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…

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 qu…

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 h…

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 communica…

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 exte…

It's our final episode of season five, and the question we’re answering today is “Wouldn’t it just be easier if we were all the same?” Okay, that’s not exactly true, but we are talking about navigating differences within your partnership, especially when kids are part of the picture. The question starts off with a disagreement about how to mark hol…

What if a relationship ending didn’t mean it was a failure? It’s our second-to-last episode of season 5. We’re answering a question that takes us inside some complicated relationship dynamics, from open relationships and polyamory to long distance and relationships with a time limit. We offer a big YOU-turn for you when you’re wondering what your p…

It’s another two-fer episode today, with a pair of questions that have to do with partners interrupting or getting annoyed when the other partner wants to talk about feelings. Plus, we’ve got WDMP producer/music therapist Al Hoberman back on as a special guest! When is it a good time to bring up 'feelings talk' in your house? During dinner? Before …

Today we have an extra special episode of Why Does My Partner, as we welcome our special guest, Al Hoberman! Besides being the sound editor and producer of WDMP, Al is a music psychotherapist in private practice. He’s joining us for this listener question, which takes us down the rabbit hole of asking “Just what is a feeling anyway? How do you know…

What happens inside of your relationship when things in other parts of your life start to get stressful? Maybe it feels like you have less time to dedicate to your partner, or that your energy is just completely spent after a long day, and you just don’t have it in you to be present and relational. That’s the topic of today’s question, and it takes…

Congratulations! You’ve been working hard on this relationship, and it really feels like you’re getting to the next level. So why is it that everything your partner does is so darn annoying? If that’s happening for you, you’re not alone. In today’s episode, we’re discussing why we always seem to pick a partner who knows exactly how to push our butt…

We talk about hurt a lot on this podcast, so much so that we released a whole mini-series called “Discord Builds Trust...No Really!” (Check it out if you haven't already!) So when this question came along, we had a lot of angles to cover. We discuss making YOU-turns on the stories we tell ourselves about what’s happening, and when lashing out is re…