Hey everyone, Geoffrey here,
and are you currently dealing with a very emotionally unavailable partner? Well,
if so, and if you really want to open them up,
then stay until the end as video for my five best tips on how you can open up
that brick wall and for the best marriage or relationship advice,
subscribe to this channel and click that bell button to be notified every time I
post a new video every Wednesday and every Saturday. Hey, everyone,
Geoffrey here.
And if you're currently struggling to really open up your partner,
then by the end in this video,
you'll have five new insights that you can use today and really open up that
brick wall. And I've shown this to many of my clients.
And once they realized this stuff, once they implement this stuff,
they realized that their partner wasn't actually emotionally unavailable at all,
that they just didn't know how to open them up.
And so the first thing I would like to challenge is,
is your partner really emotionally unavailable? And usually in my experience,
you might think that you're very convinced that your partner is just that way.
That's just how they're wired. But usually when you learn to open someone up,
you realize that nobody is really emotionally unavailable.
So the first thing we need to talk about is why do people become emotionally
unavailable and understand first things first here,
that emotional unavailability equals resistance. You know,
whenever someone's not wanting to share their emotions,
there's a resistance there.
Just like almost like this wall between their feelings and the outside world
that is resisting them from truly expressing their emotions,
truly expressing their thoughts and so on.
And so a simple way to understand emotional unavailability is just that it's
resistance. And if you have been following me for awhile,
then you will know this chart quite well,
which is that you have this two stalks of trees here,
and you know this represents the types of resistance that you can get.
So one way that you can resist is through active resistance.
And that's through anger, shouting, huffing and puffing and hostility.
But you can also show your resistance in a passive way.
So you can express it through passive aggressiveness, some cold shoulder,
ignoring, silent treatment.
And usually when someone's becoming emotionally unavailable, this is it.
And usually they can actually do both. So sometimes they can be very passive,
they won't say anything, they will just be closed off.
But sometimes they would be very active. So sometimes they will be very quiet.
Sometimes they will be just exploding on your face.
But no matter what types of resistance people have, it's all the same.
It's just resistance.
And beneath all resistance is just a bunch of repression and pent up feelings.
And so why is your partner being emotionally unavailable or why is he sometimes
so angry and can blow up like crazy is because inside him or her,
there's a lot of repression there and different people deal with their
repression in different ways.
So some people get really mad and some people retreat inward.
So they get depressed and they get quiet and climb up.
And what is causing this repression and pent up feelings? It's simple.
It's just a lack of safety.
And so this lack of safety is really the root behind all resistance.
And it's really the root of why your partner is being emotionally unavailable.
And so let's understand the importance of emotional safety here.
So we know that safety is the root.
So why is this safety the root understand that when people are resisting,
either they're clamming up or they're very angry,
they're really just testing the waters.
They're really trying to see is it safe for me to jump in and express myself or
do I have to keep repressing myself?
And so when someone's really clamming up and they're not saying anything,
they're being emotionally unavailable,
then what you need to realize is that they're really testing the waters.
They want to express themselves, but they can't. They don't feel safe. And so,
you know, there's this inner struggle in them that is conflicted on,
should I say it or should I not? Should I say it should or not?
And when people are angry too, what they really want to say is not their anger.
Their anger is just kind of a defense mechanism for what they are penting up
inside.
But usually I think many of us have experienced this is that once someone gets
really angry and once we actually calm them down,
we realized that there's a reason behind that anger.
That's like a deeper reason.
And they can say it calmly and they can say the truth,
but the anger stuff is just a symptom of the truth.
So no matter how people are resisting,
don't fall for that resistance and learn to look beneath that.
And beneath is just this person who was conflicted on whether they should
express themselves or whether they should not.
And so right now they're asking is it safe? And if the answer is no,
then they will choose to repress. And what's funny is that if you look here,
there is this feedback loop between passive resistance and repression.
The more lack of safety you have,
the more you repress and the more your pent up your feelings and the more you
pent up your feelings, the more that creates passive resistance.
So the more they clam up, but the more they clam up, the more they repress.
And the more they repress, the more they clam up.
And so you have this really vicious cycle.
When people become emotionally unavailable is that it starts off with just one
instance of them asking subconsciously, is it safe? Then they say,
no, they realize it's not safe for whatever reason,
and once they say no like this, they start to repressed. But then again,
that repression caused us more resistance in this case,
passive resistance and that causes them to repressive and more,
which causes even more resistance, which causes them to repress even more so on.
And before you know it, they're just totally emotionally unavailable.
