Transcript: The Biggest Mistakes Women Make With Men (That Pushes Them Away) – Lila Rose Show # E235

So I know people are going to really be benefited by this episode.

My good friend Ellen Fisher introduced me to you and your work, and I thought these are perspectives that are incredibly difficult to find today but are immensely valuable for women and for men.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Thank you.

LILA ROSE: And women really are the ones that can take hold of these ideas and incorporate them in their lives. So let’s start with your background, what you were talking before we started the interview, that you actually identify as an activist, which is interesting because I thought she’s a speaker, a thought leader, an author.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Yes.

LILA ROSE: Tell us a little bit about your background.

Alison’s Journey as an Activist

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Well, I mean, I gave my teachers a whole lot of trouble starting in elementary school. But what about. And it shouldn’t be that way. That’s not right. So one thing led to another. It’s working in the transformation of education.

Kindergarten teachers saying, but how do we teach our kids. Woman asked me this, but how do we teach our kids when they can’t stay awake in school because they’ve been kept up all night by their parents fighting?

That was four years into me studying men. And I had started studying men because, like Kimberly in the Queen’s Code, my friend was called a frog farmer. And it bounced.

LILA ROSE: Did someone actually use those words on her?

ALISON ARMSTRONG: It actually happened. His name was Herb.

LILA ROSE: That term is basically, Prince Charming turns into a frog instead of you kiss the frog, he turns into Prince Charming, right?

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Yes. What Herb did, Lisa, was some women turn frogs into princes. You, my dear, turn princes into frogs. Ouch. Yeah.

And she challenged him. This is in a seminar with about 200 people. Why is it that men are wonderful in the beginning, and they’ll take you to romantic places and they’ll give you romantic gifts? And she said, and they’ll listen to you talk about your pets and your family as if they care.

And then within a few weeks or a few months, they turn into. And, I mean, I’m not even going to recreate the bitterness in her voice. It hurts just to hear it. Sports watching, pizza eating, couch slugs. Why is that?

LILA ROSE: Articulate woman, but sad. Yeah. Sad perspective. Yeah.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: And I was watching Herb, the trainer at the time, as they called him, and I was expecting a different reaction. I was watching very closely, and he dug into it.

And he walked down the aisle, and he stood in front of her and intentionally checked her out just to aggravate her, because she was leading. Some women lead with their sexuality, not knowing that to do that, you’re causing the most primitive reactions in men.

It’s how we bring out the worst of men, one of the ways. And then we think that’s who men are.

LILA ROSE: Meaning she was dressed provocatively.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: She was dressed provocatively. Her stance was provocative, her frosty lipstick. Everything was provocative in a sexual way.

And so that’s when he said, oh, I see you’re a frog farmer. And. Huh? What? And there’s groans in the room. And the men had crossed their legs at her question.

When men open their legs, that’s how you know they feel safe, that they’re not going to be disempowered. And they had the legs crossed. They’re on guard for being disempowered, for being emasculated and their legs are crossed a lot most of the time because of our culture and individual women.

So one thing led to the other and then what happened? I call it the harmonic convergence which so much of my life is like that. We have the same boss, you and I.

And when she said what if they can’t learn because they’ve been up all night? I had been studying men at that time for it was almost five years and I had made a promise when I was 28 years old. I’d made it what we call an impossible promise. So one could say the purpose of my life. I defined the purpose of my life when I was 28 years old.

And the shorthand for it is heaven on earth. And the long way of expressing my promise was that every man, woman and child would be fed, housed, clothed, loved and respected.

And I’d been working on the fed house clothed. And it just, I saw in that moment like oh, when there’s love and respect, when we respect and love people fed had closed. That’s kind of follows. It’s just a no brainer.

In the presence of love and respect, of course we’re going to care for each other, care for ourselves in because it applies. We don’t love and respect ourselves. We don’t care for ourselves.

So it just took a turn right there just took a turn that oh, who can’t be heard is men. Because I’d been listening to them for almost five years and I finally could hear what all the men my father when I was young had been trying to tell me about himself. But I didn’t believe it. I discounted it.

Learning to Listen to Men

And it’s one of the things that, I mean if a woman wants to know the men in her life better, whether it’s her husband or her sons or men she works with, her brothers or father, what if they mean what they say?

Because we tend to listen that when they say I do that because or this is, or I’m this way or it is this way. We tend to listen to it as a poor excuse for bad behavior. And we don’t, we don’t treat it like it’s real. We don’t treat it like they’re telling me the truth. Okay, how can I hear it?

And really what happens to people through the Queen’s Code, for example, or our live workshops that were all the research to be able to write it if we just consider men and women, just starting with gender hormones, men and women, our brains don’t even configure themselves in the same way.

We think differently, our vision is different. What, we don’t see the same things with our eyes, right? And we expect that the other person’s supposed to be coming from our point of view, from our values, from our preferences and attachments, and from our wounds.

And we expect so much of the other person to be like us. And we can’t hear them when they’re speaking about the world for them.

And once I, that was the first thing I had to do. I had to learn to listen. Stop interrupting. These are not superficial or shallow people at all. They’re deep, deep, deep wells of feeling and emotion and care. Oh my gosh, how much they care is astonishing. And, but they think different.

And you and I, we could interrupt each other back and forth for two hours and we’d be fine. We’d call it a conversation. But when that happens to a man or women later, when the hormones change, we become single focused.

Anyone who’s single focused, you’re running the train off the track and just thinking that that’s all there is to them. But when they’ve got something to say, if we don’t let them say the whole thing, it just crashes. And they don’t pick it up again.

They don’t pick it up again unless they’re serious about the point they’re going to make. And usually when we’re trying to get to know them, they’re not trying to make a point. But we won’t ever get to know them if we don’t listen long enough.

So that’s what I started doing and I was astonished by what I heard and it was so different.

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Growing Up in the Era of Feminism

ALISON ARMSTRONG: I was born in 1960, so I grew up if the. I was coming of age in the convergence of Barbie dolls and feminism. Glorious.

LILA ROSE: I mean, I think about the antithesis of your message. Gloria Steinem.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: A man now. Her message then.

LILA ROSE: Her message then. Yeah.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Yes.

LILA ROSE: I mean, “a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.”

ALISON ARMSTRONG: I had that T shirt. I wore that T shirt proudly in my teens. I wore that T shirt to a protest of a nuclear power plant to be put in how Tied to Samos or Bizzo?

LILA ROSE: The one that’s melting down. Oh, no, that’s a different. A different one. Okay.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: It’s a different one. So isn’t that sad? That’s a different one. Just that we would say that. Which. Which one’s melting now?

So, yeah, I realized it’s men now who can’t be heard. It was the homeless that couldn’t be heard. They were all considered to be a certain way children. Very difficult for children to be heard.

I very. I usually don’t use the word children. I just call them young people. Because when we say they’re children, it’s a way that they’re demoted instantly and we don’t pay enough attention and they’re. Oh, my gosh, they perceive so much more than we give them credit for. Stunning. Stunning.

And so, yeah, got to. Men can’t be heard. And so, okay, how can I articulate men for women so that women will then be able to see and hear men in their life?

I never wanted anybody to need me to do this translation. Just. If I can open your eyes, get the prejudice out of our ears and listen to these folks. And it doesn’t mean that everything about them is great. No, they’re human.

And they struggle deeply with issues of honor and accountability and shame and fealty and faith. And they’re complex and they say they’re simple.

Like when people. Men are like, what do you do? I’ve been studying men since 1991. I literally had a man in an airplane turn to me and go, are you slow? We’re simple.

And it took a while for me to be able to say right back, no, you’re not. You’re direct. And you confuse that with simple. But a woman has to pay attention to nine things to have you understand something that she needs.

Nah, that can’t be true. We’re simple. Took a group of men and went through the nine steps and talked about what would happen if each one didn’t happen. It was validated by the men. Oh, yeah, you do need to do all of that.

LILA ROSE: The nine steps of what the man needs to be doing to respond to women.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: No, what a woman has to do in expressing her needs. Oh, to a man. To a man. To support him in giving her what she needs. Which men want to give us what we need. But for him to understand what it is and what it would look like and what it would provide for her and have the chance to say what he would need from her to give it to her.

Unfortunately, just starting with the first step, you have for the first step to make sense. The first step is ask for a time to talk. Why should I have to ask for a time to talk? I’m his wife. Well, because. And then that’s the whole conversation of single focus and their intensity about doing what they’re doing when they’re doing it, because their brains are built that way.

And if we try to tell a man what we need and we try to do this all the time while he’s in the middle of something else, he can barely hear it, let alone take it in, interact with it, and then take it on. So every single one of those steps would go back to a longer conversation, which we might cover naturally, and it could add up to that.

LILA ROSE: Allison, there’s so much to get into with these topics. And I am curious with your perspective about homelessness, you said you realized it starts with love and respect and we need to solve that problem. You had been already studying men for four years. What was it that turned you on to I want to study men?

