The Reality Between Us

We talk a lot about compatibility in relationships. Do we have the same values? Do we want the same things? Do we enjoy being around each other? But what about the way our minds work? Or how much we're growing as people? I think there are some really important parts of compatibility that we don't give nearly enough attention to, and sometimes those are the very things affecting why a relationship doesn't feel quite right.

Have you ever been in a relationship where you just couldn't seem to connect with someone in certain ways? Maybe you couldn't have the kinds of conversations you wanted to have, or you started noticing that you and the other person were growing in very different directions. And sometimes you're both growing, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're growing together. These things can affect friendships, family relationships, and romantic partnerships, and I think they're worth paying more attention to.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why intellectual capacity and personal growth are often overlooked aspects of relationship compatibility.
• How differences in the way people think, learn, and engage with ideas can affect connection and intimacy.
• What happens when two people grow at different rates, even when both are committed to personal growth.
• Why caring about someone doesn't necessarily mean you can connect with them in all the ways that matter to you.

“There are people in the world that if you can't stimulate my intelligence, nothing else is going to be stimulated.”

“One person's trajectory of growth or rate of growth can outpace the other in such a way that they're not going to be compatible.”

“...if I don't say anything about the ways that I'm impacted, now I'm self-abandoning, or if I'm going to say something so it doesn't happen again, now I'm teaching.”

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Join me over on Substack at The Better Question for more of what I'm thinking about and exploring.

Last week I published When Shame Hides in Plain Sight, which builds on some of what I discussed in the podcast episode Under the Influence of Shame. I explore how shame doesn't always look the way we expect it to, and how it can show up in the very behaviors we assume mean someone doesn't feel shame at all.

If you're interested, head over and read it. While you're there, subscribe or consider becoming a paid subscriber to support my work.

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To get in touch about the show: [email protected]

Thank you for listening to The Reality Between Us.

Sometimes we find ourselves in relationships that we know aren't good for us, but we can't seem to leave. We might finally decide we've had enough, walk away, and somehow end up right back where we started. It's easy to question ourselves when this happens. "Why do I keep going back? Why can't I just leave?" But there can be a lot more happening beneath the surface than we realize.

What if part of the reason it's so hard to leave is that the relationship feels familiar? Even when we recognize that we're being harmed, our attachment to someone, the ways we've learned to find safety, and the relationship dynamics we grew up with can all influence what we do next. And sometimes we're so focused on understanding why someone keeps hurting us that we lose sight of what being in that relationship is actually doing to us.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why recognizing harm doesn't necessarily make it easier to leave a relationship.
• How childhood experiences shape what feels familiar, normal, and safe in adult relationships.
• The ways attraction, attachment, and emotional regulation can keep us connected to harmful relationships.
• Why understanding someone's harmful behavior can distract us from recognizing and responding to its impact on us.

“Why did they do that? As if it changes what is actually being done to you. It changes the impact of how they're affecting you. And it doesn't.”

“Intensity will bond you quickly before you have the awareness and the time to actually see how somebody maneuvers in life situations.”

“But it's not your fault. And despite it not being your fault, it is your responsibility.”

If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who might need to hear it.

Join me over on Substack at The Better Question for more of what I'm thinking about and exploring.

To get in touch about the show: [email protected]

Thank you for listening to The Reality Between Us.

We all have blind spots, and sometimes the person we believe ourselves to be isn't the person we're actually demonstrating ourselves to be. We may genuinely believe we're showing up in certain ways without recognizing that our behavior tells a different story.

That difference matters in relationships. When our understanding of ourselves doesn't align with how we actually behave, it can affect how others experience us and whether they can trust and depend on us. Becoming more aware of those inconsistencies gives us an opportunity to develop greater coherence between who we believe we are and how we show up.

In this episode, we explore:

• How we can engage in unhealthy or manipulative behaviors without recognizing what we're doing.
• The difference between who we believe ourselves to be and how we actually show up in relationships.
• Why inconsistencies between our words and actions can affect how others experience and trust us.
• The aspirational self and how we can identify with qualities we haven't yet developed through our behavior.
• What it takes to become more internally coherent and consistent across our relationships.

“Do you really know the idea you have of how you show up in a relationship and the reality of how you show up in a relationship?”

“Many times we want to see ourselves in a certain way but we have not formed the skills and the practice to actually maneuver in that way yet.”

“The behavior and the gap is revealing something and it is giving a person a story about us even if we have a different story about us.”

“There is great satisfaction in knowing that who you are is who you are no matter where you are, no matter who you're with, no matter what situation comes up.”

If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who might need to hear it.

Join me over on Substack at The Better Question and read The Fallacy of the Aspirational Self for a deeper dive of this concept. https://ajarutledge.substack.com/

To get in touch about the show: [email protected]

Thank you for listening to The Reality Between Us.

Curiosity impacts the way we experience ourselves and the people we're in relationship with. But when we believe we already know someone, we can stop asking questions and start relating to the version of them we've created in our minds, rather than who they actually are today.

