Why Do I Need Her to Say It's Okay?
Welcome back to Reconnection Moments, a space where we get real about intimacy disorders and healing from sexual compulsivity. Not through willpower or shame, but by gently rewiring the brain and body back into connection. I'm Dr. Michael Barta, creator of the Reconnection Model. In each episode, I'll be answering questions I hear most from clients and therapists, and I will also be sharing fresh insights from my ongoing work.
Host:Welcome back to the Reconnection Podcast with Dr. Michael Barta. Today's topic and episode title is pretty direct. She's your partner. She's not your mom. So, Dr. Barta, what do you mean by that?
Dr. Barta:I mean, stop making your partner responsible for regulating you. I see this constantly. A man betrays his partner. She's devastated. He enters recovery.
Dr. Barta:And without realizing it, he starts to look for the person he injured to make him feel okay. Right? So, I gotta tell you personally. When I'm when I was realizing this, when I, you know, when I was doing it and I broke through a number of years ago to to this stuff, I had this you know, I don't know if it was shame or what it was, but it was like, I just said, oh my god. I cannot believe how selfish I've been.
Dr. Barta:Right? And it was kinda like, I didn't even know I was being selfish. Right? That was the weird part. It was like this realization of, oh my god.
Dr. Barta:I've made everything about me. Right? Is she angry today? Did she hug me? Does she notice how hard I'm working?
Dr. Barta:You see how we're scanning to see if I'm okay? If you know you're okay, you're not gonna do that. So that's the the spoiler alert. But, anyway, we ask ourselves, is she gonna stay? We're we're we're terrified.
Dr. Barta:Right? Why weren't we terrified when we were acting out? Well, that's another thing. Right? But we're terrified.
Dr. Barta:Why won't she tell me we're gonna be okay? Who does that sound like? Right? Does that sound like a little kid asking for something? Do you hear what's happening?
Dr. Barta:Your emotional stability is still dependent upon something outside of you. And I got to tell you this. And if you've been in my connection Reconnection Intensive, you learned this deeply. Nothing outside of you ever is gonna give you emotional stability. That's an inside job.
Dr. Barta:And now you're asking a woman who's dealing with the consequences of what we've done to regulate what's happening inside of us. Do you see when I how I when I saw I was doing that, I was like, oh my god.
Host:So some men might hear that and say, isn't my partner supposed to support me?
Dr. Barta:Of course, partners can support each other. That's part of intimacy. But mutual support and making another person responsible for your emotional stability are completely different things. Your partner can care about you without making you feel okay. And that's what we're looking for.
Dr. Barta:We've always looked for people to make us feel okay because we couldn't make ourselves feel okay. Well, we made ourselves feel okay by acting out, but that wasn't really solving the problem, was it? So she can love you and still be furious. She can care about recovery and still not trust you. She can hope and heal and have no idea whether she wants to stay married to you.
Dr. Barta:This isn't about you. We're giving her her agency back, the one we stole when we never told her who we were to begin with. She can see that you're working hard and not wanna congratulate you. Can you imagine wanting to be congratulated for stabbing someone? Those things, though, can coexist.
Dr. Barta:Right? The problem comes when you need something from her in order to feel okay. And I see this all the time. A guy will get a text during the Intensive or something will happen, and they're off for a day or two. Right?
Dr. Barta:They're mentally, oh my god. What does this mean about me? What does this mean about me? How am I gonna fix this problem? How can I how can I make her not be mad at me?
Dr. Barta:You can't. You regulate her. You re I'm sorry. You regulate you. If she has to stop being angry so you can regulate, you got a real problem.
Dr. Barta:If she has to tell you you're a good man so you can tolerate your shame, that's also a problem. If she has to promise not to leave so you can continue recovery, that's a huge problem. You're making her responsible for something that belongs to you. That's your work.
Host:And where does that come from?
Dr. Barta:Well, this is where we can understand the history without ever excusing the behavior. Right? And we we don't have to tell our partners why this is occurring. We need to correct it. Many men I work with never developed a strong capacity to stay with themselves.