The Frog Farmer Revelation

ALISON ARMSTRONG: When Lisa, she’s a volunteer and part time staff in the organization that I ran when she was called a frog farmer, my life flashed before me like I literally saw rows of rows of frogs, like on a farm with human heads. And there was my ex husband and there were all my ex boyfriends that lasted about two weeks at a time because I thought that men were con artists and I wanted to reveal the con before I fell for it.

So I would poke them, I would deliberately antagonize them to see their real self before I got. And I got to see that that antagonism actually brought out the worst in them. It didn’t bring out their real self. It brought out their real instincts, their need to protect themselves from me, which is one of the worst things that we do with men. And it’s something I hope we get to talk about.

There’s a hierarchy in what we pay attention to, and men and women both. We love being in a state of provide, of just wanting to give and able to give and provide what people need. And that’s a happy place for most people. But when we’re afraid, when we perceive a threat, when we feel under attack, we retract from giving to protecting. And we’ll protect whatever we see as under attack.

So, like, for too many men, and it’s true for women, too, because we become more and more successful like a man may feel like. My husband felt like the retirement fund was under attack. Honey, honey, let’s put in this pool. Let me tell you about this pool. I tell them all about the pool. I even had pictures with sequins on them for the water sparkling, right? It was very vivid. And I showed him. I showed him in the yard and it would go like this. And then he said no, and he walked away.

I yelled after him, “Who made you the executive branch? Why is your no bigger than my yes?” It was just like, I was furious. And then we unpacked it and took a while. But if the person who’s holding themselves accountable for a result can’t veto, then we can’t protect the result.

Understanding Accountability and Territory in Partnership

And it’s one of the most important things to work out in a partnership, like with a family. Who’s accountable for this part and who’s accountable for that part? I was accountable for our children’s education. So my husband empowered me when I had to go fight with the vice principal. And this is on you, honey. This is your area.

And I would empower him. We called him the chief of safety. So even if I thought he was overprotective of our children. No, we’re going to do what dad says. He’s the chief of safety. Oh, come on, Mom. No. If he thinks it isn’t safe, we’re not going to do it. Why? Because it would disempower him. He would be defeated and disempowered. He wouldn’t get to provide that the way that he wanted to provide it and was built to provide it.

And so this in partnership, we’ve got to decide the territory. Accountability is inherently territorial. And if we don’t say yes, that’s your territory, and I will honor that. And this is what I need you to be accountable for so that I know you’re also taking care of what matters to me. So that’s where the partnership comes on. It’s not all your way. It’s deciding together what is the way.

Okay, I’m the one that’ll be in charge of that. And it can be gorgeous. It’s just gorgeous when we’re united, which I think a marriage is supposed to be a union, which means we have to keep reuniting, reuniting, reuniting.

LILA ROSE: So we have this. I consider it very precious time together. You have written the Queen’s Code. You’ve written other books. You’ve given many, many speeches. You’ve done a whole body of work. If you have about an hour or so with a woman and she’s coming to you with her frustrations or grievances, every woman’s going to have different unique elements.

But her challenges with men, let’s say her husband or the men she’s dating, and they just can’t hold onto them, it doesn’t work out. Or the husband that’s disappointing her or frustrating her or hurting her, even. I mean, I’m not talking about, like, direct physical abuse, but I’m talking about just emotional feelings. Disconnects. Where do you start with this woman?

ALISON ARMSTRONG: And what would you say if you.

LILA ROSE: Have, again this hour with her, what would you say? These are some of the key secrets that you must know of the Queen’s Code, as you call it, in order to discover a true intimacy and freedom in love with this man that you care about. And I know a lot of these things will also work with brothers, men in the workplace. Because there’s certain universal secrets about a man’s nature as different from a female nature.

Starting Where She’s At

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Where I would start would be where she’s at. It’s the only place to start is where someone’s at. And underneath the frustration is so much pain and hurt and even despair. How am I ever going to get what I need from these people? And that’s what can have us. Just like when a woman’s face is no longer radiant, it’s just what happened. How did we get here? And how am I ever going to get what I need?

And so wherever she is, where they’re most aware of frustration. When I started in 1995, women were furious. We characterize our customers as angry and vengeful. And then within being angry and vengeful, could you want another possibility? And our workshop was called Celebrating Men Satisfying Women.

LILA ROSE: 1995.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: 1995.

LILA ROSE: You were the OG, Allison.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Activists. Activists are the OG, so. And then the ones who do it for ages. So. So wherever a woman is at in like the anger spectrum from annoyed to fury, right? Or emotionally, is she still reaching? If we’re reaching, if I’m reaching for you and you’re reaching for me, anything’s possible. It’s when we’re not going to reach anymore.

And that’s why we called the workshop that. So that someone who wasn’t reaching that as angry as they were, they were curious about celebrating men, even if they came and they were skeptical, just that they put themselves in the seat, right? So if someone wants something other than what they’ve got, then everything I do can help.

If they’re not reaching anymore, they’re just purely defensive and arguing for what their life and how they do it and that it’s. And who men are really this or that or same. With a man, if a man isn’t reaching anymore for who women are, that he’s been so hurt and objectified and gone without what he needed for so long that he won’t reach anymore, that there’s just. There’s the opposite side, right?

We’ve got how the derision of men and we’ve got the derision of women on the other side. And it’s all underneath that is a whole bunch of pain and unfulfilled needs. So I would start there and then depending on what she said, it might be, aha, we need to talk about single focus versus diffuse awareness because that’s the source of our communication problems and our misunderstanding. Or with someone it might be, honey, you know all those things you’re doing to try to get them to love you, you don’t have to.

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ALISON ARMSTRONG: Let’s start with that one. Okay.

The Struggle to Find and Keep Love

LILA ROSE: And I think from the mind of a woman listening who. And it could be in a marriage, but also could be pre marriage. And she’s just having trouble even finding and, you know, holding down is kind of the kind of course way to say it, but finding trouble even getting married.

And then maybe she. For women who’s married, I think it can apply too, in terms of discovering that husband that they maybe dated that still wants to date them and, you know, court them and they have this romance in their marriage and there’s still butterflies and all the fun things. And. No, it now feels very different, the experience of marriage.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Oh, boy. As you said that, I thought of Ellen Hurst, who changed my life because I had been studying men for about six months and unknowingly was using everything I was learning against them. I became better at attacking them and manipulating them because of what I’d learned about them.

And Ellen called me at Ending Hunger, Orange County, which is the organization I was the head of, and said, “Allison, men are attracted to you like bees to honey. And when you’re done with them, it’s as if they’ve been with a vampire.” Wow. I’m like little old me. And she proceeded to tell me about every time she’d seen me emasculate a man, diminish a man, take the wind out of his sails every time.

How Women Emasculate Men Without Knowing It

LILA ROSE: What did that look like? Because then the reason I’ve got to ask this is I think most women don’t even know when they’re emasculating a man.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Yeah.

LILA ROSE: They wouldn’t think they’re emasculating a man.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Okay.

LILA ROSE: At all.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Can I point out the two tracks for.

LILA ROSE: Yeah, please.

Understanding Men’s Love and Commitment

ALISON ARMSTRONG: No, because they go together. So all the things we do to try to get a man to love us, we don’t have to. And it even gets in the ways. Because men already love us. We don’t have to work to get them to love us.

If we stop diminishing them, if we stop disempowering them, if we stop making it harder for them to produce the results that they’ve got to produce, that’s what gets in the way, the love part. They grant that they are born adoring their mothers, looking into those eyes. And it’s the misunderstanding begins by about the time they’re one years old, like my grandson’s one and a half.

So it’s, we don’t have to work to be loved. They love us. And if you let that in. Right, if you let that in. And yes. Are there bad men, very bad men? Yes. And there are very bad women too. But the rest are born and stay loving women. They love us, they need us, and they’re not trying to not need us.

Now, there’s some groups way over on the edge now of men trying to not need women, but it’s because they’ve had the same kind of frustration in getting what they need from us. But normal, ordinary born loving women born wanting to protect women, born wanting to provide for women, but it goes awry because they protect us the way they see that we need to be protected. And that can make us really angry. “I can do that myself.” Right.

So we have a reaction to what they perceive needs to be protected about us, which is another thing to align on in a marriage. “Honey, this is what I need to be protected from.” Mostly we need to be protected from ourselves, from the critical voice in our own heads that pipes up whenever he doesn’t act the way we expect him to. “Well, that’s because he doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love you because you’re too this. You’re not enough that.” Right. So we need to be protected from that.

The Power of Accepting You Are Loved

So if someone accepted their men love me, there’s no scarcity of love. I am loved. That changes our whole life. That changes how you be in the world. And one of the things that’s most important about that is we’re either on the offense or mostly, most women are on the offense with men or on the defense with men. Both of them cause mischief.

