301: What to Do When Your Husband Shuts Down Emotionally with Sathiya Sam

How can we support the men in our lives in recognizing and processing their emotions – without it leading to conflict? If you’ve been looking for ways to improve communication in marriage, this episode is for you. International speaker Sathiya Sam joins us to share his insights on building emotional intimacy and preventing emotional shutdown in marriage.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN:

• [04:13] What Emotional Challenges Do Men Face?
• [05:56] Why is Anger The Most Socially Acceptable Emotion For Men?
• [09:12] How Sathiya Helps Men Step Into and Emotionally Process More Passive Emotions
• [13:36] How Can We Encourage the Men in Our Lives to Recognize and Embrace Their Emotions?
• [17:57] Connecting Sexual Intimacy with Emotional Intimacy
• [23:44] How Can We Help Men See The Importance of Emotional Expression?
• [27:16] Supportive Ways to Approach an Emotionally Charged Topic
• [34:45] Understanding Different Processing Styles – Verbal vs Internal Processor
• [39:09] Alicia’s Reflections: How Can We Help Our Relationships By Presenting These Concepts From a Supportive Perspective?

[04:13] What Emotional Challenges Do Men Face?

From a Christian context, these are some of those big emotional challenges that men face (according to Sathiya):

1. It is not manly to have or to talk about emotions unless it is anger. This is the biggest mental hurdle that your typical Christian man in the western world is going to experience. 

2. A history of bad experiences when emotions have been expressed. Whether it was that they were called a name or were not properly validated. They might have this history of “I have done this before, I will not do it again because I was hurt and it was not worth it.”

3. There is a lack of role models and somebody who demonstrates what it means to manage one's emotions in a healthy, masculine, and biblical way. 

If you are lucky, you get maybe one or two of those things, but if you deal with all three, it is very challenging. 

[05:56] Why is Anger The Most Socially Acceptable Emotion For Men?

So what makes anger the most socially acceptable emotion? Sathiya shares that it looks masculine to be angry and we often see this portrayed in the media and sports. For some reason, anger is okay but as soon as we see a man crying, it is portrayed differently. We are taught that this is a sign of weakness, and the fact that these messages are not that overt, makes it an even bigger challenge. Most men aren’t necessarily told that crying was wrong but somehow we got that message across that crying is for “sissies”, Sathiya says. 

Anger is often portrayed as a man being strong and protective. This is a beautiful thing, but it is not the only acceptable emotion. Anger is typically associated with action, and men are very action-oriented. When you think about processing grief, sadness, or disgust, it is not tightly correlated with action. There is something to be said about being able to sit with those emotions and letting them have their place to flow in and out, but that is not always a man's first response.

[09:12] How Sathiya Helps Men Step Into and Emotionally Process More Passive Emotions

Sathiya has a coaching practice that focuses on porn addiction so when men come to him, they have already reached a point where they know something needs to change. This is an advantage to him because otherwise this conversation is very difficult to broach. Even so, when they start talking about emotions, there is still a lot of resistance, so there are two things that Sathiya’s company does:

First, they leverage the action-oriented nature of men by using these practices, which help guide them to their inner life:

• Having intimate conversations about what they are feeling with group calls, where these conversations happen organically.
• Using journaling with a specific and calculated method. You only need 5 minutes a day and it is a mixture of getting in touch with the deeper inner parts of your world, he says, being able to articulate those more effectively, and leaving space to hear the small voice of God, and to kind of invite Him into your emotional world as well. Their journaling methodology has two parts:
  

1. Express: This is your space to freely write whatever is on your heart without filters or overthinking. They do set a few boundaries and guidelines, but the goal is simply to get it all out. To help with this, they provide their clients with the Feelings Wheel, a powerful tool for expanding emotional vocabulary. Many men start with only a few basic descriptors like mad, bad, or good, and Sathiya’s community has found a deeper way to articulate and process their emotions by using the wheel.
   
2. Reflection: After expressing, Sathiya encourages setting the pen down, quieting the mind, and reflecting on what has been written. This is often when the Holy Spirit speaks, offering revelation, clarity, and insight. While many men are skeptical at first, once they embrace this practice, they experience incredible breakthroughs. They gain a sense of control over their emotions, shifting from a powerless state of confusion to an empowered understanding of their inner world. In the end, most are surprised at how much they love the strength and clarity this process brings.

Sathiya also built a community around the value of understanding your inner life. If you look at the Psalms, they are some of the most emotional and expressive texts that you will ever read in your life, he shares–most of which are written by men. So there are a lot of biblical arguments that get neglected in this conversation. That is why one of the key ways they encourage men is by showing them that there is a place for their emotions in a way that is healthy, biblical, and still masculine. Men need to see that processing emotions beyond anger does not make them less masculine, and when we can demonstrate that, they are usually more open to it. 

