Your Power Is In Your Presence
A man’s guide to staying in his power when his woman is complaining (and what you both actually want)
Excerpt from the upcoming book: Powerful Man – A Practical Guide to Purpose, Transcendence & Action for the Modern Family Man - Be the First to Get It
The Real Root of Relationship Conflict
In most relationship struggles, couples tend to ask me for help with the obvious: unmet needs, hurt feelings, communication breakdowns, unhealed wounds, and frequent fights.
In my couples model, I bring this down to two fundamental principles:
Emotional Safety and Connection.
When these two are strong, the relationship is strong.
In my men’s work, I boil it down even further:
The number one hindrance men face today that derails their relationship is feeling powerless.
Feeling powerless often evokes a protective response Terry Real calls being selfish.
Feeling Powerless ➡️ Being Selfish
Not in the overt, narcissistic sense, but in the garden-variety kind:
The inability to temporarily set aside your own perspective long enough to truly hear, feel, and be with another.
The amygdala kicks in, reads the moment as a threat to our survival, and we get activated in an attempt to regain our felt sense of Power.
Funnily enough, we don’t always yell. Sometimes our strategy is being right.
Before we even talk about being the man we want to be, or even having sound relationship skills, we have to be brave enough to be regulated first, so we can be selfless enough to be intentional.
Without Clarity we are truly Powerless
That’s what actually brings us what we seek: emotional safety, connection, and knowing our authentic power.
I will define this Power shortly.
A Moment of Truth from a Coaching Session
In one of my men’s coaching sessions, a powerful realisation surfaced:
“If I can’t hear her without making it about me,
that’s a certain kind of selfishness.
So, my ability to hear her without making it about me,
would be selflessness.”
He cried. Then I cried.
We could both feel the potency.
Why?
“True Masculine Power is not the forceful control of others to soothe my inner discontent (Power Over),
nor the withdrawal from my truth to protect myself (Power Under).
It is the conscious application of Focus, Thought, Word, and Behaviour
in service of my authentic purpose, transcending perceived obstacles for the highest good.
It is living courageously from my heart, right now (Power With).”
So not only are Power Over and Power Under selfish, they’re also inauthentic.
When I’m truly connected to myself, I wouldn’t choose them unless I had to, for real safety, not ego comfort.
This is the crux of it.
And this is why I use the word Power in my men’s work.
The Collapse of Power in the Modern Man
For many men, myself included, masculinity and power were synonymous growing up.
But in my first 20 years growing up between ’85 and ’05, culturally, power was often synonymous with toxic masculinity.
So what did I do?
I tried to be worthy of love. Assumed my limitations. Played it safe. Became passive…
And while this earned me approval, comfort, and safety, what I didn’t feel was powerful.
Which is fine…
Until you want to know yourself
Until you want to know freedom beyond conditioning
Until you want to consistently act in Integrity with your deepest values
That passivity built into a quiet dependency on the very things I was chasing: approval, pleasure, safety.
So when any of those were threatened, disapproval, unpredictability, rejection, I’d collapse my power, very painful.
Collapse looked like:
Lashing out in dominance (Power Over)
Recoiling in submission (Power Under)
Withdrawing to avoid conflict (Disconnection)
I never wanted this, I never needed this, I never chose this, this is an unconscious reaction to the consequences of an inauthentic way of being.
The Pattern We All Know (and Live)
Let me paint a picture of how this can play out, one I’ve lived through myself, and one I’ve heard countless men describe in session:
A man’s wife has a complaint.
The way she says it: tone, expression, posture, lights up like electricity in the man’s nervous system before he even knows it.
He hears:
“Your not good enough, this situation is not good enough because of you, if you don’t fix this I am going to take something important (approval, comfort and predictability), away from you.”
Then he thinks:
“She’s taking away my power.”
“What’s wrong with her? She must be wrong, confused, or out to get me.”
“I can fix this.”
“I must fix this to get back to approval, comfort and predictability”
Because for him, power has (up until now) meant: her approval, his comfort, and the predictability of his situation, “I know this is the way I think it is“.
When that illusion breaks, he scrambles to fix it.
He explains. Justifies. Defends.
He thinks he’s correcting an error.
Then he corrects, fix’s and dismisses, but for her own good right…
And of course, In reality, she hears:
“I don’t see you. I don’t care about you. You don’t matter to me.”
The Predictable Fallout
What happens next?
One of three things:
She submits.
Conditioned to doubt herself, she abandons her truth and appeases him (what he thought he wanted).
She escalates.
Conditioned to protect herself, feeling unseen and unsafe, her pain intensifies.
She raises her voice, her posture, her language, her nervous system is in survival mode.
The complaint escalates (not what he was aiming for…).
She detaches.
She’s been here before. Nothing changes.
Eventually, she pulls away emotionally, sexually, physically, or leaves.
He might have to rethink his strategy, unless she goes with number one.
But he won’t see the fallout of this until later.
Power, Lost in Love and Leadership
In this moment, the man is focused entirely on himself.
It’s a form of selfishness, but not in the way he thinks.
Because while he thought he wanted her agreement, her approval, her comfort and her predictability.
What he truly craves is:
To be on purpose
To know he is transcendent of challenge
To embody integrous action
To lover her well
To lead in alignment with his core values
While temporarily enjoyable, her approval, comfort and predictability will never get him in touch with his power.
Facing the wrong direction, will ultimately always collapse a mans true power.
This should be his compass.
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