8 Fears Silently Making You a Defensive Husband | EP 43

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Is your defensiveness protecting your marriage or quietly destroying it?

Alessandro Frosali has coached enough men to know that defensiveness rarely shows up looking like defensiveness. It shows up as sulking, snapping, fixing, stonewalling, and going cold for hours over something that seems small. 

And underneath all of it are fears most men would never admit to having.

Alessandro names eight of them. He is not here to make you feel bad about it. He is here to hand you a flashlight so you can see what is actually driving your reactions before they cost you something you cannot get back.

Chapters:
04:30 - Why One Correction Can Ruin the Night
06:23 - When Touch Turns Into Rejection
08:17 - The Phone Moment That Feels Personal
09:30 - The Shame Men Refuse to Name
12:16 - The Mental Load Fight Men Keep Losing
15:16 - The Fear That Makes Men Over-Fix Everything
17:14 - Why Listening Feels Like Failing
21:23 - The Respect Trap  
27:53 - The Spiral After One Bad Moment
29:09 - When Space Feels Like Abandonment
30:35 - The Deepest Fear Under Defensiveness
32:28 - The One Fear You Need to Face First 

You'll start to see that your wife reloading the dishwasher, laughing during an argument, or checking if you made that call, might not mean what you think it means. The problem is what you're making it mean. And that meaning is running your marriage into the ground.

This episode is a mirror, it's uncomfortable and it's also exactly what you need.

Stay until the end because the eighth fear is the one holding all the others together, and naming it might change how you show up tomorrow.

Press play and learn the eight hidden fears driving your defensiveness and what to do with each one.

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

0:00

Why do men get defensive? This is one of the major things that is destroying relationships, destroying marriages across the world. You know, scientists say it's one of the four major things that is gonna destroy your marriage. Defensiveness. Now, I see a lot of men out there saying, Well, I'm just like this. I'm just stubborn. I mean, we see that from both sides of the fence. Women are gonna say, well, he's just a stubborn man or he's just a defensive man. And then if we're gonna go into attachment styles, they go, well, I'm just anxious or I'm just avoidant, and then we perpetuate these labels that go over and over and over again. I wanna break that shit up and I wanna make the case today that defensiveness is not this amorphous blob that cannot be handled within a man. I think they come down to fear. They come down to protection of something. That's why you are defending. But what are you defending yourself against? Now, some people get into the mistake of going, I'm defending against my wife. She's a criticizing bitch. Well, I don't think that's the case. I think you are defending yourself of what you're making her words mean. And what are you making those words mean? One of these eight hidden fears. So as you listen to this episode, go through this. Find out what fears do you have as a man? Own them, hone them, realize I can work on these fears and alleviate these fears and watch how defensiveness starts to dissipate. So let's go through them. What we're gonna do is we're gonna go through each one of the main fears, and I'll go through a couple of scenarios that might make these fears bubble up. And then you get to listen along and go, huh, how can I become a better man or a better husband? Let's get fucking into it. All right. So what would be the first fear? The may, and I think this is a major fear, right? This is one of those that quite literally is like the behemoth. Well, I would say this one and the last one are the two real biggest fears that get men to be defensive. And that fear is the fear of criticism. Okay, so let's imagine a situation where your wife is reloading a dishwasher after you've already done it. Okay, so you've already done the dishwasher because she's been nagging, quote unquote, nagging you to be doing the dishwasher for quite a while. And then you finally do it, but then as she does it, she says something along the lines of like, well, no, she doesn't say anything. She just reloads it. Okay. Now, logically, she's probably just trying to fit in more. Or, I mean, she might have a little bit of a wound herself and go, like, I need to do things my way, otherwise, you know, it's not gonna be right. And that's that's her shit, right? But emotionally, what you're hearing, right? And what a lot of men hear, and they instantly hear, specifically if they have this fear of criticism, is they hear, you're incompetent. That's what they're hearing. That's what they're making that action of the dishwasher mean. That's it's not actually the case of what happened. She's just reloading a dishwasher because of something, right? It might be that she doesn't trust you, might be she doesn't think that you're incompetent, but your your value or metric of incompetence should be based on your incompetence. But if you actually genuinely did the dishwasher well, then there's a host of different reasons why she might be redoing it. She might actually just want to fit more in. She might actually just want to do it in a certain way because she's seen like maybe