She Said She’s Leaving…This Is Not A Test

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🚨 If you want to save your marriage and Win Your Wife Back, watch my masterclass here: https://codybutlercoaching.com/broadcast?utm_source=podcast

This workshop is built from nearly a decade of working with men in marriage crisis, watching some recover their marriage and watching others fail. The patterns are predictable.

Transcript

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Have you ever felt like your wife's testing you? Most men assume that that's just how women are wired. They think that all women play games, push buttons, test their limits, and that women just change after they get married, right? They become more demanding. Of course, the sex gets withheld or reduced dramatically. But I'm going to prove to you today by the end of this video that actually it's not wiring that's happening here. And it most certainly isn't inevitable that this happens. So this is going to be a diagnostic class to understand how a woman's mind actually functions within the marriage, and that women actually they're not an unsolvable, unfathomable mystery that simply cannot be understood. That's far from the truth. So what's required to do this, to understand the woman's mind, is accurate insight into what's actually happening within the marriage at any given point. Marriage goes through stages, and if we misdiagnose those stages, we're going to behave inappropriately and we're going to get it completely wrong, and she's going to come across as being very unpredictable. So by the end of this class today, you're going to have some relief because you're going to see that this situation truly can be fixed, and that a woman's behavior is not random, it's not unpredictable, and they're not unfathomable, fathomable creatures that we just can never understand. So one big idea to take away here from this entire workshop is that she's not testing you, she's predicting you. And that's very important. Keep a hold of that idea as we go through, and you're going to understand that very clearly by the end. So this distinction is absolutely required to save your marriage. If you think she's testing you, you're going to behave in a certain way. If you understand she's predicting you, you're going to be able to work into that prediction and get a much better result for yourself. So my goal here is for you to see the bigger picture of what's happening within the marriage and going through the stages. So let me show you here what is truly happening. So this is the first principle. And this is true for human psychology across the board, whether it's me, whether it's you, whether it's your wife, whether it's your mother-in-law, it doesn't matter. And it's this hope and tolerance have a relationship. Hope and tolerance rise and fall together. So what that looks like is more hope in the relationship, more tolerance. The more hope you have, the more tolerant you are of a situation. The less hope you have, the less tolerance you have. And when you have no hope at all, you have zero tolerance for the situation. That's this is really critical to keep this in mind. So what that actually looks like on a graph visually is this. Now, this is actually going to be visual, a visual representation of most of your marriages, right? In the beginning, she has 100% hope, which means she has a hundred percent tolerance, and as that hope for change or different scenarios becomes less and less, her tolerance of the situation becomes less and less. So let's work through this. So what this is is actually it's a story of two nervous systems. Your nervous system and her nervous system, both trying to get their needs met in a complex environment. So let's simplify that environment into five simple stages so you can see what she's going through, what you're going through, and what the synthesis of that situation is. So let's look at the five stages of tolerance that your marriage goes through. The first stage, and let's look at this from her perspective. This is her experience in stage one. She has high hope, high tolerance of the relationship of you. So this is early stage relationship, early stage marriage. And this is what it looks like. So we are right here. She has high hopes for the relationships, and she has high hopes that any issues that are within the marriage and within you can be fixed at this point. So this might be years one to three approximately within the marriage. And while she's got 100% hope that everything can be fixed, she has 100% tolerance of pretty much anything that goes on within the marriage. So her psychology within this stage of the marriage is that she believes in the future of the marriage, she believes in you, she sees your potential, she's responding to potential, not actualization. She assumes that change will just simply come at some point. And any conflict, any arguments or differences that appear at this point, they feel temporary to her. They feel solvable. Now, as a diagnosis to understand if you're in this stage or not, you're gonna hear stuff like, it's okay, I know you're stressed, we'll figure it out, we'll get through this, we're just going through a phase right now, we'll work through this. I know you didn't mean it. Those are some of the some of the vocabulary that you're gonna hear. Now, what this actually looks like in her behavior is she's quick to forgive you. Warmth returns quickly after conflict, you have an argument, makeup, sex, that's what that's where this is coming from. Physical affection and intimacy is still very much present within the relationship, and she's still discussing