September 28, 2025 • 39 mins
Morgan brings in Dr. Marina Rosenthal, a couples therapist specializing in high-conflict couples. Dr. Marina Rosenthal breaks down what makes “high-conflict” couples different from other couples, why standard tips sometimes fail, and how trauma or neurodivergence can disguise itself as intentional hurt. She explains how to spot destructive communication patterns, why “zero conflict” isn’t the goal, and the radical, but doable, acts both partners can take to repair after a fight.
We also cover realistic expectations (including whether major life decisions like having children are dealbreakers), sex and body-image issues in long-term relationships, and how to reframe differences as strengths instead of threats. Whether you’re dating or deep into a long partnership, you’ll get clear tactics and mindset shifts to try right away.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
With Felsman Couples. This week is all about you. Maybe
you're the couple that fights all the time, or maybe
not at all. Either way, doctor Marina has the feedback
you need to hear. She's a couple therapists who specializes
in high conflict couples. She will talk us through why
some people get stuck in escalation, how to spot the cycle,
and how do we connect and repair even when it
(00:37):
seems impossible. So let's do this. I have doctor Marina
Rosenthal joining me. She's a high conflict couples therapist, and
I'm really excited to get a chat with you.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Thanks for being here, Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Yeah, we listen. Relationships are a part of every BIS
day to day life, and it's really important that we
understand how to interact within those relationships. And I think
you were the perfect expert for this topic.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
I'm so glad to be here and totally ready to
dive in.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Yeah, and that's exactly what we're gonna do. But before
we get into kind of the nitty gritty, what kind
of makes it different between just a couple's therapist and
a high conflict couple's therapist.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yeah, so I'm a psychologist. I'm a certified sex therapist,
and I certainly work with couples who are not high conflict,
but my specialties working with couples who have found other
forms of couples therapy ineffective, who are looking everywhere and
being told I don't know, maybe you should just break up,
your relationship looks too terrible, give up. Basically I don't
(01:48):
know how to help you. Often the couples that I
work with have tried couples therapy and felt like their
therapist didn't know what to do with them, like they
just talked round and round, fought during session and left
feeling worse, feeling really discouraged. And so part of what
I do is meet those couples where they are and
help them how to figure out really concretely and tactically,
(02:12):
how to change the cycle that they're caught in. Because
even though things are really bad, if the relationship is
fundamentally safe, we're not talking about a situation of abuse,
often there are things that can be done, There are
ways to change the cycle. It's just that some of
the standard tips and tricks that might work for a
lot of couples don't work for high conflict couples.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Oh, that's really important because I think once you're told
by one person, it's like when you go to a
doctor and they're like, well you have this, and you
get bumped because you're like, that's my only option. Instead
this other variety for somebody to go and try another
avenue that they maybe didn't think they had the option for.
(02:51):
Does that feel accurate?
Speaker 2 (02:53):
It is? I use that analogy often encouraging people to
get second opinions, encouraging people to be really thoughtful about
are you seeing a specialist first of all, somebody who
primarily works with couples, specialized in couples, And then are
you seeing a therapist who's not going to be overwhelmed
when you come in and talk in circles? A lot
of high conflict couples have one partner, if not too
(03:15):
who have some degree of neurodivergence, who have a partner
with ADHD or who is autistic, and therapists sometimes misunderstand
what's happening and assume bad intent or assume like, oh,
you're just not following the rules. I gave you rules
and you didn't follow them, and actually what's going on
might be neurodivergence might be trauma, might be a bunch
of other things where there's not a bad guy, there's
(03:37):
nobody to be blamed, but we do need to figure
out how to meet these people where they're at and
help them work together for the relationship that they want.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
How often is it that you have couples come in
and you see, oh, yeah, this has been going on
for a long time and you're finally just now starting
to realize this is getting worse. Do you often see
them come in at the point where they feel like
there's now return or do you feel like you are
starting to see couples more and more at the very
beginning of a relationship and they're going to try and
(04:07):
do therapy proactively.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
I definitely get both. Because of the nature of my specialty,
I think I tend to get more of those last
chance couples than maybe other people are. But I have
worked with many people who are dating, who are not married,
who haven't ultimately decided that they're going to go forward
with their commitment or not, but want to actually put
(04:30):
in the effort to address the problems they're having before
calling it. And I think that's so wise, especially for
couples who are having kind of like messy fights. What
I've found is that often you could break up, find
a new partner, and some of those patterns will follow
you to that next relationship if you don't actually address them. So,
whether this is the person or not, it's not going
(04:51):
to hurt you to figure out what the heck is
going on.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
So, if we're working in that proactive space and you
take someone like me who you know is new in
a relationship but they're starting to navigate and obviously they
want one day to get married. When you see someone
like me, what is some potential advice you would give
them to be like, maybe work on your relationship in
this capacity to ensure you don't have X y Z
(05:18):
later down the road. I think there's this missed opportunity
when it comes to like singles or people in new
relationships where we're not really prepping them for what's to come.
