Don't Make This One Major Mistake in Every Relationship Argument

August 19, 2015

Men – or more correctly, the more masculine partner in a relationship, which could be a woman – consistently make one major mistake in every relationship argument:

We engage our partner at the “level of the complaint.”

We completely miss what our partner really needs to hear from us. Address this and own your partner (poetically speaking only).

** this happens in all relationships, straight or otherwise. It’s a masculine-feminine dynamic, not a man-woman dynamic.

Watch these 2 videos to learn more:

VIDEO 1: “Stop Fighting at the Level of the Complaint”

VIDEO 2: More insight into the “Masculine Objection” and “Feminine Objection” in relationships.

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14 responses to “Don't Make This One Major Mistake in Every Relationship Argument”

Ahmed Elmadhoun

August 21, 2015

Funny how things like this video come up at the most opportune times. Just had a fight with my girl yesterday about this exact thing. On the surface, she said we shouldn’t have been making a big purchase but when I let her talk through her animosity she opened up and let me know that I hadn’t been fully listening to her, hearing her out, and she felt that I wasn’t being attentive to her and did not respect her. Good stuff Bryan!

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1. Bryan Reeves
  
  September 11, 2015
  
  Awesome Ahmed … score one for Love 🙂
  
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Lynne Quintana

September 9, 2015

How I wish that in the past the men in my life had heard this advise…it is true…don’t fight at the level of the complaint..look for the underlying message…the little things quarelled about are only on the surface!

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1. Bryan Reeves
  
  September 11, 2015
  
  yeah sadly no one ever teaches us this stuff … hopefully we’re turning that around now 🙂
  
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Jen

September 11, 2015

How a guy from the military achieves this level of insight is a mystery to me (how’s that for stereotyping) but it sure gives me hope. Thanks for sharing.

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1. Bryan Reeves
  
  September 11, 2015
  
  I really don’t know how it happens either Jen 🙂
  
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  1. Jen
    
    September 12, 2015
    
    I’m reminded of the movie ‘What Women Want’… a blow-dryer and a tub full of water perhaps? 🙂 Whatever it is, it’s extraordinary. Maybe we’ll all get there one day. Keep it up.
    
    Reply
Sitie

October 4, 2015

Thank you for your service to the world Bryan. I feel grateful and inspired.
When my partner fights with me on the level on complaint, and I literally say to him what it is actually about, he says he is not my therapist or my dad. It feels very painful.
Over the years I started doubting myself on this recurring remarks when there are arguments.
I doubt about how much I need to ‘solve’ by myself and how much I support/understanding I can expect that is just plain normal within the male/female dynamics. Any word or future blog on that? Thank you and blessings

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Anonymous

June 25, 2016

And if there are issues with infidelity and betrayals… Oh this goes so Much deeper. What advice would you have about that level of “crazy” that as a woman, trying to do the work and rebuild and forgive him and the “unforgiveable” by giving him a solid second shot at repair through these sorts of excersizes, I feel like he just doesn’t get it… Or me… Just Doesn’t want to. How do I reach him? Help him get it?

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JuJu

November 25, 2016

Haha, my husband and I should trade genders. When you talk about women you describe him. He is the one who nit-pics. Constantly. That’s why none of the relationship coaches seem to help us.

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1. Bryan Reeves
  
  January 17, 2017
  
  Any relationship coach who tells you men should be this way and women that, doesn’t know what they’re talking about.
  
  To be clear, I’m referring to masculine/feminine dynamics in my work – NOT man/woman dynamics. It’s quite common these days that a woman is the more masculine-expressing partner to a more feminine-expressing man. These challenges may then present as a man who tends to emote and complain more as his feelings erupt while the woman just sees him as being too needy. Or something like that. Nothing is black and white as any of this would suggest.
  
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Rumi

April 10, 2018

Bryan, you can say that AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN! It is NOT about who did or didn’t do something! It is about the man/partner being THERE and NOT going anywhere….

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Kirsten

March 6, 2019

This was so fantastic. I’m an almost 50 year old woman going deep and finding the places I first picked up the story “I am unworthy of love” and unwinding those to create a new freedom in how I do things and how I experience the world. In that I am finding ways to deeply love myself so I can navigate without making others wrong because that part of me is desperate for love but never gets enough and like you said panics at the first moment of fear that it may not be coming my way (“he didn’t text back in like 30 seconds! Oh no!”). That said there has been a dearth of quality men coming my way for some time – easy to make up a story that that will never change and there’s no on out there – I hope that experience will change after this work I’m doing! Meanwhile, experiencing your masculine telling it straight was both a total turn on and huge inspiration for “there ARE quality men out there who can show up and own it!”. Thanks for helping me debunk the story that there aren’t – and keep rockin’ it.

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