But the good thing is that you can break the cycle.
You have the power to break the cycle,
and so if you're dealing with someone who's very emotionally unavailable,
you have the power to break that cycle for sure.
Because once you break that cycle and when they're asking is actually safe and
you make it easy for them to say yes,
then they will open up and when they open up,
they're not going to just open up their floodgates.
They're going to say something small. But then if you keep this up,
then that will lead to even less resistance,
which causes them to open up even more, which causes less resistance,
which then leads to more opening up and so on. And so this cycle continuous.
And so whenever I work with my clients and they learn how to break that cycle,
they realized that you know in one month, three months, six months,
that their partner actually has a lot to say.
They're not really that emotionally unavailable.
But the thing is that you need to break the cycle first and understand how to
create emotional safety.
And if you can't create emotional safety then you can ever open someone up.
And if you want very specific steps that you can use to really fight through
resistance, then watch the video above. And that video,
I really lay out very specifically what resistance looks like and what you need
to do to actually fight through resistance.
And what happens if you do and what happens if you don't?
So if you want to have a step by step plan, then I suggest you watch that video.
And point number three here is to reward openness.
And so now that we know emotional safety is crucial, it's key.
If you want someone to open up, then we want to start rewarding openness.
But the problem is that, so let's say our partner finally opens up and they say,
I don't feel the same way about this relationship anymore. Or they say,
I think about other relationships. Or they say something like,
I find you very annoying. You know, all these things can be very jarring.
It can be very hurtful for you to hear.
And so what usually happens is once you hear this, you go berserk,
you panic and you say how dare you say that you start screaming at him,
you start saying cuss words, you start getting really mad.
Your partner just told you the truth. Your partner just opened up.
And when you're reacting in this way,
you're punishing your partner for opening up. And so now you wonder,
why is my partner so emotionally unavailable? Well,
usually because every time he expresses himself you react badly.
And here's the thing, bad couples see harsh truths as the end.
And there's this very intense denial of the issue that is killing the
relationship and bad couples, whenever they hear these things,
they react so badly because they're in denial. They can't believe it.
They're like, how can my husband, be looking at other women,
how can my partner not love me anymore?
And then they start to get angry at their partner for feeling that way.
How can you feel that it's wrong with you to feel that?
And because you're so angry and because they're so in denial,
they don't really want to deal with the harsh truth.
And so they kind of tell their partner like, Hey, deal with this yourself.
Go see your therapist. Sort out your issues.
You have some issues you need to sort your shit out.
And they basically just keep panicking about the past.
And so what happens is that the cycle perpetuates their partner asks is it safe?
Definitely not. Because they know that you're going to react really badly.
So they repress more stuff which causes more resistance and so on and so on and
so on. And before you know it, they're fully emotionally unavailable.
But good couples. The harsh truth as just the beginning.
And so they know that the issue is currently killing the relationship whether
they know it or not.
And so they know that when your partner says the harsh truth,
they realize that that's actually something that's been killing the relationship
before they even knew it. And so when they actually know it,
when their partner tells them that truth,
they don't panic because they know that it exists, whether you know it or not.
And they admit that there is a reason that their partner feels a certain way.
And so they don't blame their partner and say like,
it's wrong of you to feel that way. They go, Hmm,
that must be a very good reason why my partner feels that way.
Why my partner doesn't feel like they love the relationship anymore.
And number three is they know that they must know the harsh truth to understand
and fix the issue. This harsh truth, no matter how painful it was,
had to come out. It had to come out to lead the way to understanding.
And once you can understand, then you can fix the issue.
But as long as the truth is hidden, then you will never understand.
And when you can never understand, you can never fix the issue.
And number four here is that they know they must stay calm to open up and keep
getting to the truth. And so instead of panicking,
they know that if they panic now they're going to close them off and when they
close their partner off, it's over. The discussion is over.
There is no more truth because their partner will clam up.
And so what happens with good couples with healthy couples is that when their
partner says something that is very hurtful, that is very tough to deal with,
they stay calm and they react in a correct way. They don't panic,
they don't scold their partner,
they don't punish their partner for expressing their honest truth.
So they open up a bit. Then when they open up and they can see that, you know,
I'm testing the waters and it seems fine, then they open up even more.
Then they keep saying like, Oh, it's still fine. They keep opening up,
they keep opening up.
And both of you are now at a place where both of you can really understand each
other because you're not clamming up anymore.
So how do you discourage your partner from sharing more?
Understand that often we do it without realizing. But now that we're here,
let's think about how do you actually punish your partner from telling you the
truth. So leave a comment below. We'd love to hear your thoughts.