The same can happen with ourselves. We accept our thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors as simply who we are, without questioning where they came from or whether they still fit. Curiosity gives us an opportunity to question those assumptions and better understand ourselves and others.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why curiosity matters in continuing to get to know people as they grow and change.
• The ways our assumptions about someone can prevent us from seeing who they actually are.
• What curiosity about our own thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors can reveal about ourselves.
• The gap between how we believe we show up in relationships and how others actually experience us.
• How asking questions during disagreements can create shared understanding, even when we don't agree.

“... if that's how you've always done it, how do you give yourself an opportunity to do it differently?”

“Just because we believe we show up certain ways in relationships does not mean that's how we actually show up. And that does not mean that that is how somebody experiences us showing up.”

“Do you like the idea of the person? Do you like what this person does for you? Do you like what they bring into your life? Do you like how they make you feel or do you like them?”

“Safety doesn't come because we agree about everything. It comes because we're feeling understood. I don't have to agree with where you landed but I can understand how you got there.”

If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who might need to hear it.

Join me over on Substack at The Better Question for more of what I'm thinking about and exploring. https://ajarutledge.substack.com/

To get in touch about the show: [email protected].

How well we know ourselves affects how we show up in every relationship we’re in. Our moods, patterns, needs, expectations, capacity, and the things we haven’t worked through all come into our relationships with us. When we don’t understand those things about ourselves, we may not recognize what we’re bringing into our relationships or how it’s affecting the people around us.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why the relationship we have with ourselves matters in the relationships we have with other people.
• How little we may consider ourselves when making major relational decisions.
• What happens when we don’t recognize our own moods, reactions, and patterns.
• Why changing the person or environment doesn’t necessarily change a pattern we’re carrying with us.
• What it means to ask other people for things we may not know how to offer them or ourselves.

“How are we being in relationship with others when we’re ignoring the relationship with self?”

“How can you sit with somebody else’s thoughts if you’re terrified to sit with your own thoughts?”

“Getting to know ourselves, observing ourselves, being honest about what we do or what the patterns in our lives are or how we maneuver is critical for, one, us to have the life we say we want, and then, two, to be a person in relationship that is healthy with others.”

“There’s so many people out here who say they want things from their parents, they want things from a partner, they want things from other people that they themselves have no ability to offer. The audacity. Why should you expect somebody to offer something to you that you can’t offer to them? Or even, how about, can you offer it to yourself?” t

If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who might need to hear it.

Join me over on Substack at The Better Question for more of what I’m thinking about and exploring. https://ajarutledge.substack.com/

To get in touch about the show: [email protected]

Thank you for listening to The Reality Between Us.

Self-trust isn’t something we develop once and never have to think about again. It’s an ongoing practice, and sometimes the places where we aren’t trusting ourselves aren’t immediately obvious.

We can see what is happening clearly, know how something is affecting us, and still override what we know by searching for more information, more understanding, or another explanation. We can also practice self-trust in the smallest everyday moments by responding to what we know we need instead of continually ignoring or questioning ourselves.

The more we practice responding to what we know, the more self-trust becomes something we actually move from rather than something we simply believe we have.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why self-trust is something we continue to practice, even after we’ve worked to develop it.
• How a lack of self-trust can show up in ways we may not immediately recognize.
• Why seeking more understanding can sometimes become a way of overriding what we already know.
• How responding to small signals from ourselves can help us practice self-trust.
• Why trusting ourselves includes being willing to act on what we know, even when other people see things differently.

If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who might need to hear it.

Join me over on Substack at The Better Question for more of what I’m thinking about and exploring: The Better Question

To get in touch about the show: [email protected]

Thank you for listening to The Reality Between Us.

Shame can be shaping our lives without us even realizing it’s there. Unlike feelings we can easily recognize, shame can sit underneath our reactions, our beliefs about ourselves, and the way we interpret what is happening around us.

It can turn a mistake into evidence that something is wrong with us. It can change what we hear when someone brings a problem to us. And it can influence our relationships, the things we allow ourselves to receive, and even the things we say we want.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why shame can be difficult to recognize even when it is having a significant impact on our lives.
• How shame can become connected to other emotions and experiences.
• How shame can influence self-sabotage and the things we believe we deserve.
• Why shame can change how we hear and respond to other people in our relationships.
• How self-compassion and questioning our own perceptions can begin to interrupt shame.

“Shame is like one of those emotions that you really don’t know it’s coming into play. You really don’t understand the impact that it’s having on you.”

“Shame is what creates this perception of all-encompassing versus this one little issue that somebody addressed.”

“When you can question what you perceive reality to be, to quote-unquote fact check your reality, you can see if what you’re perceiving is adding up to.”

“Shame can direct your whole life.”

• Healing the Shame That Binds You by John Bradshaw
• Embracing Shame: How to Stop Resisting Shame and Turn It into a Powerful Ally by Bret Lyon & Sheila Rubin
• Center for Healing Shame founded by Bret Lyon & Sheila Rubin

If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who might need to hear it.

