As we reach the end of our season 7 deep dive into communication, it’s no surprise that so many of the same themes have kept showing up in our conversations, and that so often, what they’re about is owning our unmet needs. So it feels right that we should land here, with an episode that unpacks just that, and once again invites us to let go of the …

How is it that two people could remember an event so differently, and both be so sure that their version is right? Why is it so hard to take in when someone suggests that our memory of something isn’t true? How can it be that two people can both be right about a memory, and at the same time both be wrong? On today’s episode of WDMP, we’ve got a few…

One cool thing about neurodiversity is that if you get three friends and podcast co-hosts together to talk about a listener question, a lot of the time they’re going to have three very, very different relationships to the question…and not one of them is more valid or valuable than the other! That’s exactly what’s happening on today’s episode of Why…

What happens inside of our brains when we face potential conflict? A whole lot is what. One thing that we don’t always realize is that we have subcortical systems that start going into hyperdrive, make meaning out of what’s happening and hopefully keep ourselves safe. That meaning making is automatic and unconscious, and draws on what we’ve learned…

“Why does my partner criticize my parenting?” If you’re in a partnership, even without children, there’s a good chance some version of this has come up for you. Whether it’s parenting, pet care, finances, sex, you name it, both you and your partner are carrying a bunch of (often unconscious) assumptions about how something should be done. Coming ou…

We love it when our listeners come to us with their YOU-turn already built into the question, not just because it means that what we do is helping someone, but because it means the door is already open for curiosity, vulnerability, and discovery. Today’s question does just that. Join us for a discussion of the vulnerability of taking in advice from…

Humans have a deep need for closeness, to feel known and that those around us care and want to know us deeply. And that can feel really, really vulnerable. In this episode we answer a question all about tangling with different ways of showing and asking for deeper knowing in a relationship. In turn, we offer some questions you may want to ask yours…

The internet (and books, magazines, and a whole lot of couples’ therapy offices) are full of scripts to follow to help partners navigate conflict. But what if your partner wants to use a script that’s just not working for you? Here at WDMP what we try to provide is a lot more like a map than a script. A map doesn’t tell you exactly how to go, it sh…

When we start beating ourselves up in front of our partners when they have an issue with our behavior, what is it that we’re actually doing? Can we talk about that for a minute? Actually, we already did, and it’s this week’s of the podcast! Hear us chat about shame pits and grandiosity, listening and remorse, self protection and vulnerability, and……

As couples’ therapists, the most common questions we get are about communication. But what does it take to make that work in a relationship? That’s such a big question, that we’re dedicating this entire season to talking about communication! First off, how do you listen when your partner brings up something sensitive? Y’all, listening is really vul…

Stay tuned for Season 7, all about...communication!By Rebecca Wong, Juliane Taylor Shore, Vickey Easa

Why do I have to feel bad for my partner to feel better? When does venting cross the line and become unloading? Guest host Ann Kelley joins us one more time to talk about power dynamics in relationships. It can feel relieving to unload your frustrations, but is it causing your partner to shut down? Or is the venting partner looking for some kind of…

We’re back with special guest Ann Kelley of the Therapist Uncensored podcast, and folks, she’s dropping knowledge bombs left and right on this one. Our question for today is from a listener in her 60s, getting ready to put herself out there to date after a divorce. We’ve all got so much to say about this one, so let’s get right to the quotes: Quote…

Welcome back to the Why Does My Partner Podcast. For this bonus mini-series, were joined by Ann Kelley from the Therapist Uncensored podcast to tackle our next set of listener questions. Ann is a licensed psychologist and co-author of Secure Relating along with her wife and podcasting partner, Sue Marriott. Do you and your partner have rituals when…

Dear listeners, before you start listening to this episode, would you try something with us? Sit back in your chair. Take a breath for a second. Notice that you’re alive and breathing. Notice the sensations in your body that tell you that you’re alive. As other thoughts start to pop up, don’t try to push them away just yet instead just let yourself…

If your partner asked you to tell them how they should change, would that feel gratifying or scary? And how would you react? If that thought makes you uncomfortable, we think that’s the perfect time for a YOU-turn. And if that thought doesn’t make you uncomfortable…we think that’s ALSO a perfect time for a YOU-turn! That means turning back towards …

What are the conversation patterns in your relationship? Do you tend to leave a lot of space for silence, or talk fast and interrupt each other a lot? Does that differ from how it was in your family growing up? Is there an imbalance, with one person doing a lot more of the interrupting and talking over? …and is it a problem? Today’s question asker …

Having a trusting relationship means you and your partner never let each other down ever, right? WDMP Podcast listeners know the answer to that one…no way! So what does it mean when we talk about trust in a partnership? Today’s listener question leads us right down that path, unpacking the many different kinds of trust there can be, making explicit…

Anxiety is a signal that’s really good at letting you know something isn’t working – the only thing is, it’s not so good at pointing out exactly what that thing is. Diving into today’s question about anxiety in a relationship brings us to unpacking just what anxiety is, attachment styles, culture and epigenetics, and a whole lot more. We also talk …

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.…

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 pers…

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 li…

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 con…

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…i…

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…