all those things are happening. Old wounds might be coming up, shame, fear, all of the things. So, what I really like about the grid is it helps you ask this question of like, where am I right now? Because I think that's the first thing is we have to look at like, okay, where am I on this grid right now? And so the grid does two things. It looks at self-esteem and it looks at boundaries. So vertically, yeah, vertically going up and down. At the top is grandosity, so being one up. At the bottom is shame, so being one down. And then if you're going horizontally, one side is boundarylessness and the other side, so that's where you're like emotionally spilling out everywhere, and all the other side is walled off, and that's when you're like shut down completely emotionally. I don't know if you could like Google this grid, but it's easier if you can actually see it. Um, but it looks like a cross basically, when when you actually have an image of it. So basically, you end up on four possible states, right? So, and I think that this framework is helpful for both men and women because when we move out of our center, if we go one up into that like granosity type of mentality, you're gonna start like, I'm right, you're overreacting. This is your issue. Go figure it out yourself, like whatever that's gonna look like. But if you go into one down, into that like shame, because sometimes men will dip into shame as well. We know that. So it can be like, I can never sometimes, quite often. Often, often, yeah. And I was like, I need to edit that sometimes. Yeah, it's I never can do it right. I'm a terrible partner. Why do I even try? And then we're shutting down, right? And then the boundary part is like either you're explosive, you're flooding all over the place with emotions, or you're walled off and you become completely unavailable and disconnected. So I love this grid because I think it just, yeah, it just it speaks to 100%.

SPEAKER_02 38:09

Even visually in this, I can see I can see my younger self in even one or two of the fights up in the grandiosity, but over in the like the boundaryless area as well. Because then you slam your hand down and go like, you're crazy and I can't understand you, and you, yeah, yeah. Oh, that's gives me some shivers.

SPEAKER_01 38:29

I know. But I love this like grid. I feel like this grid is so even just that like the mental image of it, I think is amazing. But you can use it, right? To ask yourself, like, where am I on this grid right now? And what do I need to start doing for myself to start moving myself back to the center? Because you want to be in the center, right? You want to be towards the center. And that's where that detectiveness comes in. Because detectiveness, quote unquote, is just curiosity, right? It goes back to that, that, that thing that we talked earlier. To be open, you have to be grounded. You have to be at your center, you have to have access to curiosity. That is gonna be incredibly important. So you have to learn how to move yourself back to the center on this grid, right? Because that is where we're gonna get into that detective work and that curiosity. And did I explain that well enough? I feel like it's hard to explain that.

SPEAKER_02 39:20

No, no, no. I I think it's I think it's actually very good to explain. I think the thing that people will miss, and and probably this could be a whole conversation on another podcast, but you know, like it would be the the ways to come back to the center from each of the polls. Yes. Right? Because if we think grandiosity, how do we come back from how do we humble ourselves enough to get back to the center? If we think shame, how do we pull our fucking heads out of our ass a little bit to get back to the center to stop being self-deprecating? And then if we're gonna have so much emotion, how do we emotionally regulate to get to the middle? And then on the other side, walled off, how do we actually feel safe enough to open up the doors a little bit?

SPEAKER_00 39:57

I love that.

SPEAKER_02 39:58

But yeah, but even that, even that, if we think about that, I think sorry to to to go on a tangent. I I just feel like it works. For for each person listening, if if we literally even just ask literally the questions that I just said there to ourselves, I think those would help get you there. Because I don't think a lot of us are conscious enough to even ask those questions.

SPEAKER_01 40:19

100%. Like, so like, do you mean like asking yourself like like what's feeling hardest for you? Like it's in a like what about your partner? Now you're doing it to yourself of like what's feeling hard for you. Well, why are you feeling unsupported? Yeah, did something is something deeper happening for you in this moment? Yeah, and I think that that's what, oh, there is a word, is it mentalization? Is that the word? It's basically the ability to be able to understand what is going on in you and the other person in that moment. And that is a tough skill. And that is a skill. It's a tough skill. It's a skill, which means it can be learned if you want to learn it. It's possible.

SPEAKER_02 40:54

Oh, 100%. 100%. You know, the the way I learned it, which was hilarious, is actually I learned it when I was back at film school in a weird way. I used to be a film director and and one of the things that we used to do would when when you speaking to an actor, you're trying to you're trying to get a great performance by dealing with something called subtext. So when you got the script, the script might say I'm okay, right? The line is I'm okay. But then you you would play with the actor and you go, no, the subtext under this is that you're not okay. All right, say it again, say it again, but this time say it like you're not okay. It's like, I'm okay. All right. Now say it like, say it like you're actually, you know, like like you're you're jealous, you know, and there's every time there's a subtext underneath, it's it changes the way of the words. And so I learned back then to practice thinking, well, what is the thing underneath the thing? That was where I got the thing underneath the thing is like, what is the subtext? What's the what's the what is the actual thing that's being felt underneath the words that are being said? And it's very clear from like when you're studying people that we are not feeling what we are saying. We are feeling something entirely underneath. And and to be able to find out what that subtext is is very important, I think.

SPEAKER_01 42:21

I love that. That's nailed it right there. And I love how like you from the experience of being in production, like what are the chances? But I think that that is so cool. I love that. I hope someone takes that. Yeah, even like I love when you say, like, I love when people share things because then people have like imagery of like this moment of like, oh, you know, how actors and actresses have to read the subtext. And like, it's just like even just like these like symbolic things that when you're asking yourself, where am I here? What do I need to get do for my partner? It's like, oh, the you know, this conversation that Alessandro had with Vanessa and like the producer and the subtext.

