Why Does My Partner

Welcome back to the WDMP podcast. Today’s question brought up a lot of feelings in us. More than anything, we want to offer our support and compassion to this listener, and any of you out there, who are feeling iced out of your relationship like this, whose partners react to conflict by threatening to leave or shutting them out for weeks at a time.

We also have compassion for the person doing this sort of thing to their partner, for the pain they’re feeling, and the stuckness they must be experiencing. We know that so often, this is something that’s been learned over many years, from childhood, from one’s family and culture.

In this episode, discuss some of the ways that someone might end up believing that this is their only option, but we also turn it around and ask, “What are you hoping for here? And have you looked at the cost? Can you find the bravery to try another way?

Quotes:

“If you have a dynamic where your partner is afraid that you're going to leave, you're basically in relationship with yourself.”

This episode is brought to you by our amazing sponsor, The Academy of Therapy Wisdom. Jules is one of their many educators, and because you listen to us, the Therapy Wisdom team is offering a secret code to give you free access to one of Jules' 1 hour Wise Conversations. Just visit therapywisdom.com and use the discount code "WDMP."

Jules' new book is out now! Buy Setting Boundaries that Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered wherever books are sold.

Share your questions with us at whydoesmypartner.com/contact

If you want to dive in deeper, consider attending our upcoming workshops. Learn more at whydoesmypartner.com/events

When we talk about repair, we’re talking about a whole lot more than saying you’re sorry. Sometimes jumping to apologize right away can actually be counterproductive. On the other hand, letting something stay unresolved in a relationship leads to festering hurt and resentment. With today’s listener question, we talk about what happens when one person wants to engage in repair after a conflict, and the other person just isn’t ready to go there.

Plus, we’re now officially celebrating 100 episodes of WDMP! We’re so grateful to each and every one of you who have listened, submitted questions, left reviews, participated in workshops, and in every other way supported us over the past 3+ years of making this show. Here’s to the next hundred!

Love,

Rebecca, Vickey, Jules, & Al

Quotes:

“If I initiate a repair and they are not ready to receive that repair, am I going to be okay? If the answer to that is “no,” then I'm not ready to initiate a repair, I'm trying to control [their] behavior.”

“…out of connection with myself [is] out of connection with you.”

This episode is brought to you by our amazing sponsor, The Academy of Therapy Wisdom. Jules is one of their many educators, and because you listen to us, the Therapy Wisdom team is offering a secret code to give you free access to one of Jules' 1 hour Wise Conversations. Just visit therapywisdom.com and use the discount code "WDMP."

Jules' new book is out now! Buy Setting Boundaries that Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered wherever books are sold.

Share your questions with us at whydoesmypartner.com/contact

If you want to dive in deeper, consider attending our upcoming workshops. Learnmore at whydoesmypartner.com/events

Today’s listener question comes from a partner in a neurodiverse couple, asking us to talk about navigating differences when one partner has neurological differences like Autism or ADHD, and the other is “neurotypical.”

Oh boy do we have thoughts and feelings about this! We end up spending a lot of time sharing how neurodiversity impacts our own lives, helping us discover that it’s not about one partner being different, but about accepting the reality that we’re different from each other. Inside of that, we find a lot of unspoken expectations, fears, and hurts, but…we also find a whole lot of amazing opportunities.

Quotes:

Are you expecting that what closeness feels like to you is the same as what it feels like to me?

We can't have unspoken expectations and think we're going to meet each other in the same place.

How do we have a conversation that’s less about “you’re different,” and more about “we’re different?

Not the same doesn't mean…rejection…it means not the same.



This episode is brought to you by our amazing sponsor, The Academy of Therapy Wisdom. Jules is one of their many educators, and because you listen to us, the Therapy Wisdom team is offering a secret code to give you free access to one of Jules' 1 hour Wise Conversations. Just visit therapywisdom.com and use the discount code "WDMP."

Jules' new book is out now! Buy Setting Boundaries that Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered wherever books are sold.

Share your questions with us at whydoesmypartner.com/contact

If you want to dive in deeper, consider attending our upcoming workshops. Learn more at whydoesmypartner.com/events

Our brains are taking in an incredible 11 million bits of information per second! Thank goodness we’ve got our salience neural network - system of neural connections -- that filters all of that down to an amount we can actually take in and process! But that also means that there’s actually a whole lot going around us that we never perceive on a conscious level. So how do our brains decide what to take in or not? What happens when your partner’s salience network isn’t taking in exactly the same things as yours? It’s episode 2 of season 6 of the Why Does My Partner Podcast, enjoy!

