Couples Counseling For Parents
Couples Counseling For Parents
When Your Past Lives in Your Parenting
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Remember when you and your partner felt like soulmates, deeply connected and growing stronger together? Then parenthood arrived, and suddenly those old insecurities you thought were healed came rushing back with surprising force. You're not alone, and no—you didn't make a mistake choosing each other.
Stephen Mitchell, PhD and Erin Mitchell, MACP state, "What's happening is a normal developmental challenge that catches most couples by surprise." The intense stress of parenting activates our nervous systems, bringing along familiar patterns, thoughts and feelings from our past. Your partner, who once soothed these core wounds, seems to be triggering them at the worst possible moment.
Through the story of Annabeth and Selena, we explore how one partner's feeling of "everything falls on me" collides with the other's sense that "nothing I do is ever enough"—creating a painful cycle that many parents recognize. When Annabeth expresses feeling overwhelmed and alone, Selena withdraws, feeling criticized and inadequate. Each response intensifies the other's core wound, despite their deep love for each other.
The path forward isn't about solving logistical problems or dividing tasks differently. It begins with understanding which pattern you tend toward, exploring the deeper stories behind your reactions, and learning to talk about the feelings themselves rather than arguing about surface issues. When partners can vulnerably share "When this happens, I notice I start feeling alone like I did growing up" instead of launching into criticism or defensiveness, everything changes.
This episode offers a four-step process to transform these painful cycles into opportunities for deeper connection. You'll learn to recognize your pattern, understand its origins, communicate vulnerably about the feelings, and establish regular check-ins to prevent buildup.
Ready to turn relationship regression into progression? Listen now, and discover how the very wounds causing disconnection can become your pathway to profound intimacy.
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. Here are our parents our dad, dr Stephen Mitchell, and our mom, erin Mitchell.
Speaker 2:Hello and thanks for joining us today on Couples Counseling for Parents. I'm Dr Stephen Mitchell, I'm Erin Mitchell and everyone. The time has come. This episode is our 99th episode, so do you know what that means? Our next episode will be Erin, our 100th.
Speaker 2:Our 100th episode and, as we have forecasted, we are going to do an episode where we take your questions, where we kind of have a group of questions that y'all have sent us. If you haven't sent us questions that you might have, please DM us those questions or, if you're part of the newsletter, email us those questions. If you're not part of the newsletter, hey, go ahead and subscribe so that you can email us your questions and we're going to look them over, kind of pick some that we think are thematic and might be really good topics of discussion, and answer your questions in the 100th episode of Couples Counseling for Parents. It'll be fun.
Speaker 3:I'm looking forward to that. Yeah, so send us in your questions if you'd fun. I'm looking forward to that, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so send us in your questions if you'd like. I'm excited about it. Also, we've gotten some questions from listeners who have said hey, we've been listening to your show for quite a while. Me and my partner, we're kind of hoping to talk with you and Aaron. How would we go about doing that? So there's two ways that you can do it. You can go to our website, couplescounselingforparentscom. Scroll down on that homepage and you will see a place where you can schedule a free consult with us for coaching sessions. Or, if you'd rather do this on Instagram, go to Instagram, go to our LinkedIn bio, and you will see a yellow tab that says schedule a consult with Stephen and Aaron, and you click on that button and it'll show you our schedule and you can jump in from there. That's the first thing that we do with every couple is we have that consult call with them, and that's how you get connected with us.
Speaker 3:I think the two most common questions we have about that are one it's free to have that consult, yes. Two, the point of the consult is so that you can ask us your questions and get a feel for what interacting with us couple to couple is like. But also, yes, we are making sure that we are a good fit for you as well. We want to make sure that the kinds of things that you are wanting help with are things that we address, which is not always the case. So reach out and ask and we can all decide together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we look forward to seeing you in your consult. Now onto the show. I guess we're already in the show, but on to the topic.