It's more just like, yeah, you want love and you
want to be married, and that's really cool, but also,
here's some things you can potentially do to avoid kind
of long term disaster.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah. I think that's so important and it's something I
talk a lot about that we have these big aspirations
for most people that I talk to want to get married,
and they want to stay married for life, right, Like,
that's a very typical desire. Of course, not everybody wants
those things, but a lot of people do, and unfortunately,
I think most people are not prepared with the both
(06:02):
like behavioral skills, communication skills, and also the mindset to
effectively achieve that goal. So you go in with this
beautiful goal and you're like, Oh, I've met my person.
We're going to be so happy together, And then the
very natural process of a relationship developing and changing over
time takes people by surprise. Something I say often is
(06:23):
like everybody knows that, kind of like truism, Like, oh,
marriage is hard. You've heard that a million times. I
think often no one explained and really walked folks through, Well,
how is it hard? What are we talking about here?
What's normal and healthy? What do we expect? What should
we see as warning signs and problems both within the
self and also within the relationship. So in terms of
(06:44):
some proactive things, one of the things that I think
is really under utilized is thinking about your differences as strengths.
So starting off in a relationship, people are often drawn
to each other, not just because you're compatible you have
things in common, but also because there's qualities where it's like, oh,
you're a little different from me, and I like that
(07:04):
about you. I know that when I met my husband,
I loved that he was really chill. He's like a calm,
mellow person. He doesn't get riled up easily. It's like, Oh,
this is so soothing and relaxing. I feel so emotionally safe.
He's not an escalator. He's never going to be the
person during a fight to say a mean thing or
like take it too far. That's just not him. But
(07:27):
let's like take that trait and look at it from
three hundred and sixty degrees. He's really calm, he's really mellow.
Does that mean that he's like the most proactive person
on the planet. Yeah, it actually doesn't. He's not. And
so then when that comes up, being able to hold
the whole person and be like, oh, yeah, like here's
this person I chose. I really like one aspect of
(07:47):
this trait. Another aspect of it is driving me up
the wall right now. But they do go together. And
that doesn't mean you can't ask for change. You can't say, hey,
here's what I need from you differently. But being able
to keep holding on to the parts of your partner
true you to them and not making them bad, I
think is so important.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Wow, I've never thought of that kind of juxposition of
a trait, and you just made my entire mind kind
of blow. Okay, these are all the things I love,
but I've never really looked at it from this bigger perspective. Gosh,
that's great tip. So cool. We often hear that communication
is the key, make sure you have great communication. This
(08:25):
is so important. Is it that important? And if so,
why is it so important because it's getting lost in
translation because it's so thrown around very often.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
That's such a good point. I think any of these,
like truisms, pieces of advice you've heard all the time,
can get a little distorted. And it is true that
most couples who reach out to couples therapists say communication
is a problem. We can't communicate. Most people say that's
the problem, and I would agree. I think that often
is the problem. But the way that communication is going
(08:58):
awry can be really different from couple to couples. So
some couples don't communicate right, They don't share things that
are concerning them, like hey, you hurt me, could you
not do that next time? That just gets unsaid and
builds up resentment. That's not the type of couple I
tend to work with, because I work with high conflict
couples where people say this stuff. The issue isn't repressing it,
(09:19):
it's how it gets delivered. And very often what happens
is that something that's really like a vulnerable emotion like
oh that hurt me, I felt left behind, I missed you,
I felt betrayed. These soft kind of tender feelings that
would bring our partners toward us get wrapped up in
a whole bunch of other stuff like criticism, like attacks
(09:41):
on their character, like describing them in ways that feel
really icky to them, and then they have to fight back,
and that's when you get a lot of defensiveness and
it can start a loop of really negative communication where
nobody's getting hurt. So I think that communication is key,
but first we have to figure out what is not
working in a given couple's communication dynam And even if
your relationship is going great, you can still think through
(10:03):
like what's our achilles heel? Like what communication trap are
we most likely to fall into so that we can
spot it when it starts to come up.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
You mentioned this spotting that this is happening when you're
communicating with someone. Is there an alertness to that where
you're like, oh, that doesn't feel right, Like how is
somebody supposed to pinpoint something that's normal versus something that's
probably not what's supposed to be happening.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Yeah. One of the things I really encourage is for
people to practice mindfulness within themselves and within their relationship,
not like sitting and meditating, but just being observational, like, oh,
that's really interesting. I noticed that when I described for
like two minutes straight how I didn't like something that
(10:55):
my husband did, he seems withdrawn and quiet, and then
he's said okay in a flat voice, and I didn't
feel very good afterward, like huh, what just went down?