Dr. Barta:You know, long before I was an addict, I never had any way to attune to myself. And what that meant was I never learned the capacity to understand feelings, to sit with my feelings, and learn how to regulate them because I didn't have role models that taught me to do that. So what? Now I have to learn it. Right?
Dr. Barta:And, yeah, it's sad, but that happened. It's my responsibility now. No one helped us identify our feelings. Maybe when we were vulnerable, it wasn't safe. I know I learned to shut my feelings down.
Dr. Barta:Maybe the only way I felt okay growing up was when I got approval for doing something, not for being me, but for something I achieved, for something I did. And then fantasy and pornography, control, work, substances, or being needed by other people became a way of changing how I felt inside. That's the difference between us. Right? That's the difference between us, and that's our work.
Dr. Barta:Right? And those adaptations have a history. But here's the part I want these guys, I want you guys to hear. An explanation is never permission. Your history may explain why you struggle to regulate yourself, but it absolutely doesn't make your partner responsible for regulating you now.
Host:How does this sexual behavior fit into this?
Dr. Barta:Well, it all fits perfectly, because for many of us, sexual behavior became a way of changing our internal state. Felt lonely? Well, I can change it. Rejected? I'll change it.
Dr. Barta:Ashamed? I'll change it. Bored? Well, guess what? I'm gonna go act out.
Dr. Barta:I'm gonna change it. All my feelings, anxious and angry, inadequate. Sexual behavior became a rapid way to alter how we feel. Sexual behavior can become a way of altering how we feel. Right?
Dr. Barta:And then we stop our sexual behavior. But the emotional system underneath it doesn't disappear. Our fear comes alive. Shame gets louder. Loneliness gets louder.
Dr. Barta:My insecurity gets louder. And now we have a betrayed partner who's angry, frightened, grieving, questioning, and uncertain. And if we haven't developed the ability to regulate ourself, we are going to start trying to use her to manage how we feel. That's the part I want the men to see. You stopped using sexual behavior to regulate yourself.
Dr. Barta:Now you're trying to use your partner. That's not recovery.
Host:Can you give me an example?
Dr. Barta:Yeah. So she says, I don't know whether I'm staying. Well, immediately, we get terrified, and we might say something like, everything I'm doing, you still don't know? Or maybe we cry. We could get angry.
Dr. Barta:Maybe we're gonna start listing all our accomplishments. See, we're gonna say, look at what I'm doing as proof of my worth instead of look at who I'm being as proof of our worth. Maybe you ask her, do you love me? Just tell me we're going to make it. Why do we say this?
Dr. Barta:Because uncertainty is unbearable to us. We can't stand those feelings. We're trying to make them give us certainty. But she may genuinely not know at this point. Her life just blew up.
Dr. Barta:Right? And we want her to get over it so that we feel like we're not bad people. Well, we're not bad people, and we're accountable for causing pain. So we put her in a terrible position. She can tell you the truth and watch you fall apart.
Dr. Barta:Or she can reassure you so you'll be okay. You're asking her to take care of you at the expense of being honest about where she is. That's exactly what needs to change.
Host:So what should he do instead?
Dr. Barta:He has to learn how to stay with himself. She says, I don't know if I'm staying. We have to notice what's happening inside of us. Right? We get terrified.
Dr. Barta:Our abandonment came up. I want certainty right now. I want her to tell me we're okay. See, I'm always predicting. I want my future to look a certain way.
Dr. Barta:I wanna be safe all the time. And I'm fixing and managing and controlling and manipulating everything to get that security that's out there in the future. Security's here right now. I need to have it inside me. When we're feeling these feelings, that's called self-attunement.
Dr. Barta:It's tapping into our experience, our personal experience, and we never got taught that. So we can start asking ourself, what do I need right now for myself without trying to get her to make it happen? What do I need for myself? What do I need to do with this feeling without making her responsible for it? So I can talk to my therapist.
Dr. Barta:I can call one of my group members. I can call one of my support community. Right? I can journal about it. I use the regulation skills we've been learning.
