The Approval Trap Quietly Killing Good Husbands | EP 49

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What happens when the people you love the most tell you that you are still not good enough?

Every man walking the path to becoming a better husband hits this wall. You put in the work. You take the initiative. You carry more of the load. And then your wife, or the world, tells you it is not enough. So what do you do with that?

Host Alessandro goes solo, and it might turn into a bit of a rant. He gets honest about something he is wrestling with right now in his own life. The fear of being misunderstood. The pull to jump off your own path just to defend yourself. The wound underneath it all that quietly runs the show.

You will learn why chasing other people's approval, even your wife's, slowly strips away the one thing a man cannot afford to lose. You will hear what real consciousness looks like, and why knowing yourself is the door to knowing her, your kids, and everyone around you.

This one is short, raw, and closer to the bone than usual. Alessandro does not hand you an escape from responsibility. He hands you something harder, and better.

Press play and learn why the only way through is you.

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

[00:00:00] Alessandro Frosali: Welcome back to Shut the Fuck Up and Listen: From Boy to Man to Better Husband. Today's a solo episode with just me, and might be a little bit of a rant.

[00:00:08] Alessandro Frosali: My, my notes are not as comprehensive as they normally are. But I really wanna get across something and, and I'll, you know, indulge me, if you will, and maybe I'll keep it short. But today's episode, we're gonna actually make it all about Knowing your internal self and, and what I-- You know, I'm actually gonna just read a line to you, and this is the whole point of what I wanna do this podcast about.

[00:00:28] Alessandro Frosali: " The only way [00:00:30] through is you. The difficulty is to be awake enough to find out what you is." So I wrote that this afternoon because I think one thing that we're all going to get faced with, and this is in our pursuit of being good men, this is in our pursuit of being a, a good husband, this is in our pursuit of being a good father.

[00:00:51] Alessandro Frosali: What we can do is what we believe is the best thing that we can do, right? We cannot do anything other than that, [00:01:00] and everyone else will have an opinion on based on whether that is the right thing or not. Now, the, the real test is can you be awake enough to actually question yourself and want to better yourself?

[00:01:11] Alessandro Frosali: If you can, then all you can do is judge yourself based on how well you did the thing that you thought was the best thing to do. You cannot judge yourself on what other people think of you. You cannot. You cannot. It is one of those things... And, and I mean this specifically for the husbands in their process of becoming a better husband.

[00:01:29] Alessandro Frosali: Now, I [00:01:30] don't mean this in any way to shirk the responsibility of going out there and learning more about mental load, going out there and learning more about your wife's unmet needs, going out there and stopping to be passive, going out there and taking more initiative, going out there and having more follow-through, going out there and being a champion for your relationship so that you can have more intimacy, going out there and being a good father, which is a whole different kettle of fish.

[00:01:56] Alessandro Frosali: Those are the things that you've gotta go out and do, right? But your pursuit [00:02:00] of doing them and really being conscious, you gotta make sure you're doing that. You cannot do anything else other than literally going, "Okay, let me apply effort to this, and what is the best thing that I can do?" And then you do that.

[00:02:11] Alessandro Frosali: Because you're going to have, you're going to have wives tell you at times that, that you are not doing good enough. You're going to have the world tell you that you are not doing good enough. You're going to have everyone telling you this, and your challenge is to find out if they're right by asking them, "Are they [00:02:30] right?"

[00:02:30] Alessandro Frosali: And if there's truth to it, okay, you add that to your internal truth. If there's no truth to it, you continue with your internal truth. The worst thing we can do is lose our truth as men. And you know, I think this is a, a fundamental, a fundamental misinterpretation of what I do in this work. You know, I do not ask you to drop down on your hands and knees and appease your wife.

[00:02:53] Alessandro Frosali: It's not about that. I don't think your wife wants that. I don't think you want that. Nobody wants that, okay? But I want you to be [00:03:00] able to become conscious. I want you to be able to become conscious because consciousness, what the fuck is consciousness, okay? Now this is a, this gets to a big philosophical question, what the fuck is consciousness?

[00:03:11] Alessandro Frosali: I think it is a man that actually To be a conscious man is to be a man that can stop and analyze his own behaviors and why he does things, and choose to do differently. Choose to break the, the scripts from the past, because we all have scripts. I can tell you right now, every single one [00:03:30] of us has fucking scripts.

[00:03:31] Alessandro Frosali: What are these scripts? Scripts are what society tells us. The scripts are how we were raised. The scripts are all of this. And don't get me wrong, this is both men and women here, right? I literally just got off a DM conversation with a woman online who, was talking about how she's so sick of the world and, you know, can she get my advice because

[00:03:51] Alessandro Frosali: Can she get my advice because there are no good men out in this world, and she's hoping for a good man, hoping for a good man. Will a good man ever come along her [00:04:00] pathway? And this fixation with being focused on somebody else to complete us, that is a problem. Both genders here, but I'm speaking to men because I know the man experience here, but it is a problem.

[00:04:14] Alessandro Frosali: Pull back the fucking focus and focus on what you believe you are going to do, you can do to, to, you know, move forward in your life. You know, my advice to that woman was that go spend time on herself. [00:04:30] Go spend time on herself, learn what being complete is, and then you will attract a man who is complete.

