Every passive man runs the same plays. He thinks he's being unique, strategic, even clever. But after 35,000 hours working with men, I can tell you: the playbook is always the same. Deflect. Defer. Disappear. Repeat.
These aren't conscious strategies. Most passive men don't know they're running plays at all. The patterns are so ingrained, so automatic, that they feel like personality rather than choice. But they are choices. And once you see the playbook for what it is, you can burn it.
Let me expose the plays you've been running, probably without even realizing it.
The Plays
Play #1: The Deflection
How it works: When confronted with a question, decision, or conflict, redirect attention to something or someone else. Change the subject. Bring up her flaws. Point to external circumstances. Anything to avoid addressing the actual issue.
What it sounds like: "Well, what about when you..." or "That's not really the issue, the real problem is..." or "I would, but work has been crazy lately."
Why you use it: Deflection lets you escape accountability without appearing to refuse engagement. It looks like you're participating in the conversation while actually steering it away from anything that might require you to change.
Play #2: The Deferral
How it works: When asked to make a decision or take a position, push the responsibility onto someone else. Let your wife decide. Let your boss decide. Let anyone decide except you.
What it sounds like: "Whatever you think is best." "I'm fine with either." "You know more about this than me." "I'll support whatever you decide."
Why you use it: Deferral protects you from blame. If someone else makes the call, you can't be held responsible for the outcome. It feels like humility or flexibility, but it's actually abdication dressed in nice language.
Play #3: The Disappearance
How it works: When tension rises, remove yourself from the situation. Physically leave the room. Emotionally check out. Retreat into work, hobbies, screens, or sleep. Become unavailable until the storm passes.
What it sounds like: "I need some space." "I don't want to talk about this right now." "I'm going to the garage." Or just silence, followed by the sound of footsteps walking away.
Why you use it: Disappearance is the ultimate avoidance. If you're not there, you can't be confronted. It buys time and reduces immediate discomfort. The problem is, the issues don't disappear with you. They just wait.
Play #4: The Delay
How it works: When action is required, push it to the future. Agree to do things eventually. Promise to think about it. Create a buffer between the request and any actual movement.
What it sounds like: "We'll talk about this later." "Let me think about it." "I'm not ready to decide yet." "Maybe next month."
Why you use it: Delay feels like engagement because you're not saying no. You're just saying not now. But "not now" repeated enough times becomes never. Delay is refusal in slow motion.
Play #5: The Minimization
How it works: When your behavior is called out, reduce its significance. Make the issue smaller than it is. Suggest that the other person is overreacting. Frame it as not a big deal.
What it sounds like: "You're making this into something it's not." "It's not that serious." "I don't know why this is such a big deal to you." "You're being dramatic."
Why you use it: Minimization allows you to acknowledge the complaint without accepting responsibility for it. If the issue isn't important, you don't have to change. The problem is defined away.
Play #6: The Victim Flip
How it works: When held accountable, redirect the conversation so that you become the one who was wronged. Focus on how her confrontation made you feel. Emphasize your struggles. Make the discussion about your pain, not your behavior.
What it sounds like: "I can't do anything right." "You don't appreciate how hard I try." "I feel like I'm always the bad guy." "Do you have any idea how stressful my life is?"
Why you use it: The victim flip shifts the emotional dynamic. Instead of being called to change, you're now being comforted. Instead of addressing your passivity, she's now managing your feelings. It's manipulation disguised as vulnerability.
Why the Playbook Feels So Natural
If you recognized yourself in these plays, you might be wondering how they became so automatic. The answer lies in your history.
Most men develop these patterns early. Maybe you learned deflection from a parent who never took responsibility. Maybe you learned deferral because having opinions led to criticism. Maybe you learned disappearance because that's how your father handled conflict. Maybe you learned delay because it worked in your family of origin.
These plays aren't random. They're survival strategies that once served a purpose. The problem is, what helped you survive childhood is now killing your adult relationships. The playbook that protected you from an angry parent is now destroying your marriage.
The plays feel natural because you've been running them for decades. They're wired into your nervous system. When tension rises, you don't think about what to do. Your body just runs the play automatically.
But automatic doesn't mean unchangeable. You can develop new responses. You can burn the old playbook. It just takes awareness, intention, and practice.
See Your Patterns Clearly
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Step 1: Catch Yourself in the Act
You can't change plays you don't see. Start paying attention to your own behavior in moments of tension. When your wife brings up an issue, what do you feel? What do you do next? Are you deflecting? Deferring? Disappearing?
This requires radical self honesty. Your instinct will be to justify your plays, to explain why this time it's different. Resist that. Just notice. Name the play. That's the first step.
Step 2: Feel the Discomfort Without Running
Every play is designed to reduce discomfort. When you catch yourself about to run a play, try something different: stay in the discomfort. Don't deflect. Don't defer. Don't disappear. Just stay.
This is hard. Your whole system will scream at you to run the play. The discomfort will feel unbearable. But it's not. It's just unfamiliar. And the only way past it is through it.
Step 3: Replace Plays with Presence
The opposite of every play in the passive man's playbook is presence. Instead of deflecting, stay on topic. Instead of deferring, express an opinion. Instead of disappearing, stay in the room. Instead of delaying, act now. Instead of minimizing, acknowledge the full weight of the issue. Instead of flipping to victim, own your part.
Presence doesn't mean you have all the answers. It means you stay engaged even when you don't. It means you face the conversation rather than escaping it.
Step 4: Expect Resistance
When you stop running the plays, the people around you will notice. And not always positively. Your wife may have adapted to your passivity in ways she doesn't recognize. Your new presence might initially feel threatening, confusing, or even unwelcome.
This is normal. Change creates turbulence before it creates transformation. Don't let early resistance convince you that the old playbook was better. Stay the course.
Step 5: Get Accountability
Burning a lifelong playbook is hard to do alone. Find someone who will hold you accountable. A coach. A mentor. A brother who won't let you hide. Someone who will ask you directly: "What play did you run this week? How did you show up differently?"
Transformation happens in community. You need witnesses to your change and challengers to your regression.
What Emerges When the Playbook Burns
When you stop running the plays, something remarkable happens. The real you starts to emerge.
The playbook was never actually you. It was armor. A shell. A protective mechanism that kept the real you hidden. When you burn it, you discover a man who has opinions, convictions, and the courage to express them. A man who can stay in hard conversations. A man who leads rather than hides.
Your wife will finally get to meet you. Not the deflecting, deferring, disappearing version. The actual you. The one she's been waiting for, even if she didn't know it.
Your children will finally have a father who's present, not just physically there but actually engaged. They'll learn what it looks like for a man to face life head on instead of running the same evasive plays.
And you'll finally feel like yourself. Not the passive shell you've been inhabiting, but the man you were designed to be.
The playbook served its purpose. It got you this far. But it can't take you where you need to go. It's time to burn it and step into something new.
Lions don't run plays to avoid conflict. They face it head on.
Light the match.
Ready to Burn the Playbook?
Let's identify your patterns and build new ones together. Schedule a discovery call for direct, honest conversation about where you are and where you're going.
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