If we could neither be on the offense, attacking like I was, or defensive, “prove it to me. Show me.” Right. If we could be just in the middle, open. Who are you? Who are you? And how much do you want to know who I am, really? Oh, oh, we can begin.

And then there’s what I call due diligence, especially for picking a mate. We say the M word too soon and the D word too soon. There’s so much we need to get to know about each other to see if we fit. And I learned this from men, actually started asking men, “Do you want to be married?” Almost all of them said, yes, but they never left out the sentence afterwards. The qualifier, “When I meet the right person, if I meet the right person to the right person, hopefully I’ll meet the right person.”

So I listen very carefully, right? So I started asking the question, “What makes a woman the right person for you to marry?” There are 12 things on the list that make a person the right person married, and none of them are loved. Nobody said love, “I love her.” That was the given. That’s the easy part. Loving women is not scarce to them. So they don’t have to find a woman to love.

How Men Choose a Partner

They find a woman who they can. Oh, boy. I warned Harris that this happens, that every question has at least five ways to go. Men commit differently than women. Men pick up the whole package. So they start by looking. They’re looking for a woman with complementary strength. They are looking for strength, and they see women that’s really, really, really strong. But they don’t need to be duplicated, and they don’t want to be duplicated.

They want to be admired for the ways that they’re strong that you aren’t. And the only reason they want to be admired by you is because they admire you. It’s not because they think so little. We want to be admired by the people we admire. So men scan for complementary strength. It’s in their nature. They do it all the time. We do it, too, for a different reason, but they do it. It’s like they’re always filling a team or looking for a partnership.

And then when they find it, and, “Oh, she likes me.” That’s one of the 12 things. She likes me. Did our parents pay? Did your mother teach you to look for men you liked? Mine didn’t. I was taught to look for beautiful men, handsome, strong, rich. Do you know that’s, that was the imprint back in the 70s? So. Still is in a lot of ways.

LILA ROSE: You mean instead of men you like need to fit. Check a box.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: It never even showed up. Do you like him? Educated. Do you like him? Yes. It never even showed up. Do you like him? What do you like about him? And like, when women are like, “Oh, I’m so in love with him. Oh, and the chemistry is amazing.” And like, okay, do you like him? “What do you mean, do I like him?” Well, if you were to have children, would you hope they would be like he is because you prefer how he is? “Huh? What?”

We’re not taught to think of these things, but one of the things that makes a woman the right person is she likes me. Another she doesn’t emasculate me too much.

LILA ROSE: Wow. The bar is on the floor.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Yes. And too much changes. Men in their 30s, for example, will put up with a heck of a lot more emasculation than a man in his 50s. What we call the stages of development. A prince. Highly adaptable. Although he’ll be really upset with himself for betraying himself. A king. No. Kings have very low tolerance for emasculation. They’d rather be alone than to be diminished by a woman.

Accepting the Whole Package

So being liked, which includes being accepted. And so when a man is looking for a partner, he’s looking for those complementary strengths. And then, okay, what goes with this? And when he chooses her and we feel it in our bodies, before they ever say, “Will you marry me?” We can feel when they have picked up the whole package. We feel safe. We feel loved, and we feel safe.

And it’s because they have. They have accepted the stuff that goes with what they value about you the most, that that’s just part and parcel. And if one of their friends says, “Oh, but she’s.” “So that’s just how she is,” and he’s not out to change it, even though it might hurt him, even though it might be irritating, even though it might trip him up, he’s not going to try to change it. He bought the package.

And yesterday with Ellen and Andrew, the question was, “What do men don’t know about women?” And many of the things were men don’t know what women don’t know about them. That’s one of the most important things for men, which is why I love they can do our understanding men workshop in person. It was only for women. Men get to watch it online and be my students and learn what women don’t know about men. And they find out all these things they didn’t know about themselves.

So here’s the thing, just to finish that one. Women don’t buy the whole package, and we actually need to do it intentionally. And if I ever took on being a marriage counselor, which I sometimes end up being like that in odd ways because I interact with my students a lot. We commit one acceptance at a time. One. “That’s how he is. That’s what he needs. Hmm. That works better for him. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.”

I’ve known women who had wedding ceremonies 30 years ago, and there’s hardly anything about their husband they have accepted. They’re still trying to change him. At his core. They’re trying to change who he is, which is expressed in what he values, what’s worth his time, and energy and they’re trying to change what he spends his time and energy on. No, that, that feeds him. It feeds him. That’s why he does it. Because it feeds him. You want him to not be fed.

LILA ROSE: Or they accept it in a dismissive and resigned way.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: That’s not acceptance. That’s put up with. That’s be resigned to it. Not acceptance.

LILA ROSE: And that creates hostility in a marriage.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Oh my gosh.

LILA ROSE: Very dark. A dark energy that brings it.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Yes, it’s a good word for it. It’s. And if only it was dark and still. But it’s so damaging. It’s cancerous. Anywhere from a full on assault to just a cancer. Eating away. Eating away. Eating away. When I want to change you.

Understanding the Core Differences

LILA ROSE: This question of why can’t women, some women feel like they can get a man to marry them basically that they like or that they love. And then there’s, you know, conversely the women that are married that are thinking he was not the man I married. Like where’s the romance? Where’s the love? Where’s the attention, the career?

And I think that a core principle you’re sharing here, which is so powerful is that men, when they marry, they don’t go into the marriage, you know, ready to, they’ve already accepted the whole package. Yes, but women go into the marriage and they’re not necessarily aware of what they’re marrying.

I mean, I think what you’re, you’re getting at here is we don’t understand these people we’re marrying or the people we’re dating. And so what happens is, is we either marry them somehow and then we don’t understand them. And there’s these chronic issues in the relationship that make us unhappier and unhappier and unhappier and drive us apart.

Or if we’re dating, we just can’t get to the marriage state because we are just not really. We’re maybe emasculating them in a way we don’t even realize, or we’re turning them off after just a few months, you know, we become the vampire as opposed to the princess.

And so some of these core things about understanding men, what is it that you think would be the key things then that a woman has to understand if she’s going to properly love a man and be loved by one and be loved by a man?

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Men and women. And there’s some ishi in here, okay. Because especially as our hormones change as women age, we become more focused on producing results, more oriented. That way we can become more focused. But in general, estrogen will produce a diffuse awareness in women. To men, we appear scattered. Put a man on estrogen, he knows exactly how he got that way.

Our brains are configured to scan for safety. “Am I safe? Am I safe? Are my children safe? Are we safe? Are we safe?” No matter what we’re doing, there’s part of us that’s paying attention to safety that is not true for men. Single focus has them pay attention to “What am I going to produce next? What is there to do next? What am I producing next?” And next. And next. First things first. Not the multitasking that diffuse awareness has us do.

Communication and Connection

So understanding that, then we can start to reach towards each other to communicate better. Because anyone focused on productivity, their communication is going to be for the purpose of the productivity. “Hand me that. Go do that now. Give me that. Is that done yet?” It’s all organized around productivity.

For women as a physically smaller and weaker gender, which we’re profoundly aware of in ways that men don’t even know. And they’ve cried when I’ve illuminated it for them. We feel safe when we feel connected, especially to the people we perceive as strong.

So, like they’re scanning for complementary strength. We’re scanning for, “Are you strong enough to protect me? Are you strong enough to provide for me? Are you strong enough to make strong children with me?” So we’re scanning for that strength, but behind it is a fear that if we’re not connected, if I don’t feel like we’re connected, you’re going to use that strength against me.

So I have to keep trying to make sure we have this feeling of connection, to know that, you know, “I’m here and you’re going to save me from the tiger,” whatever the tiger is today, even the one in my head. So we’re like on auto redial to connect and connect and connect. And it causes problems. It causes problems because they’re single, focused. Try connecting with a wall.

LILA ROSE: And that could be an interruption. Us being like, connect. And they’re just like, yes, yes.

The Connection Between Productivity and Safety

ALISON ARMSTRONG: And they. This is why I would call. We have opposing instincts that. Do you seek security and productivity? Oh, yeah, we got her done. We got her done. We nailed it. Yes. Or are you looking for the feeling of safety in connectivity and connection?

So a man, for example, since we’re talking in that way, being productive. Hunting the deer. Hunting the deer. Hunting the deer. Oh, yeah. Okay, we’re getting it. Oh, that’s the problem. Identify the problem. Identifying the problem is a huge success, which is why they listen the way that they do to us when we’re upset. What’s the problem? What’s the problem? What’s the problem?

So identifying a problem is being productive, then coming up with a solution is being productive. And then we interrupt them to get the feeling of connection back. Hi, honey. Text. We call. We open the home office door. Hi, honey. Hi. If they even lift their head. And then we went to get connection. And our attempt to connect was rejected. And now I’m even less safe than I was before. He’s mad at me.

LILA ROSE: No, he’s mean.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: He’s mean. Or is he mad at me? Or why didn’t he look up? Was it because what I said to him this morning? And we spin out. We spin out trying to figure out the why, but we don’t come up with accurate answers because we answer our why questions with why a woman would have done that.

