How to Create More Trust, Connection and Affection in Your Marriage

The other day I told you that I would create a video about the mistakes we make when trying to connect (or RE-connect) with a woman.

This advice applies to a struggling marriage situation or a first date.

These mistakes are the most common areas of improvement I address with men who are frustrated with the reactions they are getting in their marriage OR dating.

In this video, I explain the 3 big mistakes we make when trying to build trust and connection with women and how you can improve your mindset starting today.

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Watch the video below or read on to find out more:

I want to talk about 3 very common mistakes that we men make in our relationships with women.

If you finish reading and watching the video in this article and find yourself with a “yeah but…” confused question in your mind, don’t hesitate to get in touch either by leaving a comment on this blog article or using the contact form on this website.

This is a key understanding for all relationships, whether with a woman on a first date, or with a woman in a long term relationship or marriage. So it’s important that you understand how they relate to you and I’d love to help you fully grasp that understanding.

These are the 3 mistakes men make when they are trying to connect with women, reconnect with women, build trust, build respect or make things feel safe, emotionally trusting and respectful.

1. Expecting a certain reaction or outcome

If you do anything in your life that is expecting another person to react a certain way based on something that you say or you do, you’re already setting yourself up for failure.

That is pressure (which we’ll talk more about in mistake number 3).

Putting pressure on people with your expectations or outcomes almost always makes them move away in any setting, romantic or not.

Often we speak our truth to her expecting her to all of a sudden, feel our love, feel our trust, feel the safety of our protection…and they don’t. In fact if things are tense in the relationship sometimes this can frustrate and annoy her more than ever.

So, if you’re going to speak your truth, if you’re going to say something, do something, build something or create something…do it because it’s what you want to do. If you’re doing it because you expect somebody else to react or respond a certain way or you’re expecting a certain outcome…everybody knows, everybody can feel it.

That’s not authentic.

So when I help you create responses from a place of love, confidence, strength and clarity, I’m asking you to do it for you. Not to get a response or reaction.

We’re not looking for that.

You have to do it for you.

2. Caring more about what she thinks about you, than how she is feeling about herself

This is a change or a variation on something I’ve said many times before. Which is that you have to not care what she thinks about you, but that you should care about what she thinks and feels and dreams.

This concept can get illusive and confusing.

So to clarify…

The mistake we men make is caring more about what she think about you, than how she is feeling about herself.

When we come into a situation like this whether in a first date or when we’re trying to connect with a woman who is not trusting us anymore, if you’re caring about what she thinks about you, that means that she has the power to make you feel approved, make you feel strong, make you feel desirable, attractive or accepted.

You’re giving all the power to her.

And she knows that everything you’re doing is trying to get a certain reaction to make you feel better about yourself.

It is impossible for a woman to trust a man who is doing and thinking and saying things in order to feel better about himself and he needs her to fill up his self-worth for him.

She needs it from you first.

How?

She needs you to be more concerned about how she is feeling about herself at that very moment.

This is about emotional safety.

If you can let go of caring what she thinks about you for a moment and be more concerned about what she’s going through. Empathizing with her journey, her pain, her discomfort, her uncertainty and lack of emotional safety.

If she can feel that that is something that you are concentrating on then she can move a step closer to you.

I talk about this all the time in horse training and the last thing I want to imply is that women are like horses…but they are…a little bit ;)

There’s a certain level of fear going on in every person.

Can you be the man who lets your fear go long enough to pay attention to her fears and to empathize with what she’s going through?

Can you be more interested IN her instead of trying to be interesting TO her?

Ask powerful questions.

Just be quiet for a while.

Give her the space of silence and let her talk.

Listen. Empathize.

This is important because when you’re caring more about how scared you are of them and what they’re going to do to you (or are doing to you and the relationship), anybody can smell this a mile away. Horses can smell it immediately when you walk into the corral and they can’t get close to you.

The same thing happens with women.

3. Not giving her space or knowing how to release pressure.

What this is talking about is giving both physical distance and emotional distance when there is pressure being applied.