if you do a pot on the bottom layer, there's going to be more dirt around. Or she's had to in the past redo the glasses because, I mean, this happens here in Spain. The water's got a lot of chalk in it. So, you know, putting a dishwasher on with a lot of glasses might actually make the glasses filled with chalk, and she might have to clean that one by one with lemon afterwards. Real story. I know a lot about that one. So she might redo the dishwasher based on the fact of her forward work. But again, what are you making that action mean? Because she's doing an action. She's not doing criticism. She's doing an action. Okay. So you're making it mean, ah, she's telling me I'm incompetent. And, you know, suddenly you're irritated and you, you, you might even say things like, well, why do you even ask me to help if you're just going to redo it? Or the the reaction is way bigger. Or you might get sulky, right? But the dishwasher is not the issue. It's what you're making that action mean is. And and what you're making it mean is probably close to along the fear of criticism. It's a fear of criticism. That's a really big fear. A lot of men have it. We'll look at another situation here. What about a situation where you're out at dinner with friends, you tell a story, okay? And then your wife casually says, actually, that's not what happened, or she cuts you off and and continues it. Okay. Tiny moment, tiny moment. But now you get weirdly quiet for the rest of the night. Anyone been in that situation? Why? Because for a lot of men, being corrected in public, you're making that mean criticism. I mean, a lot of men, they they feel that that could be humiliating, especially if you're already struggling with self-worth. But see, here's the thing. Now you're anchoring that self-worth into her, and you're just you're terrified of being criticized. And so you're making it mean that it was criticism. And she could just literally have just filled in the gaps. But again, you know, these events that happen outside of us, they're not necessarily true. Well, they're the thing that happened, right? But what you're attributing the meaning to it is not necessarily true. And so the fear of criticism will then make you want to defend, right? Because then the next time she says something or here's a flow and effect from this dinner with friends, let's say now you cut her off at some point, almost as like a retaliation, like an attack, which I look at as defensiveness as well, because you're actually attacking in order to not have it happen to you or to get back, right? And then she feels something and hits you up with something and says, Why did you do that? And then you put up a wall and you, or you stonewall, or you get sulky, or you, or you, you know, whatever. It all comes back to this fear of what you were making her words mean at the start. What were you making her words mean at the start? And so that is a fear of criticism. If you have a fear of criticism, start writing in a journal about, oh, why am I terrified of being criticized? It's a really wonderful activity to start doing so that you can learn more about yourself and you can slowly get rid of being defensive about that fear. Okay. So that's the first one. I think it's a pretty clear one. Let's jump to the hidden fear. Number two, we've got the fear of rejection. Fear of rejection. All right, let's give a situation to fear of rejection. You walk into the kitchen, you're being playful, she's asked for more physical touch or something like this. And so then you you go and touch her waist, uh, you try and flirt, maybe she's doing the dishes at the time, and she says, not now, I'm busy. And instantly you're like, Well, nothing I do, well, relax, forget it. Now you're cold for the next four hours. Why? Well, what are you making her action mean then? I know from my wife, one of the worst fucking times to bloody flirt with a woman is when they're full busy, hands dirty, and and they're just like trying to get something done. And you're just like, oh, she's not doing anything important. You learn a little bit about yourself, you're oh fuck, I don't even value that as important. So I'm like, I'm gonna try and interrupt in that moment, okay? And you use that moment, and she might just be flustered from the day. She might be anything, but yet you make it mean that you are rejected. You make it mean that it is not the case of what had actually happened. She can have a million things that have happened in that moment. She can have a wound from her past childhood. I don't know, she could have been abused when she was doing the dishes. Who the fuck knows about these things? We're all humans that have all these different patterns that go on in our brains. But what I want to make clear here is the action itself of what you're doing, right? You've got to investigate that and look for truth in that, not look for what you're making it mean based on a fear that that is also like it doesn't, it just doesn't, it's not necessarily reality. So you build a whole situation. Oh, I'm unwanted, I'm rejected. You're not fucking rejected. You just tried to flirt at a certain moment when she was fucking busy. Could be a number of things. If you make it mean that, oh my gosh, every single time I touch you, you reject me. It's gonna feel like rejection. Does that make sense? Right? Rejection's a big