My wife is driving me crazy! That means different things to different people. I'm
a shrink. I think I can help you with this. Can't tell you man how many times
I've heard that here in my office. "Doc, my wife is driving me crazy." What does that
even mean? And maybe you were a little crazy in the first place. Let's just
consider that and be open to it. Usually what happens when somebody says
that is that there's something going on, right? And it often has to do with, "I
can't please her. I cannot meet her expectations. I can never be good enough."
Okay, that's one thing about, "My wife is driving me crazy." She's expecting way too
much from me. There's no way I can ever do all of this. That's another thought
that sometimes contributes. Oh, she is constantly doing this or saying that.
That's another contributing factor. So, my wife is driving me crazy is such an
interesting phrase. And you know, I'll give you a little insight. Because the
titles of these videos are driven by what are people searching for. And that
phrase comes up. Somehow you found this video and unless you're subscribed to
the channel which by the way thank you if you are. Unless you're subscribed to
the channel, you found it because you were looking at or searching for videos
that have that kind of a theme. Well, here we are. So, what can we do about it if our
wife is driving us crazy? And incidentally ladies, this has to do with
if your husband is driving you crazy too. That might show up under a different
title. So you can search for that one. What can we do about it? I think there's
a couple of things that might help. Number 1, breathe. Okay, I already just
do this with me for a moment. Unless you're in the car driving, you can do it
later. And if you're in the car why are you watching YouTube? I know. You're just
listening right? When you have an opportunity, take a few deep breaths. And
here's what I suggest. In through the nose (*Inhales*) and stretch those lungs and just
hold it for a moment. And then after a few moments out. Nice and slow through
the mouth. Push your lips right here, restrict the flow upfront so that you
can you know, slow it down. You want your exhale to be about twice as long as the
inhale. So, breathe in through the nose hold and then out through the mouth. Nice
and slow. Alright. What do you notice? Hmm. Yeah, feels kind of good, right? You
might get a little light-headed if you're not used to breathing. And if you
go too fast. Anyway, just notice that that calms your body a little bit. And more
importantly, it calms your brain a little bit. This is what we're looking for.
Because, "My wife is driving me crazy" is part of what we collectively referred to
as the fight-or-flight response. Your body is having a reaction to a perceived
threat. And it the perceived threat is your wife. Well your wife is not really a
threat. She's a person that you love and you chose her. Well why are you reacting
this way? Because there's a perceived threat. "Oh, she's expecting all this
stuff from me or she constantly does this or that." Yeah. And that shows up as a
threat triggers your fight-or-flight response.
Breathing allows you to get past the fight-or-flight response and just chill
for a sec. So that we can engage the right part of your brain. Did you know
neuroscience teaches us this: When your limbic system, your fight-or-flight part
of your brain, when that's fired up and active, there's actually a decrease in
blood flow to the prefrontal part of your brain.
The part that does the thinking. And the compassion and the empathy and the
problem-solving and the logic. Do you see the problem?
It shuts down the blood flow. It's like you're turning off the part of your
brain. You need to solve this. Breathing gets the limbic system to chillax just a
little bit so that we can redirect the blood flow up front where the business
happens, okay? So, it's really just a brain hack, a physiological trick. Do some
breathing. Now, here's tip number 2. Remember that your job is to love her
not to understand her. If we men understood women, we wouldn't be having
these conversations. And if I had a book about how to understand women,
I'd probably so a lot of those. You don't have to understand her. Just love her,
okay? Get off of the kick of knowing that you're right. Realize that she sees
things a little differently than you do. And just detach from that enough that
you can get back to your own job which is to love her. Not to understand her. Not
to make sense out of what she's doing. Choose to love her. You know, having said
that, it's not your job to understand her. There's a lot that you can do to get a
little closer to that particular outcome. And as people understand each other, they
feel less annoyed and irritated by each other. I know some of what she's doing is
not making sense to you. But in some world it makes sense to her.
Can you tune into that language a little bit. Well yes, you can. We've done other
videos here on the channel about communication and other positive
relationship enhancements. So, go look in the playlist on positive relationship
resources. And you'll see some other ideas that you can do. Here's a quick one:
In communication, seek first to understand. And second, to be understood.
So, let's do it in that order. when you're seeking to understand, you will
listen. Now, the letters in the word listen are exactly the same as the ones
in the word silent. So, take a clue. It's time to be quiet to zip this up for just
a minute. Now, some people will be quiet. But the whole time that their spouse is
talking, they're dreaming up all of these rebuttals and responses. Don't go there.
Just give her a chance to express herself in whatever way she chooses and
you're just going to zip it up and you're going to listen to understand. So, notice our
goal here is to understand. Not necessarily to agree. And this will give
you probably some of the space that you're going to need to be an effective
communicator. Listen to understand. A lot of times when you start to hear
something you don't agree with, that's when you jump in and you're like,
"but,but,but." Yeah, don't go there. Just let her talk. You listen to understand and
here's a beautiful skill. Once she has expressed some of the things that she's
feeling, whether it makes sense to you or not is completely irrelevant, okay? Just
try to understand it not to agree. Then you take a moment to say, "So honey, what
you're saying is..." And then you give it back to her as accurately as you can.
It's not going to be verbatim or word-for-word. But you simply give it
back to her in a way that she recognizes it. And she's like, "Yeah. Finally, someone
understands." Right? That's the effect that we're looking for. Now, it might not be
quite that dramatic. But you get where I'm coming from here. Listen to
understand. Reflect back what you understand. And that sometimes magically
triggers some other communications that are going to go in a good direction. That's
just one of the hacks, one of the skills that you can use if your wife is driving
you crazy. And remember, this is someone that you chose. Your job is to love her
no matter what and even if. Work on the communication. You can learn some of
those new skills that will help you to connect
bit better. Maybe you're not as crazy as you feel. And there's always something
you can do about it. Check out the other videos we have here on the positive
relationships playlist and I'll be back tomorrow.
I saw standing in the