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Introduction
Hey, it’s Marni and Terah here and we want to give you a super warm welcome to Be Her Hero: Strategies for Building Trust and Connection. Let me bottom line this book for you so you can decide if you want to continue reading.
Women need connection. Connection comes from being heard.
Being heard comes from validating her feelings.
Be Her Hero by learning how to connect with her emotionally.
If you already know how to do this, no reason to read this book. If you want to be the guy that all women wish they were with, read on.
Women's behavior can be confusing or downright bizarre to you at times. It seems that no matter what you do, it's wrong! She tells you about her terrible day at work and you show your support by giving her your amazing solution to her difficult problem only to have her turn her irritation onto you. You thought you were going to be the hero solving her problem which would lead to a heroic dinner and after that some wine and then a little fun in the bedroom, but it turns into a nuclear war. What happened? What can you do to avoid this kind of situation again? This book is your lifeline.
We are excited to have you reading this because we KNOW how much better your relationships with women will be afterward.
And it doesn’t matter if you’re brand new to learning about women, dating, and relationships or if you’ve been at this for years… we guarantee that what you learn in this book will make a significant impact on your life.
Now, if you read Marni’s emails or blog posts, or watch her YouTube videos, then you’ll know most of her content is related to meeting and attracting women.
That’s because it’s the area where most men get stuck.
In other words, if the majority of men aren’t meeting and attracting women, then it makes little sense for her to spend most of her time teaching relationship-focused topics.
Terah is a Licensed Professional Counselor and Relationship Coach who primarily works with men and women who are in relationships and want to learn how to have a better connection. Her mission is to liberate women sexually and men emotionally, so we all can have more sex and less fighting! You may have heard her on her podcast Make More Love Not War.
We wrote this book together for you to help you have the best possible relationships with all the women in your life. To make it easy to read, from now on, when we say “me” or “I," we are referring to the work we created together, especially for you, and we know it will change your relationships and change your life! Why?
The truth is understanding what women want in a relationship and how to give it to her is maybe the most essential skill of all.
Why again?
Because most guys tell me that deep down, they ultimately want to end up with one amazing woman, sure, it's fun to date around casually for a while — but in the end, many guys want to find happiness with that one perfect woman.
And in that context, the meeting and attraction stage is only a tiny fraction compared to everything that comes afterward. It will only be less than 1% if you’re with a woman for months, years, or even the rest of your life.
While we're on that note, I'm here to tell you that you can define the type of relationship you'd like if you want to get married and follow that more traditional path ultimately— then great!
But that’s not the only model of a successful relationship.
Perhaps you’d like to be with just one woman, but without the legal commitment. Or you might prefer to have an open relationship, where you’re free to date other people. Or there may be some other type of relationship that you feel is right for you.
Whatever the case, you have the right to choose what you believe will make you happy.
So, I haven’t written this book coming from a place of suggesting there is only one type of relationship that works. Instead, it’s about how to form happy and healthy relationships with women that are based on honesty, trust, and respect.
Some of what you’ll discover in this book may challenge your current ideas and perceptions. And you may be pushed outside of your comfort zone, depending on where you’re currently at.
Understand that this is entirely normal. Just follow the advice in this book and try it out before you make any judgments or come to any conclusions. Once you’ve put it to the test, then you’ll have real-world feedback to base your opinions on.
And of course, Marni is here for you as your Wing Girl and Terah as your relationship expert.
The best female friends you’ll ever have,
Marni and Terah
7. HOW TO EMOTIONALLY CONNECT TO WOMEN AND BUILD TRUST - A.T.T.U.N.E.
As we’ve already established, it doesn’t always come as naturally for men to connect emotionally with other people. You’re just not hardwired for it the same way that we are.
And BTW, that's ok. We're not faulting you for this. If anything, we are rewarding you because you want to know and understand. That to us is the definition of a REAL MAN ;-)
Because this is not natural to you or part of your built-in biological system, it can be beneficial to have specific strategies and tactics that you follow to make it easier.
Let’s start with a strategy I call the “Hero’s Cup.”
It is super hard to just listen to someone being upset or emotional and not go straight into wanting to offer advice to fix the issue or trying to convince her to feel another way.
One thing I tell a lot of my male clients that helps is this:
When your partner is talking to you about her emotions, pretend she is holding a cup full of emotions, and you are holding an empty cup. What she wants to do is pour her emotions into your cup so that you can look at them in there and validate that they are real and make sense.
