Be The Safe Space

You Can't Be Her Protector and the One Who Makes Her Feel Unsafe

A fight to you. Life-and-death uncertainty to her. That's the difference you've never been able to see.

By Jenn Funk · @jennfunkbrokenopen

You're driving. She starts to get anxious and asks you to slow down. You tell her to relax, she's just too sensitive, she's overreacting.

In her mind, she just told the man who said he wanted to protect her that she didn't feel safe. His response: "You're wrong, and I don't care what you're feeling."

In that moment, you just became the threat.

You think it's a conversation about her flawed logic. All she knows is that right now she wants to be anywhere except in that car with you.

You're registering a withdrawal of trust and respect, and you've never learned how to manage that. All you know how to do is get bigger, louder, more self-righteous. What you're doing is becoming a bigger and bigger threat.

A moment ago she was scared and frustrated. Now you've completely hijacked her nervous system. You're just "explaining how she's wrong," so it seems wildly unfair that she turns it into a fight about how you "never" care how she feels and you "always" drive so dangerously.

Do you realize that your inability to register and care when she shares the things that make her feel unsafe is what, day by day and year by year, has turned both of you into people you swore you'd never be when you fell in love?

Her job and your job

Her job is to register the things that feel dangerous in the world. Your job is to let her know:

But what you hear is an insult to your character. And if it escalates, or it's happened before, she uses the only power she's got against someone twice as big and five times as strong. Here comes the low blow. She hits you where it hurts with the only tool she has.

Step outside it for a second

Imagine she was just an acquaintance, and the two of you were sharing an Uber across town. Instead of the driver doing his job and being the safest car on the road, he's driving like you. She asks him to slow down. She's not in a rush. She doesn't need his efficiency to save two bucks on the trip.

Imagine that driver talking to her the way you respond. Would you just sit there and let the two of them work it out?

Every time she brings up something she's frustrated or uncomfortable about, and you can't just listen and work out what needs to happen for her to feel safe, you become the threat. The agreement when she opened her heart to you was that you'd be the one she could always trust with these things. What happened? When did her feelings stop mattering?

You think it's even. It isn't.

Not only are you not thinking about protecting her, if she doesn't "smarten up" and let you drive, it turns into a fight where you unload some choice grievances you've been holding back about her.

Telling a woman what you think sucks about her when she's stressed, scared, and in a bad mood. You think it's two equal things. She said something she didn't like about you, now you've evened it out by saying one of yours.

You don't know that, so to you it just feels unfair. She gets to tell you all the things that are wrong with you, and you never get to say anything about what she could change.

Two fragile nervous systems imploding against each other's insecurity. But only one of you is twice the size of the other. And that's the difference you fail to see.

You forget how much bigger you are. You've never seen how terrifying it looks when you go right to the edge and you're holding back the part of you that could end her.

You're consumed by the fear that you may not be man enough, and the guilt of feeling like nothing you do will ever be enough. Meanwhile, her ever-present awareness is that half the population has the power to end her. You claimed you'd be the one to keep her safe. You've made yourself the biggest threat.

Just a fight to you. Life and death uncertainty to her.

That look you shoot that has no words, the show of dominance to let her know she's gone too far, or is just about to. When you yell at the top of your lungs because she won't stop poking, that's okay, because you warned her you were about to lose control.

Women are "crazy," super sensitive, totally irrational, and you've never felt man enough to figure her out.

Everyone has a limit. Everyone loses it when they're pushed too far. Everyone fights with their partner. Or is that the only thing you've got left, because you feel like trash for never having figured this part out?

You've tried your hardest. But if this keeps going, where do you two end up? If your best argument is that she leaves you no other options, try something. See if maybe you can find just a little more dig-deep.

She didn't start this relationship scared of you. Now she's just always a little on edge. You think she's being passive-aggressive. She's just surviving a life with a man who never managed to keep the first promise he ever made: "Babe, I'm always gonna keep you safe."

She's not mad because you screwed up or let her down. She's mad because whenever she tries to share any feelings about it, you shout her down.

This only changes when you can take ownership of your nervous system enough to stay calm when she starts to wind up. You didn't end up here on purpose. But your job is to do whatever it takes to make sure she feels safe. And at the moment, you're the biggest threat.

Go take her in your arms and tell her she means more than anything to you. That you're starting to understand. That you're done being that man.

Everything you need to figure this out and show up the way you always wanted to is possible. She wants you to succeed. She wouldn't still be here if she didn't.

Don't be like every other man who needs so badly to be "right" that he waits until she's gone.