Too Much Drama

What you should do if your girl brings too much drama into your life and not enough ease and delight.

In this video coaching newsletter, I discuss an email from a viewer who is thirty and his fiancée is nineteen. She suffers from depression and anxiety. He says she had a rough childhood with a verbally abusive mother. When they have disagreements, she gets butthurt, angry and defensive.

You can tell he walks on eggshells trying not to upset her because that leads to unnecessary drama due to her immaturity and ability to communicate in a healthy adult manner to resolve their differences. He asks what he can do. My comments are in bold italics like this below in the body of his email.

At the end of the day, the kids are going to emulate exactly what they see in the house that they grow up in. He’s walking on eggshells, because he tries to resolve things, she gets upset, she gets angry, she gets butt hurt. And so, he goes through some examples of things, talks about her childhood and what she experienced.

Obviously, I think he got engaged way too soon. I don’t know how long he’s been studying my work, but he’s engaged to somebody that’s just creating unnecessary drama. And then on top of that, he’s trying to resolve things and walking on eggshells, because he’s in a relationship with somebody that’s just kind of toxic. He’s already in the relationship, so it’s easy to just go, “Oh yeah, screw her. Dump her, find somebody else.”

But obviously, you want to give him the benefit of the doubt, so he can apply what’s in How To Be A 3% Man successfully, to give this woman the chance to step up, to reach her full potential, to do a better job of communicating, because it’s possible that she’s just not going to be capable of it and it won’t work out long term. But we have to give him the benefit of the doubt, because it’s easy sit on the outside like, “Oh yeah, just dump her,” but the dude’s engaged to her.

I’ve got people watching my videos that are married, they’ve got kids, they got families. So it’s just easy to tell somebody, “Oh, just leave,” but you’ve got to get them to the place where they’re taking care of themselves. Just like Jim Rohn used to say, “I’ll take care of me for you, and you take care of you for me.” And so, if we can get the guy taking care of everything that he can take care of, and show up as the best version of himself, and get him to communicate like an adult and set and enforce healthy boundaries, she may be able to rise to the challenge.

But she also may not, and therefore, he may ultimately have to move on from her. But we want to give them the best possible chance, give her the benefit of the doubt. Because if he does walk away from her and has to end it because she’s just not capable of showing up in a way that he needs her to — and the rest of us, if we were in a relationship with somebody like this, would want her to — then at least he did everything he could and he can learn from it. And so, the next time around he can avoid getting serious with women that just simply don’t have the skills, don’t have the ability and are simply not open minded enough to change and get better.

Remember, the strongest negotiating position is being able to walk away and mean it. You have to set and enforce healthy boundaries. This guy is a year and a half down the line and he’s already engaged with this girl, and so, in a lot of ways he’s enabled this behavior, because despite the fact that she tends to bring a lot of drama when they have their disagreements, he still went ahead and got engaged. So, in essence, he’s kind of rewarded bad behavior.

So, it’s possible, as long as she’s willing to do her part to resolve things more amicably. But at this point, we don’t know if she’s capable of that, so we’re going give her the benefit of the doubt and talk about what this guy can do differently.

Viewer’s Email:

Hey Corey,

I have read your book and learned so many valuable skills. Thank you for that.

Well, you’ve got to read it 10 to 15 times, dude. You’ve got to participate in your own rescue. I’m the one that you’re talking to, I’m not talking to her, so I only really have the ability to influence you, and you’ve got to do your part. You at least have to read the book 10 to 15 times and learn the information backwards and forwards instead of just reading it once, watching videos and looking for quick fixes, or magic pickup lines, or magic communication lines that just make everything better. It’s just not going to work that way. You’re not going to have sustainable success. And the key is to have not just temporary success, but sustainable success.

My fiancée and I have been in a relationship for over a year and a half. She is 19 and I’m 30. She is a smart girl, super sweet, funny, and super gorgeous; she has shown me true love like nobody else has. She suffers from depression but mostly anxiety.

With nervousness, anxiety, fear of the future, typically from a physiological perspective, the head goes forward. That’s fear of the future. If you’ve watched any of the network chiropractic videos I’ve done with Dr. Dominick D’Anna and Gracie, he goes through and extensively explains this.