one. Rejection's a big one. Let's go to another situation. You get into bed, maybe she's scrolling on her phone instead of talking to you, and suddenly you start getting irritated over random things, right? And it might be because emotionally you're feeling like you're losing connection with her. Yeah. True. But the way that you you you leak that out also is not a great way of creating connection. And it all comes from a fear of rejection. Maybe she wants your phone more than she wants you, you know? Maybe and all these stories we have in our heads that ping around like a fucking ping pong ball, we have to really question them because those stories in our head are nowhere near as real as reality. Reality is happening right in front of you. It's actions that happen. And we've got to also understand that the ping-ponging is happening in her head too. There's a whole bunch of things going on in there. And so when you think that you've just got you're you've got this fear of rejection creating defensiveness within you, that is a story that you've made up. It's a story that you've made up. You've made up this idea that I'm going to be rejected. This moment means rejection. Change that story, change moments. All right. So that is number two. That's another hidden fear which creates a lot of stories that go on. So do you have the first one? The first one, well, let's recap. You know, we had the fear of criticism and we had the fear of rejection. Okay. The next one is, oof, this one like hurts. And it's it's one that men, in my like, in my experience, they don't like to admit this next one. This one next one's quite hard for men to admit. And that is the fear of shame. The fear of shame. So let's imagine you're at another couple's house, and then the other husband handles the barbecue, fixes around the house, and seems super organized with the kids. And on the drive home, she casually says, Wow, James is really on top of things. And suddenly you're like, Well, good for fucking James. Why such a strong reaction? Right. And and often that comes from, you know, this comparison triggered shame. And shame is difficult. You know, shame is difficult. It's uh Yeah, there could be, don't get me wrong, it's not like clear-cut, like, because there could be a bit of rejection in here. There could be later on, we've got, you know, well, I won't tease later on. But anyway, these fears can can can all blend into each other. But we want to give them names so that we can start articulating them. We can start coming up with a language around them. Because, you know, you articulating what you're actually making things mean rather than what actually happened starts to open up conversations between you and your wife that you can actually start looking at what actually is happening. Because the moment you say, hey, I feel ashamed for when you say that James is really on top of things, I feel shame. And I don't know where it's coming from. Maybe it's coming from the fact that like I felt shamed in my past for not being good enough or anything like this. I feel shame, right? And learn what that feels like. And then your wife has a wonderful opportunity to go. Actually, I mean, like, I guess my shit was like I was criticizing a little bit because what I really want, and I'm really saying James is doing so good at it, is because I feel like that's something that you could do. And and and I actually believe like I don't, there's nothing for you to be ashamed about. I love you. I just I look at your behaviors sometimes, and I feel like there could be more that you could do with your behaviors, right? And that would be the truth of the matter. And of course, don't get me wrong, we also want wives to communicate better too. I the whole point of me even teaching men is to help you start articulating better so that you can be the driving force to get your household to articulating better. Because I think one of the biggest things that women need to work on is learning to articulate their needs. And when they articulate their needs and keep their boundaries, they're actually they stop giving over so much and and and creating that resentment and that criticism gap, which gets larger. But that sort of stops with them if we can both learn to understand what our how to communicate these fears that we're having underneath it all. So are you feeling shame? That's a big one. And let's imagine situation two, she says something like, I feel like I carry the mental load all the time. Like most women mean, and here's the thing that they mean underneath is I need more support. And what you're hearing is like, oh, she's calling me a child, or she's she's being a boss, or you know, something like that. And it that creates shame, creates deep shame. Shame, well, it doesn't create shame. Okay, let me let me change that because even in some of my wordings, you know, like I'll say a boy-to-man behavior and we'll talk about being a boy versus a man. You know, whatever my whole point of this fucking video and my whole philosophy is to really drop in and realize that these words that we have, they don't mean anything other than what we attribute the meaning to them. Okay. So if your wife is gonna say, I need, you know, like I feel like I carry the mental load all the time, you can literally look at that line and go, well, I'm gonna make that mean that she's criticizing