future plans with you. She still sees very much sees a future with you and is willing to talk about that. So, how does this impact you? Well, her high hope fuels high tolerance of the man, and his nervous system learns throughout this, his experience in stage one, is that he learns that she forgives me quickly and she forgives me easily. She stays very warm and affectionate even when there's problems. She gives me many chances, and he learns through her behavior that there are few consequences to the way he's behaving. He can get away with behavior. Now, what he will say at this point to her or to himself is she knows I love her, she'll calm down, it's gonna be alright, chill out, it's not that big of a deal. This is just who I am, this is me, this is what I do. And what he actually experiences in terms of feelings at this point is he feels very secure, he feels unpressured, he feels very accepted within the relationship, and there's really no urgency for change. He's got life's good right now, he can do whatever he wants, she's gonna accept it, forgive it, and she's still gonna give him sex, basically. So his pattern recognition, his nervous system at this point correlates her behavior with the conclusion that my behavior must be acceptable to her. So now we move into stage two of the marriage. Her experience of stage two, which is hope is now starting to diminish, tolerance is starting to shrink. So this is where we find ourselves now on the continuum, and as we can see, her hope is down at probably 80%, 70%, and her tolerance is starting to move down in the wrong direction. And what she's saying in stage two is why isn't he changing? I don't understand. I thought he'd change. Her psychology at this point in the marriage is she's starting to see that his patterns repeat, they're not changing. His promises are not followed through on, his words don't mean very much. And her nervous system at this point is starting to create this pattern recognition, it's starting to store these memories for predictive purposes later on, also consciously, of course, and now her frustration with him is starting to increase. So at this point, and this might be years three through five, three through six, somewhere around there, could be more, could be less. Tolerance of him is beginning to drop within her. And she's gonna say stuff like, You always do this, nothing ever changes around here. I'm really tired of having the same conversation with you over and over again. You don't ever listen to anything I say, you don't listen to me. You just want to do it your way all the time. And what this looks like in her behavior as a diagnostic, so we can identify, is she has a shorter fuse. This is where the affection starts to really dwindle down to little or nothing. The physical affection starts to leave the relationship at this point. More sarcasm enters into the relationship. Her correction is no longer caring, loving, and nurturing. It's it's now sarcastic and sharp. And there's considerably more tension in the smaller moments of the marriage. This is the eggshell stage, right? Moments that previously would have been minor and easily passed through with little or no tension now become big issues within the marriage. His experience of this stage is that he's starting to notice that she's changing. So his interpretation now is she's more irritable. She's irritable all the time. The typical intimacy has decreased, right? Always happens. You get married, the sex stops. This is where it happens. Criticism of him is increasing. She's starting to seem different to him. He's noticing changes. His vocabulary in this stage is going to be why are you always upset? You're upset all the time. You're never happy anymore. You've changed woman. And I just can't do anything right around you. Everything I do is wrong all the time. So what he feels in this stage, his experience, his personal experience is he feels attacked, he feels confused, he feels defensive, and he feels very misunderstood. As far as he's concerned, she's changing and he doesn't understand why. So what's gonna what he's gonna say that will indicate that he's in this stage is why are you always upset with me all the time? You're never happy anymore. You've changed. I can't do anything right. And his conclusion at this point is she's changing. She's not the woman I married anymore. She's changed. Then comes the inversion point within the marriage. This is the critical crossover point. When we're at the 50-50 point where a significant amount of hope has now left the relationship, and a significant amount of tolerance, consequences, consequently, of his behavior is left. We're at this point in the middle where she's starting to go, he's never going to change, and he's starting to say she has changed. And the result of these two points here is obviously the tension point in the middle of the relationship. These are the first real signs that the marriage is on the rocks, the marriage is in trouble, and it's absolutely heading in the wrong direction. So what she thinks at this point is he's just not becoming who I hoped he would be. He's not living up to his promise, he's not living up to his expectations, he's not the man that he promised me he was going to be. She's disappointed. He thinks, well, she's not the woman that I married. And what this is going to sound like from both perspectives is she's going to start using vocabulary at this point, such as, I just can't keep doing this. I need you to step up, John. I need you to step up, Michael. I need you, I need you to take action. She's telling you that her hope is diminishing and it's reaching critically low