[00:04:35] Alessandro Frosali: And, and you know, I, my advice even to women, who have a husband even going along this journey to try and get better, you have your opportunity now. If he's starting to work on himself, you have the opportunity to go work on you, right?

[00:04:48] Alessandro Frosali: We need to learn to look at ourselves. We need to learn to look at ourselves. I'm, I'm so big on accountability and self-accountability here And of course, there's going to be-- We're all going to have-- And, and [00:05:00] this is the difficulty with this, and, and the reason I think I even am doing this rant on today is because I've, I've been brushed up against this myself right now.

[00:05:07] Alessandro Frosali: And I'll be honest with you, you know, like I still face sometimes the issue of going like, "What do other people think? What do other people think? How do other people perceive what I'm doing?" Which I know, and this is my consciousness coming up, this is me questioning myself and looking at myself. I know that only comes up from a wound of needing to be [00:05:30] liked, needing to be understood, and fearing that I will be misunderstood.

[00:05:35] Alessandro Frosali: At the moment we fear that, we change our behaviors, and I don't wanna change my behavior right now because it's not my truth. What other people perceive of me is not my truth It's not my truth. My truth is I know I'm doing the best that I can to help men in this world to become better men, to become better husbands.

[00:05:54] Alessandro Frosali: I know that. And I will go along this path, and I will have people tell me that I am not doing [00:06:00] that or come out with something completely else. But I'm, I'm bringing that up today because this is, this will happen in relationships, and I see it in the men that I'm coaching, group coaching, and, and everything, you know, that I work with.

[00:06:13] Alessandro Frosali: There is times that even your wife will misunderstand you, and that is one of the hardest things to be misunderstood about. But you've got to stop thinking about her metrics. You take on her advice. You listen to your fucking wife. You get on a team with her. You build the set of [00:06:30] rules that you want to apply in your life.

[00:06:32] Alessandro Frosali: That is what consciousness is, and then you walk towards those set of fucking ideals. You walk towards them. And if it's not walking fast enough, but you are genuinely doing everything, you are being misunderstood, you keep walking those path and those, that pathway regardless Because you are not walking the pathway if you let somebody else, even if it is your wife, detract you from it.

[00:06:56] Alessandro Frosali: Because here's the thing. Here's the thing. We've got to [00:07:00] understand our wives. Got to understand our wives. At some point, when a wife has been dealing with passivity for years from a man, when a wife has been dealing with mental load for years from a man, when a wife has been dealing with all these things, she is not going to be perfect.

[00:07:14] Alessandro Frosali: Not at all. In fact, she will have a, a tone that is no longer a tone, it becomes criticism, and criticism's pretty fucking bad for the marriage, right? She will have this. And she will also have maybe her own traumas, fears of abandonment, [00:07:30] fears... Or maybe she had a father who was really, really bad at keeping promises, and then you say you're keeping a promise about being a better husband, right?

[00:07:39] Alessandro Frosali: And then all of a sudden she's sitting there going like, "You bastard, you're not doing this fast enough." That could be her trauma speaking. The wrong thing to do when you are walking this pathway to become better is to stop and jump off your path to defend yourself. You

[00:07:57] Alessandro Frosali: once you agree on the pathway with your [00:08:00] wife of what better looks like, you walk that path, right? You become an arbiter for that path because then you are doing your duty for the relationship, and if her trauma comes up through that, you do not let that derail you, okay? That is beside the point. That is beside the point Because then you grow understanding.

[00:08:20] Alessandro Frosali: Because what else comes through consciousness is not just knowing yourself, it is knowing her. It's knowing her. That's what to be conscious is, to know her. [00:08:30] And then when you start knowing her, you realize you also know your kids, and when you start knowing your kids, fuck, you know everybody. You know everybody's a walking pile of shit that has all these things in their head that's going on, all these coping mechanisms, all these kind of things.

[00:08:43] Alessandro Frosali: Comes up. Comes up. So today's episode is very short and very rambly, but I hope I get the point to you that the only way through is you, right? Be accountable to you. Be-- The only d- [00:09:00] difficulty with that is to be awake enough to know who you are, right? So get awake enough to know who you actually are, and when you do, walk that fucking pathway.

[00:09:10] Alessandro Frosali: Walk it. Make it. Go do it

[00:09:13] Alessandro Frosali: And if I've got women here, do that too, right? The last thing I want, like, I mean, one of my biggest wants is to, to have marriages come together, have men and women be strong together. I fucking love that. I really want that in this world, 'cause the benefit of [00:09:30] it is astronomical. But you don't wanna be in a relationship that's, that's appeasing.

[00:09:36] Alessandro Frosali: You're doing it for the other person just to keep them there, because you're not conscious enough to know if you're doing that because you're, you're terrified of the fear of abandonment or something like that. Know yourself. Know yourself. Learn to know yourself

[00:09:51] Alessandro Frosali: All right. That's me for today. Take care, everyone 

[00:09:54] Alessandro Frosali: That's the episode. That's all I got for you today. I just want you to remember you're not alone in this. Make sure you [00:10:00] subscribe to stay connected, of course, and comment your win. You know? 'cause 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.

[00:10:11] Alessandro Frosali: Let's build this together. I'll see you next week.