A Woman's way of apologizing: How to deal with emotional ploys for power

Girls are wrong sometimes. Yes, guys are wrong sometimes too, but for right now that's not important. For the purposes of this article, girls are wrong. The problem is that men often don't take into account that this is even a possibility because women are insanely good at clouding men's judgement during a discussion or an argument. They often use emotional ploys that men just aren't equipt to deal with. So how can we know when to stick up for ourselves and when not to? More importantly, how do we stick up for ourselves and how can we tell when a girl knows that she's wrong and is "apologizing" so that we can stop dominating her and move on?

The first thing we should learn to recognize is the most common ways that a girl gets her way, this way when we see one, we can "snap out" of our mindset and recognize that it's time for a new course of action other than the blind reaction we've used in the past. The most common "technique" women use to get their way(if you can even call it that, because she won't actually think about it before she does it), is to use an emotional ploy of some sort. Common ones i've seen are using tonality to convey that the man has done something wrong (thereby putting him on the defensive almost immediately), using "always" or "never" ploys ("You ALWAYS do this!), bringing up past events to regurgitate feelings of guilt, crying (to kick in your "Oh fuck" response), withdrawl of sex (when not a lot else is working), and just commonly acting like she's mad (IMO the most annoying).

When we recognize that a woman is using one of these ploys to get her way, we should first take a second and ask ourselves what the girl REALLY wants, and if we think it's a reasonable and realistic desire for her to have. In the event that it is, I usually just tell the girl something like "It sounds like you want X thing, is that what you want? (girl responds). Okay, well that sounds okay to me. Why didn't you just ask me for it? (and if necessary) Okay, well next time just ask, it's not that big of a deal." Using this response we're able to communicate to the woman that if she wants reasonable needs met that she can skip the BS and just ask. In this way, she will be "trained" not to use emotional ploys just to meet acceptable needs and wants.

On the other hand, if we don't deem what she's "asking" for as necessary or reasonable, we're likely going to have to be dominant and use some frame control techniques to communicate that we don't believe her need is reasonable or that her means are prudent. Let's go through the objections one at a time so that you've got some tools to deal with them.

First and foremost, realize that the general format for frame control that I most often use is one of labeling a girl's behavior. If I can understand what a woman is doing and why she's doing it, when I tell her what she's doing it and why, it makes me dominant and puts her on the defensive because now she has to back up her opinion. Remember this is only when you believe she's being unreasonable or using emotional ploys to get her way.

Using Tonality to Put You on the Defensive

That said, let's talk about the first ploy, using tonality to put you on the defensive. If you've ever felt like you did something wrong just because of the way a girl sounds when she talks with you (often out of nowhere), then you know how much this sucks. What I like to do when this happens is communicate that I don't like it. I do that by first stopping her in her tracks, then speaking to her in the tone that i'd like to be spoken to in. Usually i'll exaggerate this tone with something from like a mid-50's household show. Have you seen the movie Pleasantville? Use that tone. If you're still not sure what i'm talking about this might be a tough one to write out, but I might say something like "Whoa whoa whoa!(say this kind of in a haulting-type tone)... (then in a super-nice tone) Is something the matter honey?" This should communicate to the woman that you aren't happy with the tone she's using with you, and it's a more unaffected way than something like "Fix your tone with me, woman!" If I need to follow it up with something i'll say "It's okay baby, you can talk with me. I'll listen." This nice little process should be enough to snap the girl out of her normal emotionally-driven state and communicate that you're not going to respond to emotional outbursts. It'll also subcommunicate that you do care about her and about your relationship because you're investing the time to learn to communicate effectively with her.