Speaker 2:That's right, and so this is a couple interaction that we feel takes place very often between couples we talk with, and I don't know what I would term it. I think I might refer to it when parenting partners feel like they are regressing to past struggles or past ways of coping with their stress, past feelings in the context of parenting. So they feel like I feel like I'm reliving some old, difficult things from my life in my present moment as a partner and parent.
Speaker 3:Yes, I think the way that this came up and I don't think we need to spend too much time on this and I don't think it has to have a name exactly.
Speaker 2:But I like a name, I know, although that wasn't a good one, but I do like a name.
Speaker 3:I think that this is just a normal developmental thing that happens and I think couples are regularly surprised and I think that we really just want to normalize over and over and over again that the things that feel like are happening to just you are happening because it's a developmental normal thing and they can be worked through if addressed.
Speaker 2:I like it. So today's show is about the normal developmental thing that happens to parenting partners.
Speaker 3:And can be addressed.
Speaker 2:And can be addressed.
Speaker 3:Worked through.
Speaker 2:Worked through.
Speaker 3:If you'll talk about it, if you will brave saying the things you don't want to say feeling the things you don't want to feel.
Speaker 2:A very simple title.
Speaker 2:Yes, and so maybe it'll help for us to jump into the case example for y'all to get a little better sense of what we're talking about. Yes, that's the title six years of the relationship. They would have told you things were perfect. They felt deeply connected. They even felt like soulmates. They love dreaming together, supporting each other and felt proud of how they had grown as a couple. Then they had kids. Now they're parenting a six year old and a four year old-old, and that deep connection feels really far away. They're not in crisis, but they are in pain.
Speaker 2:The disconnection, the tension, the sense that they're somehow failing each other is really heavy. And lately Annabeth keeps saying it just feels like everything falls on me. Beth keeps saying it just feels like everything falls on me. She notices that when she's tired, frustrated or overwhelmed, she slides into a feeling she's known her whole life being alone and having to carry it all. Selena, on the other hand, hears those words and shuts down. She feels like, no matter how much she does, it's never enough. That too is a familiar feeling, one rooted deep in her childhood. The more Annabeth shares how overwhelmed she feels, the more Selena feels criticized and unseen. The more Selena withdraws and shuts down, the more Annabeth feels alone, and the cycle continues. So here's a recent moment between the two of them.
Speaker 2:Annabeth, I just feel like I'm the only one who's thinking about the kids' schedules, the meals, the laundry, the permission slips. It's exhausting. I need a partner, not another person. I'm managing, selena, I am trying. I get up early, I do the drop-offs, I'm working full-time, but no matter what I do, it never feels like enough to you, annabeth. It's not about a checklist, selena. It's that I feel like I'm doing it alone, like the emotional load is just on me and I don't know how to keep going like that, selena, well, when you say that, it just makes me feel like a failure, like I'll never be who you need. Annabeth, I don't want perfect. I just don't want to feel invisible and abandoned. I felt that way growing up and I'm starting to feel it again, selena, and I felt like I was never enough growing up, that I had to earn love. So when I hear you say I'm falling short, it hits really deep Scene.
Speaker 3:I think that some version of this is so common yes, I would say universal A version, not like this exactly. And again, I think it's a developmental thing that couples have to go through. When they have become, or when becoming parents, old nervous systems get reactivated, no matter how healed you were, no matter how resolved you and your partner were. In these places, like I keep saying, we go into default settings.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so what you're talking about, like kind of the default settings, is what Annabeth and Selena are talking about is a psychological term, for it is bad feelings. That's not a psychological term. It's just you know you didn't laugh, or I guess no one else is either. There's bad feelings that both Annabeth and Selena are familiar with, and they felt them their whole life and what they thought is in their relationship with one another. Those bad feelings had gone away.
Speaker 3:I think the reality, though, too, because I think what we hear from couples a lot is that we felt it went away. I thought I wasn't making a mistake, it seemed. I think that's true. They had gone away. We had worked this out, we resolved.