LILA ROSE: Wow. And that’s where the drama, all the unnecessary drama comes in. Yes, because we think they’re reacting the way we would have. Or that bad best friend that hurt us or whatever. That woman. That whatever. And it’s not even the male experience. It’s typically.

Why Men Shut Down

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Yeah, sorry. It’s such a statement that we think it. We’re sure of it. And we’ll tell them, you did this because of that. No, I didn’t. And they turn around and walk away. Why are you walking away? And if you were to articulate, say, because this isn’t worth doing. You can’t hear me. I can’t be heard. I can’t win here. This is a waste of time and energy. They just shut up when they can’t be heard, they just shut up.

And there’s so much about them we never see or know because we don’t listen long enough. And we’re sure we’re right. I mean, there’s a joke. If a man’s alone in the woods and he speaks, is he still wrong? Yeah. Yeah.

So in all likelihood, a woman who’s struggling even to get to the point to have a marriage where now he becomes different. And there’s a good reason why he becomes different. He will become different the moment you say yes. The moment he decides you’re the one and you agree he will change. Because they buy the whole package when you say yes. He’s now married. He’s now married. He’s just been upgraded the husband 1.0. He’s going to function with the accountabilities of 1.0. It starts now.

When’s the wedding? I don’t know if she’s dealing with that. But he’s being a husband before the wedding. The wedding’s for the community, for the friends, for the fun, for her. He’s already a husband, which means he has holds himself to new standards and new territory. It’s my job now to protect you from that. I watched you struggle with that the whole time we were dating. Now I’m going to protect you from it because you’re mine and this is my job.

And so they change. They really do change. When they pick us and we agree, they change. Their accountabilities expand and if we aren’t supporting them in what they’re being accountable for, they have to stay in protect energy and protect energies like lead, protecting themselves. In this case, you’re even just working so hard to protect.

LILA ROSE: You’re saying that they can’t play with stress? It’s a stress now.

Men Need Our Vitality

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Yeah, it’s now a stress to protect you. Honey, you’re wearing yourself out on the wedding. Honey, you’re so tired. Honey, can you just let that go for now? Men need our vitality, our life force recharges their battery to go out there and be productive. So when we’re tired, it’s like having your charger. You can’t plug in. There’s nothing to plug into. She’s too tired. So from her tiredness, he is wearing down.

We’re meant to be complementary. We’re so made for each other. I swear, when I first started studying men, I came about it from an anthropological point of view. How what if there’s a good reason for all of this, right? And there’s so much that makes sense from the point of view of survival. But then there was a tipping point where it’s like, it’s too perfect. It’s just, this is too perfect. This was not accidental. This did not evolve this way. This is too perfect.

And there’s a book I didn’t write called “The Belated Education of Adam and Eve.” There’s a conversation in that book about these instincts that we have to procreate and protect and provide, and they compel us to do these things and that the point of them is that so human beings could use their consciousness for more important things they wouldn’t have to pay attention to. Surviving. That’s hardwired. Now use your parasympathetic nervous system to connect for love, to connect with God, with spirit, with each other, for love.

And so, but we all have two nervous systems. And if we keep antagonizing the most primitive nervous system, then that’s where our time and energy get spent. If we just take care of that, what are just the basic needs here? If we take care of that, then we have access to the best part of ourselves. And it’s true for both men and women.

Finding the Right Partner

And this is why a woman seeking a mate, seeking her protector and provider, if she doesn’t know she’s already loved, if she thinks there’s a scarcity of a right person, like, she’s got to find the one. Are you the one? Are you the one? Are you the one? What if there isn’t just one? What if there’s so many different flavors of partnership, union that you could have? So what’s the one that lights you up?

What’s the one like? I married my husband. I married my husband because he brought out my best me. I loved what he brought out of me. And it started with how safe. How safe he had me feel. And then how much he appreciated how I am. He liked me, which is another thing that women don’t look for. Does he like me? Do I feel liked?

Or even the question, okay, forget how great he is. Do I like who I am when I’m around that person? You? No. Oh, there’s such chemistry and attraction. Yeah, that’s why you’re a ninny around him. Tone it down. That’ll always bring out the worst in you. It brings out the worst in both of us, men and women.

So, but does he like me? And do I like me? Do I like who I am when I’m around that person. There’s a recording on our site called “Causing Those Loving Feelings.” And it’s literally what is there to pay attention to, to cause the space of love in ourselves to expand, to expand in general, to expand for another person to expand, even for ourselves to love ourselves more.

The Power of Admiration

And it has everything to do with admiration and respect and affinity, which means liking someone. So if we don’t feel liked and they don’t feel liked, the space of love squished and oh, he’s so wonderful, really. What do you admire about him? Admirer. If women were looking for what’s admirable about this man, like the question at the top of the head instead of what’s wrong with him? What do I admire about him? What do I admire about him? What do I admire about him?

Like a treasure hunt, looking for what there is about this person to admire, even when there’s a lot to not like you can end up admiring them. I really admire that person.

And so in answer to your question, the struggle comes from repaying to attention to the wrong thing. We’re trying to be loved by being whatever we think will make them love us on top of they already love us. And then we think we’re dealing with a kind of woman that we can, if we just criticize them enough, they’ll act right.

Women criticize men because criticism changes women. We have almost no protection against criticism. If we’re not engaged in admiring and respecting and liking ourselves, we’re just. We’ll be slayed by criticism. We will change from criticism. We think men are the same, and so we criticize them as a way to get them to change. And when they don’t change, we think they didn’t change because they don’t love us. That’s not why they didn’t change. It’s because they have a completely different relationship to criticism.

LILA ROSE: So in that scenario where you said, he decides, I’m going to marry this woman, or he’s married to this woman and then he’s in the protect mode, right?

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Yes.

LILA ROSE: And this in the woman can dredge up, then his behavior seems to change, though. Let’s just say. Let’s say that. But my sort of read on it is, and correct me if I’m wrong here, is that often he starts to change, but the person who actually has changed first in many ways is her. But she doesn’t realize that she’s changed.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Yes.

LILA ROSE: Is that fair to say?

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Well, they’re both changing.

LILA ROSE: They’re both changing.

How Both Partners Change

ALISON ARMSTRONG: They’re both changing. And it changes with each sort of level. Okay, now you’re my boyfriend, so now my expectations of you change. Am I? And what I expect you to expect of me changes. So I’m going to change to be what I think a girlfriend’s supposed to be, what I think a fiance is supposed to be, what I think a wife is supposed to be.

Unfortunately, we don’t talk about this. So honey, after we’re married, what is it about me that you hope I never change?

LILA ROSE: Great question.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Yes. And especially because what they love about us are all ways of being. It’s how we’re being. But our capacities, like for because we are stuck with these human bodies. The qualities of being, they’re spiritual qualities. But for us to truly be them, we have to embody them.

So how do you get patience in your body? I get it with sleep. A lot of women not sleeping enough so they don’t have that. Patience is amazing, right? Compassion, love, joy, generosity, serenity. Oh my gosh, peacefulness. Peacefulness is one of the most attractive and awe inspiring qualities in a woman. Now does that mean sedate? No, because they need playfulness. They need us to play with them. It’s one of the ways our energy flows to them is when we’re playing with them.

LILA ROSE: So you mentioned sleep.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Yes.

The Importance of Self-Care

LILA ROSE: And when I think about the woman that changes or the woman that’s in a dating relationship and frustrated and are in a marriage and she’s getting frustrated, it does often source with a, or come from a turbulence in her. You know, she has a need that’s not being met. She has a frustration that she’s just working at. And you mentioned sleep. And I think that’s such an incredibly powerful thing that a lot of women don’t have today. We’re harried, we’re worried, we’re frazzled, we’re frustrated, we’re burnt out in many ways.

How much would you say of our relational issues are from women not really taking care of our own selves and having expectations that are impossible then for the people around us, especially the men.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: It’s a great question and I would say it’s pretty near 50/50. 50% is that we don’t know who we’re interacting with. We think we’re talking to a hairy misbehaving woman and they’re not. And they think they’re talking to a scattered emotionally indulgent man and they’re not. So I would say at least 50% of it. It is misperception, misinterpretation, misunderstanding, mischief. Okay.

And probably the other 50% is that we don’t know how and we don’t prioritize because we don’t know how important it is. We don’t know how to cause ourselves to be our best selves. And this is a really big part of my work. How do you take spiritual values and embody them in a way that you naturally be that way? You don’t have to say to yourself, be patient. Be patient. Be patient. No, you are patient.

This is one of the things I think mothers have to decide what is it most important for me to be for my children? And we can’t have 10 of them. We got to have maybe two. And what I wanted to be for my children was patient. Children collapse when their parents are impatient. They just. It’s like somebody squishing them.

