Summary
Joe shares a pivotal moment: his 17-year-old daughter, raised to have her emotions, told him “Dad, just let me have my emotions” when he tried to fix her feelings on an off day. This sparked a deep realization about the most common relationship killer.
When we try to manage a partner’s emotions — making them happy, preventing anger, soothing fear — we’re not loving them. We’re manipulating them. And it always backfires: trying to prevent their anger shows we’re scared of it, which makes them feel more alone, which makes them angrier. Trying to make them happy creates a caretaking dynamic that breeds resentment and eventually kills sexual desire.
The deeper insight: we manage others’ emotions so we don’t have to feel our own. Every emotion we can’t sit with in our partner is one we weren’t allowed to feel as children. The fix is simple but not easy: allow the other person to have their emotions. Be kind, be compassionate, but let the chips fall where they may.
Key Concepts
- Fixing your partner’s emotions is manipulation, not love
- We manage others’ emotions to avoid our own
- Caretaking kills sexual desire in relationships
Key Quotes
“Dad, just let me have my emotions.”
“We’re not emotionally responsible for one another. We can’t be.”
“What I’m actually doing is I am trying to make them feel a certain way so I don’t have to feel a certain way.”
“Never take an emotion away from somebody — that’s how we learn, that’s how we grow, it’s how we make decisions.”
“You want to have sex with equals. You don’t want to have sex with someone you’re caretaking.”
Transcript
our oldest daughter was raised in such a way where we always allowed her to have her emotions but somewhere she was like 17 years old I was having an off day and she was having a hard time and she was like going through it and I was like trying to give her advice to like make her feel better and she was like Dad just let me have my emotions I was like oh shit and I realized like that is the cause of so much tension in almost every relationship that I see is that especially not every relationship as far as like business relationships but in every relationship as far as lovers relationship and usually what happens is somebody feels like they’re responsible for the other person’s emotions and that could be a simple as like I’m trying to make her happy and she’s not happy and it could be I’m trying to make sure he doesn’t get mad and he’s mad it’s like we’re not emotionally responsible for one another we can’t be and everybody says whenever I say that they say to me but I can make her happy like I brought her flowers and she became happy I was like yeah but the next day would she would she be happy if you brought her flowers every day can you like consistently make her happy like that so I’m not saying like don’t care for the person don’t do things that like feel good to you and allow them to feel good if that’s where they’re at but if you’re trying to do do things to make them feel certain things it’s like manipulative that’s not that’s not love that’s right it’s like oh I want to give something to you like flowers because I thought of you and I think it’s a wonderful thing and it’s great but it’s like if I’m trying to constantly make you happy and Chase your happiness or chase making sure that you’re not scared or chase making sure that you’re not angry or that is just nothing but a disaster for relationships and and the way that it works is I am going to try to make sure that you don’t get angry which means I’m showing you that I’m scared of your anger which means you feel more alone which means you’re going to get angry at me because every time you feel really alone you get angry or it means I am going to um try to make sure that you don’t feel scared and then you’re going to like it for a little while maybe then and then it’s going to feel like I’m caretaking you like I’m treating you like a little kid because like oh you need to be taken care of like oh it’s going to be okay like and and then all of a sudden you’re resentful all the time because you’re saying wait I can take care of myself or let’s say you try to make me happy all the time and then I start going oh like you need me to be happy and then I remove my love which makes you feel like you’ve failed which makes you chase me some more so it’s so critical in a relationship to just allow the other person to have their emotions right do things that are kind be compassionate be be gentle be loving all that good stuff but be yourself and allow the chips to fall where they may let the person be angry let the person be scared let the person be sad let the person be happy let the person be excited so what I’ve noticed is every emotion that I have a hard time sitting with with terara or with my kids is an emotion that I wasn’t allowed to sit with as a kid that I don’t like sitting with so what I found out is what I’m actually doing is I am trying to make them feel a certain way so I don’t have to feel a certain way it’s it’s even more manipulative than I thought it was I thought it was at the beginning like I’m trying to help this person and then it was oh I am trying to make them feel good for me so so I don’t have to feel a certain way so I can continue to be neurotic around my emotions and you can see this you go into an airplane and a kid starts to cry and you stand up and you look at the airplane and everybody who’s freaking frustrated they were the ones that weren’t allowed to cry as kids it’s just like is as simple as that and so it’s also just deeply disempowering to try to take somebody’s emotion away from them there’s this saying that says never take uh the bottom away from an addict they need that bottom to get to Healing it’s very similar like never take an emotion away from somebody that’s how we learn that’s how we grow it’s how we make decisions and and to take that away from them is to make them into a child it breeds resentment in a relationship and then eventually it’ll just kill the sex in the relationship the reason it kills the sex is because you want to have sex with equals you don’t want to have sex with someone you’re caretaking that’s not how it’s meant to be between a um a romantic couple it’s not a caretaking relationship it is a supportive interdependent relationship and so as soon as that happens in the will start to die as well so it’s really important just allowing each other to have the emotions not try to fix it just be with them