Quotes:

"What is emotionally relevant to you is [most likely] different than what's emotionally relevant to your partner…so if you want to change it, you need to join each other and make it emotionally salient for both of you."

This episode is brought to you by Therapy Wisdom.

Jules' new book is out now! Buy Setting Boundaries that Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered wherever books are sold.

Share your questions with us at whydoesmypartner.com/contact

If you want to dive in deeper, consider attending our upcoming workshops. Learn more at whydoesmypartner.com/events

Here we are in season 6 of the Why Does My Partner podcast! We want to start out with a question we’ve been getting a lot, especially since our boundary mini-series (go back and give that a listen now if you haven’t already!). It goes something like this:

“I get that practicing boundaries means working to not personalize others’ actions, but also…isn’t it fair to ask them not to do something that doesn’t feel loving to me?”

Of course, it’s fair! Take a listen to this episode to hear our thoughts on just that, as well as how practicing your psychological boundaries can actually mean speaking up for yourself more, not less, plus much, much more!

Don’t forget to subscribe to WDMP on your favorite podcast app to stay up to date with the rest of season 6!

Quotes:

Your psychological boundary helps you figure out what you're not okay with…and [helps you have] relationally cleaner conversation about the thing you don't like.

Setting a boundary is about adding protection, not punishment.

I don’t need to make you more like me to be okay.

I have worth just for being who I am. And I get to speak for that because if I don't, who's gonna?

This episode is brought to you by Therapy Wisdom.

Jules' new book is out now! Buy Setting Boundaries that Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered wherever books are sold.

Share your questions with us at whydoesmypartner.com/contact

If you want to dive in deeper, consider attending our upcoming workshops. Learn more at whydoesmypartner.com/events

For this final episode of our bonus series on boundaries, our listener question is about struggling to say no to physical touch from their partner when they don’t feel like it, and wondering “is there something wrong with me when I want space?”

No, dear listener, there’s nothing wrong with you, and that goes for anyone listening who’s ever felt the same. It’s okay to want space sometimes, it’s okay to express what kind of touch does or doesn’t feel good to you, and more than anything, it’s ok to talk about these things.

So many of us have come from homes and cultures where we were never taught how to say no or have had experiences where we wanted to say no and couldn’t. When that history gets carried into our relationships, it can show up as unspoken feelings, resentment, and shame that gets in the way of having those open conversations that make sure there is real, enthusiastic consent.

We’re so glad that you’ve stuck with us through this extra-special bonus series, and we hope that in listening, you’re inspired to explore your own boundaries with compassion, and bravery. We also hope that we’ve inspired you to get you’re on copy of Setting Boundaries that Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered, written by our very own Jules Shore! It’s available now for pre-order, and if you liked what you’ve heard here, we just know you’re going to love this too.

Finally, we’d like to leave you with Andrea Gibson poem that Rebecca quotes in the episode:

let your

heart break



so your spirit

doesn’t.

Quotes:

 You live in your body and you’re the only one who can say what feels okay and not okay for your body. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with you for saying no.

You don’t get to set boundaries and not disappoint people. That’s not a thing.

Everyone assumes disappointment is bad…what if it’s not?

Disappointment sucks…but it’s not useless.

Say yes to disappointment, not because it’s good or bad, but because it’s part of life.

This episode is brought to you by Therapy Wisdom.

Share your questions with us at whydoesmypartner.com/contact

If you want to dive in deeper, consider attending our upcoming workshops. Learn more at whydoesmypartner.com/events

Y’all, this episode is jam packed. We’ve got not one but TWO questions from listeners that get us diving straight into you-turns, compassion practices, times out and times in, and so, so much more. Both questions start similarly: “why does my partner push me until I…” but once we scratch the surface, it’s not too long before we discover the real question: “When I feel pushed, why do I end up acting in ways that don’t feel good to me?”

That’s what boundaries are all about, folks. Keep listening for some practical tools that will help you develop the brain space to accept that your partner is not always going to behave in the way you want them to, and that’s just not something you’re going to be able to control. But when you learn to pause and treat yourself with compassion instead of harshness, you’ll start to find the space to make choices that allow you to live up to the version of yourself that you want to be.

Today’s episode as well as this entire bonus series is based on and inspired by Jules’ new book, Setting Boundaries that Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered, available on December 1st at all major booksellers. Pre-order your copy now!

Quotes:

“Boundaries are not about what the other person is doing. They're about what you do.”

