it’s nothing. I’m fine.

Katie went speed dating. The men were older than advertised. One of them slipped her his number anyway — against the actual rules. And somehow, this became the perfect jumping-off point for everything.

Michelle and Katie — two women in their 40s navigating the wildly weird world of midlife dating — are back for round two, and this episode goes deep. They talk about what it actually means to love yourself before you look for love from someone else (spoiler: it's not just a bumper sticker), how emotional self-regulation is the skill nobody taught us and everybody needs, and why building a secure attachment with yourself is the real foundation under every relationship you'll ever have.

They also roast the apps. Extensively. With joy.

And yes — by the end of this episode, they will have half-seriously proposed starting their own dating service. You'll understand why.

In this episode:

If you're dating after divorce, re-entering the dating scene in your 40s or 50s, healing your attachment patterns, or just trying to figure out who you are before you find someone to be with — pull up a chair.

What happens when a panic attack at the happiest place on earth becomes the beginning of a beautiful friendship? Mary and Kelsey tell the story of the moment that fast-tracked their bond — a full-on meltdown in the middle of Disneyland, and a friend who didn't flinch. Kelsey's calm, steady presence in that moment said everything: you are not too much, and I am not going anywhere.

In this episode, Amy sits down with two platonic best friends who have built something rare — a relationship that actually feels safe. They get honest about their attachment styles (Mary is anxiously attached and married to avoidant Chad; Kelsey is single and avoidantly attached herself), and how that unlikely pairing has become one of the most clarifying relationships in Mary's life. Because sometimes the person who helps you understand your spouse... is your avoidant best friend.

They dig into what emotional regulation actually looks like in real friendship, why co-regulation isn't just a couples thing, and how the people around us can either escalate our nervous system or bring it back down. Spoiler: Kelsey is very good at bringing it back down.

And because these two contain multitudes — they also happen to be adventurous, outdoorsy women who can go from hiking boots to heels without skipping a beat.

This one's for anyone who has found their person in an unexpected place, who has been caught mid-panic by someone who didn't make it weird, or who just needs a reminder that the right friendships can change the way you see everything — including your marriage.

Kelsey Kurtis:

@kelseymkurtis

Kelseykurtis.com

Mary Morris Solomon-

@marygold.tales

www.marygoldtales.com

When your partner does something that bothers you, what's your first instinct? To ask what they meant — or to assume you already know?

Most of us interpret our partner's behavior through the lens of our own personality, our own wiring, our own history. It feels like logic. If I did that, it would mean this — so that must be what it means when they do it. The problem is you are not in a relationship with yourself. You are in a relationship with someone fundamentally different from you, and that filter is going to get you into trouble almost every time.

In this episode, Amy explores one of the most common — and most avoidable — sources of conflict in relationships: the moment we stop being curious about our partner and start assuming we already understand them. Spoiler: we usually don't.

In this Yurtism, you'll explore:

Your partner is not a version of you. Getting that wrong is costly. Getting it right changes everything.

What happens when the person who holds everything together has to let herself be held?

This week, Amy sits down with Jennifer Chipperfield, who, at 53, found herself in the middle of something she couldn't manage, fix, or push through alone — a lymphoma diagnosis that interrupted life as she knew it and asked her to do the one thing that doesn't come naturally to most of us: receive.

Together, long-term friends Amy and Jenni talk about what it actually looks like to go through chemotherapy while still showing up for your kids, your work, and your relationships. About the particular loneliness that can live inside a crowded room full of people who love you. About the moment you stop saying "I'm fine" — and what comes after.

This conversation is about mortality without being morbid, about community without being sentimental, about friendship and how we show up for each other, and about the strange, tender territory on the other side of treatment — where the chemo is done but the uncertainty isn't.

Some people become caregivers gradually. For this week's guest, it's simply always been her life.

Amy sits down with Sonia Nations-Gates who has spent decades as the unwavering center of her son's world — a son with complex medical needs, a father who shows up inconsistently, and a community that shows up intermittently. She is a "forever mother," and once you hear her story, you'll understand exactly why.

This conversation goes to some tender places. They talk about what it costs to manage your child's medical crisis and his father's emotional needs at the same time. About the friendships that couldn't hold the weight of what she carries and the ones that have sustained her. About the husband who said yes to all of it, and what it's meant to finally lean on someone. And about the quiet, persistent question underneath all of it: outside of being a mother and a caregiver, who am I?

This episode is for anyone who has ever loved someone in a way that reorganizes your whole life around them.

In this conversation, they get into:

In this follow-up to our two-part series on childhood sexual abuse and systemic failure, Amy gets real about the aftermath — what healing actually looks like, what it cost to get here, and what will never fully go away.