You want to be patient with this process as she pours because if you aren't, and you rush her, they may spill all over you. She doesn't expect you to drink the cup of her emotions, so they are yours, only to acknowledge what’s in the cup. If you go to “fix it” mode or tell her to feel a different way, it’s like you just took that cup of her emotions and threw it in her face. When you can validate her emotions, it keeps them contained in the cup, and that's better for both of you.
Guess what you get to do after you have acknowledged and validated her feelings? You get to pour out the liquid, and then both of you have empty cups, and you are her hero.
When I say “acknowledge” her emotions- what I mean is to make an attempt to name how she is feeling. It might not be exactly right on, but don’t worry, it will get you a long way to try! To validate means to let her know her feelings make sense. That doesn’t mean they have to make sense to you logically, just that it makes sense that SHE feels that way.
This little cup is the key to you getting love, sex, affection, adoration, flirting—the whole kaboodle from and with women.
NOTE: I have so many clients that come to me asking how to make their girlfriend or wife love them again and not be so tense or angry. They ask about how to flirt with her to bring that spark. NEWSFLASH - no amount of flirting is going to get an emotionally starved woman to love you again. If anything, she'll hate you more for thinking you can simply flirt your way back to her heart. Flirting will only be accepted and well-received if/when you know how to connect first.
Okay, so we have a general picture here of what that looks like, but what does a guy DO? We have some excellent tactics for you.
One that we highly recommend and is known as A.T.T.U.N.E.
It was created by renowned relationship expert Dr. John Gottman. Gottman believes trust in a relationship requires two things: 1) Transparency, or a belief that one sees the true reality of their partner, and 2) The feeling that one's partner is there for them in times of need.
What Dr. Gottman created is a roadmap for building emotional trust in a relationship. The acronym A.T.T.U.N.E stands for:
Awareness
Turning Toward
Tolerance
Understanding
Non-defensive listening and responding
Empathy
Let's take a look at what each of these means in a little more detail.
AWARENESS
The first step is to simply be aware of what your partner is feeling. And this involves ‘checking in’ with them like how we discussed before.
This doesn’t need to be complicated. A simple, “How’s everything going today?” or “How you are feeling, honey?” can suffice.
It’s important to not just pay attention to the words here, but also the nonverbal communication to really determine what she’s feeling. Does she smile at you when she says she's okay OR does she tense up, furrow her brow, and close her body off when she says it? The latter means, she's not okay and may require further probing or just a simple hug.
You cannot have awareness without giving her your undivided attention, so you need to be ready to listen by stopping whatever you are doing and then going to this next step.
In other words, put down your phone, take your hands off the keyboard, or pause the show you are watching as if the next words that are going to come out of her mouth are the most important thing you are ever going to hear in your whole life.
TURNING toward
Once you’re aware of what she is feeling, you turn towards it by talking about it. This shows that you recognize what she is feeling, and more importantly, that you care about it.
It’s also important to physically turn toward your partner.Look her in the eye and turn your body towards her. Take her hand or put your hand on her if it feels right. I have to tell you that once my husband started doing this, we had a lot more sex. Why? Because the fact that he put down what he was doing and looked at me while I was talking made me feel important to him and loved and this made me want to make him happy as well ;-)
TOLERANCE
This simply means accepting whatever your partner is feeling as being okay. No feeling is a wrong feeling. Maybe you don't agree with her interpretation of the situation that leads to her feelings, but her feelings are still not wrong.
The details of what she is talking about are not as important as how she feels about them.
Being able to separate her feelings from her interpretation of the story will allow you to let go of needing to figure out precisely what she is talking about and focus on how she is feeling.
Let me give you an example:
Your partner comes home from a visit with her sister and tells you she is feeling really hurt because her sister asked someone else to host her baby shower. You remember your girl just telling you just yesterday she hates to plan parties and is so over everyone being pregnant right now and are about to step in and remind her of that when you remember…..Tolerance!
The feeling may not make sense, but it's how she feels. Even if it seemed like she didn't want to host a baby shower anyway, she is still hurt that her sister didn't ask her.
If she happens to be feeling down, your impulse may be to tell her things aren’t that bad or to cheer up, but that can be dismissive of what she is feeling. It doesn’t mean you need to agree with or pander to her, just that you recognize and respect her feelings.
This: “It’s really disappointing that your sister didn’t ask you to host her party. It makes sense you would feel that way because you two are really close.”
Instead of this: “Don’t worry about it, you didn’t want to do it anyways. Just be happy you don’t have to deal with it.”
UNDERSTANDING
It’s important to understand where your partner is coming from and why they feel the way they do.
That means you need to put aside your thoughts and feelings for the time being and be open to seeing things from her perspective.
