Couples Counseling For Parents
Couples Counseling For Parents
Finding Your Reset
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In today's episode, Stephen and Erin tackle the feeling many couples experience after kids—that sinking thought that "maybe I’ll never feel truly loved or appreciated." Using the high-stress periods of pregnancy and birth as a case study, they break down how partners can lose sight of each other’s needs and how to reset that dynamic for good. If you’re ready to stop feeling stuck and start feeling connected, this episode is for you.
And don’t forget to check out their book, Too Tired to Fight, which dives even deeper into the 13 conflicts every couple needs to have—available now wherever you get your books.
Hello and welcome. This is Couples Counseling for Parents, a show about couple relationships, how they work, why they don't, what you can do to fix what's broken.
Speaker 2:Here are our parents, our dad Dr Stephen Mitchell and our mom Erin Mitchell.
Speaker 1:Hello and thanks for joining us today on Couples, Counseling for Parents. I'm Dr Stephen Mitchell, I'm Erin Mitchell and you know what? One of the things that we hear a lot from couples is that they go through the relationship. They're together for some years, they have some kids and there's a sneaking kind of pit in the stomach, kind of feeling that you know what, maybe I just have to resign myself to never feeling truly loved, truly known, fill in the blank.
Speaker 2:Accepted, wanted, appreciated.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that sounds really depressing a little bit, does it not Sure?
Speaker 2:And I think that's exactly how couples end up talking with a couple like us.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Because they want to believe that I don't have to accept this as our reality. I think couples want to believe like we could make each other feel the ways we want to feel right, but we don't. Or we try to bring it up and it gets worse, or I try to bring up this place and it ends in a stuck cycle or even worse, like now it's resentment.
Speaker 1:So here's a scenario in terms of like how you would think you would want a relationship to work, which is maybe I'll backtrack a little bit. It seems like one of the best times in a couple relationship where we can illustrate this point is in the kind of pregnancy, birth phase stage of a couple relationship.
Speaker 2:Yes, I think it is common for couples to have experienced some of these feelings before those moments. And by moments I mean give or take, 10 months, and but they're not as intense. The intensity changes so much when it thing like the thought is this is our little person, this is the introduction of this little human to our system. I don't want it to feel like this. I don't want this to be their story. I don't want this to be the way their parents are.
Speaker 1:Right and the this. Can you expand on the this? The idea that neither one of us really feel like we are getting what we want out of the relationship or feeling fulfilled in the relationship?
Speaker 2:want out of the relationship or feeling fulfilled in the relationship. Sure, yeah, I think what I honestly. I think the this is a couple dependent because we all wear our own lenses and our relationships, and so I think mine would be more like I want to feel wanted and loved by you. I think the way, I would say, you would say it is.
Speaker 1:I want to be valued and appreciated.
Speaker 2:I also think, another word you commonly use and we hear a lot is accepted and which doesn't mean this is just who I am, but you do like me. Even if I don't get it right all the time, like you see that I'm trying or whatever.
Speaker 1:So basically there's this idea of like how relationships work is. Everyone gets into a couple relationship with this idea of you know what? I'm in this relationship because I found a partner who really gets me and knows me and makes me feel loved and wants to share life with me, and that's the thing. Both partners are like oh, this is it, we're going to be this great, dynamic team that just loves each other and we can make each other feel good in the way kind of meeting all our desires and needs.
Speaker 1:Ideally that's how it goes, but go ahead.
Speaker 2:Idealized. That's how it goes.
Speaker 1:I like that. I like that Idealized. Yes, that is an idealized version because it's not to say that can't happen in relationships and that doesn't happen in relationships. I think oftentimes why people get together in a partner relationship is because they feel like it is happening.
Speaker 2:Sure, there are moments of that being true.
Speaker 1:This is the one, this is the person that kind of fills all those gaps that I've been looking to have filled my whole life. Here it is, and I think that truly happens.
Speaker 1:And then something happens that takes from that sort of idealized initial experience and couples begin to go wait a second, I'm feeling some of the same things I've always felt in relationships, and I'm feeling it in this one, and I signed up for this relationship for things to feel different. So for me, wait a second. I signed up to feel appreciated, to feel valued, to feel accepted, and that's not happening anymore. I think you would say the same thing. I signed up to feel wanted and loved and known, and that doesn't feel like it's happening anymore.