Speaker 2:Sure, we've resolved, sure, but then the intensity, yes, the intensity of parenting, which is nothing against children. Children are wonderful, beautiful, like. It is such a privilege to be a parent and have children, but it does intensify your life. It is a new stress that sucks your capacity for so many things, because you're so focused on these new human beings yes, yes, it absolutely sucks your capacity, but it also grows your desire say more well, I just think that all of the sudden, right like we have less capacity and a stress, desire is a stress.
Speaker 3:I want the best for them, I want your best for them, I want my best for them. I want everything the world's for them, right Like in our family, and I think so just when our capacity is decreasing. Our stress, including good stress, is increasing.
Speaker 2:Right, and I think the reason stress is so important here is because stress activates our nervous system.
Speaker 3:On purpose. It's a good thing that that happens.
Speaker 2:That should happen. And when our nervous system is activated, along with it comes thoughts, feelings, beliefs, actions and some of the bad feelings From Annabeth's past and Selena's past are being activated in this heightened nervous system activation context. So Annabeth begins to feel that bad feeling of loneliness, Selena begins to feel that bad feeling of never being enough, of falling short. And that is taking place because their stress response system is being activated in parenting.
Speaker 3:So that's where it isn't great, that's where it doesn't feel good, that's where that pain lives. But the reason they chose each other to begin with is because they really did soothe that place in each other. Finally, oh, I have a real partner.
Speaker 2:Yeah, annabeth's like I'm not alone, it's not all on me. Yeah, go ahead, sorry, yeah, yeah, yeah, well, I, I have a real partner. Yeah, annabeth's like I'm not alone, it's not all on me, yeah.
Speaker 3:Go ahead Sorry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I was just gonna say Annabeth has that feeling like Selena understands me. She knows that burden that I feel, she knows that I feel alone and she specifically knows how to speak to that place and help that bad feeling feel better. Speak to that place and help that bad feeling feel better. And Selena same thing. Annabeth knows that I felt like I'm failing or that love is conditional, and Annabeth loves me and cares for me, encourages me yeah, she sees my hard work.
Speaker 3:She validates like yeah, no we're partners. I got this, you got this We've got this.
Speaker 2:She makes that bad feeling better. Yes, and then.
Speaker 3:Yes, so it is both. It is like oh, we soothe this place. Oh wait, we activate this place. We weren't supposed to activate this place, and I think that's the part that parents want to, not. We don't want to know that, we don't want to feel that. That feels absolutely terrifying.
Speaker 2:Well, I think that that's. I think it's really confusing because so many couples that we talk to, and maybe even in our own experience too, like everyone knows that parenting is more stressful. And everyone knows, yeah, our life is going to change, yeah, there's going to be challenges, it's going to be tough. You know, that's not really surprising. I think what is surprising is how intense it is and I think a lot of couples aren't ready for that level of intensity and in some ways their nervous systems are very surprised.
Speaker 2:And what happens when our nervous systems are very surprised is we begin to survive and when you're surviving, you're not being reflective, you're not being thoughtful. And what happens when our nervous systems are very surprised is we begin to survive and when you're surviving, you're not being reflective, you're not being thoughtful, you're not really aware of whatever it is. And oftentimes what happens is we get couples who are kind of this far in to kids, to their parenting relationship, and they're all of a sudden that maybe the kids are a little older, there's a little more space, whatever it might be, both of them are like what has happened and couples feel very surprised by that, that sense of like man. I feel like we've fallen back into some old bad feelings and you know what? Our relationship isn't working anymore because you're not helping this feel better, and couples are really surprised by that, simply because they haven't really had any time to think about it.
Speaker 3:Sure In their free time.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Or with a full night's sleep.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Right? No, that doesn't exist. I think that's right.
Speaker 2:And I think that's right and I just I think that is very shocking.
Speaker 3:I think the other thing that is shocking, because what you were saying and I was thinking like I think it's true, that wasn't as true for me. I knew. I think I knew how surprising, how stressful, how earth shattering, shaking, becoming a parent was going to be, but I didn't know where it was going to surprise me. I was prepared in a lot of ways and then I wasn't prepared for our relational dynamic. I wasn't prepared for this. I wasn't prepared to be like, wait a minute.