SPEAKER_02 42:58

Like this, I think that these are great ways that people can well they laugh on and they and they're yeah, exactly, because then it's also another way of externalizing it from themselves. Because what we're actually asking people to do in this process is to externalize, is to separate from that emotional brain because grandiosity, like walled off, uh shame, gosh, and the the completely uh free of emotions, um, all of those are are high emotional states, if you think about it. And and and uh to even understand that, like I just think I'm like, fuck, you have to actually really notice that you are emotional. And to do that, you have to externally think of yourself as an emotional being and then have a different self-thinking that thought.

unknown 43:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:44

Like you have to detach.

SPEAKER_02 43:46

You have to detach from it, which is a very so so all we're doing is creating tools for externalization so that we can actually get out of that emotional brain and think more rationally in the pro in the heat of the moment.

SPEAKER_01 43:58

Aaron Powell 100%. Podcast yesterday too. And it, you know, we don't have to resolve everything. Emotions make you want to resolve things and figure things out right away. Like, there's a lot of urgency that comes with that. So, yes, if we can practice this skill of like detaching a little bit. And I even like it's okay if you have to tell your partner, like, you know, I need to step away for a second. You know, I need to go distract myself. Like, I think that adaptive distraction is okay sometimes. If you can come back to have a more clearer, grounded conversation with your partner. Like you just I and I think that you nailed, like, yeah, you nailed it here. You got to kind of figure out how to move yourself back to the center. I think that that's gonna look different for every person and every couple, right? And it's gonna take some exactly.

SPEAKER_02 44:47

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 44:48

Yeah, experimentation.

SPEAKER_02 44:49

Even in this, and I can I can also hear the the men on the other side of this going, oh, but when I when I ask for five minutes out, what happens to what happens to the wife, right? If if the wife's emotional center is that I am going to be abandoned, then so I think we've got two. The hilarious thing is even just talking about Terrence Reel's uh grid here, we've got two people's grids, and the answers of getting to the center for both is going to be different because of the combination of the two.

SPEAKER_00 45:16

Yeah, yes.

unknown 45:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 45:18

Not because of just you or just her. So you might need timeout, but she timeout for her might be so explosive that timeout's off the table. Timeouts are off the table.

SPEAKER_01 45:29

Exactly. But yeah, I think, yeah, you're right. You have to kind of you have to learn for yourself, learn for your or understand your partner, and then come have conversations to figure out what works in your relationship. And again, this is not gonna be like we talked through this already, like relationships are messy. Like you might have to have this conversation 10 times before you guys figure out what works best in your relationship, in your contents, with context, with your nervous system, with your attachment history. Like this will take time and it is gonna be messy. Like, and that's okay. It's supposed to be. I think what's important is like, do we genuinely care about each other enough to continue having these conversations in a respectful way where we have to do that?

SPEAKER_02 46:06

And to try to try new things in order to get through.

SPEAKER_01 46:10

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 46:11

Because doing the same thing over again, I think, as to your point, we'll probably just continue that loop.

SPEAKER_01 46:16

Absolutely. Yeah, try something different.

SPEAKER_02 46:19

Try something different. And you might fuck it up even more, but hey.

SPEAKER_01 46:22

Fuck it up even more.

SPEAKER_00 46:24

That's okay. That's okay.

SPEAKER_02 46:26

But at least it's something different. Look, Vanessa, it's been a pleasure having uh a chat to you today. Is there anything that you'd want to share with with men on this audience that we haven't spoken about today?

SPEAKER_01 46:38

Not anything crazy. I just want men to know that like I think that um it's underestimated how healing that what we're talking about today is for women. And the other thing that I want to say is like, we don't need you guys to be perfect. We don't need perfection. We don't need you to always, and it kind of goes back to this point, like you just said, like, hey, we're gonna fuck up sometimes. Things are gonna be messy. We don't need you to get it right or say the exact right thing. It's okay if you make mistakes. It's okay, like if this does look a little bit sloppy. What we actually just want at the end of the day is to know that there is some responsiveness, that there is whatever effort looks like for you. And we feel that effort, that consideration, the attunement, that the feeling of like, I'm in this with you. Like I'm we're in this together. I'm here to support you. And I think that like sometimes that's all a nervous system needs in order to calm down and that will change everything relationally. So I just want to say, like, you don't have to, like, that's my biggest message. Like, you don't have to do this perfectly.

SPEAKER_02 47:40

Yeah. Yeah. That's beautiful. Thank you so much, Vanessa. How can people find you?

SPEAKER_01 47:45

Just mostly on Instagram right now at Vanessa Skinarski. Uh, I also host online space, a virtual online space for women as well, especially who are going through the transition of motherhood. And that's at the Mama Healing Hub, Inc.

unknown 47:59

I am.

SPEAKER_02 48:00

So, man, if you got some wives out there that uh just are going through postpartum, that's for them, right?

SPEAKER_01 48:06

So it's not necessarily postpartum, it's just anybody like what we talked about today. Women who are really interested in like their own self-growth, their own introspective discovery, their own reflection, who just want more well-being, more happiness in their life, who just want to feel more connected to themselves and other people in relationships. So it doesn't, you don't have to necessarily be postpartum. Just ready to do work if you're looking for the work.

SPEAKER_02 48:29

There you go. Got something for your wives to do as well. All right. Thanks so much, Vanessa.

SPEAKER_01 48:34

Much for having me.

SPEAKER_02 48:35

That's the episode. That's all I got for you today. Just want you to remember you're not alone in this. Make sure you subscribe to stay connected, of course, and comment your win, you know, because every time a man sees other men winning, they don't feel alone anymore. And I love that. Tools are in the show notes, starting with the better husband in two-minute emails. Let's build this together. I'll see you next week.