[13:36] How Can We Encourage the Men in Our Lives to Recognize and Embrace Their Emotions?

If we are looking to support the men in our lives get in touch with their emotions and their inner world, there are a few things that Sathiya recommends:

1. You have to figure out where he gets his most reliable information, such as Instagram, YouTube, or podcasts. You want to leverage the medium that he uses and send him content that you think is valuable and interesting, so this gets on his radar. This does not mean he will love it or watch everything you send him, but to at least hear the information from an outside source is going to land differently. 
2. Start to have conversations about the things that you send. If he says he hated something, ask him why. 

This is a slow process and there is no magic pill. But if you are willing to play the long game, that approach has been very effective. Oftentimes, men do not understand the value of getting in touch with their emotions. To them it sounds like it is not a good use of time or that it is going to create more problems. 

But, for example, say your husband is struggling to connect with your child, you can say “I wonder if they would take your advice if they felt more of an emotional connection with you.” As you lay this groundwork, you can help him connect the dots when an emotional difficulty comes up. 

[17:57] Connecting Sexual Intimacy with Emotional Intimacy

Another big angle is to connect emotional intimacy with sexual intimacy. Men have a natural drive for sexual intimacy and they often do not understand how important emotional intimacy is to strengthen the relationship. If they want a better sex life, enhancing emotional intimacy is the easiest way to do this. You want to start by talking about having a better sex life and explain to your husband how emotional intimacy improves this. Often, women need emotional intimacy before they are interested in sexual intimacy. 

At their core, men do want emotional intimacy. They feel the difference between a sexual experience that is just physical versus one that is beyond this. If you ever ask a man their most memorable sexual experience, it is usually one with a sentimental component to it. But unless someone points this out, they are in the dark. It is supportive to help men realize there are two elements at play:

1. If your wife feels more emotionally connected to you, she will be more interested in engaging with you sexually. This should be enough for a man to say “I better learn how to build emotional intimacy because it is going to serve my wife and then we will both have a better experience.” 
2. When you have a strong emotional connection, you do not wander for lusts because your heart is full. Many Christian men that Sathiya works with are ashamed of their porn addiction and feel like they have cheated on their wives. What they do not understand is that if they focused on emotional intimacy, the chances of them deviating towards pornography would have been a lot less. When you are void and empty, this is when you are the most vulnerable. 

From a woman’s perspective, if she is feeling that emotional fulfillment, she is more motivated to respond physically. This tampers the chance of porn addiction, affairs, and other issues. At the end of the day, we all want connection – men and women get it through different ways. You have to understand these dynamics and play into them. Pornography tells us that it is all about you and nothing else matters, but biblical sexual intimacy tells us that once you prioritize the other person, you will always get what you want and need. 

For example, when Sathiya first got married, he and his wife stayed at an Airbnb with some friends for a wedding. They were newly married and as all of the men were getting ready, his wife came into the room and asked “How do I look?” to which Sathiya responded “You look amazing.” She had a big smile on her face, left the room, and Sathiya said to his friend “You see that? That is foreplay.” These things matter a lot more than people realize, and unless men are taught that they think sex is just physical.

[23:44] How Can We Help Men See The Importance of Emotional Expression?

So how do we stress the importance of emotional expression to the men in our lives? 

1. There is a difference between saying it could help in this area versus asking him if he thinks it would help. He needs to connect the dots, you cannot do it for him. 

2. Men need psychological safety just as much as women do, and the biggest thing with psychological safety is choice. Sathiya shares that he does not like when he feels pigeonholed to have to share something emotionally. Even though he is better at explaining his emotions than he was five years ago, he sometimes does not want to have these conversations. 

So if men feel like they need to share something, otherwise their wife will not feel satisfied, this reduces the safety. At first, his wife would feel him pull away and she would try to ask differently, but now she knows to just leave it. Women can leverage these things and since they are intuitive, it gives them insight into when a man feels unsafe. When there is a wall up, it is easy to get frustrated, but if we can respect him while he has that wall up, then next time this happens he might be more inclined to share. We may feel like our husband is not sharing because they do not want to, but it may be because their safety is threatened. We need to have more compassion for them as they go through this process. 

[27:16] Supportive Ways to Approach an Emotionally Charged Topic

In this scenario of an emotionally charged topic, let’s say that the husband is very emotionally closed off at a level zero. You notice that whenever you bring up financial stress, he is a different person. If you notice he is closed off and you say, “Was there something in your childhood that caused this?” You are not going to get anything from him. If someone is emotionally charged, you need to ask yourself “How do I keep the emotional climate as relaxed as possible?” Because when you stay calm, it is easier for them to stay calm. Women can anchor men and this gives them the space to have a less emotionally charged conversation. 