"Always" and "Never" ploys

These are pretty easy to deal with. If it is something that I always do and I know it and I know it's not changing, then I totally come clean. "Yeah, I guess that's true. I'm not sure what you're hoping's going to happen, but that's probably not going to change with me." (again, i'm evaluating her. I make my own decisions about what's true and what's not). If it's something that i'm guilty of and i'm wrong, i'll tell her "Whoa whoa whoa. If you had a problem with that back then you shoulda said something then. You can't just bring it up now after the shit builds up, uh uh. That's against the rules." Again this puts a playful spin on the argument that makes light of things. If the nature of the ploy is more serious in nature and it gets mixed with crying or something, then just change your tone to a warmer less playful tone but still be unwaivering and communicate with her that she should address these things as they come up so that they won't plague her and build up. I'll usually use the "man" excuse too, telling her that i'm not very good at reading what she's thinking. The overwhelming idea again is to communicate that the girl should communicate with you as things come up because you're not always aware of what she's thinking and feeling.

Bringing up Past Events to Regurgitate Feelings of Guilt

The tough part about this type of ploy is that often men respond to it immediately and with emotion that tends to create animosity. The best thing to do is to recognize the emotion that you're feeling and step away from it in your mind. Say to yourself "Oh wow, this is definitely making me feel X feeling" then once you've recognized it, ask yourself why the woman would want you to feel that way. Once you understand this, then decide if you'd really like to feel that way or not based on if the feeling is truly warranted. After that couple of seconds, it's time to speak. I'll usually label her behavior, saying something like "Whoa whoa whoa. Hey that was awhile ago. If you wanted me to feel guilty about it then you should've said something then. I'm not going to allow myself to feel guilty now about something we never talked about back then" or if you did talk about it back then "Whoa whoa whoa. We went through that whole thing when it happened. If you want to talk about something that just happened then lets do that. We can handle it. But let's not drudge up old shit cause it's not going to make either of us feel good or get us any closer to solving your feelings here."

By now you should be getting the general formula for dealing with all of these things. Recognize the emotion you feel, decide if what's going on is reasonable, deflect anything outside of what is happening now (or just happened), and above all remain calm and assertive.

Crying


Usually when this happens I just say "Oh fuck this i'm out" and I leave immediatley running top speed to my car... jk. Remember here i'm talking about when a girl is using crying as a ploy to get something out of you that's unreasonable. If a girl is crying to get her way, it's often because she wants to elicit a response where she gets her way just because the man doesn't want to deal with her crying anymore. This is what baby's do. The man will end up saying something like "Well okay baby, we can do that. Just calm down."

  Remember that it's not your responsibility to deal with your woman's emotions, it's HERS! You are not responsible for her having an emotion, she is.

Often when we see a girl crying it's our instinct to protect and guard her, and often to just get the fuck out of the situation whichever way we can by agreeing to whatever she wants. Do this and you'll end up with a girl who cries all the fucking time.   Not fun.   Instead, remember that you didn't make her cry, she decided to do this on her own, and you shouldn't have to put up with outbursts like these in your life. There are plenty of healthy women out there who won't cry to get their way. You don't need a girl like this. Remain calm and let her process her emotion on her own, don't coddle her.

Withdrawl of Sex


This one is probably the most serious-natured ploy a woman will use to get her way, so it should be treated with the most serious consequence when it happens. Here's the way it is: Men want sex, and women want attention. She takes away sex, you take away attention. Period. I wrote about this my blog post on setting boundaries in the past month or so here, so reference that if you'd like more info on this one.

So there you have it, dealing with emotional ploys. Now that you've got some tools to remain dominant in these situations, you've got to know when to stop so that you're not hammering your woman's head into the ground over and over everytime she fucks up. In general, when a woman's wrong and she knows it, she'll seek to deflect blame onto something else, and it'll usually be pretty obviously an illogical lie.

 Warning: This is NOT the time to call her out. You've won the battle already, and not many people in this world are truly capable of accepting blame, so just accept her logic and move on. The girl's not ever going to tell you "Yes, i'm to blame for that. I take responsibility." Instead, it'll sound like "Yeah I was like soooo drunk when that happened" or "I don't even remember that" or "Oh I had like all this drama when that happened, so..." or "Yeah i've been so stressed out about work" yadda yadda. So yes, if she threw a brick through your window cause she thought you were cheating, you might get the response "Yeah, I don't really remember that, I was really drunk that night" when really she had ZERO to drink and you know it. Just accept that this is a woman's way of apologizing.