And number four,
the second way to fix this is to focus on effectiveness over efficiency.
And so when you ask someone, you know, was the conversation successful?
Most people would use some sort of a efficiency measure to determine if their
conversation was successful. So the main question is,
can I deal with this quickly or did I deal with this quickly?
And basically they're saying if it's fast,
if I can deal with it in five minutes, 10 minutes is good.
But if it takes like two hours,
three hours a week to resolve some issues and conflict,
then communication sucked. But that's not true at all.
Because when you're talking to someone, you must focus on effectiveness,
not efficiency. So the happy couples,
they have a very different criteria for success.
And their criteria is did I deal with this effectively or can I deal with this
effectively?
And effective means did I create safety because they understand that if they
don't create safety,
so they take her some shortcuts and they kind of cut the conversation short.
They want to make the conversation very fast. And so if you do that.
Then they'll keep repressing themselves and they'll keep resisting more and more
and more. And it might be fast right now, but fast forward a year,
five years later,
both of you will be so repressed and so closed off that addressing anything will
become impossible.
And so the reason why both of you or one of you is emotionally closed off is
you've let this a negative cycle run for way too long because maybe you're
punishing your partner for saying the truth or maybe you're focusing on
efficiency all the time.
You want conversations to be really fast and because of that you're rushing
someone and you're making someone feel very unsafe.
Because you're telling them that you don't have the patience.
But happy couples understand that, you know,
while in the short term it might take a while.
So when I was fixing my own relationship,
it took me weeks to open up my partner.
But I understood that this is the longterm game because if I can show my partner
that it's a safe environment for her to express herself,
then slowly she will open up and slowly that resistance will go down and fast
forward a year, five years from now, you know,
we can resolve things much easier because we don't feel the need to clam up
anymore.
We can be very open and honest with each other and that's the place we're in,
right? Which is that every time we have a conflict, it takes us literally five,
10 minutes to resolve it. And so which one of these do you want to do here?
Do you want to deal with it quickly today and make it more difficult for you in
the long run?
Or do you want to take some more time and deal with it effectively?
But fast forward one year, five years, they'll be so much easier.
Which one do you want? It's up to you.
And if you want to learn what effective conversations look like,
then you want to watch my video on avoiding arguments in your relationship.
And you can click the link on top of this video if you're interested in watching
it. And so the next time you're having a conversation with your partner,
ask yourself, am I encouraging my partner to share more or less?
And number five is really the understanding that emotional safety is really the
greatest gift you can give to your partner.
And the thing you want to understand is this. You know,
we spend most of our lives, you and your partner wearing masks.
We have to watch everything we say. We have to watch everything we think about.
You know, we have to watch our lives very carefully.
We have to wear a mask and wearing a mask can be tiring.
So how great would it be if we could go home and home can become the place that
we can actually take off that mask.
And I'm sure you've felt this many times before where you know you'll come home
and all you want to do is just rip off your clothes and get naked because that's
home home is where you can do that. But when you don't have emotional safety,
you can still do this stuff physically so you can still rip off your clothes
physically. But emotionally you can't. You have to be very guarded.
You have to watch everything you stay because you're afraid that your partner
might react really badly if you do something wrong.
And that's not a fun place to be in.
And so if you can create this emotionally safe environment,
that's really the greatest gift you have for your partner because imagine how
good that feels whenever you come home and you can just rip off your clothes and
get naked. It feels very good. Well,
that desire exists on an emotional level too.
And so when you give your partner emotional safety,
that's the kind of liberation positive feelings that are giving to your partner.
If you do that now,
it's really impossible for me to outline exactly how to open up your partner in
a video like this.
So if you want a resource where I will take you through a step by step plan of
how you can begin opening up your partner, including a script and everything,
then you want to check out my free five part video series that will teach you
the same five step system that I teach hundreds of my clients.
And when they learn this five steps,
that can really begin to master what it means to really open someone up.
And what do you start to establish that deep emotional connection.
And so if you're interested in getting this five part course,
then the link is in the description box below this video.
And if you're looking for a safe space where you can discuss your issues and get
the personalized help you need,
then you can also join our secret Facebook group with other members who are as
committed and dedicated to working on the relationship as you are.
And the link to that is also below this video.
So have you liked this video and found it to be valuable then smash that like
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comments below, which of these tips did you find most valuable?
We'd love to hear your thoughts and thank you so much for watching this video
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so good to see all of of your support and all of you being here with me.
And with that I will see you in the next video.