Speaker 2:Right, and that doesn't feel like it's happening anymore, right? And I think that when we end up talking to couples, I think one of the central places that a couple can watch how this dynamic happened for them is in pregnancy and birth, exactly.
Speaker 1:Yes, so how does that happen?
Speaker 2:So this is an intense period of time for a couple right Like something very important is happening. We're experiencing the same event, but, as is true with any human beings, no two people experience the same thing in the same way. The impact is different. The situations are different, so we might be thinking like we are in this together. Situations are different, so we might be thinking like we are in this together, but if we are not explicitly talking about what those experiences are, we don't know.
Speaker 1:So an example that's coming to my mind of how this happens I had a real desire to be an engaged, involved partner and dad and we got pregnant and my goal is to be thinking about okay, we've got the birth room set up, you've got your water, your snacks or your whatever. I'm thinking about certain things that I'm like okay, this is me being involved, doing the right thing and hoping, and what I want is for Aaron to affirm that and to accept that as, hey, I am being involved, engaged, present. But one of the big things for you was I want you to take pictures of me. Or if I say, oh, look the baby's kicking, I want you to come over and touch my belly and feel the baby kicking. And if I had done those things note, if I had done those things, that's where you would have had that feeling of Stephen knows me, he knows what's important to me, he loves me. I'm really connecting with your experience.
Speaker 2:Sure Correct.
Speaker 1:Sure. So obviously those things didn't happen and oftentimes this is the thing you mentioned some stuff about it, but it really wasn't until after our kids were born that you were like our kids were born, that you were like, hey, you never did this and it made me feel so disconnected from you during this really special period and I'm like, yeah, but I was doing all this other stuff. You're so ungrateful, I could never do enough. You don't accept me, you don't value what I contribute. I can only contribute in the way that you need me. And then we've digressed into the problem.
Speaker 2:Is that yeah, I think that's fairly accurate. I think no, I think that is accurate, but not fairly If I heard the conversations that we had about this correctly, I think I think that's the surface, though, right, because I think that the underlying thing here is no-transcript, but like I wonder if then I would have been like, yeah, and you know what, you never made my water. But I think that because I think, if I'm being honest, I think we are looking for the ways our needs aren't being.
Speaker 2:I think we are overlooking the ways that they are mutually, and I think we do this especially in times of stress, and while pregnancy and birth are wonderful, they are, by definition, a stressful incident which means intense, different not bad, but different, and so I do think it brings to mind some of our old protective strategies that we'd really hoped we'd work through. And then turns out, you're a little bit withdrawn and defensive and I'm a little bit anxious and looking for holes.
Speaker 1:And the thing that happens is, I think that this can happen for many couples I won't say all couples, but I'll say a lot of couples at this crucial time in their relationship too. So pregnancy and birth again, these are some general generalizations but, like for a lot of couples, happens early in their relationship. Get me, you don't know me, you don't pursue me in a loving way or you don't accept me that we were talking about having like that begins to set the tone, like your parenting experience can start there and then, as you move into parenting, it just unravels into more scenarios where you're feeling that theme repeat itself and if you're not aware of it and you're not aware of how it's happened and you don't communicate about it, it can persist throughout the relationship, throughout your parenting years, and make things kind of compound things, make them feel even bigger, whereas it might not have to be so big if you're aware of it taking place at this early stage.
Speaker 2:So I'm sure that's true. On one hand, I don't think it matters. I'm not sure that the stage would matter, because I think what? And maybe this is semantics right and maybe this is semantics right. But like either way, in a vulnerable, stressful place we can, no matter how long, default into old ways of relating.
Speaker 1:Sure, yes Into those protective places and into.
Speaker 2:I think protective is probably the best way. I think the more common way is defensive.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like we get defensive and sometimes some people go on the offensive. But that is a defensive posture also. Um, but and then? Because? Do you know what happens right after birth Parenting? Sleeplessness, mental load intensity needing a ton more money and having a lot less time. And then you know, what happens after that, Having to make a bunch of decisions about childcare? Which costs money and requires time.
Speaker 1:And then you have to make school decisions and house decisions and promotion decisions, Family, extended family, all of those, and that's not to say either what your story has been about getting pregnant and having kids. Was there pregnancy loss? Was there infertility? Are there any chronic medical conditions that once you had your kid that you have to interact with that you didn't know were going to be present? There's all kinds of stresses that really limit your ability to think about these things, reset.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I also thought-.