She opens with something most survivors rarely name: the difference between reporting your story and actually feeling it. For years, Amy could say the words clearly — "I was sexually abused by my father" — without ever going inside them. Recording those episodes cracked something open. This episode is about what came through that crack.

What you'll hear: the ordinary, specific shape of a life well-built. The therapy that went past the narrative and into the body. The relationships that made staying behind the glass impossible. The grief that had to be felt in pieces before it could be carried. And the honest truth that integration doesn't mean resolution — some things stay with you until you die, and making peace with that is its own kind of freedom.

Amy also speaks directly to why she believes women telling their stories — felt, inhabited, out loud — is not just personal healing. It is political resistance. We are at the beginning of a cultural reorientation, away from systems that center power and domination, toward something that actually protects children and vulnerable people. That shift is built, story by story, from exactly this.

If you've been delivering your own story from a safe distance and wondering why it still doesn't feel like enough — this episode is for you.

It's Nothing. I'm Fine. is hosted by Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Amy Prieb, recorded in a yurt in Bellingham, Washington.

If he really loved me, he would just know.

It's one of the most common — and most quietly damaging — beliefs Amy encounters in relationship therapy. The rom-com fantasy that a truly loving partner should be able to read your mind, anticipate your needs, and show up exactly right without being told. It sounds romantic. In practice, it sets your partner up to fail and you up to feel perpetually disappointed.

In this episode, Amy challenges the "if he loved me he would know" myth and offers a reframe that actually works: when you clearly ask for what you want, need, or prefer — and your partner shows up for you — that is love. That is respect. The ask doesn't cancel the gesture. It makes the gesture possible.

In this Yurtism, you'll explore:

Your partner isn't a mind reader. But they might just be someone who loves you enough to show up — if you let them know how.

What if the sideline is actually a relationship battlefield — and nobody gave you the playbook?

This week, Amy sits down with Tessa Mcilraith, Youth Sports Mindset & Culture Coach and founder of Beyond the Grind, to talk about something that hits way closer to home than you might expect: the relationships hiding inside youth sports. We're talking about the ones between athletes and their self-belief, coaches and their teams, parents and the kids they're cheering (and occasionally yelling) for — and how all of it is really just... relationships. Which means it's our territory.

Tessa brings a wildly unique mix of backgrounds to this conversation — school nurse, UW affiliate instructor, community coalition president — and she has seen what happens when the humans in a young athlete's life get the relational pieces right. And what happens when they don't. Spoiler: it goes well beyond wins and losses.

In this episode, we get into:

Whether you've got kids in sports, work with young people, or you're just here because you know that every relationship dynamic you've ever navigated shows up on the field too — this one's for you.

In Part 1, Amy and Josh got honest — painfully honest — about the mistakes they made trying to blend their families. The culture clashes, the unrealistic expectations, the slow and humbling process of learning that combining families doesn't work the way you think it will. If you haven't listened to that episode yet, start there.

This time, they're turning the corner.

Part 2 is about what actually helps. Amy brings her lens as a therapist, and Josh brings his experience as a stepparent in the trenches, as they dig into the questions blended families wrestle with every day: What can you realistically expect from children in a stepfamily — and what expectations will quietly destroy the relationship? How do stepparents build genuine connection without forcing it? How does a couple protect their relationship when they're both exhausted from parenting each other's kids?

Amy and Josh also explore the "insider/outsider" dynamic that researcher Patricia Papernow has written about so compellingly — and what couples can actually do to soften it before it quietly erodes the marriage.

This conversation is honest, specific, and full of hard-won wisdom from two people who failed their way into knowing better. Whether you're in the early chaos of a new blended family or years in and still searching for solid ground, this episode is for you.

Secondary (specific topics covered in the episode):

Long-tail (what people actually type when they're hurting and searching):

What does it really look like to break generational cycles when you're still healing from them yourself?

Nikki and Aric sit down for an honest conversation about raising daughters after leaving high-control religion — and what it takes to parent intentionally when the old scripts are still running in the background.

They talk about unpacking patriarchy in the small, everyday moments (not just the big philosophical conversations), what it means to let their girls feel the full range of emotions when they were raised to dismiss or suppress their own, and how they navigate real-time parenting disagreements as a couple — especially when their daughters are watching.

This episode goes deep on: what repair actually looks like after losing it as a parent, how they're building community and belonging outside of religion, the beliefs that have been surprisingly hard to let go of even when they know they want something different, and the moments that have stopped them in their tracks and reminded them that something is working.

If you're deconstructing, healing generational trauma, or trying to raise kids differently than you were raised — this one is for you.

Topics covered: