So you noticed your emotional reactions and your circumstances. You made a choice to grow and show up differently. You connected with your inner child. You listened to your higher power for truth, you took loving action with courage and clarity and self-respect.
And now we come to the final step of the Secure Husband process, the results—evaluating how it went. Welcome back to the Secure Husband article, Bruce Abbott, certified professional coach, founder of securehusband.com. My goal is to help good men learn to lead their marriages by healing themselves first.
This is the last in our six article series on the Secure Husband process. Just diving a little deeper into it for detail.
And once you’ve taken that loving action, this step, you ask, did that action create change? How do I feel now? I mean, how did she respond? How did I respond? Is the relationship moving forward or am I still abandoning myself?
And when I took that action, was it done in truth, in honesty? Or am I still clinging onto a fantasy I have in my head? This step is essential because it’s where you turn that intention that we had in the very first step into integration. It’s where we get honest about whether the way that we’re showing up is bringing us more peace.
Because until you take that action, you don’t know. But once you take action, now we get to evaluate. Do we have more alignment? Do we have more connection? How do I feel inside about it?
It could be revealing deeper wounds that still need healing.
Just understand that no matter what you find in this step, there’s no failure here. Because you went through this process and you took action.
Why Evaluation Matters
And if you look back and feel like there’s still something more that needs to be done, you begin again back at step one, noticing—you’re noticing. Maybe that loving action you took didn’t result in any change, and so you start the process all over again.
And the evaluation part is really important because when you take loving action, yeah. Part of you is hoping that something shifts. You’re hoping that she responds, you’re hoping that she comes closer, that she opens up emotionally or physically, and you’re hoping to feel more peace and more strength and more clarity, and that’s natural.
But the evaluation part is really important because you may be attaching your worth to the result, and that’s where it gets a little dicey. Because sometimes your loving action, it leads to a breakthrough. And other times it seems like nothing happens. And in some cases, the reaction may be worse than you expected.
And that’s why evaluation matters, not to judge yourself, not to decide if you did it right, but just to sit in the truth. Just to learn to grow, to objectively look at what happened.
Ask yourself, what did I discover from that action? What did it teach me about my healing? What did it teach me about her capacity right now? What did it teach me about the situation? Am I still aligned with myself and with self-love? Am I still abandoning myself? Or do I feel like I have shown up for myself? Be honest. Be truthfully honest with yourself.
Ground Yourself in Reality
And when you look at it from an evaluation perspective, I mean, that sounds so formal, but what it does is it brings you back to the ground and it allows you to objectively look at the situation. Sometimes when you take action, you can spiral afterwards into hopelessness—see, didn’t work. Or you might think, oh, it must be working, I’m just gonna keep doing that same thing over and over, and maybe not.
This step gives you the opportunity to look at it separate from emotion and rooted in reality and truth and not fantasy.
Let’s dive a little deeper.
First, Check In With You
Ask yourself, how do I feel after taking that action? Now, this is about you. This is not about her.
Just sit down and ask yourself:
- Did I feel more grounded or more anxious afterward?
- Did I stay connected to my inner child or did I abandon him again?
- How proud did I feel? Did I feel proud of how I showed up—even if it was hard?
- Did the action feel aligned with what my higher power told me?
This is the first layer of truth.
This is the foundation of reality because sometimes even if she doesn’t respond at all, you feel peace. You feel self-respect. You feel free. That matters more than you realize,
because again, this is about you and not about her.
Then, Notice Her Response (Without Judging)
Then you can look at how did she respond? Truthfully, how did she respond? It’s not about blaming or judging her. It’s about noticing reality.
Ask yourself:
- Did she feel safer with me or did she shut down more?
- If she shut down, is that her fear or mine?
- Did she soften and respond in a positive way, or did she tense up and put her guard up, or did she stay neutral?
- Was she open or was she very close to the chest in her words?
- Did I notice any shift in her body language, her willingness to engage, or in her words?
For this evaluation it is important to gauge the response, but don’t jump to conclusions. This is just to observe. Some of these shifts are instant and others are going to unfold over time. It could take weeks or months. This is about patterns. It’s not isolated moments.
