"I’m tired of being an irritated husband." (70% isn't enough)

                  Hey husbands, are you tired of being the "irritated husband"? In this episode, I’m getting real about a personal struggle many of us face but rarely talk about: the gap between being a "70% decent husband" and being the man our wives truly deserve.

It’s easy to feel like you’re doing a good job because you provide and show up, but if you’re still reacting with irritation or frustration to the small things, you’re leaving 30% on the table. That 30% is where the real intimacy and peace live. I’m sharing my journey of learning how to stop being reactive, how to lead with patience, and why "70%" just isn't enough anymore.

In this video, we discuss:

• The danger of being a "good" but reactive husband.
• How to move from 70% effort to 100% loving and caring.
• Practical ways to stop reacting to the small things your wife says.
• The mindset shift is needed to bring more peace into your home.

It’s time to stop settling for a "decent" marriage and start striving for a great one. Let’s get to work.

Transcript

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If it's another husband that this helped or you're feeling the same way, please leave it in the comment. Let's have a conversation. Let's talk about this stuff. Um, I know I can't be the only husband that feels like this. I know I can't be the only person. Um, if you look like you feel like you're struggling with the 70%, just let me know. Hey, me too. Throw it in the comment. Hey, bro, me too. I'm right there with you. Alan Eve here to help you believe that marriage is not a game. Talk to him. What up, though, everybody? Welcome to the Alan Eve podcast. Yes, it's your brother Al. I'm doing this solo dolo. My wife has been super busy with everything that she has going on, and she has to go to bed late tonight. Uh kind of doing this by myself, but not always, and always gonna be by myself. She's gonna be right here with me, without a doubt. But um, I have a heavy heart. I feel like God is placing this on my heart to talk to y'all about this, struggling as a husband. And I just want to be transparent. I just want to show our audience that even though we're giving advice, we are struggling with something. We are going through things in our marriage that we have to fight through every single day. And we're not perfect. We don't want to come off as we are perfect to everybody. We go through mishaps and different things. So I hope y'all can rock with me. I hope y'all like this, you know, and do this a little season or something. Uh I don't know, series or whatever. Just me talking to the camera and being open and transparent on my side of things. And as a husband, I hope this, I pray this helped other husbands too, who can see another man, another Christian from God struggling, but has a plan to get better and not just at the status quo. But the title of this podcast is gonna be I'm tired of being an irritated husband. 70% isn't enough. That's there can't be enough, guys. And it's um this just came into my spirit, like I said before, that um me and my wife have different conversations all the time. And 70% of the time, I want to say 80, but I don't want to come off as I'm boastful or I I am just a perfect person. So I'm gonna drop it down to 70%. 70% of my feelings is I feel like I'm doing a good. I don't get irritated, I don't get frustrated, I could be loving in my responses, I could be, you know, um caring and supportive to my wife. But it just feels like that's just good enough. And with the other remaining 30% is where the damage happens, and it sometimes hinders our marriage from growing to another level. At times it feels like that to me, and it could just be me. My wife can say, Oh, you're doing a great job. But to me, I just feel moments and areas of our marriages is where, like, oh, ooh, that that response was not the way I thought I should have said. I should have said it better. If I'm supposed to be like Christ and Christ is the goal, I feel like I'm missing the mark by a mile in my um feeling. I'm tired of being at a C grade as a husband. I want to um mostly, I want to all the time be patient and caring towards my husband, my wife. Sorry, my wife. I want to be at 100%. I don't want to fail, I don't want to look, I don't want to be at 70%. Because 70% feel that I could do better than this. Um let this go about the things that happen over this weekend. Me and my wife have disagreement. We don't argue, we don't yell, we don't shout. I have disagreements with certain things. My wife sees it this way, I see it another way. It's going to happen in marriage. We it's unavoidable. But at times, I just feel so irritated by maybe her tone, maybe the timing, or just um feeling I'm being corrected sometimes. And I don't feel the love of Christ in my responses. I feel more defensive, my sharp, irritated self. Almost like the world, my flesh is coming out. And I'm being like the world, I'm being unloving, I'm being uncharacter, uncharacter. I'm always