Speaker 1:I like that word to reset.
Speaker 2:Because we're now two stressed people in a stressed context and like where's that break? Where's the part where we're like, whew, now we push the button and we can go back to the more regulated selves and we're like okay, here, oh, here we are. That was a silly phase, but it's not. It's just not. But I also thought of, too, neurodivergence.
Speaker 1:No, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:You might have had an excellent system for where you both feel understood and known and loved and appreciated, and then you have a brand new system. And that is very complicated and challenging and can really send a relational dynamic where there's any neurodivergence and I'm talking about in either parent, both parents and or your kids.
Speaker 1:Oftentimes, if there's neurodivergence in a kid there means there's neurodivergence in one or both parents.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then reverse, so like now we have introduced a child into this.
Speaker 1:So yeah.
Speaker 2:I just think these are these moments and I do think it touches some very vulnerable places and it is a vulnerable time. Right, so we do default into some old patterns and it's wait. We weren't going to do that Like you're not supposed to. I'm not supposed to be like this.
Speaker 1:I don't want to be like this, but I can't stop being like this you won't stop being like that, and so we picture how you would like things ideally to work. What kind of how things don't is what we're describing here. But then this idea of okay, how do you fix that? And I like the idea of the word reset that you just used. I think that oftentimes, what happens is, if something has happened in the past and we're down the road from it, we don't really feel like you can do anything about it. And I think that what we're talking about here, like this idea of a reset being, no matter where you are in your relationship in terms of years, from pregnancy or birth or, like you said, any time period that you would identify as one of these stressful periods, time period that you would identify as one of these stressful periods you as a couple can go back and re-explore the experience in an effort to reset yes, so that it doesn't keep mucking up the present.
Speaker 2:Yes, I think a lot of times what couples think the solution to this is at a date night or go on vacation or we need a weekend break. But then the what they very often find, and not that any of those are bad, they're all wonderful things right highly recommend. If you have the time, child care and money, yes right but you, you might find that you come back and nothing's really different. That was a really lovely time, or not always right.
Speaker 2:But then we come back and we're back into the same nervous systems we left. What's different? Nothing is different.
Speaker 1:Because you haven't been able to actually reset or-.
Speaker 2:Like the internal reset.
Speaker 1:Right. Retell that story. For example, if I think about how our interaction around me not taking pictures of you went and I'm going to say this is probably how it went for a couple of years you would say you would make a comment.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, you would make some kind of comment about oh, we'd be looking through pictures. You'd be like, oh, here's a picture of me when we were pregnant with our middle. Yeah, I wonder who took that picture. Or, yeah, that was me taking a picture of myself, because you never would Something like that.
Speaker 2:Those are the kindest versions I can imagine you could think of.
Speaker 1:Or you might see a pregnant woman and their partner taking pictures of them and be like, oh, their partner must love them or be interested in the fact that they're having a kid, so those kinds of things. That's not an overstatement. My response to that would be like what are you talking about? I would try to defend, like I did take pictures. Or you didn't say you wanted me to take pictures, or what's the big deal? Like I would become defensive and basically all that did was perpetuate the dynamic, which is man. That did was perpetuate the dynamic, which is man. I can't do anything right. Aaron doesn't accept what I did do, which means she doesn't accept me, and Aaron would walk away being like, see, there it is. Steven doesn't get why pictures would be a big deal. Steven doesn't know me, steven doesn't want to be close to me or love me.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Okay, so then I think the reset for us and I don't really remember how it happened or why it happened, but I do think that you feels like such a big deal to me, why I keep saying something about it and it was to this effect of because when you took pictures, or if you would have done that, it would have communicated to me what is so important to me is important to you, and that would have felt so meaningful and good.
Speaker 2:So what I hear you saying is which we all know everyone is going to know what I'm about to say but it's still hard to. And because it's difficult, it's not easy, is my passive aggressive to aggressive comments always created a defensive response because you were being attacked.
Speaker 1:Sure, they didn't land, they didn't land.
Speaker 2:Shocker, that doesn't work, yeah, yeah. But my vulnerability and saying I'm actually hurt about this.
Speaker 1:Yes, I'm sorry, but you would like attuning to what you actually meant by that like attuning that and assessing that within yourself.