levels. He's going to say, use vocabulary such as, you're impossible to please. Nothing I can do is good enough for you. Nothing I do makes you happy. Nothing I do pleases you. And you expect too much. You expect too much of me. Now the problem here is that both believe the other person is the problem in the marriage at this point. He believes that she's changed and he's sh she's frustrated that he's not changing. They both believe that the other person is the problem and that they're on solid ground. What actually has shifted in the marriage at this point is the hope levels. The hope levels are reaching critically low levels. So now the marriage moves into stage three, which is low hope, which produces conditional tolerance. She's now at probably 30% hope that he might change. She's still got a little bit of hope, not much. So we move into this low hope, low tolerance. And what this looks like in terms of her psychology, her emotional intensity spikes, meaning she becomes very unpredictable. Some days she still has hope that he'll change, other days she has no hope, depending on what shows up that day. So she becomes very emotionally unpredictable because of the fact she doesn't know, she doesn't want to give up, but she's losing hope that she can stay in the marriage. She starts to come up with, she starts to show up with something has to change energy, not it needs to change, or I'd like for it to change, something has to change. This is the stage where the ultimatums begin within the marriage, and this is where she starts to communicate make or break signals to him. So the only remaining investment that she has to make at this point is anger or anger-related emotions. She doesn't have a lot of hope and hope-related investment to make back into this marriage. What she's got now is anger, frustration, disappointment, resentment. These are the signs, this is the investment that she has. And this is good because it means that she hasn't moved into apathy yet, which is the last stage, which she just doesn't care. She still has enough emotion to be angry at you, so you still have a chance at this point. What this looks like is this is where the big fights happen. This is not minor anymore. This is really serious now. Emotional breakdowns. The woman has, this is not just I'm I can't do this anymore. She goes, she had literally has a breakdown. This is where withdrawal after conflict starts to become a reality. You leave the house for extended periods, stay with friends, she stays with parents, maybe move into different rooms temporarily. This is where fights are not resolved, withdrawal is the result of conflict. And this is also the stage where threats of separation start to materialize. So in stage three, this is his experience of what's going on. He feels pressured, he feels criticized, he feels controlled and tested, he feels manipulated, he feels like the woman's toxic, he will start to feel like she's narcissistic or she's got some mental disorder, that she's crazy. So he doubles down at this point. He doubles down on his negative behavior that's causing the conflict. Or he simply resists her. So his language at this stage will be stop threatening me, you're overreacting. Why is everything ultimatum with you? You're trying to control me, you're trying to manipulate me, you're trying to turn me into something I'm not, you're toxic. This is where the this is where the language really turns negative, the accusations start to show up, and we are really heading into some deep water at this point. It's starting to become very difficult at this point. So what he feels is cornered, disrespected, frustrated, manipulated, controlled, pushed around, angry, treated like a little boy. And what is going on in the two psychologists, the male and the female nervous system at this point, is she's just feeling desperation, she's feeling hopelessness, she's just grabbing straws at this point to try and do anything to introduce some hope into the relationship. She's on a downward spy spiral of depression and hopeful, hopefulness, hopelessness. He interprets it, he interprets this as escalation. As far as he's concerned, she's escalating the damage within the marriage. Completely misinterpreting what's going on here. So now we're in stage four of the situation, the marriage. This is the ultimatum phase. So now we're at critically low hope levels. We've come down to I have very little hope that anything is going to change, and I have very little tolerance of your BS about you telling me that it is. We're at the point to where you need to change or I'm done, and that's that. I don't want to hear your BS at this point. I'm not interested in your story. Show me, don't tell me. Very short, very curt, very sarcastic, and very threatening to a man. So her psychology at this point is she's reached critically low hope levels. She's now converting ideas of leaving in into energy. She's forming decision energy at this point, and it's not decision energy that you want her to be forming. It's starting to take form now. She's she's talking about it with friends, maybe family, chat GPT. She's asking questions that you do not want her asking at this point. And what she's truly asking is, will this actually ever change? She's now her nervous system is reaching the predictive stage of going, This is what it is, and I'm gonna have to live with it, or I'm gonna have to leave. So what she says at this point is, I've been thinking about this for a long time. The man says, Well, why haven't you talked about this before? And she goes, I've actually been thinking about this for months, if not longer. I've been thinking about