messing up words. Please forgive me. I'm just not in a place where I should be. I feel like as a husband towards my wife, she deserves a lot better. And my heart breaks that I can't get that at times. Because you know, you're like, bro, like 30 days in a month or something, and 28 days, man, I could be, you could be perfect, you could be no, no problem. No, those two days, the two days after month, and it just like bam, bam, bam, bam. You just like, or you just frustrated, and then you know you feel a little snappy, you feel a little defensive, you feel a little irritated, and you feel your spouse is like, whoa, like, and they're reacting to you, what you're doing, and now it's a back and forth thing, and you'll be like, I know I was wrong on that. Why can't I get better at this? Why shouldn't I be like, is it is it is it my pride? Am I tired? Am I stressed? And this things that go go around that go that's going on in my mind that I I I I wish I could have this under control a thousand percent of the time, that I could just be just this this this forgiving and loving and respectful husband. Um but those moments when stuff is said, and you feel this warmness inside, you feel kind of getting hot or something, and you're like, uh, it's my time to react. And you don't realize until later on that day, you'll be like, dang, bro, I don't think that was right to say I was wrong. Um and you be like, man, I'm not I'm not prideful. Sometimes thinking like that can make you be like, yeah, if you have to say that, usually other people let other people say that, yeah, he's not a private person, they're not a private person, but if you have to say that to yourself, you gotta constantly say, I'm not prideful, I'm not prideful, I'm not prideful, why are you saying it so many times? Are you trying to convince yourself? I don't know. But my goal is in my mirrors, instead of aiming for 100% perfection on my reactions and like being irritated or frustrated, I'm gonna just aim for 100% accountable. I just want to be 100% accountable in my marriage. Can I meet that, Heavenly Father? And that's what we talked about when I when I was at work, Heavenly Father, I just want to be more accountable in my marriage. She deserves that. I don't want to make excuses, I don't want to blame her, I just want to think about why did I say it like that? And if I did say it like that, if I did do something to recognize that, to understand, yeah, I I know what I did. Because we all know, we all know what we're doing when we say something, somebody says something, and you irritate, you say something like that, boom, boom, boom, you know why you did that. Inside your thought, it said, Oh, say this to get back at them, and you know why you did that. But then acting like you don't know, oh I wasn't meaning that, you was meaning that. Let's be real. You can't have a healthy marriage if you want to act like you can't be accountable. I want to be straightforward and accountable. Like, bro, in some of our conversations, I'm irritated, I'm frustrated, my pride is kicking in. I don't want to be wrong. I'm tired of, I feel like I'm talking to like a child, but that's not what she's doing. But I feel like that. It's something wrong to feel like that. I do. And the devil can't wait to hear these conversations, can't wait to get in your mind and your thoughts to tear you apart from each other and be like, yeah, I think that's right. I think that's what you're going through. You're she is talking to you down, she is undermining you in certain situations. She don't treat you like the head of the household. You're not the man. She's talking to you like a little boy. And so, what I want you to do, this is the devil. He said, What I want you to do is show her who you are. Show her you the man and how talk to her like she's talking to you. Then once you do that, you realize what did I resolve? Once this moment is over and y'all talk to each other like that, and then you go back to y'all corner and separate, and you'll be like, what did I resolve? What did what did get not what is getting better out of this situation? And you was like, all those other days, I was so great. All those other days, I'm so perfect. All those other days, I'm so loving and thoughtful and caring. But then now we get into the the red zone. The the the the the what the red zone, it's called the red zone of your marriage. But this is the time you need to recognize what you are doing. Hey, hey, this is definitely if you want to be loving and caring and supportive and take your pride and not be so mean and rude to your wife. This is the moment you need the 30%. You need to be in this 30%, really heavy. Pray, talk to me, have a conversation with God. And this is the moments where me and God is having conversations. I'm right there. I'm like, me and God is like this. We right next to each other. Me and the Holy Spirit are talking and I have a conversation. Like, Heavenly Father, please help me. I don't want to be like this to my wife. I want to get better. If being accountable