How men get suckered into fighting with women why shouldn t you have to deal with it

I'm Dr. Orion Terriban, and this is Psych Hacks, Better Living Through Psychology. And the topic of today's short talk is how men get suckered into fighting with women. Like many things I discuss on this channel, this is something that I've learned the hard way. However, once I figured this out, I was able to turn this franchise around in a really big way. And today, I'm going to share the secret with you. First and foremost, it's important to appreciate that big things can have small beginnings. An entire forest can be burned down from the flame from a single spark. In the context of the present discussion, this means that many arguments with women begin with a very small catalyst. And this is exactly where men need to be most cautious, as they are often subject to thinking that these small catalysts shouldn't really matter or are no big deal. And that isn't necessarily true. That said, these small catalysts are vulnerable precisely because they're small. It's always easier to pull a weed that has just sprouted than to wait until it's sunk its roots deep into the ground. So this danger is also our opportunity. The opportunity to nip a potential problem in the bud before it becomes a problem as such. Now, most men do not want to fight with their women. However, they are often suckered into fighting with them because they fall for a very subtle trap. A trap that women, when they are emotionally disequilibrated, are subject to in men. They don't lay the trap for men as much as they spring a trap that already exists inside of men. How does this work? As I've said before, women are incubators and reflectors. Whatever you give them, they will make bigger and give back to you. If you give a woman a little irritation, she'll grow it into aggravation and give it back. A few more volleys like this and you're functionally off to the races. So the way to never fight with a woman is to constantly and consistently clarify your tone when speaking with one. If it's completely devoid of negativity, then there won't be anything that she can grow and reflect back to you that you wouldn't want to receive. So if men don't want to fight with their women, then where does this tone come from to begin with? The tone comes from a thought. It's a dangerous thought because the thought leads down the slippery slope toward an argument. And it's a simple thought. I know you're going to recognize it immediately when I point it out to you. However, this thought, if unaddressed, will fluoresce into a feeling which will leak out into your communication as a tone. So what's the thought? When your woman comes to you and for whatever reason she is provocative or complaining or needy or critical or what have you, the trap that gets sprung in your mind is some version of the thought, I shouldn't have to ******* deal with this. Or, oh Jesus Christ, here we go again. Or, oh, I can't believe this ----. Can I have a moment of peace in this house or something along those lines? And these thoughts and their variations are all traps. They are traps because as soon as you validate these thoughts as true, which if you're not careful can happen in the fraction of a second, you are going to begin to experience impatience, which will seep into your tone as a kind of strained self-control. This tone, in turn, is incubated and reflected, which creates a positive feedback loop that eventually bursts into open hostility. And this is how men get suckered into fighting with women. They can't tolerate their own impatience. And this is a problem because if you can't tolerate the initial provocation, how are you going to be able to tolerate the incubated and reflected version? If you appreciate the insights on this channel, I would highly encourage you to get your hands on a copy of my book, The Value of Others. Over the course of 432 pages, I delve deep into my economic model of relationships and explain the behavior of both men and women in the game of mating and dating. I also provide a lot of actionable advice on how to get and keep more of what you want in the sexual marketplace. Once you read The Value of Others, you'll never look at relationships the same way again. Now available in ebook, audiobook, and paperback formats. The links are in the description. So, what's to be done about this? The way to prevent this outcome is to improve your kung fu. Your mental kung fu, anyway. The secret to emotional equilibration is to maintain constant vigilance over the contents of your consciousness. Behind every feeling is a thought, and certain thoughts will predictably lead to certain emotional states. If you're able to root out those thoughts while they're still small, they won't have a chance to fluoresce into emotions, which means that you won't have to cope with them emotionally, which is generally more time-consuming, painful, and expensive. Better to rip them out while they're still small, and the way to do this is through the block and replace technique. You become aware of the thought, I shouldn't have to ******* deal with this. Well, who says? Like, where the **** is that written? Why shouldn't you have to deal with this, since you're apparently dealing with a woman who hasn't entirely clarified her own communication, and you're dealing with yourself, who has yet to cultivate sufficient patience to withstand her provocations. Like, are you sure you shouldn't have to deal with this under those conditions? Expecting reality to be other than it is is just asking to be disappointed and frustrated, but whose fault is that? Do you understand what I'm saying? This is harsh, but it's effective. When a woman comes to you in this way, you have to understand that you are now in the emotional gym. The physical gym is an actual location that we consciously and intentionally go to. The emotional gym is a psychological location that comes to us, whether we're ready for it or not. And the emotional gym comes to us when we start to become engaged with negative emotional states, when we start to give over onto loneliness, or irritation, or anxiety, or despair. And it's a gym precisely because it's the opportunity to strengthen the commensurate virtue that will help you defend against that particular weakness in the future, which in this case would be self-possession, or patience, or courage, or hope, respectively. After all, how can you grow these virtues if you don't ever have the opportunity to practice them? So these difficult situations are the opportunity to grow stronger in the virtues that will defend you against future difficulties. It's sort of like building a tolerance to poison. You can do it by exposing yourself to increasingly stronger doses to build up your ability to withstand its influence over time. Without that exposure, you might be taken out by a small quantity of the substance. But with gradual exposure, even large doses might have no effect on you. It's also helpful to consider your woman, in these moments at least, to be your teacher. She's your teacher because she's showing you where you still have buttons to push. And as frustrating as this is, this is actually a very beneficial service that she's providing. Your woman is teaching you that you still have buttons to push in the privacy of your own home and the relative safety of your relationship, so that you do not need to learn that you still have buttons to push out in the wider world where the stakes might be much higher. In most cases, the woman's motivation here is not malicious. However, even if it is malicious, she can still be your teacher. After all, it's for you to decide where you take your lessons. In any case, in these moments, your woman is pointing out where you are still vulnerable, where you are still susceptible to attack, where you still have buttons that can be pushed. And the correct response to a lesson, even a lesson that you may not have wanted to learn, is gratitude. Thank you. Thank you, teacher, for showing me that I still have this button. I didn't realize. I thought I had gotten them all, but you have helped me to see something that I couldn't see for myself. Now, when you feel your buttons being pushed, then do your mental kung fu to prevent the fluorescence of the emotion. And if the emotion presents itself, use your emotional coping strategies to prevent the situation from spiraling out of control and help you return to baseline. And then, further down the road, when you have the time and the space to do so, you should examine what happened. Like, why do I have that button? Why did that prick my ego? Why did that get under my skin so much? Really try to figure that out. Because by examining and processing your emotional response, you can effectively remove that button from your psyche. The goal, of course, is to become buttonless, or at the very least, to remove that particular button from commission. The next time she goes looking for that button, you can't let her find it there. Now, when she can't find it, she's gonna push harder to make sure that the button is really gone. So you have to be prepared for that. But after she pushes harder and realizes that the button is really gone, then she's going to stop pushing. She might try to seek out another button to push, but she probably won't bother with the one that has somehow disappeared. The idea is that a master can turn anything to his purposes. In this way, a good man can use even a disrespectful and disagreeable woman to become emotionally resilient and invulnerable. What do you think? Does this fit with your own experience? Let me know in the comments below. And please send this episode to someone who you think might benefit from its message, because it's word-of-mouth referrals like this that really help to make the channel grow. And anyone looking to join my free weekly newsletter or book a paid consultation can do so on my website. Links in the description. As always, I appreciate your support, and thank you for listening.