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 reasons underneath the simple surface layer and discuss what can be done about it.  Shutting down can become embedded in the relational dance between us and our partners, a spiraling chain of events in which you both circle back on repeat patterns while traveling forward at the same time.  But with some tracking and self-awareness, you can begin to change the steps of your dance and create something new.  

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.

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 shut down sometimes, even if it isn’t our usual modus operandi.  But why do they happen in the first place?  And what can we do about them?  It all starts with noticing.  In Part One of our series on shutdowns, we talk about trauma responses in the body and our developing brain throughout the life cycle—it turns out our brains don’t stop developing after adolescence.  We share our personal experiences with shutting down and—surprise!—they’re very different from each other.  We talk about self-soothing versus coregulation.  We ask: When one of us is shutting down, what would be a relationally healthy thing to do?  The ultimate goal is always in undoing the aloneness.

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.

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 course of the next few weeks.  

To start, this week, we have an introduction for you on shut-downs:  We discuss why shutting down during hard conversations might be the worst thing you can do in a relationship over the long term.  We discuss different types of shutting down (perhaps one or all of them will sound familiar?) And, because shutting down is so common in relationships and not even therapists are immune, we share how shutting down shows up for each of us in our relationships.  

Join us now and stay tuned for more, as we take this conversation deeper discussing different facets and instances for when we or our partners shut down and what we can do about it.

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.

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 two, Rebecca, Vickey and Jules discuss one of their most favorite relational skills—cherishing. In this episode, you'll learn how to do it, when to do it (hint: often and in the moment!), and why it's so important for all of the relationships in your life.  You'll also learn why it can be very hard for many of us to even notice what's good in our relationships, let alone celebrate what's good.  But don't worry, this episode has got tips for how to change that too.  This brings us to the end of the season, but we leave you with some cherishing challenges to try. Test one out and watch for shifts big and small.

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.

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 for the other.  Often we just want to know that one of us isn’t outgrowing the other.  The potential for boundary crossings is great here, but so is the potential for relational growth as a couple.  This week, Rebecca, Jules and Vickey discuss the nuanced differences between curiosity and a need for control, how and why you should have a meta conversation around this, and the key to ensuring you grow together as a couple rather than growing apart.

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.

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 different person from the one you met so long ago.  So where did they go?  Because you know them so intimately, you can still kind of track remnants in their face or get a brief flicker of that former self in an expression, a gesture, a laugh.  But, seriously, what’s going on here?  Who is this person now and what happened to the one they were before this?  And the one before that?  Of course the answer is simple, but the science behind it is fascinating.  Listen in to learn more about how and why we change, plus a super simple trick you can try to rewire your nervous system for better self esteem.  By the end, you’ll understand why Jules says, “It’s good rain!”

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 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 understand when I’m upset?  What it ultimately boils down to is listening, really listening, is actually really hard! Vickey, Rebecca and Jules break this all down for you to explain what the goal of listening actually is, how to do it well, and how to know when you’ve stopped listening.  And for the speaker, they’ve got some tips for how and why you should prepare your listener for the conversation and continue last week’s advice on how to use the Feedback Wheel to be heard and initiate repair.  By practicing a little relational mindfulness, couples can shift from “me versus you” into “us consciousness”.

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.

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 grow up at a loss for what to do or assume that any conflict means a relationship is doomed.  Some of us grew up in homes where there was a lot of conflict and it wasn’t handled in healthy ways, leaving us with a set of bad relational habits or some defense mechanisms and fear that may not serve us anymore.  Would you be surprised to hear that, in spite of all this, conflict actually serves a really important function in our relationships? From conflict comes repair, where we learn trust and deeper intimacy.  In this episode, Jules, Rebecca and Vickey break down all the reasons why someone might avoid expressing their upset to you, how conflict and discord functions in relationships, and offer you a map to move through hard things together.   

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.

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 shared answer in order to be in relationship with each other.  This week, our asker wants to know, “Why does my partner’s love seem conditional?” Jules, Vickey and Rebecca respond to this question by addressing the conditionality of adult love and what that might mean, and also what it means when “seem” is the operative.  This is a question that encompasses the physiology of how we experience love, the stories we tell ourselves about our partners, and the importance of healthy boundaries.

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.

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.  Sometimes we avoid or deny this truth, which is what this week’s question touches on:  “Why doesn’t my partner accept our differences?”  Certainly, we can bond over our similarities.  That’s easy.  But the real adventure and the real risk is in our differences.  Perhaps the irony lies in that by simply being curious about our differences, for a mere moment and through understanding, we can have a shared reality together.  As with many things in life, the obstacle is the path.  In this episode, we dig into it all--our neurological pathways that drive us away or toward, the “you-turns” we can take to really connect through difference, and how this ripples outward into every relationship we touch.

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.