and being real and being honest and showing these people what I'm going through and what's bothering me, what's irritating me, what's frustrating, because we we we just happened this weekend. Um, I need help. I can't do it without you. I refuse to do it without you. Where do I go? How do I help this conversation? I'm desperate right now, Heavenly Father. I know that once I get through this season of our marriage, I know it's gonna get better. I'm gonna be right on B. It's like do do do do do do do do do do I'm right back in the flow of things, I'm back in the flow of things. But when I come back in this 30% again, it's like, oh, I'm struggling hard. I'm not responding like I supposed to. I'm not, I'm not doing good. I'm failing. And it hurts. It hurts my feelings. It hurts. It's almost like you get back, you get, you get back to a corner. Like people, I know we have this idea when you're a Christian, you're just supposed to say everything right, you're supposed to be perfect, not supposed to do anything wrong, not supposed to say anything wrong. You'd be like, holy then though! And then when you have those moments, 30% say something, or if you're gonna do this to me, I'm gonna do it right back to you, and I'll be frustrated and irritated with you two. We can go back to back, and uh and then me and the Holy Spirit have those moments where I'm sad, I I'm I'm I don't know. I feel bad. I'm not great, I'm not happy about having no conversations and I know I'm not telling nobody suppress your feelings definitely don't nobody should suppress how they feel inside and don't open up speak freely to your spouse understanding when you speak and was the words coming out your mouth, can you be accountable to every word that you say in your marriage? Truly, can you be accountable for everything that comes out your mouth? Not perfection, as I talked to myself earlier, not perfection from doing everything like your robot, everything right. You're gonna miss tomorrow. We're in our flesh, are we in the world? And um and I think that's how our marriage slowly gets better and better. Because before I was at 50%, then 60%, then 70%. And I'm this is what the video is all about. 70%. I'm I'm feel like I'm reaching a ceiling that I can't get past. And I'm I'm blowing it, guys. I am I'm blowing not being the husband I want to be to my wife. Not the react. I don't want to react. I don't want to react at all. Not at all. I don't want to frustrated, irritated, anything. It's that it man. It's that um what's the word? I can't think of the word. Um, but I don't know. I thought I started talking to you guys to give you a little more insight of our marriage. No, I trust me, I'm doing great. I'm doing fine. It just moments like this happen in my marriage that I need to get to the point where I'm doing the why effect. Asking myself, what is going on? Why do I feel like this? Is my ego hurt or is there a real problem here? Is what I need to be, is what I start doing. Is this my ego or is this a serious problem? What is going on right now? And I pause and I start thinking and and digesting the moment and the situation of our marriage. Because without a doubt, I'm we are gonna do better. I made my mind up. It's I'm gonna do better in my marriage each and every moment, each and every year. I'm going to get better and I'm going to keep trying. I'm going to keep working at it. I'm going to keep fighting. I don't care how many books, how many times I gotta pray, how many times I have to hold on to the Father, how many times I gotta have conversation with the Holy Spirit, how many times it doesn't matter. I am going to work, I am going to work, I am going to work at it. And that's where I'm just that stubborn type of person is I'm not going to give up. Because I know what the Father, Heavenly Father has promised. I know He said this is my wife, I know what He said, how we can, how how perfection and perfect we can be. And I'm going to reach that without a shadow of a doubt. And I'm I'm gonna make something work in my marriage. Um I thank y'all so much for tuning in this long. Man, please. If you're if I'm if y'all, if it's another husband that this helped or you're feeling the same way, please leave it in the comment. Let's have a conversation, let's talk about this stuff. Um I know I can't be the only husband that feels like this. I know I can't be the only person. Um, if you look like you feel like you're struggling with the 70%, just let me know. Hey, me too. Throw it in the comment. Hey, bro, me too. I'm right there with you. I am struggling at the 70%. And the only thing I know to do is keep praying, keep focusing on God still the next day. If I made a mistake that day, then I'm gonna try again the next day to restart and be loving and caring towards my wife to do better and better. But I appreciate y'all. I'ma end it here. I really need to go to bed. Um got a big day. I need to wake up early in the morning, so I have to go. I I I miss y'all. We love y'all. Um stay tuned, guys. Peace. We out. Bye. Marriage is not a game.