And it's easy to point fingers and go like he's
just being defensive and he can't take any critical feedback
and blame him, but like, okay, let's actually pause and
(11:16):
look at me. Did I neutrally make a request? Did
I go on and on about all the terrible things
he's done and all the things I've imagined he could
have done. How did I show up? How would it
have felt to me if he described me that way?
And just observing, like what effect am I having on
the people around me? In the same way that we
(11:36):
do in other relationships, I think, really seamlessly, like, oh,
my friend didn't seem to like it when I gave
her advice, so maybe I won't do that next time.
Or it seems like my coworker would rather not chit
chat during time at lunch together, Final'll chat with somebody else, right,
Like we're often pretty perceptive in other relationships and don't
do that same self assessment in our romantic relationships.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Do you feel often happens because people get so comfortable
And I'm seeing often in relationships that you get so
comfortable with this person that they come your springboard for
everything that's happening in your life, and you just get
used to that, and it's someone that's around all the time,
and then you wake up five years from now and
you've thrown all this stuff at this person and back
(12:22):
and forth that it's just easy and comfortable, and you've forgot, oh,
that's another human being.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Yeah, I think that's a huge factor if you're with
someone all the time, day and day out. You're doing
both your romantic love life, but you're also perhaps caring
for pets together, doing finances together, making meals, raising kids,
whatever folks are doing. It's a lot on your relationship,
and over time most people lower their standards of like
(12:51):
baseline respectful communication, baseline treatment. And to some extent that's okay.
That can reflect just that you're very comfortable with each other.
You don't always have to be in your cutest clothes
looking perfect in front of your long term partner. You
can really be yourself. But I think sometimes its slides
too far, where if we actually wrote down, and as
(13:12):
a couple's therapists, in some cases it's my job to
actually write down like, oh, this person said in these
exact words, like you care about nobody but yourself, you're
lazy and selfish. Would we think that was a nice
thing to say, Like, would we think that was a
respectful way to talk to your partner? No, of course not.
But we're not putting it through that lens.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Yeah, yeah, gosh, And it's really hard. I feel like
you do get so comfortable and there is that kind
of gray area that things get crossed over. Where it's comfortable,
but also there is such a thing as too much comfort,
and we just don't really see that to your point
from the bird's eye view or seeing it in that moment.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
That's a good example of something I talk about a
lot that some people hold a belief that honestly, I
think is from like romantic comedies or I don't know
where we got it, but this idea that you should
be able to say literally anything to your partner and
they should just be okay with it. You should be
able to tell them your worst thoughts about them. You
should be able to tell them sometimes I think about
(14:13):
my ex and what my life would be like with them,
and that they should just be able to roll with that.