Speaker 3:but you made me not feel like everything was all on me all the time that I had to carry everything all the time, that I had to be always on the ball, always planning, always preparing. You never made me feel like that before and now we feel like that and just in the time when I wanted us to be the most connected, for this good feeling to translate Like this is when it mattered the most, is when it was like no, no, no, no, not now.
Speaker 2:And I think similarly.
Speaker 3:I think you would say yeah, I never.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think I didn't expect to feel like you were going to look at me and say like you're failing, you're not enough, which really felt, I think fundamentally for me just felt rejecting, like my efforts don't count somehow, and that felt really rejecting and I never thought I would feel that way with you.
Speaker 3:I never thought I would feel that way about you.
Speaker 2:Well, and I never thought that I would be communicating to you. Yes, that you're alone, it's all on you. Right. Like I would have never have imagined that that's what you were walking away with, and I think the same for you, you would have never imagined that I'm walking away with oh Aaron rejects me, and so I think that this kind of leads into like okay, what-?
Speaker 3:But I think that that's scary. So even Annabeth and Selena and you and I we just said that. So I mean honestly, a little bit casually. And they both had so much emotional intelligence in this to be able to say like oh, I know these stories.
Speaker 2:Well, they've been working with us for a little bit and so you know, I think they're able to access.
Speaker 3:I think a lot of couples I think more couples than are aware do know these things, even though they don't want to know. And then I do think some couples genuinely don't know, but regardless it feels so scary to admit these things.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, because it doesn't feel good to feel bad, right.
Speaker 3:I mean like like that's psychologically deep too, and that actually I mean that you've spent your whole life bad.
Speaker 2:You've spent your whole life not wanting to feel bad, and then you spend your whole romantic life looking for the person who's actually going to help you feel good, not bad, and you think you found them, you think you've got the solution, and it is really. It's just discouraging discouraging.
Speaker 3:I remember when I was reading one of the like when you had, we wrote our book sort of in shifts. You know, I'd write some, stephen would edit, write some. I'd read his edit, write some. But I remember reading at one point, stephen, we were kind of talking about some of these things and you made the you wrote in the book about. You know, couples get to the point where they're trying not to hear their thoughts, wondering did we make a mistake? Were we a mistake? And I think that that is the whisper that starts to get louder Like did we make?
Speaker 3:a mistake, because that's the logical next step. If all of this is true and it's not the right next step, it doesn't have to be the next step, but that is what our brains think Like. Well, if you make me feel like I never wanted to feel again, we must have made a mistake. Yeah, but that's a nervous system protection, not the truth.
Speaker 2:And so I think that you know that leads into okay, so what do you? What do you do, like, what can you do about this?
Speaker 3:And I think that there's, there's yeah, if this sounds like you, what do you do?
Speaker 2:Right, I think initially kind of you want to think about. Am I Annabeth, or am I Selena? Am I the one in the partner relationship that is feeling like I'm alone, it's all left up to me, or am I the one in the relationship who feels like, no matter what I do, it's never enough, it's useless? Now there might be moments that you both feel these things, but I think the question is do you trend towards one more than the other? Because there's moments where I felt alone.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and it all falls on you, right.
Speaker 2:And the same for you, in terms of you feeling like, no matter what you do, it's not enough. Yeah. But I think generally we hear from couples that there's a trend that matches one partner or the other.
Speaker 3:I do think it's a trend. I think the words change and the words matter. So your word may not be inadequate, your word may not be alone, but like what are your words?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Say your words, because that's your story and that matters. Right, so don't try to fit your story into this one. Sure, take this one and adjust it, edit it, you know, make all the changes to make it fit yours.
Speaker 2:Right, right, but, but I do think thematically, the feeling, the bad feeling, is is something of like failure not measuring up um all alone having to take care of everything stuff, yes.
