Episodes
When the Adaptive Child Insists on Prevailing
Send us a text In this conversation, Kristy and Jerry explore the concept of the 'adaptive child'—the immature part of ourselves that can dominate our reactions during conflicts. They discuss how to navigate situations when o...
Self-Soothing
Send us a text In this conversation, Jerry and Kristy discuss the importance of self-soothing in relationships. They define self-soothing as the ability to observe oneself and step in to soothe oneself before reacting negativ...
How To Use Therapy
Send us a text Jerry and Kristy discuss the gap that can exist between "having good sessions" and actual change taking place, for either an individual or a couple. Tips for bringing the best of therapy to your actual relation...
Making the Most of Your Time Together
Send us a Text Message. It's almost astonishing how -- after lamenting how little time we "get" to spend with our partner -- we routinely ignore the basics of positive connection in the time we finally set aside to be togethe...
Diagnosing Your Partner
The perils and pluses of reaching a diagnostic understanding about your partner are considered. Voicing diagnostic lingo to your partner is considered in terms of being an usually-losing tactic. Of special consideration when ...
Repair
Jerry & Kristy take an extended look at the process of repair. Frequently misunderstood as a "moment" it is actually a relational project that requires vulnerability, bravery and follow-through. Specific applications of the ...
Money
Couples usually stumble over this ever-present elephant-in-the-room; what if you have different backgrounds, expectations and habits when it comes to personal finances? What are the implications for the two of you as a couple...
Patriarchy In Our Relationships
Jerry and Kristy consider the thorny impact of worldwide patriarchy on the way we function in our relationships. Alternative models are considered, as well as an understanding of how the status-quo we were born into results i...
Everything Breaks; Most Gets Fixed
You know the feeling when you just want to throw things away? When one too many things have occurred and you would just love to get rid of things (or your partner?) instead of working to fix them? Jerry ponders the convergenc...
Ego
What role does our ego play in helping, or hindering, connection with our partner? Kristy & Jerry unpack some of this together. Jerry reports some about his travel to Southern India and how long it took him to finally unpack ...
What If Your Partner Doesn't Want To Do "The Work"?
It's more rare than we would like that both partners in a couple approach "the work" of behavioral change with the same intensity, at the same rate, and in the same way. What happens if one person is much more enthusiastic a...
I Am DONE!!!
Memorable, highly-charged words and phrases are frequently heard in couples' therapists' offices. What they mean -- how they are understood between people who claim to love each other -- is often highly debatable and unclear....
The Selfishness of Addiction
An addict's path to recovery necessarily involves making amends and becoming more relational to the people around you whom you've wounded. But often people get caught at the "dry-drunk" phase, don't do the relational work (de...
The Challenge of Blended Families
It's not always The Brady Bunch. In fact, it almost never is. Kristy and Jerry explore some of the dynamics at work for members of blended families and try to "right-size" expectations to maximize opportunities for natural co...
The Holidays
Ahhhh...The Holidays. They are already here, and we are already scrambling to try to extract the maximum amount of family happiness and connection from situations that can also offer confusion, old, unresolved situations, thi...
Gratitude
Jerry and Kristy express their gratitude for the people, places and things in their lives, with a particular focus on their respective relationships. Being able to extract, and express, gratitude for that hard things that are...
Trauma & Your Relationship
Whether it is childhood trauma(s), the effects of societal prejudices, discrimination and stigmatizing or more recent adult losses of a traumatic nature, the ripple effects of trauma is shared with our partner in relationship...
Am I Crazy?
Do you ever feel strongly at emotional odds with most things around you? And then whether or not you are off-your-rocker and possibly The Problem because of being crazy? Just....different from others, in a major way? You aren...
Religious Upbringings
Our religious upbringings -- or non-religious upbringings -- can have implications and repercussions for our later intimate relationships, the likes of which we likely hadn't considered. Jerry & Kristy discuss.
Rewriting (Relationship) History
Kristy & Jerry consider what happens when we, for one reason or another, remember only certain aspects of our most important relationships. We deny, or ignore, important things at a cost; recovery of all the layers of a relat...
Birthdays & Anniversaries
What's it like for you to be in a couple and to celebrate these special occasions? Or...not? What happens, for the couple, when these days roll around and either are celebrated, ignored or recognized in a less-than-satisfying...
The Fine Line Between Letting Things Go & Enabling
Kristy and Jerry untangle the thorny areas in which personal boundaries seem to be challenged by our partner's desire to control us, when -- in fact -- it is often about emotional needs we can all relate to it. The seed for s...
Having a Baby
Adding an additional person to your household offers unique challenges and rewards for a couple, but undeniably is one of the most profound relationship shifts you'll undergo in your lives together. Kristy and Jerry ponder so...
Just How Much Intimacy Do I Really Want?
Jerry and Kristy wrestle with the reality that every couple has different levels of desire when it comes to ongoing closeness and intimacy. Like so many other markers of social and emotional health, intimacy might be best vie...