If your physiology, your reality filter, the head is cranked forward, you can see that. When you walk around, you’ll see a lot of people, their head is is cranked forward. That’s a fear of the future. When your head goes forward, it’s a way to check out from that pattern and not really feel those feelings. But if you’re stuck in that pattern, everything is going to pass through your reality filter that way. You just automatically go to that place.

She had a rough childhood as her parents were not very involved in her academics and extracurriculars.

So, even though her parents were together, at least when she was growing up, it sounded like it was a dysfunctional place at home.

Her mother would yell at her and tell her that she is not good enough when she would get onto her.

So, typically, what you’ll see when you have parents that are verbally abusive, they kick their kids verbally, in essence, and some do physically. I got my ass kicked a lot when I was a kid. But when you’re told that you’re not good enough, you literally develop the physiology of ‘I’m a worthless piece of shit.’ And you’ll see that some of the videos that Dominick did with Gracie. She has that in her physiology, and that’s part of her reality filter.

So when something happens, if your reality filter is ‘I’m a worthless piece of shit,’ you automatically go there, you automatically feel bad. You just literally become conditioned to be that way. And it’s helpful, obviously, to become aware of it. One of the big things I love about network care is it helps you get out of that physiology, and you just don’t feel that way anymore.

It’s like, you have to unlearn what you have learned, and you do that mentally, but you also should be doing that physically with your body. That’s why I’m always such a big advocate of network care and why would we do all these videos, so we could demonstrate this stuff and you can actually see it and how it affects somebody’s poor self perception and how it affects how they interact with the world and other people.

So, if you’re constantly being berated, like my mother used to say, “Oh, you’re never going to amount to anything,” for me that caused me to be in a really fearful place and always feel like I wasn’t good enough. So, if something would happen, “I’m not good enough.”

If I got rejected, “It’s because I’m not good enough.” If I didn’t get the raise I wanted, “I’m not good enough.” That client didn’t choose me, they chose somebody else, “I’m not good enough.” So, automatically you go to that place, and you have to become aware of it, and catch yourself, and learn to interact with the world in a different way and get different results.

Overall, things have been great since the beginning when we moved in together.

Man, it’s like you are in a mad dash to make something happen. Way too much too soon, dude. A year and a half of dating, and you’re already living together and you’re already engaged.

When things are good and mutual good standing, things are great. However, she does not handle failure, negativity, reality, and criticism well.

Well, obviously if her mom was constantly criticizing, nobody likes that. It doesn’t feel good to have someone that’s constantly critical of you, which is exactly how my mother was towards my brother and I, and my dad, and everybody in the family. So, that’s obviously going to have a negative effect on your self-esteem.

When some things go wrong or not as she wanted it to, she gets in a mindset of not being good enough, deserving, smart, or that nobody cares about her, etc. When I bring something up that involves responsibilities, bills, finances, house chores, etc., she gets defensive and hostile if she doesn’t agree with something…

Well, that’s what she learned from her mother.

…as if I’m criticizing her, blaming her, or nagging her. I keep my tone calmed and try to explain the issue to her. She continues to be defensive, and if I leave the room and go on to something else, she assumes I’m mad at her and that I don’t care for her to be alone as she is hurting. 

So, part of setting and enforcing healthy boundaries is if you’re calm and she’s trying to get upset and angry, you’ve got to say, “Look, you’ve got to talk to me in a calm, sweet manner. I understand you’re hurting and you’re upset, and I want to understand where you’re coming from, but yelling at me and flying off the handle like your mother does, I don’t want to deal with that. I want to have a drama free life.”

Remember, no drama allowed. No drama allowed means no drama allowed. But if you just sit there and you tolerate verbal abuse from your girlfriend and her getting butthurt and mistreating you, and then you sit and put up with it, instead of asking her in a loving manner a couple of times to be sweet and talk to you in a nice way, these are things that should have been resolved and boundaries set when you guys were dating. But now you’re living together and you’re already engaged. So, you’re pretty far down the road, now that you’re trying to take corrective action.

You’ve enabled her bad behavior, because you allowed her to get away with it. You moved in together, you got engaged, so for her, there’s no consequences of behaving this way. You’ve got to let her know, “Babe, talk to me. Tell me what’s going on, what you’re thinking.” If she’s like, “Oh, I don’t want to talk about it,” you’re like, “You have to talk about it. This is how we resolve things.”

