Why Does My Partner

If your partner tends to shut down in the middle of an argument, the reason why is simple.  However, often the simplest things are also the most complicated. This week, let’s dig into the varied reas…

Shutdowns can look and feel different for each of us.  Sometimes deep and immediate, sometimes a slow drip toward isolation. Numbness, wordlessness, sometimes seething, sometimes out-of-body.  We all…

Dear listeners, we have a little surprise for you while we’re in between seasons.  We have created a 3-part series on “shut-downs” in relationships and will roll out segments of the series over the c…

Don’t we all just want to hear a little good news, a little “thank you”, or get a high-five once in a while? Why do so many of us focus on what's not working, rather than what is? Rounding out season…

Asking your partner about what happened in their therapy session is, regardless of their reason, basically an ask for more vulnerability.  It’s normal for partners to be interested in what’s going on…

If you’ve been with your partner for a while, you’ve probably already noticed that they’re not quite the same person they were when you first fell for them.  They might even seem like a completely di…

This week’s episode is a companion to last week’s conversation, where we talked about why our partners might not share when they’re upset.  This week, a listener asks: Why doesn’t my partner try to u…

The thing about conflict is that very few of us were given a model of how to work through it in an effective or healthy way.  Some of us grew up in a home where conflict just didn’t happen, and so we…

Is adult love conditional?  This is one of those deeper questions we all encounter at some point in our lives.  It’s one that we all might have our own answer to, but we don’t have to agree on a shar…

Perhaps one of the loneliest existential questions we can ask is whether or not we can ever truly be known by someone.  There’s grief in there, when we realize that this desire can never be fully met…

This week, a listener asks, “When we fight, why does my partner think I’m useless, no good, unhealthy?”  When you and your partner fight, you might have your own list of adjectives that come to mind.…

We’ve all likely said something hurtful out of anger to someone we love at some point in our lives.  There’s a slew of reasons why we do it, but “because it’s the truth” is only sometimes one of them…

We believe everyone who's ever been in a relationship has experienced this question! Maybe it's a lack of observation about the dynamics between you. Maybe they do know, but you don't know that they …

When it comes to the topic of interjecting or cutting someone off in a conversation, we all know which side we tend to fall on.  Some of us are serial cutter-offers.  Some of us are the ones getting …

This week’s question “Why does my partner refuse to apologize?” is a big one.  Partly because we’ve all found ourselves in the position of not wanting or outright refusing to apologize to someone.  W…

Why is it so hard to see when we are being hypocritical about something?  Some say that humans are contradictory by nature, so perhaps we are all hypocritical from time to time.  It’s just hard to se…

Sometimes in a relationship, one of us thinks we need to fix the other.  There are a few moving parts here.  In terms of social conditioning, often women learn that this is how they get what they nee…

This week, find out what we mean when we say sometimes you just “can’t magic the milk”.  Comfort means different things to different people.  In this episode, we discuss the many nuanced reasons why …

This week, Jules, Vickey and Rebecca talk about what’s really going on when we or our partners can’t admit wrongdoing.  It turns out that we all have unique, complex personal histories with what happ…

What is sex about?  What is it for?  Many things, of course—pleasure and connection just being two of them.  So what happens when there is an expectation or a mismatch in preferences?  Can we talk ab…