Hey guys. Geoffrey here.
In this video I want to talk to you about what most people fail to understand
when it comes to stonewalling.
And the reason why this is important and why I want you to stay till the end of
this video is that if you don't understand the core reasons behind stonewalling,
you tend to misinterpret the events and misdiagnosed your events and end up
feeling frustrated or confused over something that you don't need to feel
frustrated or confused by. And when you feel this way,
it will prevent you from actually breaking through that barrier and breaking
through that stonewalling and dealing with the situation in a more productive
way. Now, before I begin this video,
I want to let you know that we'll be hosting a free live masterclass on the five
proven steps to rebuilding your relationship from the ground up.
So if you want eight on that masterclass, be sure to stay until the end.
This video for the announcement on that, and as always,
don't forget to subscribe and hit the bell bond to be notified when I post new
videos three times every single week. With that.
Let's get started and then when you watch a lot of other videos are talking
about stonewalling. The first thing they say is that it's a form of abuse.
Maybe it's a form of narcissism, a, it's a power game.
They're trying to get power over you and trying to Trump you or that your
partner is just trying to be difficult and that dealing with this,
it's just a very impossible situation and that you should just run away from
someone who stonewalling you. Well, in my experience,
this is the worst ways you can deal with stonewalling because stonewalling is
none of these things. It's not abuse, it's not narcissism,
it's not them trying to be difficult,
so I want to open your mind to something new.
A new paradigm here of how you look at stonewalling.
What I find is that deep down everyone, your partner,
no matter how closed off or how much stonewalling they do,
they actually want to express things with you.
They want to be able to express their thoughts with you,
but they don't do so properly.
They try to evade your questions here because of three reasons.
One is the lack of safety. For example,
your partner might have tried to actually tell you or talk to you about the
complex things, about the difficult things that she wants to express,
but you didn't take it very well. Perhaps you get angry,
you couldn't stay calm in that interaction.
Or perhaps your response with Marcel in that perhaps you were trying to judge
what she says or just correct it or try to get into the solutions mode too
quickly, whatever it is,
something that you did made her feel like expressing these ideas with you or
talking about these ideas with you would be a bad idea.
Either it will lead to her feeling worse about her situation and herself,
or it might lead to you two arguing or fighting. But nevertheless,
the bottom line here is that she wants to express what she's feeling.
She wants to express this very complex thoughts,
but she can't because she doesn't feel safe doing so.
Now the second reason here is all about the lack of ability. Now,
the thing you need to understand here is that when there's a very complex
problem in the relationship,
you know things that have been piled up for many years or many decades,
even sometimes these things really pile up and they don't pile up in neat stacks
here they pile up in this messy web of ugliness and you might have felt this
too.
When someone asks you what is wrong with your relationship and you just say,
I don't know. I don't know what's wrong and whether you knew it or not.
When you say, I don't know at that moment you're also stonewalling,
but you're not stonewalling because you're trying to be abusive or you're trying
to be narcissistic. You're stonewalling because you honestly don't know.
Because the problem has gotten so complex that it's impossible to understand
where to start here. So again, they're not trying to abuse you.
They're not trying to be playing this power game.
They're honestly trying to express this to you,
but they cannot because the problem is just too complex for them to even know
where to start. And the third reason here is the lack of desire.
And this is quite closely related to number one,
which is that if they have tried multiple times to explain this stuff to you,
to talk about this stuff to you,
and instead of listening and understanding that complex web of ideas,
you might be taking the first thing that she says and jumping in on that,
jumping into judge that,
jumping into solve that or jumping into correct that whatever it is you do.
But the thing is,
you haven't really understood the core reasons of what she's trying to express,
but you've kind of jumped to your conclusions already. And after a while,
if you keep doing this,
what happens is the desire to express things with you will go less and less and
less because she'll think, what's the point?
What's the point of expressing something to you when you can't even listen when
you're not patient enough to actually stick through to the end and actually
understand the root cause of what she's feeling that is really bothering her.
So again, what you need to understand here is that, uh,
stonewalling is not a form of abuse. It's not your partner being narcissistic.
It's not a power game. It's not that I'm trying to be difficult.
This is a defense mechanism.
It's a defense mechanism resulted by the fact that there's a lack of safety,
that the problem has gotten too complex and that she's tried many times and
she's honestly running out of ways to try to express this to you in a proper
way. So of these three reasons of why someone stonewalls,
which one do you think your partner falls under?
And it could be one of these things and it could be all three as well.
But leave a comment below.
I'd love to hear your thoughts and what you're going through in your
relationship right now. Now,
the reason why this distinction or this clarification is so important is that if
you believe in this old paradigm, whenever you get stonewalled,
you cannot help but feel defensive yourself as well.
You cannot help but feel impatient when you get stonewalled because you are
assigning the reasons why your partner is stonewalling you to an intention of
malice.
And what also happens is you will naturally also begin to blame your partner for
being difficult or blame your partner and get angry at your partner for not
being able to express stuff with you. And this removes safety even more,
which if you think about it,
worsens the problem even more and as the cycle gets worse and worse and worse,
what happens is you start to feel hopeless because the problem just keeps
perpetuating as you keep misdiagnosing your problem. Now,
if you understand this new paradigm where you're not assigning stonewalling to
all this malicious intent,
then what happens is you can be more understanding to it.
You can be more patient to it because you realize that your partner is just
trying her best or their best, but they just can't there.
They don't feel safe to or they just don't have the desire anymore.
Over many years of trying and failing and when you can more understanding during
this process, you'll get less annoyed. You'll be more curious.
And also because you know, the three reasons here,
you can do your own diagnosis of what is actually broken,
which one of these reasons are the reasons why she's stonewalling and actually
seek some advice on how to create safety, for example,
and actually get to a productive solution.
And as you learn how to listen better and actually get to a productive win-win
solutions with your partner,
you increase safety and you increase that desire to talk to you and express to
you even more and over time.
This is how you remove stonewalling from your relationship.
And I'm sure that when you really adopt and really understand this paradigm,
this new paradigm to look at stonewalling,
you'll realize that becoming patient and becoming curious and actually breaking
through that stonewalling will become a lot more natural and much more
effortless for you. Now,
if you're interested in a free resource that can help you, uh,
understand how to lead your interactions with your partner in a way that creates
more safety, that can allow you to break through the stonewalling,
then you want to download the free guide in the description box below this
video.
And if you want in on the free masterclass that I mentioned in the beginning of
this video about the five proven steps to rebuilding your marriage or your
relationship from the ground up.
Then you also want to click the link in the description box below this video.
Now of course, if you want to connect with me on a more personal level,
I have a free Facebook group where you can post your questions or ask your
questions and actually get good advice and good answers about those questions
and if you want to join that group,
then the link is also a description box below this video.
So if you found this video helpful,
then I want you to get to like and subscribe to this channel for more content
like this one and let me know what did you find most eyeopening and most
insightful in this video? Leave a comment below. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
In the meantime,
I want you to also watch two videos on how to deal with stonewalling and also
how to become a better listener in your relationship so that you can create a
safety and actually remove stonewalling in the long run. But with that,
I will see you in the next video.