Dr. Barta:Right? How to calm yourself down. We learn to sit with uncertainty. We have to remind ourselves, I don't know what she'll choose, and I can tolerate not knowing. You know, guys all the time say, I'm totally afraid of losing her.
Dr. Barta:No. You're not. You're not afraid of losing her. You're afraid of the pain you will experience if you lose her. You're trying to avoid pain.
Dr. Barta:You're not trying to avoid her leaving. Then you can turn back to her and say, I don't know how to do this yet, but I'm learning. You don't have to give me an answer because I'm afraid. Take the time you need to decide what you want. My fear about this my fear about what you choose is my work.
Dr. Barta:That's what I have to work for. That's a different response.
Host:So what about the man who says nothing I do is ever enough for her?
Dr. Barta:Yeah. Well, for me, that was me sounding like a spoiled little child. Right? So I tell her, I go to therapy. I go to meetings.
Dr. Barta:I have a sponsor. I've been sober. I've been doing everything you ask, but you're still angry. We're not listening. We have to, at that point, listen carefully.
Dr. Barta:Your recovery is not a bill you hand to your partner. You don't complete the 12 therapy sessions and become entitled to trust. You don't go to meetings and then redeem them for affection. You're it's a barter system. Right?
Dr. Barta:I'm giving to get. You don't do a disclosure so that she can forgive you. You don't achieve ninety days of sobriety and become entitled to sex again. That's all up to her. Your recovery does not create a debt she owes you.
Dr. Barta:You're doing this work to become healthier, to become who you were meant to be, more honest, more emotionally available, more accountable, and capable of the intimacy we've never been able to achieve. That's our responsibility. What she eventually chooses to do with the relationship we're in, that belongs to her. And I gotta quit trying to fix, manage, and control it so that it turns out best for me because you know what? That's what I've been doing the entire time, and that's what really hurt her.
Host:Seems like it'd be very hard for a man who's terrified of losing the relationship.
Dr. Barta:You know what? It's not it's not very hard. It's extremely hard. It goes against our our very nature, how we're wired. Right?
Dr. Barta:But this is the way out. And here's the problem. If we continue to make our recovery dependent upon whether she stays, you're still making her responsible for you. You're not actually recovering for yourself. And a lot of times, the biggest, biggest red flag I can hear is someone on the first day of the Intensive, first thing in their out of their mouth is, I'm here to save my marriage.
Dr. Barta:And I have to quickly remind them, if you're not here to save you, your marriage is never gonna work. Right? Put your own oxygen mask on first. Right? If you leave, we can say this to her.
Dr. Barta:If we leave, what's the point of even doing this? Well, the point is us. The point is getting healthy finally. The point is quit running from my past. Quit trying to escape pain every way I can.
Dr. Barta:The point is becoming the man that I can be that lives authentically, whether or not this relationship survives or not. The point is healing what made secrecy, avoidance, compartmentalization, and sexual behavior possible. The point is allowing people to see into me. The point is developing these capacities we might not have ever developed. Your partner may eventually choose reconciliation, and, again, she may not.
Dr. Barta:But learning that you cannot control the other person's choices is a big part of this work.
Host:Let's get back to the title for a second. So how is he turning her into his mother?
Dr. Barta:Well, he, we, are turning her into our mother whenever we make her responsible for taking care of our emotional needs that we need to learn to recognize and manage ourselves. We're saying, tell me I'm okay. Tell me you love me. Tell me you're not leaving. Notice how good I've been.
Dr. Barta:Tell me you're proud of me. Why aren't we doing this for ourselves? Why are we continuing to need that validation from the outside? Right? Stop being angry.
Dr. Barta:I can't handle it. Don't bring up that again tonight. I've had a hard day. Please tell me I'm not the person you think I am. You know what?
Dr. Barta:This is very human. Right? But look who you're asking to meet this need. You're asking the person dealing with the consequences of your betrayal. She can be your partner.