me. I'm gonna make that mean that I should feel shameful, I'm gonna make that mean that she's a bitch. I'm gonna make that mean that I'm awful and nothing I do is ever good enough, right? You can make it mean that. Or you can make it mean when she says, I feel like I carry all the mental load all the time, you can make it mean, huh, I wanna learn more about that. Because if you feel like that, right? If you feel like that, maybe there's something out of balance, either with you or with the situation. Because the funny thing is, I feel like I carry all the mental load. Ironically, it could actually mean that she doesn't carry all the mental load, right? Hey, don't eat me up, all women out there. But you know, there's some some situations, it's not that. Sometimes it is just a feeling of it. And having the other person actually being able to be inquisitive about it and see it without attributing a fear meaning to it allows you to get to the heart of what's actually going on. Because if you feel or she feels like she's doing the whole mental ode all the time, you can actually make it mean a wonderful opportunity for the relationship to get better. You can make it mean a wonderful opportunity for your communication to get better. Or you can make it mean she's fucking criticizing me, I hate the bitch. Up to you. You get to decide what meaning you attribute to everything. Even with what I'm saying now, you get to you get to attribute the meaning to it that I am here to help you. Or you can get to attribute the meaning to it that I am just here to take all your money and I'm an awful salesman, right? Those those things are all, they're like none of it's true. None of it's true. Okay. What's true is what you take from it, what you make meanings of. And I mean that across the board. I mean that across the board. It's starting to understand that there's a lot of things going on underneath inside you. There's a lot of things. And especially fears, we don't want to have the things that drive our thoughts be fears underneath because they create stronger outbursts, leakages of emotions that across the board are detrimental for you and your family. So the next fear is the fear of inadequacy. Now, this one definitely blends into some of the other ones. But I see it a lot with with parents. When I coach parents, you know, there's there's sometimes let's let's say uh a situation, you know, during an argument, I don't know, that's the wrong one. Let's, yeah, this one. Like the baby won't stop crying. And so your wife sometimes comes in and settles the baby in 30 seconds. You can't, and now you're frustrated and snappy. And underneath that is like that fear of inadequacy, is inadequacy. Inadequacy is one of those fears driving defensiveness quite a lot. Because to be inadequate within this world is quite a bad thing. And so our brains want to stop the reality of us being inadequate at all costs. And how do we do that? We create defensiveness. And what is defensiveness again? We've got excuses, we've got rationality, we've got judge like judgment, we've got stonewalling, a whole bunch of things move into defensiveness. So if you're making something mean that you are going to be inadequate, or if you feel as if you're inadequate based on a situation, specifically, let's say if, you know, one kid loves one parent more or something like that, that is going to hurt you. It's gonna make you defensive. And and how do we get across this? Well, we need to we need to confront, I mean, with all these fears, we need to confront that these fears are not the truth. These fears are not the truth. These fears are worries that we have that we're going to be hurt. That we're going to be hurt. And we got to realize I am safe in this situation. This is not happening. I'm not inadequate. Right? I'm a strong fucking man. I can do what I can like, I can do this. I can do this, you know? And it's it's really coming up and beating these fears. Because once we beat these fears, they do not make oh, like they don't, they don't rule the fucking show. They don't rule the show and make us defensive. Not what we want. Situation two. I don't need like let's say she she says something along the lines to you, like, I don't need solutions right now. I just want some emotional support. And immediately you start trying to fix the problem anyway. And uh I think the biggest thing here is that a lot of men, they they feel inadequate when they're not in the doing position. You know, there's a there's a huge thing which I see with men is this this idea that they need to be the ones to carry everything, right? They need to solve, they need to solve everything. And I I if I'm not solving something, I'm inadequate because that's that's what I do. I I I solve problems, right? And this is a societal thing that's come up over and over again. And I I truly believe that, you know, that is a sphere of an inadequacy. And and if you want to like truly get better at that, it's like learn that you are safe when you just listen and you're just here and you don't have to solve, you know. I'll give you an example. This morning, like my wife's pregnant, she's trying to do everything naturally, and she stopped getting like her fake lashes and she stopped getting her nails done in the last little while. Because, you know, we gotta drive to, we gotta drive into the city. The city's like 