And most people just can't handle that level of kind
of like critical content, and often it's not that meaningful, right,
Everybody has fleeting thoughts that are negative about each other,
and your partner doesn't need like a billboard update on
like oh I had this thought about you and then
it passed. They really don't need that. And so breaking
(14:35):
down this myth that you need to be able to
tell your partner exactly what you're thinking in every single
moment in order to be authentic. That's just not true.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Yeah. The older I get, the more I have learned
that romantic movies and rom coms have definitely sabotaged the
way that I perceive relationships for sure. What are some
ways do you speaking of sabotage that you feel like
people are sabotaging their relationships.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Yeah, that's such a good question. So Number one I
think is like unreasonable expectations. And when I talk about
this sometimes I get a little pushback because we don't
want to tell people to settle. That's really not the
spirit of what I'm saying. I actually believe generally we
get more out of our relationships by expecting a little
bit less or by having reasonable, realistic expectations for like
(15:24):
what one other human being can actually do for us.
So setting yourself up for success first of all, just
by having realistic expectations, I think is a great place
to start.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
I love that, And because I also do have had
moments in my early relationships where I did have unrealistic expectations.
So as you were saying them, like, yeah, there are
moments of there where I definitely should have owned in
my relationships that I was expecting things and it was
convoluted in the sense that it was like, I'm not settling,
(15:57):
and I'm asking this of you instead of seeing that
person is who they were, and I was asking the
wrong person.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Yeah, it's such a good point. I think this is
a big conversation that's being had right now, which is
what can we expect of each other? And if a
person can't meet your needs, what do you do about it?
Do you leave because they can't meet your needs? Which,
to be clear, is absolutely always an option. And I
think in the dating stage, if you're trying on different partners,
(16:26):
it's really appropriate to not invest more time in somebody
if you realize they're not likely to meet my needs.
This is just who they are. If you've tried on
a lot of somebody is if you've had multiple serious
relationships that over and over you're hearing like, this isn't realistic.
Nobody's going to be able to meet these needs. Sometimes
that's worth kind of looking into and cross checking are
(16:50):
what I'm saying are my needs? Are they actually needs?
Or are they things that I can be fulfilling for myself.
But for folks who are in a long term commitment,
for whom leaving a relationship is very complex due to
kids and money and property. It's very often just not
that simple. I think we want to pretend that it
is and be like, if you're not one hundred percent happy,
(17:10):
leave now. And of course, if that's what you want
to do, and you can do, that's great. But I
tend to try to want to meet people where they're at,
which often is like, I don't know. What I want
is for this to be fifteen percent better, and I'm
having a really hard time getting there, and it seems
like one option might be leaving, but that would be
a huge hassle, and I do love this person. It's
more ambiguous, it's murkier.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Do you often feel like with these couples once they
get to this point and they come to you and
they're wanting things to get better, do you feel like
it has built up so much over time or is
it just one moment in the whole volcano explodes.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
What's really interesting a lot of high conflict couples. We're
high conflict from the very beginning of their relationship, which
I understand might go like, okay, well, then get a
different relationship, and again that's a perfectly valid option. What
I've found also, though, is that a lot of the time,
the reason they're high conflict is like they're working out
(18:08):
some stuff on each other, and often there's a lot
of trauma involved, and people are facing some of their
own personal demons in a way through this relationship, and
it is all showing up and that's painful, it's unpleasant,
but there can be some really fruitful work on the
other side of it. Like often high conflict couples are
(18:29):
just like madly in love. The love is so big
and they just do not know how to stop going
on this escalator of intense conflict and are very much puzzled,
like why do we do this? What is up with us?
We're in love with each other, we are compatible. Why
do we keep acting like this? Is like almost confusing
to them, And that's part of my role is helping translate,
(18:51):
like what is actually going on here for you too?
Speaker 1 (18:54):
When they've had one of those fits and it happens
and they come down off of it. I see a
lot of people talk about how they struggle with reconnection
after a fight because it does often result in like
some resentment. There's feelings and stuff there. So how do
couple start to reconnect after maybe it's high conflict, maybe
(19:15):
it's just a big fight, Maybe it's just the same
fight that keeps happening over and over.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Yes, that's such a critical skill, and I think it's
one of those where everybody wants their partner to make
the first to move. Everybody wants the other person to
come to them and be really patient and offer repair
and be the one to reach out that alive branch.
And I often tell people that it's like a radical
(19:40):
accountability where you are both going to jump first. You're
both going to move first, and you're going to keep
your eyes on your own work and focus on how
can I repair, not like what repair do I deserve
from my partner? Because while people are in that mindset
of like, Okay, I'm waiting come on over repair with me,
you're very prickly and unlikely to actually receive any repair.