“Containing boundaries help us to behave in ways that are in sync with our integrity.”

“Compassion [is knowing] that most of us did not get taught anything about how to pause in real time between what we feel and what we do.”

“Taking care of you is taking care of us.”

Plus this quote, which we mention in the episode, attributed to Viktor Frankl:

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

This episode is brought to you by our amazing sponsor The Academy of Therapy Wisdom. Jules is one of their many amazing educators. And because you listen to us, the Therapy Wisdom team is offering a secret code to give you free access to one of Jules' 1 hour Wise Conversations use the ‘WDMP’ discount code at check out.

Share your questions with us at whydoesmypartner.com/contact

If you want to dive in deeper, consider registering for our online Essential Skills Relationship Bootcamp. Open to individuals, couples and therapists. Learn more at whydoesmypartner.com/events

This podcast is not a substitute for therapy with a licensed provider.

This is a really special episode of WDMP to share with you! Our regular listeners know that we don’t shy away from sharing examples of our own relationship work on the show, but today Vickey takes it even further, signing herself up to do some psychological boundary work of her own right here, on air. As you follow along with Vickey, you’ll learn how to discern what really is or isn’t about you in a conflict, as well as how to listen with acceptance, allowing and valuing your partner having their own feelings and process, without feeling threatened or hurt.

These exercises are based on Jules’ new book Setting Boundaries that Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered, available now for pre-order at all major booksellers. We’re also so grateful to Vickey for bravely sharing her process, and of course a HUGE thanks to her husband, Gabe, who also gave his blessing to share this with you, our listeners, even though he wasn’t there to record.

Finally, join us next week when we talk about containing boundaries!

Quotes:

“If somebody is experiencing disappointment or anger, even in response to a very specific thing you did, that does not mean it’s entirely about you.”

"A psychological boundary is the space between your mind and my mind where it’s totally possible for us to feel very differently…and have it be okay and safe enough for us to stay in connection."

This episode is brought to you by Therapy Wisdom.

Share your questions with us at whydoesmypartner.com/contact

If you want to dive in deeper, consider attending our upcoming workshops. Learn more at whydoesmypartner.com/events

It’s episode 2 of our mini-series on boundaries, and we’ve got a listener question that we think a lot of our listeners are going to relate to. Have you ever been this person? You told your partner that you wanted something from them, and then they just don’t do it. You’re upset, of course, because they didn’t respect your boundaries! You communicated them clearly enough, so they should have to follow through, right?

…right?

Here’s the thing. Boundaries aren’t about getting other people to do what you want. Actually, what they are about is deciding what you’re going to do when something happens that you don’t like, and then sticking to it. In this episode, we continue our discussion of Jules’ 6 steps for boundary setting with some guidance on communicating your needs and wants and how to create your plan for setting an external boundary. If you haven’t already, check out episode 1 on the mini-series to get caught up on our introduction to boundary-setting, and stay tuned for next week’s episode. We’ll be getting into what happens when boundaries are set, and how to deal with all of the feelings that come up, whether you’re the one setting the boundaries or the one having boundaries communicated to you.  

Quotes:

Boundaries are self-worth in action. You have to see the value of you to see that there’s something worth protecting.

A healthy boundary…is one that’s flexible and honors your truth.

The more protected I am, the more integrated my brain stays, the more relational I can be with you.

This episode is brought to you by Therapy Wisdom.

Share your questions with us at whydoesmypartner.com/contact

If you want to dive in deeper, consider attending our upcoming workshops. Learn more at whydoesmypartner.com/events

Guess what, Jules wrote a book! It’s called Setting Boundaries that Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered, and to celebrate, we’re doing a five-part mini-series all about setting and maintaining boundaries that actually work. In this episode, Jules talks us through her 6 steps for setting external boundaries, or the boundaries that communicate to others what is and is not ok for you, the boundary setter. Join us to hear about why boundary setting is really all about you, not the other person, and stay tuned for more in episode 2, out next week.

Also, don’t forget to pre-order Setting Boundaries that Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered, available December 1st, 2023 at bookstores everywhere.

Quotes:

“What’s actually really hard is not to name what we want, but to deal with the response to naming what we want.”

“When it comes to control, the only person you get to control is you.”

“A boundary is not about getting somebody else to do anything. It’s actually about ‘what are you going to do?’”

This episode is brought to you by Therapy Wisdom.

Share your questions with us at whydoesmypartner.com/contact

If you want to dive in deeper, consider attending our upcoming workshops. Learn more at whydoesmypartner.com/events