And I have three incredible kids. My son is your age. He’s my eldest. And they’ve. And they were born incredible. Right? God made them. Of course they’re incredible. I only take credit for not squishing them too much, just to let them keep unfolding in who they’re meant to be, to discover and to become who they’re meant to be.

And so patience was what I chose, that that was going to be my priority. And I didn’t sleep for myself. I could stay up into the wee hours and be a happy camper for myself. I slept for patience. I slept for my kids. And my kids learned. My kids learned not to wake me up. And I overheard my son say, wait till it says seven on the clock, and she’ll be patient. Really? Yes.

LILA ROSE: So you taught your kids, when I sleep, I’m a better mama.

Understanding Patience and Self-Management

ALISON ARMSTRONG: I am patient. And that’s one of our jobs. We figure out, like, mom needs a timeout. I’m going to be walking around the yard. Y’all stay in here. Keep safe, okay?

LILA ROSE: Hard when there’s a one year old. Well, that’s a little tricky.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: That’s a little tricky, but it’s put.

LILA ROSE: Them in the playpen very early, Very early.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: They can learn this. And I remember once I looked in the rearview mirror and my son was sitting between his two sisters, and they’d asked me, mom, can we go to the movies? And I was like, I don’t know. And like, come on, come on. And then I started to think about, well, how could we go to the movies?

And I looked in the rearview mirror, and Jeff was going to. And I had taught them this. I can give you a no immediately if you want a yes. You have to be quiet and give me a chance to think about it.

They young people need to be empowered. How do I get the mom I need? How do I get the dad I need? It’s not about walking on eggshells. It’s, how do I know? What do I do?

And I used to not. I didn’t even know how, like, frazzled I was until I would feel these little fingers going like this in my hair. And then I. Oh. Oh, you’re getting the monsters out. That’s what we called it when I was frazzled. My kids knew if they just touched my hair.

LILA ROSE: That is so sweet, Allison.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: If they just touched my hair. One time, they made me lay down on the ground. One had it brushed and one used their fingers, was rubbing my back, and they were just, like, getting. Let’s. Let’s have mom be mom again. But the thing that’s so beautiful about.

Building Partnership and Cooperation

LILA ROSE: That, of course it’s helping you, but it’s this bond where you guys are on the same team for how we’re going to be loving with each other and be harmonious together, because we are human beings and made in God’s image, and we’re special, and this is special. And so we’re going to really work for each other in this special way. I mean, that’s what that is. It’s cooperation together.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Yeah. It’s partnership. It’s partnership. That’s one of the definitions of partners on the same side of your team. Yeah. And if you. If you’re figuring out, okay, what do you need, instead of thinking it’s stupid, okay. Could you say more about that? What would it look like if you were getting it? Okay. And what would that provide for you? Because it sounds ridiculous to me, but let’s go with this.

We have a format for this. It’s called making a deal. So what do you need and what would it look like? And if I did that, what would that provide for you? Really? You’d get that from that? Now suddenly, it starts to be worth doing. Ooh, okay, wait a second. Let me see if. Okay, I’m willing to do it. I see the benefit. I’m willing to do that. I want you to have that.

Is there anything I need to give you what you need? Yes. It’s a good one. And the answer is yes. And this is the thing that happens a lot, is that we try to have people be accountable and generate what’s important to us. No, they’re accountable, and they generate what’s important to them.

If your husband doesn’t generate dates, it’s because dates aren’t important to him. That’s why it’s on you to generate the date. And he’ll want to know where you want to go instead of picking the restaurant. Why? Because he wants to make you happy.

LILA ROSE: So dates more for women than for men?

ALISON ARMSTRONG: A lot of times, yes. And then. But if we look to see whatever’s important to us, if I’m asking you to be accountable for something that’s important to me and I ask you what you need, I’m hoping what you need from me is going to be the initiation of the whole process. I want it to be in my hands because this is my need. This is what? This is important to me.

So when Dan, my boyfriend, says, will you text me? Of course. Because he’s just said yes to something I asked of him. If I text him, that’s all he needs. And he’ll go do it. He’ll go do it. But why should you need a text? You should remind yourself. Why can’t you remember to do things for me? We take it personally. We think it means something.

No, they know that they’re focused. They know they’re going to focused at the time that they’re supposed to be doing that. So they need something to interrupt the focus, to make sure they do it. They’re trying to manage themselves, to give us what we need.

The Importance of Self-Awareness and Clarity

LILA ROSE: It sounds like a big part of what you’re saying though is that we need to know what we need. So back to the sleep thing. I mean, and even you as a mom, what a self aware mom that you knew. I’m crabby because I’m tired. So I need to find a way to rest more.

And I want to get my kids incorporated in this rest project so that they have more fun with mom. Because I’m not so impatient. But you’re taking that intentionality of walking through a plan, basically of how to make sure that you have what you need and identifying what that need is and then creating the plan to achieve it.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Well, I didn’t have a plan. It evolved. But it did start with. And the word we use is clarity. It all starts with clarity. When I feel like I’m myself, when I like myself the most, how am I being? What am I being? Oh, I’m being compassionate and I’m being empowering. I want people to be more able. And I’m seeking the truth. And I’m telling the truth even when I don’t like it. Right.

And these are my highest values. And partnership. Partnership is in there. Contentment, happy enough with what one is or does or has. That’s my spiritual practice, contentment. It’s one of the things that I embody.

So we have to start with what we want to be in order to know what we need. Okay, I want to be patient. What gives me patience? Sleep gives me patience. How much sleep? And actually quantify it and start to notice, oh, the same amount of sleep started an hour later does not have the same effect. It’s, oh, if I start my sleep slide.

Which men don’t know about women. Men don’t know what a process it is for us to fall asleep. They just conk out. They don’t know what we have to do to quiet ourselves, to be able to surrender to sleep. So we have to start sometimes two hours ahead of time in order to be able to be asleep when we want to be asleep.

So start with, what do you want to be? What are your highest values? What are you the happiest and. And even checking if you’re in a relationship? What are the ways of being that you love about me the most? What? How do you need me to be? They need you to be a particular way. You have a son and two daughters.

LILA ROSE: Two sons and a daughter.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Two sons and a daughter. Two sons and a daughter. Your sons need you to be particular ways, and it may not be the same. One may need you to be patient. Another needs you to be playful. One may need you to be engaged with them, and the other one needs you to just be okay with how I am. Mom.

Understanding and Respecting Children’s Needs

LILA ROSE: Respect them. Yes. Actually, I know we’re going a lot of different directions here, but it’s all fascinating. So thanks for rolling with me. But this morning, actually, I was convicted. Reading your book and reflecting on part of your book with an interaction I have with my son.

And I’ve made him pancakes. And, well, all my kids have made them pancakes. And anyways, he is so hungry. This little guy is so hungry in the morning. He’s growing. He’s three. And so he’s sitting at the table and he’s already starting to pick off part of the pancake with his fork. And he also is proud that he knows how to use his fork and does his own pancake.

And I said, we’re say prayers. We’re going to say prayers. And he’s ignoring me because he’s not a girl, he’s a boy. He’s very locked in. And so I said, Leah, we’re going to pray first. We’re going to pray. We’re going to pray. We’re going to pray. Pray, ignoring me.

So I just took the fork from his hand, and then I prayed, and he’s starting to get upset. We pray, and then he just. And then I take the fork, another fork, and a knife, and I just cut his pancake. I just talk about emasculating my son, because what happened is he burst into tears. He. Or, you know, I don’t know if he was straight up crying, but he was very upset. Went into the garage to sulk.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Yes.

LILA ROSE: And I realized that, yes, of course he needs to pray before his meal. And that’s a boundary that I do want to, you know, help our kids respect. Because we get our food from God. God is everything.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Yes. But the way that I did it.

LILA ROSE: And the way that I rushed him, and then the way that I cut his pancake without being aware that he wanted to cut his own pancake, and that’s a big deal.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Yes.

LILA ROSE: And so, you know, it just was very kind of striking to me because I was thinking about the part of your Queen’s Code about emasculation, and I think you had a part in there. Let me see if I can. If I save this about. Actually, even children like you can emasculate your young children like your sons. I need to say specifically, obviously, a young mother roughly forced her son back into the child’s seat at the shopping cent, saying, “Why can’t you sit still like your sister?” When the woman turned away, Kim really saw the young boy angrily pinch his baby sister.

Understanding Emasculation and Male Psychology

ALISON ARMSTRONG: The comparison is diminishing, which is one of the definitions of emasculation is to diminish the ability to produce results and.

LILA ROSE: Expecting something unreasonable in that moment.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Absolutely. And then they’re wrong for it. Now, can I propose something to you?

LILA ROSE: Yes, of course.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: So, well, I’m going to give you a bit of information, and you’ll invent it yourself. So men and women relate to. To their needs very differently because of single focus and diffuse awareness. So because of this awareness, like, literally spread in every direction. We’ll notice we’re hungry. Oh, I’m getting hungry. And then we keep responding to something into the environment, whether we’re cleaning or keeping the children safe or whatever it is that we’re doing, we’ll keep responding, oh, I. Oh, I’m hungry.