30 minutes away. And so she wanted to, before the pregnancy, she really wanted to be natural, right? But she's hating it. Like her nails are looking awful to her. She feels like her eyes look like she she looks like a mole, like her eyelashes are so small, sweetheart. I fucking love this woman. She just keeps saying, I look like a mole. And uh, and so she this morning, right? She came to me and she's just like, Do you think I should do my nails and my lashes again? Right? Now, do you think I give a shit about this conversation? Do you think I love her any less? Like, as a man, do you think I honestly love her less with like no eyelashes done or no nails done? I couldn't give a shit. What I care about is how much it matters to her. I've learned that, you know? And so do I then go, well, I can't give her emotional support, so I'm just gonna shut this out, or come in practically, right? And this is what men do often. They'll be like, well, so how much time do we have? How how long would it take? When can you schedule in the time to go to the city and get that in, you know, and I will give you six hours on a certain day when baby comes so that you can make sure you keep doing that. Like, that's a fucking practical solution, which wasn't a practical solution, right? Realized instantly when my wife came in with that, she was just looking for emotional support. Probably me telling her that she's beautiful, and then me asking her questions, right? Really just asking her questions so she can make up her own fucking mind. She just needed a sounding board. This is something men don't understand, because often when we're not solving problems, which is true, we just think we're inadequate. And rather than, and then then guess what? When she says that she doesn't like the problem solution that you gave, then we feel even more inadequate. So a really wonderful way in that situation. And what I just did was I just was like, honey, like what what are you like instinctively, what is your gut telling you? Like, that's a great question, men, by the way. Ask that. What is your gut telling you? And she'll be like, hmm, my gut's telling me that I probably should go for it. But I'm just a little bit worried about money, right? She might bring that up and you're just like, okay, that makes sense. That makes sense. And then you answer, like, speak to the things underneath, right? So she brings up something like, but I'm worried about the money. Then you can speak to that. Don't give her a solution. Just speak about how, you know, I think we could be okay with that. Like I think the budget could be fine with it. Like, is it really, you know, like to dig a little bit like you care? And I know we're derailing on this podcast, but I I think the thing is, the moment you actually get underneath it and you just you become a bouncing board for your partner, and you you and that shows your partner that you care. Again, it's not something that I I I'm gonna tell you right now, I don't really give a fuck about her nails or her lashes. But what do I give a fuck about? I give a buck a fuck I give a buck. I give a fuck about her internal state. I care about her, I care what she cares about. And you can show that by just asking questions. And she will love you for that. Right? There's no need to attach this to a fear of inadequacy. No need to attach this to a fear of inadequacy. It has nothing to do with you. She just wants to speak about it. And when you love a partner, you'd allow them to speak about it. Just ask them, what do you think? What do you what does your gut say? Beautiful question. What does your gut say? Huh. Interesting. Tell me more. Tell me more. All right. Fear of the loss of respect is the next fear that gets men to be defensive. So the loss of respect. This is a big one. Men oh, I need to be respected. Respect me. Res you don't respect me. You don't respect me. The funny thing is, like, we men, we feel this with men and we feel this with women. But like Yeah. Give you a situation. During an argument, she laughs, not mocking you, just frustrated laughter, and you go nuclear. Why? Because she's Disrespecting you. She's disrespecting you. She's mocking you. She's disrespecting you. Yeah, it could be that. Or she could just literally have a frustrated laugh because it's a nervous system response. Guess what? Laughing often is the way that our nervous system tries to get out of a fucking stressful situation. Because again, you don't know what fears and ping-ponging around in her head. That's the thing with this shit. It's not always just about respect. Respect, respect, respect. Like ask yourself, what does respect look like to you? And not don't do this bullshit of like listing off what society says respect is. My wife needs to talk to me in a soft tone way. No, respect is not that. Respect is honesty. Respect is integrity. If you want to have respect, right? Learn to deal with the truth. Learn to deal with the truth. And so if you find if you find that Yeah, respect comes knocking, and you're like, oh, I I I feel disrespected. It's often I feel, I often feel that that's like masking something here. It might be masking, you know, uh the loss of respect might be the fear underneath that you're not good enough or, you know, the deeper fear. And and and two uh it's actually two of the other fears that I see here. Oh, there could even