Speaker 2:Right and then expressing it in a vulnerable, me-centric way of this hurts. I want you to know that and because that's the thing I think some of these things like it's back in time. We're wasting our time. You just want to get stuck back there. I can't go back and take your pictures now. What's the big deal? Because, all of those things are true. No one wants to revisit the past, to get stuck there. We don't. It doesn't feel good, but it can be seen and acknowledged and you can try now.
Speaker 1:You do try now to be like hey, I'll get it, I'll take this one. Hey, you jump in there, hop in there with the boys. But I think for me, what I had to do because even though aaron came and said it in that vulnerable way, that's still a risk, because I still can hear that is like hey, don't blame me, I didn't do anything wrong. Whatever, whatever it might be To be super honest.
Speaker 2:That's probably how you initially respond it. And probably how your conversations are going to go. But the point isn't, it's just be like hey, I know that's a tough thing to hear. I'm not asking for you to pay penance forever, not looking for you just to feel ashamed and wallow, but it matters to me. I need you to know. I was hurt by this.
Speaker 1:This isn't a thing to just slough off, and I think that for me, in hearing first of all, the fact that we were talking about it for years, but then also hearing that more vulnerable, intentional way of expressing what you had to say, what I had to do is, first of all, I had to think about myself and say why does this bother me so much?
Speaker 1:Why, when Aaron says something about pictures, do I get all defensive and upset and angry and I think in one way I'm like, oh, because I feel blamed, I feel embarrassed, I feel like she's saying that the things that I did do didn't matter, it was just this one thing.
Speaker 1:So I had to be aware of that. But then I also had to suspend that defense and not like lead with that, but try and hear what you were saying, which then would allow me to be able to believe the experience you're saying, which was, oh, like you keep bringing this up because it really mattered to you in a way that I, to be quite honest, like I don't under, like it didn't matter the same to me, but I can see how it mattered so much to you and that would be really hurtful that I just have sloughed it off like I sloughed it off then, but also, as you continue to try to tell me about it, I react and say that shouldn't be a big deal. And I can and I was able to say I'm really sorry, I didn't take pictures, I should have.
Speaker 1:I missed it and I am sorry. That's something we can't get back and, as you said, and I can now try and be like, hey, let's make sure that I'm trying to take pictures of our continued life together and, to be quite honest, I still don't do a perfect job of that. I'm sure you'd love me to take more pictures, but I think that it changes that feeling of the conversation between us, because the present conversation, even because we were able to reset that past experience- Absolutely so, I think what's the point?
Speaker 2:I think, is that Finding your reset, and if you are in one of these stages and, to be honest, you're always in one of these stages- yes, yes. Because every stage as a parent matters, because you don't realize until it's over that you're through one.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So whatever your things are, they probably don't change that much. So get on the same page about them. And that probably to Stephen's point earlier, is first an internal process. What are these things? And if you struggle to find them, look back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Also, if you are a pregnant person, if you are in in this very vulnerable, wonderful, magical, stressful time sets the stage. So be intentional, which doesn't mean perfect. You used the word perfect a second ago. I don't know anyone who's looking for perfection, even perfectionists. That might be this internal striving, and maybe we do sometimes ask for that, but what we want is intention. We want to see that there's not just words but there's action. We want to see that there's not just action, there's sometimes words. We just want interaction presence, engagement about these things.
Speaker 1:And so I think that this is the principle of finding your reset as a couple. And I think that it applies across so many things.
Speaker 2:You're going to like this. What? Or your preset.
Speaker 1:Help me.
Speaker 2:So the reset's past tense, right Like you're looking like back. Yes, be intentional.
Speaker 1:So that it becomes your preset.
Speaker 2:Correct. Oh wow, I knew you'd like that Finding your reset. You love. A good thing To get a preset. Except I didn't quite understand it initially, so I'm like not my best.
Speaker 1:But this principle of finding your reset is applies to everything that applies to your day to day, but it also applies to those bigger moments. Like another example of a big moment that it might apply to is we talked to so many. Like another example of a big moment that it might apply to is we talked to so many couples who have some hurts around their initial, like how they got engaged or once they I think engagement should be an entire episode. If they, if not to say everyone has to get married.