You have to be like, “You’ve got to be nice to me, because if you’re not and you’re going to be mean and nasty and start yelling and screaming, I’m going to get into my car, I’m going to leave and I’m going to go home. And then you can call me when you calm down and you’re ready to talk things out, because my life’s a drama free zone. I don’t want to deal with any drama or bullshit, and you’ve got to be sweet to me. And if you’re not going to do that, or can’t do that, or won’t do that, then I’m just going to leave. It’s up to you. What do you want to do?”

A woman who has her shit together will go, “I’m sorry, you’re right. I was being a total bitch. I’m just hurt because…” and then she just explains herself. You give her the opportunity to be sweet and you ask her to work things out in kind, but if she’s still nasty and belligerent, leave. Obviously, you live together, so it’s not like you can go back to your own place. Hop in a car and go hang out with your friends or go do something else.

Say, “Well, you know, I don’t like your tone. I don’t like the way you’re talking to me. It’s not very loving, it’s not very sweet, so I’m going to go clean the pool. I’m going to go hang out in the shed. I’m going to go reorganize the garage. I’m going to wash my car. I’m going to do some lawn work. I’m going to go meet the guys for beers. And when I come back, hopefully you’ll be in a better mood, you’ll be nice to me, and you’ll be ready to talk things out.” Because if you stick around when somebody is being abusive, then you’re inviting more of it.

No one will ever do or say anything to you that you don’t invite them to do. And so, if they’re not treating you the way you want to be treated and you’ve repeatedly asked them to be loving and kind and calm and they refuse to, you have to physically leave. You have to remove your presence from the situation, so they start to learn that if they’re nice and calm and sweet, you’ll sit and you’ll work things out. And if they’re an asshole to you, if they bring drama, they get the gift of missing you, and you leave and you go do something else.

If you come back and she’s like, “You don’t love me!” just be like, “I told you to be calm and sweet, and you were a bitch to me and you wouldn’t change. So I’m not going to put up with that. I told you, my life is a drama free zone. I don’t want to put up with this anymore. I want to work things out in a calm manner. The way you grew up and the example you saw at home, that’s fucked up. That’s dysfunctional. I love you. I love your parents, they’re cool, but shit’s fucked up and I don’t want to live that way.”

“And I certainly am not interested in my fiancee being verbally, emotionally and mentally abusive towards me. I want to be able to work things out. Life is hard enough without you bringing drama and stress. I want to support you, I want to nurture you, I want encourage you and I want to love you, but you’ve got to be nice to me.” You want to be in a relationship with a woman who’s easygoing, easy to get along with and who will talk things out in a calm manner.

So, if she’s calm and sweet, you stick around and encourage her to talk so you can work things out. But if she just won’t be calm and she just wants to be an ass, you have to physically leave. Get in your car, go do something else. Go away for the weekend. Go visit your parents, go kiss your mom the cheek, tell her you love her, say hello to her, whatever. Go do something with people who are going to be nice and kind to you, because voting with your feet communicates that she’ll eventually get the message that, “If I’m a bitch to him, he’s not going to put up with it. But if I’m nice to him, he’ll listen to me and stay up with me all night long.”

That’s the important thing, that’s the mindset. And you have to start setting and enforcing healthy boundaries. The other thing is just to be consistent with it. You can’t have this conversation for nine out of ten disagreements and the tenth one you sit there and you put up with her abuse. Because the tenth one, you sat there and you put up with her abuse, now you’ve enabled her behavior. Now you’ve given her permission to continue to mistreat you.

So, once you start behaving this way, you have to always be this way. You have to always be consistent. Because she’ll learn if she’s sweet and kind to you, you’ll stick around and you’ll work it out and things will be great. And if she’s not, you’ll just leave. And if she’s like, “Oh, you didn’t care, you left,” it’s like, “You weren’t being nice to me. I’ve told you I’m not going to put up with abuse. I know you were raised in a family like that. That’s not normal, that’s dysfunctional, it’s fucked up, and I’m not going to put up with that.”

“I want our household to be sweet, because if we have kids someday, I want our children to be raised in a loving environment where they see mom and dad, if they have a disagreement or they butt heads, they sit down and they listen to one another and they try to understand where the other person is coming from before they focus on being understood themselves.” It’s the best way to go about resolving your differences. You’re the man and you have to set the tone, but you’ve got to be consistent. If you’re not consistent, then you’re just inviting more of it.