be like later on, I'm going to talk about the fear of failure, you know, and that loss of respect, it could literally just be one of these other things, right? Because respect is also a made-up concept in our world. It's like, I mean, this is the hilarious thing about all of this. You know, this whole life, this whole life that we have is made up of words that we've attributed meaning to. Okay. We've attributed meaning to these words. So if I say to you, right, you need to find like uh go and get me a handful of respect. Right. If if emotions and feelings were tangible, if we could literally pick them up or whatever, if I go and get me a handful of respect from the world, every single person would come back with a different way that they would be respected. Every single person would come back with a different handful because we attribute meaning to it. We attribute it based on society, based on what we've been taught, based on our experiences, based on a whole bunch of different things, based on whether we're a man or a woman. And so all I'm trying to get at with this whole thing is you can, again, you can make something mean she doesn't respect me, but I would question what your version of respect is and question whether actually she doesn't respect you, or she just is upset at a certain thing, or you know, like like rethink these fears because those are the things that are making us defensive. And and often they don't, they're not based in the action or the actual thing that happened. They're based in what we're making it mean. God, I could be a broken record with that. Be a broken record with that. For example, here's another one. She keeps checking whether you've done something, right? Did you call this? Did you book it? Did you remember? And eventually you snap and you go, stop treating me like a fucking child, right? Well, that feeling of that repetition could feel like you're being emasculated, like she doesn't respect you. But what we're dealing with here is most likely the fact that she doesn't trust you. Okay. And she doesn't trust you because over and over again you've shown her that your partners have shown her over and over again that you're not trustworthy within that certain task. And so you could be working on it for seven months, but had 10 years of a really bad relationship. And you're like, but I've been really good for the last seven months. Can you respect me now? And what you're dealing with is, I'm not saying that wives should not respect a man. I'm not saying that at all. I'm just saying that you got to see that there is another side to the fucking coin. It's not just simply respect. It's, it's what have your patterns come to mean even for your wife over time? How can you get like past these fears, right? And really realize what's actually going on. And that requires the self-reflection. That requires the questions in deep within you. It requires that. And respect is one of those that I don't respect that much. Because respect often is one where we're masking, we're masking our inadequacy, or we're masking our inaction, or we're masking our procrastination, or we're masking our overwhelm by just saying I'm not being respected. So you can hear me, I've made respect mean something bad, but that's that's on me. That's my shit. I fully know that, but you know what I where I stand on it. Because we I see it so many times that men just use respect as an excuse. It's an excuse. My wife needs to respect me. Well, I think I think wives will respect somebody who is respect worthy, right? If you if you have if your wife's never fucking trusted you, right, or you don't do what you say, or you don't initiate, or you don't care about the relationship, why the fuck are you somebody risk worth respect? Like I'm I'm pretty hard-lined on that. So make it mean something else. Make it mean what you're inadequate at. And then you realize, oh, I can get better at that. And it's really wonderful. What? All right, we go to the next fear, which is the fear of failure. Fear of failure, fear of failure. So also failure is a very interesting one because we can go deeper in what you're making failure mean. So you can also then say that when you fail, or in the past, when you failed, you weren't loved, or you were criticized, or you felt more pain. And so you terribly don't want to fail. So that's the first layer. I don't want to fail. But then what are you making that failure mean? That's why you're protecting it so hard. Like, I hope that makes sense. It's like this deep thing that goes on within each of us. It's this, you know, like, let's say you're genuinely trying, you're reading books, you listen to podcasts, you listen to me, trying to get better, working on yourself. And then during an argument, she says, nothing's really changed. And all of a sudden you feel crushed, right? Underneath, all of it is I'm gonna fail. I'm gonna fail. Right. What are you making that mean? Where what are you making that mean? All right. So the next situation, you could be like you lose as your you lose your temper once after doing well for weeks and immediately you spiral. Oh, I'm the spiraling man of see, this is who I am. I always fuck up. Gosh. Yeah. And then it goes into self-loathing and you make it mean that. Because, you know, uh a wonderful book for this is oh, the courage to be disliked starts talking about Adlerian