Women feel pressure in all sorts of ways.

You can apply pressure by being powerful with your voice, being loud, being belligerent, being argumentative, being aggressive, being physically intimidating slamming doors, pounding on walls or tables etc.

The pressure of neediness, the pressure of wanting them to do or say something to make you feel better about yourself.

There are all kinds of ways that women feel pressure.

If you don’t know how to back off, both emotionally and physically in ways that create space, to allow her to take a step into the space of safety…all she can do is back away.

Sometimes it makes men mad when they see her moving away. When she won’t reach out and touch. She won’t even emotionally get closer and accept a compliment. Even when you say something simple like “you look nice today” and they don’t respond.

It’s because they don’t want to give you the satisfaction of knowing that you’ve made her feel safe – because you haven’t yet.

Sometimes we give compliments in order to get women to move closer to us and that feels like pressure, so when a woman doesn’t respond to our compliment, it’s normally a response of stepping back away from the pressure of your expectation of how she should respond.

If you’re going to give a compliment…give a compliment. Don’t expect anything back.

Not giving enough space or knowing how to release pressure is really important, especially if you’re in a marriage where there’s been a lot of distance or a lot of reluctance to get close. You have to understand what the tension is between you two.

You have to understand the kind of fears she has about taking one step closer into your space as a man.

This means you need to remove a lot of the barriers you erect.

Stop doing a lot of the behaviors that I used to do. The condescending and belittling, over talking and analyzing everything, asking way too many questions and trying to somehow prove that you’re right and she’s wrong.

Nobody likes that, especially in a romantic setting. She’s going to step away from that all the time.

What I’d like to do is help you in your unique situation, to find out what kind of pressure you’ve been applying and then help you with specific tactics on how to start removing the pressure by getting more clear and confident and strong in yourself so you don’t need her to respond to you in a certain way and make you feel better about you.

I want you to feel like a strong, calm, confident and clear-headed man.

I want you to relax in situations that make normal men crazy.

I want you to grin with the knowledge you’re being who you want to be and you’re creating the life and love you want.

Why? Because I spent decades not feeling that way and I now know there’s a way to get to the other side.

If you’re ready to get to the other side then go HERE to apply for a consultation call.

If you’re dealing with this in your marriage or relationship, send me an email. I’d like to help you navigate these difficult waters. You can get in touch here.

If you want to learn more about how to take a bigger step toward being a clear-headed, confident man of action, then find out more here. I would be thrilled to help you get there – our first discovery call is always free and always gives you a BIG boost of confidence.

You WILL become a clearer, stronger, more confident man only through other men. Your woman cannot take you there – and she doesn’t WANT to…trust me on that.

My new book Straight Talk Tools for the Desperate Husband will help you to lead yourself and your relationship back to good health. Understand why your partner acts the way she does toward you and learn how to lead your life in the direction you want it to go. You CAN have the relationship you want, fulfilling all your desires while maintaining love and respect.

I wrote a free e-book to help men learn how to lose their fear and be more bold in their marriage to create the love and connection they want. Get The Hard to Swallow Truth About Saving Your Marriage.

Photo: Vi / Flickr

Steve Horsmon Certified Professional Men’s Coach

Steve Horsmon is a Certified Professional Life Coach and owner of Goodguys2Greatmen Relationship Coaching in Livermore, Colorado. He has appeared on many television, radio, youtube, and podcast channels discussing the coaching and psychology factors relating to maintaining healthy relationships. Steve provides personal, practical, action oriented coaching services for men through 1-on-1 coaching, private retreats, group coaching and workshops designed to give men new knowledge, skills and the right mindset to achieve their relationship goals. He is a committed, lifelong mentor for men who teaches his clients how to discover their masculine strength so they can confidently take the actions required to create the life and relationships that they really want. With over 10 years experience he has created thousands of videos and articles for well known relationship websites such as The Good Men Project, Medium and the Gottman Institute.

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