this for a long time. I just don't know if I can do this anymore. I don't think I can do this. I'm exhausted. And I just can't keep hoping, I just can't keep being disappointed like this, I just can't do it. Something has to change. The man in stage four, the ultimatum phase, this is his experience, how he's experiencing her. This is where he realizes that this is some serious doggy doo-doo. And this is where panic sets in. Stage four is where many of you find me. Panic sets in. You realize the stakes, it becomes visible in a moment. The stakes become visible and it become serious. Now change energy starts to move into the man. He decides that holy smoke, I've got to do something here. And he's actually very serious about making changes at this point. What he'll say is, I've got to change, I will change. Just tell me what to do. Tell me what you need from me. Tell me what you want and I'll do it. I didn't realize that it was this serious. I didn't realize you were this unhappy. I didn't realize that you were considering leaving. And of course, Mr. Fixit shows up. I'll fix it, the fix it energy. Just tell me what you want to do and I'll do it. So here's the timing problem with this. She began losing hope. She went down this curve years ago. She's been slowly but steadily losing hope over an extended period of time. He begins the changes that she needed years ago when the hope has almost almost gone. This is why it's not the 99 things you do right that she's measuring you on, it's the one thing that you do wrong because you have to understand that tolerance of mistakes here is virtually zero. And it's not because she's toxic or because she's wired or because she's testing you, it's because you are so far down the hope continuum that you have squandered all the tolerance that she had to give, and it was an immense amount. So the problem is the awarenesses cross in the very, very late in the cycle. And what that looks like is this. So this is where the two psychologies actually converge. She he realizes at this point that she's absolutely serious, and this is this is what he wants to do. He wants to reinstall hope immediately, take it back up to 80, 90, 100, and also you know, re-enter the relationship at this point, bringing the tolerance back to 100. This is his plan. This is the 30-minute plan that he thinks is going to save his marriage. This is actually her plan, is sh is going to move in this direction. And if there is any upward trajectory here, which you can see I've put a very slow upward trajectory, it's this is going to be the curve that she's moving on. It is not going to be this. This is absolutely this is fantasy land. It's complete fantasy land. And when we talk about resetting the nervous system, when we talk about turning this around, when we talk about doing it in four weeks, six weeks, eight weeks, twelve weeks, whatever, this is the continuum that we're moving on here. If we can be here in four weeks, then we can be here in eight weeks, and we can be here in twelve weeks, and we can be here in 24 weeks, etc. You are not getting to this, this is not your trajectory, period. And hopefully you can see now why that's the case, and that's just a completely unrealistic expectation. So now we're in stage five, which is the test phase. Or more accurately, it's the prediction stage. So the hypothesis of this video is like, is she tested me? Well, let's look at that. Well, the fact of the matter is, she cannot see the future, nor can you, nor can I. All she can do is predict the future, and all the only mechanism that she has to do that is past data. Your past performance is what she's going on. So her nervous system is asking the question at the subconscious level: what is most likely to happen next in this marriage? What is most likely to happen next in his behavior? So she's gonna say, in this stage, which is where you are now, remember, in Mr. Fixit mode, I'll fix it, just tell me what I'll what you need me to do. You always say that. We've been here before, day late, dollar short, same doggy doo-doo, different day. Well, we'll just see. You think you say you're gonna change, we'll see. I've heard this before, right? This this is the energy, very negative, and it's very frustrating for the man. Because he's genuinely making effort at this point, but she's just out of hope. So her tolerance is very, very low. So you're going to get very limited or no willingness to participate in the process. This is why she won't go to counseling. She doesn't want you to do a program like this. She doesn't, she's not interested because she has zero hope of you changing. So she has zero tolerance of you. And she just doesn't want to get her hopes up again. You've promised this before, you've done this before. Now she doesn't understand what I'm showing you. She doesn't understand the male psychology. And you're as much a mystery to her as as she is to you. If she saw this, she would understand potentially what's going on here. And even a presentation like this would be enough to introduce some hope back into the situation to where the tolerance level goes up. But she doesn't have that hope at this point. So you have to understand she has no tolerance of you and your promises to change. And you have to understand, too, that you played a major role in that. It's not narcissism, it's not toxicity, it's not the change of menopause, hormones, or any of that. So this is the test confusion, right? She says, or he says, she's testing me, she's pushing me, she wants to see how I react. She's controlling me, she's manipulating me, she's toxic. He feels evaluated, he feels scrutinized, he feels