psychology. Because one thing that happens here is like if you start going into the self-loathing, think about what you're making that self-loathing mean. Remember going down the rabbit hole here. So if you are afraid of failure, right? So failure means it's going to be pain. And then when you fail or when you screw up, what you do is you jump into self-loathing. Well, that kind of behavior, especially the self-loathing one, like, oh, I'm so terrible, in the past, that might have actually protected you. In the past, that might have stopped your parents and they might have gone, no, you're not that bad, Johnny. You're you're okay, right? And so you you repeat that pattern because in the past it worked for you. You see? So you go into a self-loathing, or you might go into defensiveness here because it's easy. Well, it's it's it's helped you in the past. It's saved you in the past. So this fear of failure definitely moves to defensiveness all the time. Be aware of it, notice it, change it a little bit. By a little bit. Fear of abandonment. Fear of abandonment. Oof, this one's a big one. Well, a fear of abandonment can lead you into defensiveness. It could also lead you into attack. You know, imagine when you just get into a fight with your wife and then all of a sudden she's like, I need time, right? And then you're like, you're just gonna leave me. Or, you know, again, what are you making her actions mean? Right. Specifically, let's say if you're having a fight with your wife and she's like, I need time, you might be the one that actually needs time. Sometimes your wife is doing this as well. And I truly believe that this podcast episode could be both men and women, because again, we need to just create the language in order to be able to talk about it with each other. So with this one, uh, the fear of abandonment, if she leaves and she needs time, she might just literally be cooling her nervous system down. That might be the actual truth of what's going on in the situation. This fear of abandonment goes both ways. And you might be making her like need for a nervous system reset. You might make that about you and saying that she's abandoning me. And so therefore, you either like jump in and attack first, or you might get defensive on the next thing because you, again, you're trying to protect yourself. It's what you're making the actions mean. And if it's been driven by fear, if it's being driven by the fear of abandonment, things are gonna fuck up. Right? Which all goes into the broader fear of all of this. All of this, I genuinely believe all of this kind of falls into one bucket, which is the eighth fear, the fear of not being good enough. Not being good enough. All of these fears, it's like a really deep one here, is not being good enough. Well, I want to just say to all of you right now, everyone who's listening, you are enough. You are enough. Let's get that out of the way. You might not believe me when I say that, but you are enough. This will all like enough for fucking who. You are here on this planet Earth. We're all here on this planet Earth. We're all equal in that kind of in that way. Just genuinely realize that any ideas of what you make anyone else's class status mean in this life, it's all bullshit. It's all bullshit. We are all enough. All right. And just because your wife is angry at me, you doesn't mean that you are not enough because my wife is angry at me. No. That is what, again, what you're making those words mean. And this perpetual not enough, this perpetual not enough is not based in reality. This perpetual not enough is just is nothing. That's what we're making it mean. And if you if you even have this feeling that there's this weight behind you, like I'm not doing good enough compared to, or I'm not doing good enough and something's gonna tap me, I'm not doing good, like this almost this existential fear that's happening. That drives defensiveness a lot because, well, we've got this existential fear. Something's gonna like life is not good, you know? That's all bullshit. It's all bullshit. No one's coming to get you. No one's coming to get you. No life's coming to get you. Relax on that one. I can tell you that one for sure. Okay. So those are the eight fears that are driving you to defensiveness. And the best way to get out of that is to identify which ones you're strongest with. So I would really recommend everyone here to go in through and like write out which ones like are the strongest for me. Let me recap them. You know, we had that the fear of criticism, the fear of rejection, the fear of shame, the fear of inadequacy, fear of the loss of respect, fear of failure, fear of abandonment, and fear of not being good enough. Which one of those eight really hits for you? And start writing out why. When you do that, you'll start learning more about yourself because the path is within. All right, my name's Alessandra Frasali. This is Shut the Fuck Up and Listen. Please make sure you subscribe. And if you haven't actually signed up for my emails yet, I got better husband in two minute emails. They drop every Saturday. I've got 21,000 men that have signed up to that. And people tell me that that literally is saving their marriages just with the fucking emails. And I'm so happy and stoked about that. So make sure you sign up for that. And I'll see you in the next episode. Take care.