You also want to use less emotional language because it will still get you to emotional places. For example, if you ask “Why do you feel this way about money?” that may not get the best response. But if you ask “What makes this so important to you?” that is more likely to get a response.  

Sathiya shares that he has a lot of parents coming to him asking, “I think my kid might be watching pornography or my kid's starting to get on technology, how do I make sure he does not watch porn?” They always tell the parents (and it applies to this conversation too) that you have to have this discussion multiple times. It is not that you have one conversation and your kid has a healthy relationship with sex and they never watch porn. It is an open discussion and the more you talk about it, the more likely they will come to you when they find some explicit material online.

It is the same thing with your husband. If you can play the long game over the next year or two and create this safety, there will not be pressure on just one conversation. Make it your goal to get 1% closer to them opening up. This approach goes a lot further and he will not feel like you have some sort of ulterior motive in the question asking.

Let’s say the financial stress comes up again and again, and as a woman. You know your in-laws and you can see where it is coming from, but he does not want to talk about it. You could frame your questions in a more positive light by asking “What were some of your fondest memories with money growing up?” He may realize he does not have any fond memories and this allowed him to connect with this within invasive questioning. This is a way to get you in the door, and hopefully, it will not end there. Sometimes we have to meet people where we are at, start small, and eventually get to deeper places. 

As someone who's been married almost 25 years, I feel like we have grown and changed individually, as a couple, and with the Lord. In the beginning of marriage, I was very focused on my husband and I figuring everything out together, but I have learned that bringing it to the Lord and processing some emotions on my own has been very helpful. I realized that my husband did not need to be my complete emotional fulfillment and this took a lot of pressure off of our marriage. I’ve shared a lot about this in the some of the previous episodes we’ve done this month (Ep 299 and Ep 300). 

[34:45] Understanding Different Processing Styles – Verbal vs Internal Processor

To figure out what kind of processor you are (as a man or woman), Sathiya encourages us to can ask ourselves these two questions:

-Do you process verbally or do you write things down? 

-Do you prefer to do it alone or with another person?

For example, Sathiya’s wife is a verbal processor and he is the complete opposite. They had to learn and respect that over the years. Even though his capacity has gotten better, he still does not feel like he has enough for her to process all of her emotions with him. He has to lovingly set boundaries in a way where she does not feel like too much and at the same time, find other ways to process so she gets what she needs verbally. This is where going to God first is the most important thing. He is the only one with the right amount of capacity for our hearts. 

In my situation, when I finally understood, and more importantly, accepted, that my husband is an internal processor, everything changed. Before that, I struggled with thoughts like, “Why can’t we just talk about this right now? Why can’t we work through it in the moment?” And if you are someone who likes to process things immediately, it is easy to push too hard unintentionally. The fear creeps in that if we do not talk about it now, we never will.

But once I shifted my perspective and started respecting his processing style, everything felt lighter. Now, instead of forcing a conversation in the moment, I simply put the thought out there, let him sit with it, and then ask, “Can we talk about this in a day or two after you’ve had time to process?” When he says yes, it changes everything. Then there is a mutual understanding, space to process, and ultimately, freedom in the conversation. It has saved us so much unnecessary tension. Internal processors just have to be mindful that they have to hold up their end of the deal and come back to process. 

[39:09] Alicia’s Reflections: How Can We Help Our Relationships By Presenting These Concepts From a Supportive Perspective? 

This was extremely insightful for me even as a person who deals in the world of emotions. It was powerful to hear these principles from a male perspective and then to find out how I can help myself and my relationship by presenting these things in a better way. Sometimes our partners may not be emotionally in touch with their feelings and we feel like we need to “help them”. We do not have to do this, instead we can respect where someone is at and lovingly give them space to grow, absorb, and process. It is helpful for all of us to understand that we process things differently.

I think that so many of the things in this conversation can go a long way in helping any relationship, specifically a marriage. I would love to hear your takeaways from this episode and how you are going to use it in your marriage, please DM me on Instagram or Facebook. And again, I encourage you to bring these things before the Lord and see how he may want you to apply some of this! And make sure to check out Sathiya’s podcast Man Within to dive deeper into these topics. 

RESOURCES:

Tired of up-and-down feelings stealing your peace, sabotaging your relationships, and filling your mind with self-defeating thoughts? If so, make sure to get my new book, “Emotional Confidence: 3 Simple Steps to Manage Emotions with Science and Scripture”.

Connect with international speaker Sathiya Sam

RELATED EPISODES:

299: Emotions in Marriage: When Should You Share (and When Should You Not)?

300: Healthy Ways to Share Emotions in Marriage Using the A.D.D. Method