Did this action that you took, this loving action toward yourself and her, create more connection or did it create more distance? And again, not just external connection. Do I feel more connected to myself? Am I still walking in truth or have I slipped back into proving and chasing and fixing and performing and all those other behaviors from before.
If your action felt right but didn’t lead to external change, that’s still a win because the goal is to live in alignment with truth, not manipulate someone into responding—remember, you can’t fix your wife.
What This Looks Like in Real Life
So what might this look like?
One of my guys was telling me about a conversation he had with his wife. He really felt that he needed to stand up for his emotional needs, and his conversation was something like, babe, and he said this in a very calm, loving way, I don’t expect you to meet all my needs, but I do need emotional honesty in our conversations. And he was telling me that her response was just dismissive. She just shrugged it off, cold, withdrawn. And in our session, he was so defeated. He just felt just like a balloon deflated, just.
So we walked through it and I was asking him, okay, how did you feel afterwards? And he was like, strangely I felt proud. I was nervous, but I finally said something real.
And then when I asked him, I said she obviously didn’t respond how you hoped? And he was like, no. But I asked him, I said, did the action reflect your truth? And he said yeah.
And that’s when I told him, man, you gotta celebrate that win. Celebrate it. See, he broke a lifelong pattern of silence—that’s healing.
He was telling me that his wife came back around and she said something to him about, hey, remember when you said that thing about emotional honesty? I’ve been thinking about it, and they had a discussion.
So again, this is outcome independent of others’ responses. And it may not always be right there in the moment. Healing takes time. But it starts with truth and you have to take action.
Beware of People-Pleasing in Disguise
But you do have to be careful that you’re not people pleasing in disguise. I know one time I decided that I was gonna do something special for my wife as a loving gesture. But in all reality, the reason that I was doing that was honestly, I was hoping she would be a little warmer and affectionate that day, and it didn’t happen.
And I remember I was triggered and I withdrew. I shut down. I got cold. She was confused. She had no idea. I did this thing really nice for her and then I went quiet the whole rest of the day.
Now, later on in life, when I learned more about this process, I’m able to go back and look at those moments and say, okay, was this loving to my inner child? No, because my little boy inside actually felt like we’re begging again. Then if I go to my higher power and say, hey, God was that truthful and loving to myself, and he says, no. It came from fear and not clarity,
because afterwards, how did I feel about it? Well, I felt exhausted. I felt resentful. I felt like I was trying to earn love and affection again,
but that’s why evaluating it is so important, because that’s good awareness. Even though it looked like a loving action, the energy behind it, the purpose behind it wasn’t love, it was fear. That’s what the evaluation step reveals.
Look for Micro-Moments of Change
And because change is not always this big, huge event that happens. Sometimes change is small. They’re micro moments. I like to call them sometimes. They’re very minimal in nature. They’re quiet, they’re not dramatic. They take time.
It’s okay to be aware of how your actions are affecting your wife. No, you’re not trying to fix her, but you do want to be aware of signs that maybe she is softening up and feeling safer with you. If you’ve taken a loving action and maybe she has a softer tone of voice, she lingers a little bit longer in conversation.
Maybe there’s small physical touch, maybe a touch on the arm. You could see it in her face sometimes. Does she have that guarded look she normally has, or does it look a little bit softer?
She might ask you questions. She might reflect something that you said later on. It’s okay to be aware of these things in response to your loving action.
And that’s how you know if the actions that you take out of your truth and honesty and love for yourself and love for your wife, you’ll know which direction it’s taking this relationship.
But more importantly, it gives you an opportunity to see signs that you are changing. If when you take loving action and you notice that you don’t chase. She becomes distant. Maybe you speak without doing the whole over-explaining, defending thing. You don’t spiral into old guilt. You recover from conflict faster.
You feel more calm even if she doesn’t respond the way you want to. But you’ll notice, you’ll feel it inside. You’ll know when you show up because it’s who you are, not to get something, not to give-to-get people pleasing or caretaking. But sometimes those things are very subtle. But if you’re paying attention, you’re always gonna learn something from it.