And we’ll keep responding. And it’s finally like, oh, my gosh, I’m starving. And we’re over the sink stuffing something in our face. But we’ve been aware of it coming on the whole time.

Men aren’t built that way. This single focus. They’re focused. They’re focused. They’re focused. They’re focused. They’re focused. They call it the breaking point. It’s not until the breaking point. And a way to think of it is it’s literally the breaking through point. So the hunger arises above the surface of the ocean and it just like. And they, they can’t think about anything else. And they’re angry that this thing is keeping them from producing what they wanted to produce. It’s interrupted everything. And so this is why.

LILA ROSE: And on top of that, she cut.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: My pancake like that.

LILA ROSE: Insult to injury. I apologize to him for that.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: But yes, this self sufficiency that I’m so proud of, she treated me like I can’t do it. And this is really important. I mean, there’s a Hungry Man dinner advertisement that makes me want to puke. He’s eating his hungry man dinner and she reaches over with a napkin and wipes the side of his face. In a commercial like feminism, handle his own face.

But what I’d like to propose to you, since your son hunger is going to come on so intensely and he’s not going to be able to think about anything else. And now he’s got this fork and he’s going to make this happen. But I just would like to give you the possibility for women who are making a great meal. And then he comes in and he starts eating cheese and like all this effort and you’re ruining your appetite.

If you want credit, make the appetizer. That’s the thing. To curb the hunger while the rest is being done. And I made that for you too. It could be with your kids. You get to invent this. You could make something up. It’s like it’s the pre prayer. It’s the kitchen prayer. Who’s hungry? I’m hungry. Okay, let’s gather in the kitchen. And however you invent to do it, that’s congruent for you that there’s a way to have the prayer and not have people breaking down.

LILA ROSE: I think that the typical morning, because this is a Saturday, we’re talking right now, the typical morning is it’s a cereal, it’s oatmeal. It’s a quick thing.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Yes.

LILA ROSE: I was doing pancakes. A little more slow.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Gift from you. A gift from you.

LILA ROSE: And of course I did it. You know, I should have anticipated. He’s usually already eaten by now. It was a half an hour later. And so what he needed was a snack. He needed a banana. He needed something as soon. But you know, he was a little late coming downstairs. But to your point, whether it’s the pre-prayer or the pre-snack, I love that. The appetizer, because that does happen with dinner. My husband will start having like chips and hummus and like, the food’s ready in two minutes, you know, can’t wait two minutes. But preparing that intentionally.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Yes.

LILA ROSE: Like the intention behind it can just make the home so much sweeter.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Oh, my gosh. It’s a small adjustment. It’s a small adjustment to understand they’re at the breaking point. He didn’t fall asleep on you because you’re boring. He was at the breaking point of tired. And that’s why they just, they’re out. They feel safe everywhere. So they can fall asleep everywhere. They can just fall asleep. No, we got to have our place, that we feel safe, that it’s okay to let go of awareness. So, yes.

LILA ROSE: So it’s understanding men and ourselves and accepting.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Yeah.

LILA ROSE: And not trying to change the things that are different from us.

Working With What’s Real

ALISON ARMSTRONG: This is real. How do we work with it? We just practice that. If we were listening with the question, instead of “is that true for me?” or “what do I think about?” or “do I agree with that?” If we were listening with “what’s true for them?” or the question, “what’s real for them?” What’s real for them? And just really looking, reaching. What’s real for them? Oh, that’s what’s real for them.

Okay, so now what do we do? How do we interact with that’s real for them and this is real for me. How do we both get what we most need? We’ll never get everything we want or need. And if we pay too much attention to preferences, we’re just doomed.

The difference between a need which gives you something valuable versus a preference, which is just like, oh, lovely to have one’s preferences. It was so lovely that you had bubbly water for me. Bubbly flavored water. Yay. A preference. But what we need, we have to focus on what are the most important things that we need?

And how we know it’s most important is by what we want to be. What are the needs? What has me feel patient? What has me feel compassionate? What has me feel joy? Those are the needs. If those are the things that we want to be. And it can be applied to anything. And men have used this methodology. Women have used this methodology. Started developing in 1997, and it came from when I started.

And a lot of women are like this. I think this is worth talking about. I thought men either didn’t care about what I needed or were purposely withholding it. Then one of the first things that I learned in listening to them is they care very much about what we need. Very much they care about what we need.

Subject to the effects of attraction. If we’re leading with the physical, that puts them in a take mode. They don’t care about what we need. They’re trying to get what they need. But if we’re being fully ourselves, self-confident, passionate, receptive, authentic. Those are the top four qualities that have men fall in love with. Women want to take care of. Women want to look out for what they need. Want to contribute to them in some way. I mean those are the things if we lead with. It’s called “Making Sense of Men.” It’s a little tiny book.

And so I found out they very much want me to have what I need. If I’m not attacking them, then they can be focused on paying attention and giving me what I need. But like we project what we need onto men, men project what they need onto us. So they’ll, I call it “decide and provide.” And both men and women do it. We decide what other people need and then we provide it and we expect them to appreciate it.

We don’t have an idea of what we think they need. Then verify with them. And the words, these are the best words I found that work. “It seems like…” You could say to your son, “it seems like you need to eat by…” When it’s a three. When it’s a seven, he’s three.

LILA ROSE: He’ll just as soon as he wakes up, he needs to eat.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: It seems like, honey, do you need to eat as soon as you wake up? Yeah. There’s a version of “duh” at every age, right? Uh huh. Okay, what could we do about that? If you had a snack as soon as you woke up, could you wait for the Saturday morning special breakfast?

LILA ROSE: That would have been the way to go this morning for sure.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Yeah. So I had Sunday morning special breakfast as I know what it’s like. It’s a whole production. It’s an interview. It’s a gift. I love you. I love you. I love you so. Oh my goodness.

So I found out that they want us to have what we need. They’re trying to give us what we need. It’s a good thing for women to think, what is he trying to give to me? What is he trying to give to me? I think my husband’s so selfish. Well, what is he trying to give to me? Those are the things he’s decided you need.

Well, but like us, they don’t check to see, do you need this? And is this need more important than this other one? And it might be, actually, there’s a third that’s so much more important than both of those. If you would give me this. Really?

LILA ROSE: No.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Yes. Honey, this is why. This is what it would provide for me. This is who I could be if you did that. No. They’re shocked. They’re shocked by what we need, and we’re shocked by what they need when we’re willing to listen for what’s true for them, what’s real for them. And miracles happen right there. It just falls out.

And so when I started with, I want to be patient, so I need this, then I didn’t have a plan to educate my children. It just happened in life. And I was stunned by the response, how much they wanted me to have what I needed.

The Submission Paradox and Communication

LILA ROSE: We just had on a lovely woman named Mary Stanford who talked about the submission paradox and what that dynamic looks like in marriage. But she is describing this very thing that you’re speaking about, which is, you know, I think she said she was throwing a party or an example of a woman who was throwing a party with her husband. There was so much to do. She had told him all these things that needed to be done.

All of a sudden he disappears into the garage and is like tidying the garage. And she has like 10 other things and she storms up, “what are we doing? Like, they’re coming in an hour. Can you please…” And he thought he was being helpful.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Yes.

LILA ROSE: And he was on the one track, you know, and it was that it was a little disruptive. It’s like, oh, and she’s not pleased. And again, it could have been prevented with the steps of communication that you were alluding to earlier. The steps of making these needs known and then helping the man come to an understanding of, you know, this shared clarity. But there’s a process there.

Understanding Learning Languages

ALISON ARMSTRONG: There’s a process and there’s a problem right at the beginning, Lila, what is the other person’s learning language? My sister-in-law was furious at my brother for years because she’d tell him something that needed to be done and he’d say he would, and then he’d forget. And she was so mad. She was so mad.

And then she noticed. And this took years to notice, but they have a passel of kids, so she was, her attention was elsewhere. How many times he pulled the slip of paper out of his pocket and looked at it. During the day, they ran a forum together. They still do. He look at his list. He look his. And one day she went, “could I get on that list? Something I need. Could I get on this?” He like, “yeah, sure.” Changed everything.

What she asked him for that he used to forget about. Instead, they put it on his little crumpled slip of piece of paper. And all of a sudden it was getting done and getting done and getting done just because she discovered what worked for his mind. Right. He needs the list. Dan needs the text. What does your man need?

So, like, for the party, a list in order of priority. Like, if we run out of time, what’s the extra time list? These are the things that would make it extra special. What’s absolutely necessary list. Oh, okay. Start at the top, but then you’re going to run into. When you partner with a man, a man will say, “how can I help?”

What they don’t know is most women think, “how can you help? Is there anything you can do the way I want it done? No, no, no. There’s nothing you can do. I have to do it all myself.” And they’re like, oh.