Sometimes, you just may not merely understand, and that's totally fine. Sometimes we don't understand you either. In these cases, just be curious so you can understand.
Curiosity instead of a place of judgment or problem solving will always get you brownie points.
Pretend you are a journalist writing a human-interest piece and are trying to figure out the story- you need to know the who, what, when, where, and why of things from her perspective to truly understand her.
NON-DEFENSIVE listening and responding
This means you really listen to what is being said without the need to argue or defend your own position.
It requires pausing a moment and asking, “Is what I want to say right now going to clarify my position or my partner’s?”
As the listener, only responses that help the partner clarify their perceptions will lead to an “attuned” conversation.
EMPATHY of the emotion
Empathy is what allows us to feel what another person is feeling. This step means you put yourself in the shoes of your partner and feel what their experience of that emotion is like for them. When you get good at this, it'll give you a sense of what it really feels like to be that person. This type of deep and genuine empathy is incredibly powerful for forming an unbreakable emotional connection. If you are focusing on the above steps, it will be easier to get to empathy because you are focused on her feelings and experiences.
I can hear you thinking right now (and I understand why) that this is just a baby shower and not really such a big deal, and your girl doesn't even like baby showers! This all makes no sense! But remember- this is all about HER perspective, and this baby shower means something to her. To get to the empathy step, review in your mind what she has already said and remember because you have fully immersed yourself in this story of the baby shower and have allowed her to open up fully, it allowed you to be a part of her reality. Think of it like when you are watching a movie and get caught up in action and feel the rush of adrenaline when the guy jumps from one building to the next, or the characters pull off a good heist.
You are in the experience - you know it's not yours, and you don't have to do anything about it, but still, you feel something when you watch it. That's the beauty of ATTUNE - you can get to empathy because you are not focusing on fixing the situation or feel like they are yours, but you are involved in it just like an interactive movie. Then,take a stab at what you think she is feeling based on the movie you just watched in your head.
This can look like: “I can imagine on top of feeling disappointed and hurt that your sister chose her friend to host her baby shower. I can imagine you also felt left out. I know you and your sister have always been close.” Dang. She will feel so validated by you; she will melt like butter.
Testimonials
““No man can read BE HER HERO and not know how to relate to a woman. The process is clear; the strategies are detailed and the tactics are proven effective. We recommend this book to any man who wants a connecting relationship with a woman. Buy it!! Use it!!””
““Be Her Hero should be required reading for all men – even those who think they already know how to communicate with and support their partner effectively. The guidance is really accessible, there’s great summaries of each chapter, and you get very implementable guidance with the ATTUNE method. If men like solving problems, here’s how we can solve our own problem – by reading this book and acting on it!””
““After reading the book, I feel like I have x-ray vision. It’s like I was watching my wife on a black and white TV for years and now I suddenly am looking at her in full-color 4K. When she speaks to me, I feel like I know which direction she needs me to move in.””
“A very approachable and tangible read that will benefit anyone who picks it up. The author does a great job of boiling some really solid research and approaches into terminology and concepts that are easy to see play out in day-to-day life. This is a book every man should have by his chair and every therapist should have on their bookshelf.”
“I loved this! The style is easy to read and it’s informative and persuasive, without being preachy.
I can’t think of one man who wouldn’t benefit from reading this!”
“I cannot recommend this book enough.
This is a practical manual for any man who wants to have a relationship with a woman.
Be advised, this is NOT a book for boys, it is a book for MEN.
The authors deniliate a deceptively simple guide for men who are seeking to have fulfilling and rich relationships with the women they desire.
The book strives to empower men to find their better selves, and to get in touch with their emotions so that they can be a better, stronger man for the woman that they desire.
I found the book to be profound, yet simple and approachable. And I can testify that reading it both empowered me and challenged me.
I had to look at myself and what I wanted and what I was doing to get what I wanted, and I learned that what I thought what I was doing was not in line with my goals.
Gentlemen, this is not a book that’s going to kiss your ass, it’s a book that asks you to look inside yourself and find out who you are and what you want.
It’s a guidebook, that you have to be willing to set aside your ego, and listen to what the authors are saying.
Listen to women. They’re telling you everything you need to know, they’re willing to meet you halfway, you just have to be man enough to meet them there.
This is one of the most profound books I’ve ever read, and it’s really simple actually, and the brilliance is in its simplicity.
Find the strength to be emotionally open, don’t be afraid to be vulnerable, check your ego and your macho nonsense at the door, and find your own way, with the guidance of this book, to be emotionally available to the relationship that you always dreamed of.”