When Nothing Changes (The Hardest Part)
Even when her response goes nowhere. When nothing seems to change. That’s the hardest part in all of this. When you’ve done the work, you’ve taken aligned, loving actions, nothing changes. She’s still distant. She still stays cold. Maybe it’s gotten worse.
You evaluate: what did I do for the action? How did I feel? What was her response? Because your action doesn’t guarantee her transformation, but it always reveals what she’s currently capable of, and that’s good information because then you can stop living in fantasy. You can stop hoping she’ll become someone that she’s not willing to be, and you stop pretending and betraying your inner child in the process.
Well, Bruce, that sounds like I’m giving up. It’s getting real. That’s why evaluating as part of the process is so important because sometimes your healing reveals that the relationship is no longer aligned, and sometimes it reveals that it’s just gonna take longer than you hoped.
But there is potential.
Evaluating the results from your action shows that, and you’re never gonna regret showing up with love and truth—ever,
because that is self-loving,
that is treating yourself with kindness and compassion and self-worth.
Close the Loop… and Begin Again (Wiser)
So you’ve evaluated, you took loving action. You’ve sat down and looked objectively at the result. Now what? It’s all full circle because no matter what the result of your action was—whether it brought more connection and clarity, or maybe it brought more silence and disconnection—now you go back to step one and you notice, okay, what’s happening now?
Now that I’ve taken this action, what has sparked inside of me? So where is my inner child in all of this now? And you go back to noticing. Noticing what lie might be surfacing again, what truth do I need to remember,
but you’re not starting over from square one. You’re repeating the process, but you’re further along in the healing, so you’re not truly starting over. You’re just beginning the cycle again. It’s a loop.
Every loop that you complete builds more truth.
Yeah, every time you do this process of noticing and then choosing and healing your inner child and connecting to a higher power, taking action, evaluating, then you come back—that builds more clarity, and from there you build more peace, and that’s how you heal yourself. That’s how you heal your marriage.
But you have to evaluate it with honesty.
’Cause taking the loving action is powerful, but looking at it from an objective point of view, that’s where your wisdom grows.
And again, it’s not about perfection, it’s all about alignment. It’s about truth. When you can look at the results and say, I’m gonna keep showing up for myself, no matter what happens out there, that’s what makes you secure,
and that’s what makes you the kind of man that your wife can trust because you can trust yourself.
So after you’ve taken that action and you’re saying, what’s next? This is how you know.
This is how you notice what worked and what 📍 didn’t and how you keep moving forward in truth and not fear.
Practical Evaluation Checklist
Use this quick list after any loving action:
- My body: Do I feel calmer, prouder, more grounded?
- My inner child: Did I abandon him or protect and soothe him?
- My truth: Did I act in alignment with what my higher power said?
- Her response (observed, not judged): Softer tone, more openness, no change, or increased distance?
- My pattern: Did I avoid chasing, over-explaining, or numbing?
- Next loop: What will I notice, choose, or adjust in the next cycle?
FAQs
How do I evaluate results without beating myself up?
Focus on facts, not shame. Ask what you learned and how you’ll stay aligned next time. Celebrate honest effort, even if the outcome was hard.
How long should I wait before deciding an action “worked”?
Look for both immediate signals and patterns over weeks. Micro-moments matter. Track how you feel inside as much as what happens outside.
What if my loving action made things worse?
Notice it, soothe your inner child, and ask your higher power for clarity. Adjust the action—not from fear, but from truth. Then try again.
How do I tell loving action from people-pleasing?
Loving action leaves you grounded and respected. People-pleasing leaves you resentful and exhausted. Check your energy and intent.
When should I consider stronger boundaries or space?
If repeated aligned actions bring only more harm or disrespect, your evaluation is showing capacity limits. Protect your peace with calm, clear boundaries.
Get Unstuck
If you’re a husband who feels stuck, lonely, or unseen—and you want to stop reacting and start healing—I’m here for you. You don’t have to do this alone. Reach out to me for one-on-one coaching so we can help you become the Secure Husband you’re meant to be. Fill out the contact form and reach out today.