Dr. Barta:She could not be your mother you needed. She could not be the regulator you never had or never developed, and she cannot be the person responsible for making you feel okay.
Host:Does that mean you should never ask her for anything emotionally?
Dr. Barta:No. No. That's not intimacy either. The goal isn't radical independence. Healthy intimacy includes mutual dependence.
Dr. Barta:We need other people. The difference is that I can tell you what I'm feeling without making you responsible for changing it. I can say, I'm scared you may leave. That's vulnerability. But if I say, I'm afraid you're going to leave, so tell me right now you won't. now I'm trying to control your response to regulate myself.
Dr. Barta:I can say I feel ashamed about what I've done. That's authenticity. Right? But if I collapse until until she says, you know, and I make her say something like, I'm a good person, I've handed the responsibility of taking care of my shame to her. The question is, am I sharing myself with you, or am I making you responsible for fixing me?
Host:So what does healthy co regulation eventually look like?
Dr. Barta:Well, healthy partners help regulate one another. That's co regulation. Right? That's part of secure attachment. But co reg co regulation requires two people who are both allowed to exist.
Dr. Barta:It isn't one person abandoning herself to keep the other person stable. That's what's called codependency. And I know that's got a bad name, but you know? And it's been overused. But here's the deal.
Dr. Barta:Right? If we're trying to get her to make me feel okay, that's not co-regulation. I'm depending on her to make me feel okay. That's more about codependency. Right?
Dr. Barta:I need you to make me feel okay. I can receive comfort without demanding it. I can ask for support and tolerate hearing no. I can be affected by your feelings without making you responsible for mine. I can let you be angry without forcing you to stop because your anger makes me feel uncomfortable.
Dr. Barta:And I can tolerate your disappointment without collapsing, without going blank. I can remain connected without controlling what you're feeling. That's relationship capacity.
Host:So what should a man listening to this episode begin practicing?
Dr. Barta:Well, again, you guys, this is a lot of practice. Right? But and it and it always starts with awareness. Right? What's the intention here?
Dr. Barta:Because it's gonna be an immediate knee-jerk reaction because we've done it forever. You know? I'm gonna say this so I feel better. We don't even know we're saying it so that we feel better, but it is. It it it it's called self-seeking, Right?
Dr. Barta:In in recovery literature, we're seeking approval. We're seeking whatever. But when you feel yourself or you notice yourself trying to get your partner to make you feel okay, we stop. I ask, what am I feeling? What am I afraid of?
Dr. Barta:What am I trying to get from her right now? Am I sharing a need, or am I making her responsible for regulating me? And then we stay with ourselves. We're gonna use our support system. We're gonna use our therapist.
Dr. Barta:We're gonna use the skills we've learned or are learning, and we turn back towards her. We come back as an adult partner, not as someone asking her to make our internal world feel okay.
Host:So if you'd share a final message for today.
Dr. Barta:Well, I want everybody to know that, you know, your pain really matters. Your childhood matters. Your wounds matter. Your fears matter. And you deserve places where those things can be worked through.
Dr. Barta:But your betrayed partner can't be required to heal them for you, especially with what she's dealing with, what happened to her. Stop measuring your worth by her mood. Stop measuring your recovery by whether she trusts you yet. Stop requiring her forgiveness to feel okay, and stop asking her to promise an outcome she may not even know yet. Learn to tolerate your feelings.
Dr. Barta:Learn to ask for appropriate support where you can get it. Learn, most of all, to stay with yourself. Then you can finally come to her without asking, will you make me okay? And you can turn to her and say, tell me what you need me to hear. She's your partner.
Dr. Barta:She's not your mom.
Host:Well, thank you, Dr. Barta. And thank you for listening in to this episode today of the Reconnection Podcast. If you'd like to learn more about Dr. Barta, his 5-Day Reconnection Intensives, visit drmichaelbarta.com today.
Dr. Barta:Thanks for joining me today. If you wanna learn more about how this healing happens, visit drmichaelbarta.com. And if this episode spoke to you, share it with someone who might need to hear it. Until next time, keep Reconnecting.