judged, he feels not good enough, he feels like nothing he can do is good enough alright. But actually, all that's going on is her nervous system at the subconscious level is asking the question: is a future with him going to look exactly the same as the past? That's all that's going on here. She's not testing you, she's testing the accuracy of her prediction model, which is her nervous system. She's got five years, ten years, twenty years of test data of how you are going to respond in certain situations. Her nervous system has correlated that data and it makes predictions as to how you're going to behave in certain situations. And she's using that prediction model to decide: is she going to stay in this marriage and just deal with you the way you are, basically accept the situation, or is she out of here? That's what's going on at this point. So let's restate the law here, just so we're crystal clear. High hope results in high tolerance. Falling hope or failing hope within the marriage means that her tolerance of you is falling in a directly proportional relationship to the amount of hope that is disappearing. And when no hope is left that you're going to change or the situation is going to change, then we enter the zero tolerance phase, which you do not want to be there. So when we do that, when we enter that zero tolerance phase because tolerance has completely died, because hope has completely left, the prediction mechanism now dominates the scenario. She is operating purely from a subconscious nervous system prediction, predictive mechanism, right? So you're not being tested in the traditional sense here, you're being predicted, and it feels like a test. And it can be, we could present it as a test, but it's more accurate to present it as she's predicting what is going to happen next, and then she's deciding if she can live with that at this point. So let's clarify this. Three stages of marriage, early stage marriage. She has a very high tolerance of you, of your behavior, because she has high hopes. She sees the man she believes you can be, she believes the promises that you sold her when she entered the relationship. She has high hopes, so she has high tolerance. Middle stage marriage. She pressures you to change because hope is fading and she knows where this is going. And you do too now, having seen the curve of what happens here. The final stage or the exit stage of the marriage is she's now in predictive mode. Her predictive mechanism is now activated, which is her nervous system, because all hope is gone, and now she simply wants to predict what is going to happen so she can take the best action in her best interest at this point. And this is why, in the in when we're in this stage, really, we have to start addressing her nervous system at a subconscious level. Your words mean nothing at this point. She has too much history, and her predictive mechanism is going to discount your words and your promises. It's simply not going to work at this point. So here's the tragedy of this situation, men. Her hope declined slowly over a period of an extended period of time. His urgency rised, rose very quickly, but very late. She lost hope over a 10, 15, 20 year period. You decided to restore that hope in literally minutes to hours for most people, from when you realize the actual seriousness of your predicament and you understand where you actually really are within the stages of marriage and what's going on with her. It takes you minutes to react and to take that action, but you have to understand now she was on a schedule of decades and you're on a schedule of minutes. This is problematic. The intentions have crossed at the wrong time. Her desire for you to change has crossed when she's ready to exit, and your willingness to change has crossed when she's also willing to exit. Very poor timing here. So the takeaway from this video is simply this: don't let it get to this point. Understand where you are in the cycle, understand what's going on, and get some help. Don't allow it to get to the point of her hope is at zero, her tolerance is at zero, and now you're willing to take action. You can turn it around at that point, but you have a very uphill battle. So let me leave you with this. Not every challenge she gives you is a test. Sometimes she's just scared. Sometimes it's her predictive mechanism trying to protect her as to what's going on, what's going to happen next, so she can brace. Sometimes she's just in a state of pure desperation. And sometimes she's just giving you a blunt ultimatum. So what feels like a test can be any of these things, and we need that nuanced understanding of where we are in the marriage, what's preceded it, what the correct steps are. So our conclusions from today, you're not being tested in the traditional sense, you're being predicted. So if you continue to mistake hope for tolerance and acceptance, which is the mistake, the reason many of you are here is because you miss you mistook her hope of you changing for tolerance and acceptance of your current position. You didn't buy into the philosophy of constant and never-ending improvement. That's why we're here. So if you do this, if you continue to mistake hope for tolerance and acceptance, you are at serious risk of losing your marriage. And that is all I can say. So if you find yourself at that stage and you want to know what to do when the hope levels are at zero, then I'll put a video here so you can watch that. We're not going to cover that in this video, and I'll end the YouTube video at this point and we'll head over to the men that are in the in the live workshop here and we'll enter into some QA.