Speaker 2:Somewhere along in there. So first, like, you got to think about like who am I? And then I think you have to go a step deeper and say, like, where? Like, where did that story come from in terms of the core, the core story or the core wound there, in terms of the core story or the core wound there, in terms of you feeling like not measuring up, not enough. So, for example, for me, the not measuring up, not enough story came from. I grew up in a very rigid and strict home. Rigid and strict home. Some of that was also really connected to a religious system of belief that said you've got to follow these rules perfectly and if you don't, you're not enough, you don't measure up. And so for me, it's important for me to know that those stories are present, because I'm bringing that dynamic into my interaction with Aaron pre-Aaron, so I have to know where this might come in.
Speaker 2:So both partners have to say like, okay, where did I learn this before I got in relationship with my partner? Because oftentimes we've learned it from somewhere else.
Speaker 3:Right. Histories matter. They are informing our present and will shape our future. Until we understand them and find our choice Right yeah.
Speaker 2:So who are you in the dynamic? What are some of the deeper stories that matter or have shaped that? And then the next thing is you and your partner have to be able to talk about it, um, rather than um argue about the bad feeling right because.
Speaker 3:So this I think I I really really like that you used, um, this case example you used because I think what would be easy is to say that what Annabeth and Selena are arguing about, or what the hurt is, is about a division of labor or mental load, because there's truth in that. Sure is a feeling that you know, like logistics and what all Annabeth is dealing with. She wants Selena to feel the emotional burden of that on her. She wants her to understand how that story impacts her. And when they're just saying, and you know, when Selena comes back with I'm doing as much as I actually can in a day which I mean we're going to believe Selena, we've met her right, so she's not a liar, so that's true and Annabeth knows that, but that there's still an emotional something that this labor, that these tasks are representing for them both.
Speaker 3:And they have to be checking in about that.
Speaker 2:So what you're talking about is you can end up arguing about the content of life. It's about mental load, it's all of this kind of stuff which matters, which all matters.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 2:But really you need to be able to vulnerably express and talk about the bad feeling that is making that content feel so intense, absolutely the what, what is activating that concert, that that conflict is. Annabeth is sitting there saying it's this makes me feel alone, selena and I, and when I hear you becoming defensive, I feel like what you're saying is I don't care about your loneliness, correct, and I think that what Selena is saying to Annabeth is like this makes me feel like you're rejecting all of my efforts, in a sense that I don't matter, that I don't bring value, that I don't have anything to offer, and so I am defending that because, I do believe I have value, I do believe I'm bringing something here and I feel I thought you believed that too Right right, so so, so after you.
Speaker 2:so there's this, this reality. If you have to know who you are in the pattern, you have to understand some of the stories that are activating these kind of core bad feelings, and then you have to make an effort to talk about the bad feeling vulnerably.
Speaker 3:Yes, and there may be an action step required after that. Well, absolutely, there's an action step because, just because it's not quote unquote necessarily about the mental load or whatever, like that's still important, like you know there may be a necessary like change in system step, but at least the action step has to be we continue to check in on a name and really feel each other's feelings of. Oh, I get why this activates that.
Speaker 2:Right. So how might this look? So like it could be something like this, so like Annabeth coming and saying Selena, I'll be Annabeth. Okay, you'll be Annabeth. I resonated deeply with Annabeth. Okay, I'll be Annabeth. I resonated deeply with Annabeth. Okay, I'll be Selena.
Speaker 3:Selena, I know I've been sharp lately. I think when I start to feel like everything's falling on me, I go into a panic like I did as a kid. It's not fair to you. I want to find a better way to tell you I need help and I want to find a Selena, I appreciate that.
Speaker 2:I want to help you and I think when you sound disappointed in me, I freeze, I go straight to feeling like I'm failing, like I'm not enough for you or the kids, and that just shuts me down even more. I want to find a way to let you know I'm feeling like that without making the cycle worse, and that I want and let you know that I want to see you and also want you to understand and see where I'm coming from. Yes, that is something. That type of conversation is something that honestly has to happen on repeat.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely the conversation actually isn't that complex. Happen on repeat. The conversation actually isn't that complex. I think, oftentimes one of the shortcuts that I would tell couples when you find yourself in conflict, if you know this pattern, if you know, generally speaking, what the bad feeling is that gets stirred up in your conflicts for both of you For.
