30th letter from Mihai

Tue 8 Jul, 2025 Colmar, France

Hey Reader,

I was just thinking, I sent you a bunch of emails this week and maybe I'm running out of things to talk about. I was thinking of writing something about the triune brain, neuroscience, psychology stuff. Something I’ve been into in the last decade. I thought maybe I’d write an email just to remind myself of it all. But I wasn't sure if that would be useful for you or just a way to show off or archive something for myself.

Luckily, something better came up today. I didn’t even have to force it. Life handed it to me. Because when you have a child and a partner, a family, you get those opportunities to learn every single day.

As I shared in earlier emails, the biggest area where most dads reading these letters want to improve is communication with their partner.

So, no surprise, this letter is about that. Because I was tested on mine today.

Here’s what happened.

This morning, I had a great call with a dad who’s a fractional CMO. He praised the humanness of my funnel. That meant a lot. I was telling Aurélie about it, explaining what a fractional CMO even is (while I was learning about it too), sharing why it felt like such a big deal to get that kind of feedback from someone with serious marketing experience. And yeah, I also shared parts of this man’s story; not too detailed, just enough to give her a picture and to talk through ways I might be able to support him.

I was sharing my excitement, because she’s asked for that in the past. She told me there have been moments where I’ve barely shared, or moved on too quickly. I don’t know if it’s a Mihai thing or a man thing, but it’s something I want to work on. To slow down, stay with the joy, really feel it.

So there I was, excited, talking, and folding my BJJ clothes from the night before. She asked why I put them on the table. I said, “I’m folding them.” She said, “Well, I’m setting up the table.” Fair enough. I moved them to the couch. Then she said, “Cléo hasn’t eaten. Feeding her is more important now.”

So I stopped folding and shifted to feeding Cléo. I put her in the high chair and started looking in the fridge. I asked if she should have cheese.

That’s when breakfast got loud.

She snapped.

“There’s food for her on the table,” she said. “You’re not listening to me. You’re scattered. You’re not present.”

And honestly, I felt like snapping back. I didn’t think that was fair. I was present. I was focused on Cléo. I wasn’t scrolling. I wasn’t zoning out. I was literally trying to feed our daughter.

But from her perspective, I wasn’t there.

She told me I’d been talking about the CMO call for an hour. That wasn’t true: it was maybe 10, 15 minutes, but it wasn’t about the number.

She was overwhelmed. She was cooking, taking care of Cléo, and watching me bounce from conversation to laundry to Cléo’s meal to excitement about my work.

We sat down to eat. I thought maybe things had calmed down. I tried to explain. She left the table and ate in another room.

So I sat with it. Tried to see it from her side.

I remembered this quote from high school:

It stuck with me back then. I don’t mean it in a shallow way. I mean there’s a biological difference in how we process emotions. Women can feel, express, and process in real time. Men often have to think through what they feel first.

There’s this belief that men are emotionally unavailable if they don’t say what they feel in the moment. But it’s not true. It’s just different wiring.

And when both partners snap and trigger each other, it creates this loop of fighting, proving, defending. That’s not what I want. That’s not presence.

Men are made to hold space. To slow down. To ground. To see a few steps ahead. To offer structure when things feel chaotic.

That doesn’t mean women can’t do those things. But in a partnership, if both of you are waves, you drown in each other. Someone has to be the rock. The lighthouse. The one who stays steady, even when the storm comes.

I wasn’t that today.

Even though I thought I was present, my energy felt scattered to her. And that matters. Perception is real. I didn’t transition well. I didn’t anchor the moment.

Later, after some quiet, we used the Repair Ritual. That’s a tool I’ve shared before, in the Rooted Week. It helps us come back after a rupture.

She told me she felt alone that morning. Unsupported. That I was floating in excitement and work while she held everything else.

And maybe that’s what happened. Maybe she saw her own scattered energy mirrored in me and didn’t like it. That’s how mirrors work.

I don’t want to repeat the whole metaphor again, but I’ve said this before: a wave only knows it’s a wave when it hits something. The rock gives it shape. The structure gives it feeling.

And I wasn’t that structure today.

But I repaired. I sat with it. I apologized for snapping. I listened.

That’s what the repair ritual helps you do. Sit with your own reaction. Process your side. Then share. Without blaming, without defending.

And that brings me to one more thing I want to say, especially to the men reading this.

If you hear something from your partner and you don’t respond emotionally right away, that doesn’t mean you’re unavailable. You’re thinking. You’re integrating. You’re trying to solve something or hold something. That’s not a flaw. It’s just different wiring.

Women share to share. Men often think, “What can I do?” It comes out as silence or logic, but that doesn’t mean you don’t care.

I know I went deep in this one. If any part of this hit home or raised questions, let me know. I’d be happy to share more in a future letter, or even host a call where we go into this together.

This is the kind of work I care about most. Understanding each other better. Leading better. Loving better. Starting with ourselves.

​

Stay rooted,
​Mihai

Wake Up. Live Fully.

​

P.S. If you’ve ever snapped at the wrong moment or felt misunderstood even when you thought you were present, the Repair Ritual might help. It’s a 3-step tool we use after a rupture to reconnect without blame or shutdown. You’ll find it in The Rooted Week. You can grab it here. And if you try it, I’d love to hear how it lands for you.

​

​Unsubscribe · Preferences Aristide Briand, Colmar, France 68000