(20:02):
So I encourage people to just think what can I
personally do, like, what is in my power to reconnect
and repair? Setting aside for a moment the ways I
think that I've been injured in this conflict and we
can come back to them. But in order to get
back to some degree of connection, it's often necessary for
both people to receive some amount of kind of like, hey,
(20:24):
I'm here, I'm sorry that sucked. Can we hug? Can
we just breathe together?
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Yeah, it's often hard to say that. To your point,
we do get prickly after fights. We feel very strong
in how we feel. I think that's human nature. We
just really want to defend how we felt and why
we felt that way. But that's an even harder moment
in your life to look at someone and say I
just fought with you, but also I really need a
hug from you.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
It is, and you know for some people it might
not be a hug, but like just being able to acknowledge, like, hey,
I have a role in I see you. My goal
is for us to not be fighting anymore. And then
on the flip side, it's really important when your partner
offers that alive branch to not knock it out of
their hand, which is something I see happening a lot
where people are so caught up in like the self
(21:14):
righteousness of I was wronged in this, and you said
this to me and it was terrible that they reject
attempts that their partners make to repair with them.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Yeah, and rejection is already hard enough as it is,
let alone rejection when you're feeling that way and vulnerable
after something like.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
That happens exactly so then they pull back and they're
not likely to offer it again in that moment, and
you aren't getting the repair you needed, you're not really connected.
Everybody loses.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Yeah, to your point, it is very much a critical skill,
and there's a lot of critical skills and relationships that
we just don't learn about until especially until you're in
them and you're going through them. There's so many things
that you can't be taught until.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
You're in it. And it's so true.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
This is one of those to what you're saying.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Yeah, it's such a funny thing. I think even if
you had the best role models in the world for relationships,
there is a practical just living it is different. And
then the reality is a lot of people don't feel
that they received good role modeling around what a healthy
relationship looks like, and that ranges from My parents seem
to have a great marriage, but they never fought, and
(22:23):
so I just didn't see what does conflict look like
all the way to my parents had terrible, out of
control fights, and I never wanted that to happen in
my life.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Again, you just mentioned that, and it made me think
of something because I've heard this from people. I've heard
it from guys i've dated, I've heard it from girlfriends.
When you are in a home that there's zero conflict,
is that a good thing or is that hurtful to you?
(22:52):
Understanding what conflict looks like?
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Yeah, I don't recommend that the goal be zero conflict
because ultimately, conflict is like a primal form of human connection.
It's inevitable. And so what zero conflict usually means is
that the conflict is happening, but it's happening underneath the surface.
There are bad vibes. There is weird energy that comes up,
and kids are super perceptive to that. And so even
(23:18):
if no one's fighting, nothing has been said, often people
will be like, yeah, I knew mom was mad because
she just like silently made dinner or whatever. Even if
there aren't bad vibes. Though, you still, to your point,
aren't getting those skills in that modeling of like rupture
and repair, Which going back to this idea of like
what is a realistic relationship. That is a realistic relationship
(23:41):
is that we will have many ruptures and negative interactions
and then need the tools to repair them. It starts
at the beginning of life and it never goes away.
And so if you never see that, it really is
a disservice.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Yeah, very much so. I saw you also mention in
your social media content that high conflict couples tend to
fight more about relationship dynamics than they do about concrete topics.
What exactly does that mean?
Speaker 2 (24:07):
I know it's abstract. It's one of those that if
you're a high conflict couple and you heard it, probably
your brain just like lit up, and if you're not,
you're like, what now? More like I guess typical couples,
although I think being high conflict is relatively common, But
more typical couples, the couples that a lot of therapies
are built for, actually have fights about thematic issues. So
(24:28):
division of labor is a really common one. Sex is
really common one. Money, And of course all those topics
have underlying themes and meanings. It's not just the surface level.
But if we solved the problem on the surface, we
might actually solve the problem. The conflict would go away.