Speaker 2:Both of you what you do in conflict is you say, whoa, wait a second. Are we feeling that bad feeling? Right, whoa, annabeth, are you feeling alone and like everything is on you right now? Selena, are you feeling like I'm telling you, like nothing you do matters and and you have no value here? Because that is what we're trying to get our partner to understand in conflict, absolutely. Whatever this thing is that's happening school drop-off, mental load, you know, cooking dinner, going to the grocery store, whatever it might be it is activating a bad feeling, and so if we, as partners, can learn how to talk about the bad feeling, just like Annabeth and Selena did, it actually takes down the intensity of the conversation. If you hear this, neither Annabeth or Selena said you made me feel like this on purpose. What they said is when this happened, I noticed that this bad feeling started to be activated for me.
Speaker 3:The moment for me was when Selena said when you sound disappointed in me because, as the person who does more closely identify with Annabeth, I'm like oh my gosh, at what point in my communication, did I communicate? I was disappointed in you, and that goes back to what you were saying earlier. Like never would we have imagined that we would be communicating that to each other. Like well, I do know you're doing a lot, but you doing a lot doesn't make me feel less alone necessarily.
Speaker 2:And I like what you, because I do think that for the Salinas in the relationship, that feeling of being like when I feel like you're disappointed, it does activate that core place I feel like for the Anabaths. Oftentimes it's when they feel like their partner is defensive. It activates that. So it's defensiveness and disappointment that can activate these bad feelings, not always, but-.
Speaker 3:I think it's defensiveness or fix it mode. Sure, yes, either way, whatever.
Speaker 2:Oh well, this is a problem we can solve, let's just solve it. Let's just do this. Switch on, switch off.
Speaker 3:Defense or fix yeah it's like oh well, either way, in that like, maybe, yes, maybe there's a solution, but I'm still missed I still feel perfectly invisible and that is the hurtful place we were trying to address to begin with right and then at the end of that, yes, then we can come into like is this a solvable problem? Like is this something that, like, we could maybe think to address. You know what, though? It often isn't.
Speaker 2:It often is like everyone, the couples we talk to, more and more and more, everyone is doing as much as they possibly can in a 24-hour day but what is possible because I do get it's oftentimes tough to shift the like stuff there is to do and how much everyone is doing but what is possible is for you as partners, to be talking about it and checking in with one another, to really be like, hey, how have you been feeling this week? Do you feel like, have you been feeling alone? Have you felt like everything's been on you? Or like, hey, how have you been feeling this week? Do you feel like I haven't been appreciating what you're doing or that I've been disappointed in you Having these kinds of conversations about how is the bad feeling?
Speaker 3:Yes, not waiting for the breakdown.
Speaker 2:Exactly Not waiting for the conflict, not waiting for that other shoe to drop, and in that, learning with one another like you know what other shoe to drop, and in that and in that learning, learning with one another, like you know what, there's maybe some things I say or some ways I act that communicate that negative thing that I could shift Absolutely. You know like, hey, you know, maybe I do get a little defensive. Okay, well, what can I do instead of my first reaction being defensive? You know?
Speaker 3:And maybe yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I was going to say there's this great book called Too Tired to Fight that talks about one of the things that you can do in contrast to your defensiveness is you can suspend your defensiveness and believe your partner Like maybe that's a practice or a skill I need to develop so that this bad feeling doesn't keep getting activated.
Speaker 3:And I think for the Annabeths, certainly for me, but a lot of the Annabeths we talk to, we say I don't mean it, I don't know why you get defensive, I don't know why you're going to fix it mode, but the way we describe our feelings is by saying what you did.
Speaker 2:Right right.