Speaker 1:But I'm just saying for people who have chosen to get engaged yes, that's a huge area of this dynamic being set. But then also the initial like coming together of couples with in-laws, like how the in-laws responded or treated a particular partner. That is another huge area and I think that I good I think like how do we have these conversations though?
Speaker 1:That's the. So that's what this principle of finding the reset is. First of all, you have to have a level of awareness of what the energy is and you know it as partners, the conversations and the topics that generate energy for y'all, individually and collectively. So you have to assess that, you have to be very aware of it and attuned to what are the emotions here and how come that's happening, and then you will be able to. You have to think through connecting that to what is the story here and why that matters.
Speaker 2:I think the way I like to think about that part too is that there is a negative story that you attach to your partner in that assessing period. So like you do know the thing and but think about it Like if I think Well, so my negative story about you was she doesn't accept anything.
Speaker 1:I do, nothing I can do is ever enough Negative story.
Speaker 2:So I think what's important about that negative story is I did so much that proved that true. So he's not he didn't make that up.
Speaker 1:That is not some like fiction, Sorry, go ahead no nor did you make up the story about me that I dismissed it, pushed it up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because, but I proved that point to Steven over and over. That is not the only thing I proved to Steven, but when that is our filter, that is our lens, that is our belief. And we keep unintentionally, our partner will continue to reinforce it, so we have got to be able to interact with that which is to say that hurts.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:This is the negative thought I have, and then we can talk about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and so I think that in and so that's that intentional expressing part that you're trying to do that Aaron just described. Then there's that intentional listening part for you as the partner listening, which is recognizing okay, why does this topic bring so much energy or heat for me? How can I suspend my defensiveness to hear and believe my partner's experience and then see if there's anything that needs to be repaired? I think one of the ways to do this, to find your reset as a couple, is take a sheet of paper and I want you to write down the top three hot topics that you and your partner have.
Speaker 2:They probably won't be the same three, but I bet there's some overlap. Right, don't need to be the same.
Speaker 1:Write down the top three. And then what I would do is look at those top three and see if there is overlap, because there probably will be one hot topic that feels like there's overlap, one hot topic that feels like there's overlap, and then take that hot topic and go through this process of assessing why does it feel so hot, also attuning to what are the emotions, what are the things present that make me? Am I angry, am I sad? Am I just frustrated, despairing whatever it might be? And then try to relate it to those stories. Am I angry, am I sad? Am I just frustrated, despairing Whatever it might be? And then try to relate it to those stories. And that kind of worst case story that you were talking about, erin, I think is a good. What is the worst case story that you're hearing about?
Speaker 2:your partner. What is the worst? I'm believing about my partner in this moment, and when your partner and you share these things, your job is to tell them they're right. Even said to me just now that I believed that.
Speaker 1:That you like what.
Speaker 2:I believed about, I didn't accept you.
Speaker 1:Yeah that you didn't accept me or that I nothing I did was enough.
Speaker 2:And what's hard for me is I'm thinking of every time that wasn't true.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:What I need to do is say I can see why. You'd see that I know I've done that to you.
Speaker 1:And what I needed to say to you was like I absolutely have ignored the importance of this.
Speaker 2:And then you say I see that I can see why you'd come to that belief. It hurts my feelings. That feels like the only truth, because I know the reason I do that. I know the reason I look for those holes is when I'm feeling scared and vulnerable.
Speaker 1:The thing is, it's true about this story, but if we go back and reset this story, it doesn't have to be true about every story, and I think that's what finding your reset is. You have to reset these stories so that it doesn't filter into and infect all the other stories.
Speaker 2:Yes, if we are living out our partner's worst beliefs about us, it's probably because we're feeling in a protective, vulnerable place. We can't stop doing that if we are still in that actively stressful situation. So, we've got to come back to that reset.
Speaker 1:So, if you're listening to this, find your reset, identify one hot topic area and go through this process of assessing, attuning to yourself, finding the story, sharing the story, suspending your defensiveness, believing your partner, and then repairing, resetting that story so that all the other stories that follow can begin to feel different too. Today's show was produced by Aaron and Steven Mitchell. If you're enjoying the podcast, please hit the follow button and leave us a rating. This helps our content become more visible to others who might enjoy it and it lets us know how we can keep improving the show. And, as always, we're grateful for you listening. Thanks so much for being with us here today on Couples Counseling for Parents, and remember, working on a healthy couple relationship is good parenting.