Ever been in a fight with your wife and thought, Jeez, we’ve been having the same argument for 15 years?

You didn’t do A, B, or C so many years ago, she says, then you didn’t do it again last week. You’re careless and all you think about is yourself and you’ll never change.

Do you wonder, how did we end up here again?

Well, you ended up here again because you went into your reptilian brain. That place of fight, flight or freeze.

It’s that part of you that struggles to create a better outcome when conflict happens. And in that moment, language and thought get hijacked. You might even wonder.

Why’s it feel like she’s talking circles around me?

You know, that moment in conflict when you can’t figure out what she’s really saying. Something about the kids and the dishes and… etc.

The number of guys I talk to who feel like their wives talk circles around them is enormous.

What is it about us guys that our brains freeze when our wife goes off?

It’s as if, in that moment, she has a superior command with words and all our awesome mental abilities in the board room, the engineering lab, and the client meeting suddenly disappear from us.

Why is it that she is able to strip away all of our superpowers in minutes?

Well, science has shown us that when you’re in your reptilian brain, also known as the limbic system, your language skills go to hell.

In that moment, you are in a movie that’s being directed by someone else.

Who is directing your movie?

It’s an old version of you, a jacked up younger version of yourself. It could be the boy who’s getting yelled at by his mother or father. It could be the kid who got bullied in school.

Whoever it is, I want you to be in full command of your powers as an empowered adult man. And to get there, you have to know this one thing.

When you’re hooked, triggered, or jacked up, your brain can only handle so much linguistic input. The circuitry gets easily scrambled.

As a result, you need a very simple strategy to get back to your thinking brain.

The brain that can say in a heated moment, “Wait a minute, I don’t wanna do this again, let’s do this differently. We know where this goes.”

As your cognitive abilities are limited when you’re in your reptilian brain, simplicity is key. As such, I want you to remember this one word.

So what is that one word to keep you keep you cool in conflict?

I’m going to tell you straight up. But if you want a better understanding of this down-the-rabbit-hole dynamic and how to stop it, I invite you to check out the video below.

Ok so here’s that one word and what stops a man from using it.

You can remember one word, right?

It’s so damn simple, you’re gonna be like, really?

And that word is….. (drumroll, please) …

PAUSE!

Yes, it’s that simple. PAUSE.

And pause leads to the next word – TIMEOUT!

That’s right. You have to stop the interaction. Take a TIMEOUT. And that means getting out of the part of you that feels like you have to answer to every little thing she says.

Get in front of that part of you that fears being shamed, being told that you’re wrong when you believe that you’re right. That part of you that doesn’t want to let her down.

Behind those mechanisms is something else, another word. PRIDE! And dare I call it… FALSE PRIDE!

But wait a minute, Stuart, I’ve been taking her shit for years, and you’re telling me I should lay over and play dead.

I’m not telling you that you should do anything. You get to decide from the data you’re getting from your current interactions with your wife.

What is the data you get from your current interactions with your wife?

If the data says, it ain’t so good, then consider this next tip, to get to a better relationship.

It’s a huge thing I often talk about, in addition to the PAUSE.

Consider this now that you’re in your thinking brain. And see if you can remember it before the next conflict with your wife is about to boil up.

I WOULD RATHER BE CONNECTED TO YOU THAN BE RIGHT.

Connection is much more fulfilling than being right. It’s only your pride that would tell you otherwise.

If you’ve been married for any length of time, you know this to be true. And you know that trying to be right spins you down the same old rabbit hole of conflict.

Let’s face it, you want to keep the peace, you want things to be fluid. AND you want to maintain your dignity. Note, I did not say pride.

Do you get steamrolled as a price for peace with your wife?

If so, that’s not dignity. That’s subservience and it keeps you weak. It’s a form of pleasing and actually loses you connection.

Staying connected does not mean you cut off your arm. It doesn’t mean you say, yes, honey, you’re right.

What it does mean is you say, yes, honey, I hear you are saying A, B, C. Note, you never said, “you’re right, honey.” You witness her, let her know she’s been heard. That’s it.

Above all else, remember PAUSE to get past your reptilian brain and then you have a chance to get to BEING CONNECTED INSTEAD OF BEING RIGHT. And that alone will radically change the quality of your marriage.

And to be straight up, for some of you guys, after years of destructive patterns, it’s just not that simple. You need to go deeper and look under those shadowy places that have had you sabotaging a good marriage for years.

Do you want to create a solid fulfilling relationship with your wife?

If so, join a group of men asking these same questions in my next Men’s Relationship Tools zoom call this Tuesday at 9am MST.

Can’t make it Tuesday? All good. Get daily relationship tips and action items in my private men’s only Facebook Group Men Mastering Relationship.