Speaker 3:And I'm like wait, because I mean, how often does it happen? We're like you actually didn't just say a feeling.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you actually describe how your partner let you down. You didn't say that you felt alone. We've literally heard nothing about you.
Speaker 3:Like me, like I will. I will sometimes communicate and hear it after and be like I literally said nothing about my own feelings. All I knew was I didn't like what you did. That's. That's not actually all that helpful, and it is pretty understandable why our partner would go into defensive mode, unless they have learned how to suspend that defensiveness and wonder right right.
Speaker 3:You know. But yes, I do think that there are some patterns we can start to see in, like oh, I get that, I need to communicate my own experience first, yeah, and so you have to know which character are you in the couple dynamic.
Speaker 2:Are you Annabeth? Or are you Selena? The alone and it's all on me. Partner or the everything I do is never enough, I don't have any value, my efforts are rejected. Partner.
Speaker 3:And then find your own language and your own words, your own stories within that, yeah, own language and your own words, your own stories within that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then the second step is find the stories in your life that have come to convince you that those things are true about you, because all of that is most likely happened before you and your partner, and you're trying to understand the stories that are connected to the bad feeling.
Speaker 3:Yes, and why your nervous system is protecting you in the ways it's trying to protect you, which is no longer a protection.
Speaker 2:Right. And then, in conflict, you and your partner can make the effort and the shift to talk about the bad feeling in a vulnerable way and not just the content of everything that's happening. And then the final fourth step is regularly check in about this. Check in with each other about hey, how's the bad feeling of feeling alone going, how is a bad feeling of not feeling valued or accepted going Like, check in what has happened this week that has helped that feel better. Are there things that have happened this week that you felt like that's been communicated, like is there any adjustment we can make? Is there any support that can be offered? Love it.
Speaker 2:yes, we can make Is there any support that can be offered and in that way again, that is how Annabeth and Selena return to that place where they felt like they were for each other. Like they felt like they understood one another, like they knew one another and that they, as partners, were the very partners that they needed to help with that bad feeling. Being a good partner is not that you never make your partner feel bad, or that you never make them or somehow activate inadvertently, whatever it is like a tough spot.
Speaker 2:It's simply that you're able to talk about it in a loving and caring way.
Speaker 3:I think the only thing I would add right there is it's actually going to happen.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, it's going to happen.
Speaker 3:That is part of a committed relationship. We necessarily will activate those places and we don't have to be afraid. Right, right, and there is a way to engage them not to do it, but to engage them, to talk about them, to find connection even in them.
Speaker 2:And that's what's different, because most likely there was no one that you could ever talk to your bad feelings about. Talk about your bad feelings. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Until you met your partner, and what you want to do is you want to foster a process and a practice of being able to talk about those vulnerable, bad feeling places with your partner and that you both know that you're for and with one another in the midst of those. Hey, before we wrap up today, we want to remind you that conflict isn't the enemy of a healthy relationship. It's actually the path to deeper connection.
Speaker 3:And that's exactly what we explore in our book. Too Tired to Fight. In the book, we break down the 13 essential conflicts that every couple needs to have to keep their relationship strong. We guide you through each one, showing you how to move from feeling stuck in endless arguments to using those moments as a chance to connect and grow stronger together.
Speaker 2:Whether you're struggling with feeling like the default parent navigating in-laws, or just trying to be understood by your partner, Too Tired to Fight, gives you the tools to turn those pain points into connection points.
Speaker 3:If you want to dive deeper into what we've been discussing on the podcast, the book is a great companion. It's filled with real life examples, practical strategies and step-by-step guidance on how to have those essential conflicts without feeling like banging your head against the wall with the same fight over and over.
Speaker 2:So, if you're ready to stop fighting and start connecting, you can grab your copy of Too Tired to Fight on our website, amazon or wherever you get books. And remember every conflict is just an opportunity waiting to be turned into connection.
Speaker 3:Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.
Speaker 2:Today's show was produced by Aaron and Stephen 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.