This week, Pam dishes about putting too much on her plate, leaving virtually no room for life or for intimacy with her partner. The consequence is that she isn’t emotionally available for her partner as much as he’s like.   Is Pam avoiding an intensity, connection or intimacy? She finds that too much intimacy is emotionally exhausting for her.  Iona weighs in on her intimacy issues too with her partner. Does she sabotage it too? What’s up this week?   The therapists dish on their family of origin experiences to better understand this phenomena. The therapists then dive into the literature about how and why we may sabotage intimacy leaving the listeners with some important info to ponder about and some great takeaways!

This week the therapists dish about their relationships with their women friends and uncover why they’re so meaningful to them.

As much as we love our men, our women friends offer us different gifts, in part, because of the way our brains and biology are hard wired. But, sometimes these friendships can also be difficult and painful to navigate at times. After all, relationships are relationships!

The therapists dive into the literature to understand the importance of these social connections, the biological components, how to navigate through misunderstandings with our friends and finally expand on our definition of what a valuable friendship can be based on.  

This week, the therapists Dish on another relationship in their lives, the one they have with their kids! They struggle with letting their kids sit in emotional hardship while as therapists, they know that that is exactly what is required for growth.

When their kid’s struggles stir up their own anxiety, as is the case with parenting sometimes, all bets are off! It’s really tough for them as it is for other parents. So how do we let them have and grow from their own pain while keeping our own anxiety in check?

The therapists Dive into literature about enmeshment, look at their own family of origin dynamics and study the literature on feeling feelings to help them muddle through this murky place.

Today Pam and Iona are dishing about being really seen by their men, I mean really seen...and not just the parts of themselves that they’ve vetted as being loveable and worthy!

They’re talking about the parts of themselves that they deem unlovable and ugly. We all have parts of ourselves that make us want to cringe and hide, but as the therapists realize, true intimacy requires sharing it all, good and bad. Where did we learn that parts of ourselves are unlovable and must therefore be hidden?

Is it possible to be loved by our partners unconditionally or is that just a ‘pipe dream’? Learn how to recognize disowned parts of self and make friends with them so you can have the closeness you crave!

This week, Iona dishes on how problematic it can be to try to communicate with her man who is super literal and how it can throw them into their cycle.   Pam chimes in with similar issues about her guy. We just want to be understood, why is that so hard? Is this a gender thing? It seems like mens’ brains are wired like separate little boxes while womens’ brains are wired more like interconnected super highways. Most women can multitask while most men cannot. Men are typically more thoughtful about processing while women are quicker. What gives? The therapists dive into the literature on brain research and learn there are basic physiological differences in the wiring, processing and structures of the brains of men and women.    The key take away is that no one is better or worse, we’re just different from each other and understanding this fact is a key in learning to navigate through with compassion, trust and curiosity.

This week the therapists dish and dive on the theme of support. What is it? What isn’t it? Pam realizes that her definition of support is different from her partner’s and realizes better why he misses the mark sometimes and she doesn’t always get what she expects. Darn those buried unspoken expectations!

Iona and her partner have already talked about exactly what she means when she tells her partner that she needs his support, but that’s been a lot of work to accomplish! Support and other such broad terms in relationships can be very subjective, which means there’s likely to be disappointment in store if your partner can’t read your mind and doesn’t just instinctively give it the way you expect it.

Remember in relationships, nothing is obvious! Define it and it will come! The therapists then dive into the literature on this theme and come up with seven great examples of the type of support that you may be looking for, so you can begin those conversations,  avoid those nasty disappointments and feel closer and more supported by your partner.

Pam dishes on her typical negative pattern of interaction with her guy when they are not getting along. Iona chimes in with own her story about her cycle with her partner.  As it turns out, most couples have a typical negative style of interacting, that regardless of the content, seems to rear its ugly head in the exact same way every time you disagree.

The therapists then dive into the Emotionally Focused literature to better understand this phenomena and to teach their listeners how to identify, name and organize their own cycles.

The ultimate goals are to limit the damage it does to your relationship and to learn how to navigate through it to come out the other end with a closer and deeper understanding of both your own and your partner’s attachment needs and feelings.

This week the therapists dish about bidding for connection with their partners and why its so important. What is a bid for connection? Why is it so important? The therapists offer interesting statistics about couples who bid for connection most often and how their relationships tend to be more successful.

They also discuss how bids for connection can get missed and what the consequences are when this happens. Learn how to bid for connection effectively in a way that your partner can receive it. Learn that  bidding effectively- matching your preferred style of bidding with your partner’s preferred style of receiving, actually puts money in your relationship’s “emotional bank account” making you less likely to go into the “red” when navigating difficult times.

It’s a serious week this week- can we really expect a marriage to fulfill all of our needs? Iona realizes that she has allot of needs that she expects Steve to fill and wonders if this is fair to him. Pam dishes about her friend who couldn’t get her needs met from three separate men at the same time!

The therapists realize it’s important to boil down what the truly essential needs are in your relationship. Its also really important to know yourself well so you can share your needs with your partner, after all, he/she can't read your mind!

To complicate things further, the one stop shop changes over time as we grow. The therapists dive on the original function of marriage, amongst other notions and come up with a few great take-aways to try in your own relationship.

The therapists discuss unrealistic expectations in relationships and the importance of moving them into longings so as to minimize anger. Expectations can be toxic and deadly to relationships because they are often unspoken, sometimes untrue and can build and create big feelings and resentment.

Iona talks about her impossible expectations of Steve and how unattainable they really are. Do we expect our partner to act as if they are our mothers- meeting each and every one of our needs perfectly??

The therapists then dive into some great strategies for changing expectations into longings and some other goodies for navigating through these treacherous waters