So my husband and I, we invented this thing called certification. And he’s like, “I want to get certified in making you breakfast.” Okay. My breakfast was very complicated. He got certified in making it, and he made it better than I did. Later on, he was like, “I want to be certified in making your coffee.” Okay. Also very complicated, but you can ask. I’d like to be certified in this so that you trust me. This is a way I can help you.

The Archetype Couple and Vision

LILA ROSE: There’s probably a woman listening who’s thinking “what, he’s asking you for permission for how he can specifically do a task for you?” And you have characters in your book, this incredibly beautiful marriage of many, many years that is sort of the archetype couple. And they have this partnership that’s just mind-blowing to everybody who encounters it.

So the women in the book are going on the journey to find out, how did you build this partnership? And I could see it was modeled after your own experience. But what was she doing long before he asked her that question? And this, I know we’re going different places here, but this kind of goes back to that question of the woman who gets married. Her husband, she feels like he’s no longer dating or courting her. The romance is gone. He’s so busy. He’s just workaholic. Or he’s just focused on other things. He’s checked out. That’s how she perceives him. That’s how she’s perceiving him.

And you talked about the importance of a woman having vision for what she needed. Care for herself, peace.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Yes.

LILA ROSE: These qualities.

Men Play for Points

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Okay, there’s a missing ingredient. Yes. I’m so glad you brought it back again and again. It’s like a post. I get to keep going around. One of the short ways to say it is men play for points. Men play for points. They got to score, they got to win, they got to get the points on the board. They have a vision for their career where they want to get to. And they’re always trying to get to that.

So if, for example, a man is always at work and never wanting to be home, he’s getting a lot of acknowledgment at work. He’s scoring a lot of points. He’s being admired. It’s respected. It occurs as worth it. Men will keep doing for other people what’s appreciated. They need to be appreciated a lot. Admiration and appreciation, it’s their fuel. It’s what makes what they do worth doing. That what the result that what it caused for you.

Oh, my gosh. She is radiant. And she gives me credit for that. “Honey, thank you for letting me sleep in and…” “You’re welcome.” And so we have to so much. So much of what stops happening is because we expect them to do it. And so we think they don’t deserve appreciation for doing something they just should do. So we don’t appreciate them. Wow.

LILA ROSE: We stop saying thank you and we.

Understanding Appreciation and Communication

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Stop being—thank you, honey. Thank you. Thanks for doing that for me. And this is where we take so many things personally that aren’t personal. Like single focus we take personally. He’s ignoring me. No, he’s ignoring everything but what he’s doing. And he didn’t have to do that. His brain did it for him.

But so there’s all these things we take personally, and then there’s the things we don’t take personally. What they do for us, they do for us. What they do for your kids, what dads provide with their kids. Greg taught me this. He said, “Honey, I don’t expect to be appreciated by the kids for a long time. Your appreciation is what I need.”

So my Father’s Day card to him—he loved what the kids made him. But what my Father’s Day card said to him, that was actually our last conversation before he died. It’s about being a dad and knowing what I needed and being a mom.

So it’s anything if you’re like, “He used to do this, you know, before we got engaged. He used to do this when we were dating. In the beginning, he used to do this when we were this. He used to do this.” Anything they used to do, they’re able to do, and they stopped doing it because it wasn’t appreciated, it wasn’t taken personally.

We actually start to think, “Oh, he likes to do that.” Men don’t care a lot about what they like to do or want to do. No, I don’t want to load the dishwasher. Will I? Yes, if it makes a difference for her. And I don’t have to load the dishwasher the way she loads the dishwasher unless I’m certified. That’s the tail end.

Anything that you cause, like with what you’re going to learn in the Queen’s Code about how to tell a man what you need, it’ll have it done once. If it’s not appreciated, it won’t be done again. And that’s one of the questions that we have to ask. And we actually have a program on it about it called the Appreciation Equation.

The Currency of Appreciation

Because each of us, we don’t necessarily want to be appreciated the same way. What is appreciation? I call it a currency of appreciation. We don’t all have the same currencies of appreciation. Like one of my currencies of appreciation—it’s lovely how grateful people are, what they’ve learned from what I’ve learned. And I’m a messenger, and this is my job to get this out. It’s a big misunderstanding. We’re not who you think we are. Whether we’re a man or a woman, I have to do that.

My currency of appreciation is when someone does something with what they learned from me. That’s when they tell me about that—this is what I did with what I learned from you. They’re really telling me about how they were courageous, that they took a risk, they tried something different.

And that’s what moves me, is that they were courageous enough to try, that they were courageous enough to lay down the sword, to stop justifying diminishing men and find out how to interact with them. Empowered, I gave it up when I saw how terrified I was of that and that I was stealing their power. And I realized I’d never know my own power as long as I was diminishing theirs. And I was like, “Okay, let’s go.”

So appreciation is the clarity in the beginning. The description, this is empowerment. The appreciation is the thing that begins the cycle all over again. I call it providing, receiving. Providing, receiving. Providing, receiving. It’s a stairway to heaven and we first provide the clarity and the difference it would make. And the ask. Would you give me this? A real ask, not “Why aren’t you doing this?” That’s not an ask. People want to be asked, not told. We’re the same that way.

The Power of Listening to Men

LILA ROSE: You have a scene in the Queen’s Code where the woman who’s trying to learn how to not diminish and misunderstand and ultimately be at disharmony with men, she does this sort of thought experiment—or it’s not a thought experiment, it’s a behavioral experiment—where she engages a man, and in this case it’s her boss, but then it’s other men, and just basically asks them to give their perspective on something and does not interrupt and she becomes this very effective listener. To understand men. Would you say that’s the most important tool to understanding men is to literally ask them a question and just listen and at maybe the time that is a good time for him as opposed to a time of her choosing that’s maybe not convenient for him?

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Well, it is one of them. It’s right up there. And there’s of course, nuances. So we call it waiting for the well, that men are naturally committal. So when you ask them a question, if they’re going to answer it, they have committed to answering the question and they want to give you the best answer they can. So they’re thinking about the answer. We’ve usually already interrupted twice by then.

So if you want to learn from men, whether it’s something about the world or about a profession or skill or about who they are, ask questions, but only ask questions that you are committed to hearing about. You’re committed to finding out what their response is, which might not be an answer, might be a response to the question. Don’t just ask any old question in order to try to get a connection. That’s what we normally do, only ask real questions.

We have a list in our Understanding Men course of 101 great questions to ask men and it’s a way of getting to know them. But we didn’t interrupt them. We’d write the questions down on three by five cards and they got to pick which ones they wanted to answer and they were not interrupted. And they picked out of the 101—well, we turned—

LILA ROSE: It down to maybe 10.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Well, the 101 evolved from hundreds of questions that were submitted by women over the years in our workshops. And then the ones that got the most interesting responses from our panels of men, they ended up in the 101 questions list.

Waiting for the Well

So don’t ask a question you’re not willing to wait for and then wait. We encourage counting to 30. Most men come in at about 18. One, one thousand two, one thousand three. If it’s a feeling question, “How do you feel about…” and you really want to know how they feel about it? “I understand how you think about this, honey. How do you feel about it?” That is so far down in the bottom of the well. You can get back to me in the next week or so if you need to. It might take that long for him to drill down that far.

And so we’ve got to commit to it first. We’ve got to be willing to wait for how long it takes them to commit and go get that information for us. They tend to not talk off the top of their head. If they are talking about at the top of their head, it’s a neural pathway, and you’re going to hear the same thing over and over again. It’s not purposeful. It’s not conscious.

And then listen and appreciate. And if you—and what happens is you can’t just listen. This is what our course called Lux focuses on a lot, because you might have noticed I keep going like this. We have questions at the top of my head. Well, that’s where that is for me. Might be over here for somebody else.

But there are questions that are related to surviving. Like, “What do I think about that? What do I know about that? What do I want to say about that? What does this have to do with me? What do you need from me? What’s the point? What’s the point? What’s the point?” That’s what men are often—is there a point? Are we getting to a point? They’ll even interrupt and say that. “Is there a point here?”

You can tell how people are listening by what they interrupt with. “Well, what I know about that is…” So most of the time you were talking, all they were wondering was, “What do I know about that? What do I want to know about that?” They didn’t hear most of what you said. You just instigated a conversation. You provoked a conversation with themselves.

Listening to Learn

So when you ask a question of a man, if you are not paying attention, you’ll have a—”Is that true with me? For me? Do I agree with that? What do I think about that?” So what you’ll glean from his answer may be a fraction of the wealth that’s within it if you’re not—we call it listening to learn.

And what do you want to learn about them? Are you listening with “What matters to him?” Treasure hunt. Oh, my gosh. What’s important to him? What does he care about? Those are three different ways to get to the heart of what causes a man to do what he does.

LILA ROSE: Asking those questions.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: What is important to you? No, in your head.

LILA ROSE: Oh, interesting. As he’s talking.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Yeah.

