“You don’t do this right. You don’t do that right. You’re always working!”

My client Jack raises his hands like claws at his skull. The complaints come at him constantly. It feels like an endless barrage.

He works full time as the CEO of a successful company. And he’s still not doing enough.

Is your wife always complaining?

Jack’s wife was complaining A LOT. And unfortunately for him, he got sucked down the rabbit hole with her.

He did that by making her complaints about him. He internalized the belief that no matter what he did, her complaints were a sign that he had failed her as a man.

“Even the kids,” he said, “are not good enough for her. They’re on their phones all the time. They’re unhelpful. I mean, jeez woman, these are our kids. Come on. Cut them some slack!”

What Jack really meant was “cut ME some slack.” Being with a wife who complains a lot can be a major burden for a guy.

Do you take on your wife’s complaints as your burden?

It seems that more and more these days a lot of women traffic in complaints. In some ways, you could say it’s their style of communication.

But you see most of us guys don’t understand that. And we take it personally.

Like Jack, we make it about us. Whether we know it or not, we have this unconscious belief in “happy wife, happy life.”

The problem with that is on the flip side, it translates to “unhappy wife, unhappy life.” And then we internalize the belief that if she’s hot happy, then I can’t be.

And while it’s noble to care about your wife’s well-being, taking on her happiness as your responsibility DOES NOT work out well, as Jack noticed.

Do you take on your wife’s unhappiness as your responsibility?

You see, the thing is Jack did this, in order to fill a void within himself. He abandoned his own wants and needs and focused solely on those of his wife.

And that meant, he abandoned what he wanted. As a result, he only knew what he didn’t want.

“So, what’s your greatest hope with her?” I asked him.

“That she’ll stop complaining!” He said.

I nodded. And then I asked him something else, something he hadn’t thought possible. Something he couldn’t even imagine.

What if you could transform her complaints into loving requests?

His eyebrows raised with disbelief. “Yeah, right, are you some kind of magician?”

The next few months, Jack and I went on a mission to do just this. And this is how we did it.

The first thing I taught Jack was to stop making his wife’s complaints all about him. To start seeing that HE was not the problem. The problem was how he dealt with her complaints.

Like a man, he took it all on. I call this false heroism. It’s the b.s. behind the “happy wife, happy life” script, which Jack wasn’t even aware was running him.

Together we worked on helping him put some distance between himself and his wife’s complaints. To have a healthy boundary. Not letting all her complaints penetrate the deepest parts of his heart.

Do your wife’s complaints tear at your heart?

Once Jack learned to have a healthy boundary from his wife’s complaints, he was able to actually be the good, caring guy he wanted to be. What an irony.

You see, even though Jack was a powerful guy at work, at home he was a nice guy.

And as a nice guy, he thought that letting his wife’s complaints penetrate his heart was empathy and being a good guy.

But the problem is that strategy shut him down to her and just caused him a ton of resentments.

Do you get resentful at your wife when she complains?

If so, do what I taught Jack. Start to separate yourself from her complaints. Create a healthy boundary on what you let sink in.

Start to see that she’s the one having a hard time. Not you. Let me repeat. NOT YOU! You don’t have to take that on.

And in fact, when you stop taking it on, you’ll be a better man for her.

Being a good man is not the same as letting all her complaints sink into your heart.

When you stop that, and yes even if she attacks your character, you are in a much more powerful position to keep yourself safe and not be dragged down.

And when you’re not dragged down, you receive something else. It’s called bandwidth. That offers you more energy. Energy to hear her and listen, and yes, with empathy.

It’s empathy that helps her get what she wants – to feel heard and be seen. The lack of being heard and seen is what has her complaining so much in the first place.

And when she’s heard and seen, her whole nervous system calms down. She feels loved. And it’s then that you can transform her complaint into a loving request.

Do you want to transform her complaints into loving requests?

If so, check out the video below for 3 key steps I took Jack through to get his marriage from “I’m done” to “I feel loved and respected.”

It’s tough being a guy in marriage today. We want to be good to our wife and we want to be empathic.

Of course, we want to be a good guy. Nobody wants to be the macho jerk. We want to try to meet her needs as best as we can.

But when they come out in the form of complaints all the time, it’s only human to get resentful.

Are you stuck between resentments and the desire to be a good man for your wife?

If so, cut yourself some slack. How would you know how to do any different? Did you ever go to school for this stuff? Of course not. Maybe like me, you went to the school of heart knocks.

Well, I’m excited to say that I have created a relationship school for men. The Men’s Relationship School. A school that is built on a decade of the best of my work coaching men in relationship.

Let’s face it, not every guy is ready for the deeper commitment and investment of 1:1 coaching. That’s why I created The Men’s Relationship School. I’m offering it for a low monthly fee of $89, but you can enjoy the month of October for FREE!

Try it out and learn how to…

• HAVE A STRONG BACKBONE to get the respect and love you deserve.
• GET PAST YOUR FEARS of her freak outs and stay bold and calm in the heat of conflict.
• TRANSFORM HER COMPLAINTS into loving requests.
• And more.

Not a group guy? To talk 1:1, shoot me a quick email.

And join my men’s-only private Facebook Group Men Mastering Relationship for inspiring daily relationship tips and action items just for men.