Join me over on Substack at The Better Question for more of what I’m thinking about and exploring: The Better Question

To get in touch about the show: [email protected]

Thank you for listening to The Reality Between Us.

We can avoid our feelings, refuse to talk about them, or convince ourselves they aren't affecting us. But that doesn't mean they've disappeared. Our feelings are still showing up in how we behave, how we respond to other people, and what happens between us in our relationships.

Feelings also give us information. And when we don't take the time to understand what they're telling us, we can end up responding to the person in front of us for something that isn't entirely about them.

• Why avoiding or denying our feelings doesn't stop them from affecting our relationships.
• How feelings can give us information about what's happening within us.
• Why being unable to sit with our own feelings can make it difficult to hold space for someone else's.
• How trying to fix, minimize, or move someone through a feeling can sometimes be about our own discomfort with what they're feeling.
• Why the person who triggers a feeling isn't always the person the feeling is actually about.

If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who might need to hear it.

Join me over on Substack at The Better Question for more of what I’m thinking about and exploring. https://ajarutledge.substack.com/

To get in touch about the show: [email protected]

Thank you for listening to The Reality Between Us.

Attachment styles have become part of how we talk about relationships. We hear about anxious attachment, avoidant attachment, secure attachment, and often use those labels to explain why someone behaves the way they do.

But attachment is more complicated than a label or what happened between us and one primary caregiver. Our nervous systems learn how to find safety within much larger environments, and those adaptations can continue operating beneath our awareness, shaping not only how we move through relationships but what happens between us and the people we're in them with.

In this episode, we explore:

• What attachment styles are and how they operate at a nervous-system level.
• How our environments, experiences, social conditioning, and other influences can shape the way we learn to attach.
• How different attachment styles develop around what our nervous systems have learned about safety and connection.
• Why behaviors that look similar on the surface can come from very different places underneath.
• How different attachment patterns can interact with one another and create relational cycles that are difficult to recognize when we don't know what's happening.

Episode Thoughts to Sit With

“It's also about how the child receives it and what your nervous system learns is the easiest, fastest way to get to what feels safe for you. That doesn't mean that's what is safe. That is not the same thing as what, in a securely attached person, would deem as safe. It's saying what is safe for you.”

“There’s this really false binary narrative out there that says if your primary caregiver was horrible and critical and this and that, then you have this attachment style. And it’s not that simple. It’s not that black and white.”

“Many times what is happening is it's a cycle that something in their attachment style triggers something in your attachment style, which makes you escalate, which then makes them escalate to pulling back, and now it's this whole big thing where we just keep escalating. So it's playing off of each other.”

Resources / Further Reading

I don't usually include resources with episodes, but these are a few of the books that have informed some of the connections I'm making here. They explore different pieces of how our early experiences, environments, nervous systems, culture, shame, and other influences can shape us. They aren't necessarily talking about attachment in the same way I'm connecting these ideas here, but they offer more context for some of what I'm drawing from in this conversation.

• Decolonizing Therapy by Jennifer Mullan, PsyD
• The Orchid and the Dandelion by W. Thomas Boyce, MD
• Healing the Shame That Binds You by John Bradshaw

If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who might need to hear it.

To connect, ask a question, or share your thoughts, email: [email protected].

Thank you for listening to The Reality Between Us.

Safety is one of those things we think we understand. We know what it means to be physically safe, and we may even know what emotional or psychological safety is supposed to look like. But knowing what safety is and actually feeling safe aren't always the same thing.

Our experiences teach our nervous systems what to recognize as familiar, and sometimes what feels familiar isn't actually safe. Those experiences can shape the environments we're drawn to, how we respond to the people around us, and even which versions of ourselves are available in different relationships.

In this episode, we explore:

• The difference between external safety and the safety we create within ourselves.
• How our early environments shape what our nervous systems learn to recognize as safety.
• Why calm and steadiness can feel unsafe when we're accustomed to chaos or intensity.
• How our own nervous system state can shape the environment we create for our children and other people around us.
• Why the same person can show up very differently depending on how safe they feel in a relationship.
• How we can mistake someone's protective behavior for simply being who they are.

Episode Thoughts to Sit With

“Your brain is always going to find what it knows. That doesn’t mean it’s what’s best. It’s just what it knows. And your nervous system is going to attune to what it knows until you do the work to teach it something new.”

“It’s wild how we perceive safety on a level that we are not even fully aware of. And how much that if we are in an environment that is quote-unquote not safe to us, we will go recreate our safety, or we will leave that environment to go find what is comfortable.”

“Safety dictates how you show up. And so sometimes, you know, we want to be quick to be like, ‘Oh, this person has the attitude’ or ‘Every time they come over here, they’re super closed off.’ And we think that’s them. And sometimes it is, but also there’s times where it’s you. It’s you who has created an environment where they don’t feel safe. And so they show up in a way that’s protective. That’s not who they are all the time. That’s not how they move through the world. That’s not how they are when they feel safe.”

If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who might need to hear it.

To connect, ask a question, or share your thoughts, email: [email protected].

Thank you for listening to The Reality Between Us.