LILA ROSE: To try to mine the depths of what he’s saying.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: “How was your—how was golf today?” Wait, how can “How was golf” be a treasure hunt? Because he starts talking about his golf game, and you’re listening. What matters to him? And all he’s telling you is about the connections and interactions he had with his son. Oh, what matters to him? His interactions with his son. Being with his son.

That’s why my relationship with my boyfriend—we know, we make plans unless Trey calls because his children are his first priority, and I don’t want to be his first priority. And I support him in connecting with his children. And if I listened—so “How was golf?” He’ll talk about his—”I didn’t play very well, but Trey and I…”

So it doesn’t really matter what they’re talking about. If you’re listening, what matters to them? If you’re listening, what are they—they can be really mad at you, and you could listen. What does he care about? And you’ll end up feeling loved. You’ll end up feeling protected. That it’s coming from—

LILA ROSE: What?

ALISON ARMSTRONG: He really cares about you. He’s so mad at you for staying up late, and now you’re tired, and—no, no, no, no, no, no, no. What does he care? Oh, he cares about how I can be. Oh, well, that’s great. He cares more about that than how pretty I look. That I have my makeup on right. So good.

The Emasculation Crusher

LILA ROSE: The emasculation crusher. I want to bring that in one more time because we’ve sort of talked about so many elements. All of this is so, you know, like you said, it’s an onion, and you can just pull back all of these layers. But what would you say are some of the key elements of emasculation that women may be doing that they don’t realize that they’re doing? If you could just give us maybe three things, or you pick the number of—this is what emasculation looks like, and this is how we can avoid it.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Well, can I give you three categories?

LILA ROSE: Yes, of course.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: So one category would be withholding. So this is when we’re not reaching anymore. They’re reaching, and we’re—so we will withhold attention. We’ll withhold affection. We will withhold intimacy. We will withhold acknowledgement. We withhold quality information. We’re not telling them the truth.

They are dealing with—they’re spending their energy on an unreality because we did not tell them the truth. They’re doing what they think is important to us because we didn’t tell them. So we withhold. In our workshops, we’d have women make lists. They’d shout out how they emasculated men. One woman said, “I just don’t feed them.” I did that once.

LILA ROSE: Physical food.

The Cost of Withholding and Ignoring

ALISON ARMSTRONG: I did that once in my first marriage. I knew we were out of milk. I knew my husband was going to come home starving and he’d eat a salad making bowl worth of cereal before he went to bed. And I knew we didn’t have any milk. And I was on my way home and I could have stopped to get milk and I was like, I’m not going to. Yeah, I was at the vengeful part of that marriage. But we have our son when we both agreed he was worth seven years of suffering anyhow.

So withholding. Some women specialize in withholding. They withhold affection and attention, energy, admiration. It’s a kind of green emasculation. It spends very little energy. I’m being economical and diminishing you at the same time. I’m just not giving you anything. That’s sadly one of them.

The more overt ones would be criticizing. Comparing. Comparison is a huge way. Why can’t you be like Susie’s husband? And it could be a favorable or unfavorable like, oh God, you’re just like your father. Just go straight in ignoring.

Now we feel ignored by men not because we don’t know it’s single focus. They committed and all their attention is there. They don’t actively ignore us unless that’s all they’re doing. So because we feel ignored by men, we will ignore men. But they need our attention. They need our acknowledgement. They need us to see them.

Just to, we’re at work and we’re walking down the aisles and we just, and we see somebody and we smile instead of just walking by as if they don’t matter. Why should I acknowledge your presence? You don’t matter.

Now on the street, what men don’t know is that women won’t look them in the eye is because we’re afraid they’ll take it as an invitation. And that’s too scary for us. But once I learned that I can pay very close attention to what I’m offering in an acknowledgement. And the only people I’ve ever had my admiration, my noticing, my smile taken wrong, there’s only been two men in 30 years, and they were drunk.

Men’s Sensitivity to Women’s Energy

They’re so sensitive to our energy. They’re so sensitive to our invitation, which is again why, if we’re leading with physicality, with sexuality, they interpret that as an invitation. And too many women think it’s my right to be that way. Well, okay, you can be that way. It’s your right to be that way. And are you ever going to do what will give you a different result?

If you’re going to be that way, this is what will happen. It actually puts men in take mode. They have the most primitive, instinctual reaction to us being that way. And then we think that’s who they are. No.

You walk around in your joy, in your glow, in your contentment, in your mom-ness. Do you know that it’s a privilege to be a mom? Just how I’ve always related to it. It’s a privilege. You walk around in that. That’s what’s being responded to. They want to take care of you. They want to help you. Can I carry that for you? You got these three little tykes. Could I push the cart for you? Really? You do that, please.

Instead of, I can do it myself. Of course you can do it yourself.

LILA ROSE: It’s another way.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: We misinterpret them. We think they offer because they think we can’t do it. Yes. I could go on and on and on and on. It’s why we have 200 hours of videos on our site. But it’s such good news, Lila. Who men really are and who we are for them.

I thought when I started listening to them, they’d want to talk about sports and work. No, they wanted to talk about women and love and how to take care of women.

LILA ROSE: And.

Women Are the Unicorns in the Forest

ALISON ARMSTRONG: So what’s this, what’s this thing about sex? Utter confusion. And I found out how amazing women are from listening to men talk about women. Because they’d be talking about, his name is Brooke. He said, Alison, this is what you have to understand. Women are the unicorns in the forest.

What? This is this macho sports guy, really cool, really handsome. And he’s telling me this, like, disconnect, disconnect, disconnect. Like what? He goes, if a unicorn let you do something for them, would you be honored? Yes.

For one husband, it’s in the Queen’s Code. “I want to do everything for my wife that I can do so that she can be everything that I can never be.” Wow. The Queen. The Queen.

Another man said, I don’t, this is early, early on husband. He said, “I don’t get this thing about equality, that women’s equality and working so hard to be equal. And I don’t understand.” And I started to react and then he said, “Seems like a step down for them. Why would you want to take a step down? We have, we have you on a pedestal for a reason. It’s clear to us.”

LILA ROSE: Oh, and how much happier we are when we’re working in tandem. Not as we’re the same equal partners.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: We’re the same, everything you can do, I can do better. That my mother was dancing around the kitchen singing that. And I thought, oh, okay, so I’m supposed to, I’m a woman. I’ve got to have a man. Got to have one. And the better man, the better my getting him is. But never need anything from him. I never really know him. Yeah, I was never taught that. They were good to get to know.

Finding Alison’s Work

LILA ROSE: Alison, so much good stuff. And I’m dying to, a big shout out to Ellen because I know you sat down with her husband. And I kind of wish I missed my husband was here to give his perspective on what you’re saying and ask his own questions and have that dialogue. But I’m sure that conversation was amazing. How can people find your beautiful work?

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Everything I’ve published since 2006 is on our website, alisonarmstrong.com. The stuff before that is on Audible and Amazon and Kindle and stuff like that. But all the stuff in the last 20 years is on our website. And there’s one off things if someone wants to just dip their toe in.

And we also have a formal curriculum. Three different levels, 100 plus hours with the videos and things that go together. It’s like a prescription. I interact. I spend about 10 hours a month answering questions for people who are going through our curriculum, which is a joy for me to get to do that and help them implement.

It’s all about modeling and implementing. Some people want to consume my information. And I mean everything we consume goes in one end and comes out the other. No, implement. Use it. Be brave. Try something, try again. Ask for feedback. Could I have done that better?

Or like Karen and Kimberly in the Queen’s Code, they go, she goes and asks her husband, “How am I emasculating you?” Best place to start. If you want to know, ask them. And boy, talk about something that takes courage. Honey, what do I do that diminishes you? Put your big girl panties on. Get a notebook.

LILA ROSE: Sip a cup of tea and sit for a while. Hopefully not too long.

The Magnificence of Women

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Hopefully not too long. But I mean, what’s extraordinary, and this is what I like to leave women with, is we emasculate men. We diminish men a lot in relationships, on the street, at work, and yet they keep choosing us. They keep wanting one of us. It doesn’t emasculate me too much. They don’t expect it.

But who are we then that were worth that? Who would you keep around who still, from time to time, or maybe every day, diminished you? What qualities in them would have you still want to be with them? We underestimate ourselves so much. And I learned about the magnificence of women from listening to men. It’s the last thing I expected to hear about. They’re in awe of us. Amazing.

LILA ROSE: So much good food for thought. Thank you, Alison. Thank you for caring so much about harmony between the sexes. It’s very beautiful and I think it is towards that end goal that you have of every man, woman and child, all of the material needs met and then loved and respected.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: Loved and respected. Yep. Even when we are failing at those things, if where we are, if where we’re coming from is love and respect, it’ll start to feel like heaven. I love that it is what heaven is like. Perfect love.

LILA ROSE: Thank you, Alison.

ALISON ARMSTRONG: This is so fun. Thank you for what you do.

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