If she has done something that upsets me, I normally just keep it to myself and become quiet and dismissive. She can usually tell I’m upset and asks me what’s wrong? I have told her “nothing is wrong” to avoid arguing.

That’s not good either, because now you’re not being honest, and women can tell. They’re very intuitive, they can feel that something’s off.

Because normally when I have told her, she gets defensive and hostile and her tone gets hostile, which upsets me more because I feel like in the end, I’m the one upsetting her and she ends up being the victim.

Well, you’re enabling her bad behavior. And so, like I said, you’ve got to set and enforce healthy boundaries, and that’s what you’re not doing.

I always avoid arguing with her because as you say in your book, men who argue with a woman don’t understand women.

That is true. But you’re enabling her abusive behavior by allowing her to abuse you, instead of leaving.

Instead, I try to communicate with her in a calm and collected tone, but when I do, she says that she doesn’t want to hear it and cries; everything I say, she disagrees and on rare occasions she has panic attacks.

So, again, you’ve got to set and enforce healthy boundaries. That’s what’s missing here, bro.

I will admit, she gets over things quicker than I do. If we had a rough night, she wakes up in a better mood, while I may still be processing everything from the night before.

That’s typical. Us guys, we need time alone in our man cave to solve our problems. We tend to stew about things, come to a conclusion or resolution, and then we talk about it once we figure that out. With women, they tend to work things out by talking about it and facilitating talking. But you can’t work anything out if she’s verbally abusive, and getting upset, and creating drama and flying off the handle. It’s just not a way to live.

When she tells me she doesn’t want to hear it, I remain quiet or go to sleep if it’s nighttime, which then hurts her more because she says that how can I peacefully go to sleep when she is hurting. What am I missing????

Thank you, regards.

Bob

If she says, “Hey, I don’t want to hear it,” and it’s nighttime, obviously, you’re not going to get in your car at one o’clock in the morning and go drive somewhere. You’re like, “Babe, I’ll stay up all night and we can talk about it, but you’re being rude and you’re not being nice to me. And I’ve told you umpteen times, you’ve got to be sweet. I’ll all stay up all night with you, but you’ve got to be kind to me. And you can’t get upset when I’m trying to speak and explain where I’m coming from. You’ve got to let me speak, I’ll let you speak. We’ve got to listen to each other and really try to understand where each other is coming from.”

And if she won’t, just say, “Okay. Well, you’re not communicating like an adult, so I’m going to go to sleep.” If she just continues being belligerent, just go sleep in the guest room. Say, “I don’t want to deal with it. I’m going to go get a peaceful night’s sleep, because you are proving to me right now that you’re incapable of being sweet and loving.” Then go in the next room, or go sleep in the couch. Like, “I don’t want to put up with it. I want to get a good night’s sleep. We’ll talk about it tomorrow when you calm down.”

You have to set and enforce healthy boundaries. That’s the big takeaway here, dude. And 10 to 15 times, you’ve got to read “How To Be A 3% Man,” if you really want to get to understand this stuff backwards and forwards. Also, I would highly encourage you to watch the video, which is also also referenced in “How To Be A 3% Man” called “How to Communicate with Women Effectively,” because you’re not doing your part at this point.

So, to turn things around, like I said, she may not be capable of communicating with you the way you want, but she’s nineteen. She’s young, you’re older. I say we give her the benefit of the doubt, and it’s possible that she communicates when you consistently set and enforce healthy boundaries.

If you’ve got a question or a challenge in your personal or professional life, and you’d like to get my help, go to UnderstandingRelationships.com, click the Products tab at the top of your screen and book a coaching session with yours truly.

“Life is too short to put up with drama from people who don’t communicate and resolve their differences in a mature adult manner. If you want your life and relationships to be full of ease and delight, you must only allow people into your inner circle who are capable of talking out their differences in a calm and relaxed manner with the intent to understand as well as to be understood. Way too many people don’t have the background and are simply incapable of drama free resolution of their differences. Setting and enforcing healthy boundaries is essential to keep your life a drama free zone.” ~ Coach Corey Wayne

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