If magically wave your wand division of labor is just solved,
(24:48):
problem solved. For high conflict couples, they might talk about
those topics in their fights, although interestingly, very often they
don't actually have conflict. Couples typically fight about things like
how close are we? What does it feel like in
our relationship? Do I feel you slip away from me
and I don't like it? Do I feel you trying
(25:08):
to pull me closer and I don't like it? These
kind of like internal psychological dynamics are often what high
conflict couples are fighting about.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Oh wow, I'm glad you explain that, because I saw
that and I was so curious. But it makes sense
because just like we have to get to root causes
about our things and our health, like to your point,
this is the root cause.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
That's exactly it. And it's part of why therapy can
be unsatisfying for some high conflict couples, because there's all
this brainstorming and troubleshooting of like, Okay, what can we
do differently about money or sex or division of labor,
and systems are tried or new communication skills are tried,
and ultimately, at the end of the day, no one
has named, hey, you're actually not fighting about any of
(25:56):
that you're fighting about, like what does it mean to
be in relationship? What can I expect of you? It's
very philosophical, high conflict couples are often really smart and
get caught in these logic traps with each other where
it's like, what is accountability? What does it mean to
validate another person? Can we expect that of each other?
(26:17):
It gets deep.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Oh I love deep stuff though. I think that's awesome,
So there is a beautiful side to that, but it
does also bring on the other side, which is conflict.
When I imagine these couples, when they go through a
lot of these experiences, will then have negative thoughts feelings
about their partner. Is that normal? Is that even just
normal for regular couples to have negative thoughts or bad
(26:42):
feelings about their partner.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Yeah, this is so normal for all couples. I will
die on this hill and I do so pretty regularly
on social media and stir up some feelings about it.
Everybody has so many thoughts every single day. And the
interesting thing about thoughts is we're not direct control of them.
We can't actually prevent a thought, and research shows actually
(27:05):
that trying to prevent a specific thought Stopping a thought
makes that thought more powerful, It makes it more intrusive,
It makes it feel more like, Oh, I can't get
it out of my head. And so the most healthy
way to handle thoughts is to either just let them happen,
like oh, that was a thought anyway, moving on, or
to evaluate them like is that really true? Is that
(27:25):
actually factual? Or am I just really mad right now?
And so I'm having the thought like that example from earlier,
maybe someone's having the thought like my partner doesn't care
about me, they're really mad right now? If we pull back,
is that actually true? Is there actually evidence that your
partner doesn't care about you? Or is that just the
thing you were thinking in the moment and we can
let it go. And I think a lot of people
(27:46):
find this very scary to imagine that you might have
negative thoughts about your partner. I think, more importantly, your
partner might have negative thoughts about you. And for many
people that is so scary. It's really scary to imagine,
what if my partner has a fleeting negative thought about me,
does that mean we shouldn't be together? And there's just
a real fear of what that would mean. And I'm
(28:08):
always trying to help normalize, like this is just part
of having a brain. We don't have to make it
so scary.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
Well, and oftentimes too, when people have these negative thoughts,
they're not acting on them. Correct, It's just in there
and it's existing, and something just like pops through and
then it goes out the other year.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Yeah, exactly. I had a real that blew up a
little bit in which one of the lines from it
that was like, these are normal thoughts. And there were
all these examples, and there were a few that people
freaked out about a little bit more, and one of
them was like, there's some things about an ex that
I miss And there was a lot of like if
you're thinking about your ex, you're in the wrong relationship,
(28:48):
like get out. And I really think that comes down
to just that fear, like what if my partner ever
thinks about their ex Ooh scary. I don't want to
think about that. That makes me feel really insecure. So
I'm going to say that's like evil and and no
one should have those thoughts, when in reality, I'm pretty
sure that pretty much everybody has had that type of thought.
Like I think that pretty much everybody has had a
(29:10):
fleeting thought of like, oh I missed that one quality.
Oh yeah, but they're sucked in this other way. Anyway,
moving on, it doesn't have to be so scary.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
Yeah, thank you for normalizing that. I think it allows
us to be human a little bit more, and getting
the chance to continue to be human is always a
better experience than not and thinking more robots.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
And like scolding ourselves for not being robots and scolding
other people. I don't think that works out very well.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
No, it does not. I did have two of these
questions from some listeners from the podcast that I wanted
to ask. I thought they were important. Is choosing not
to have kids worth ending a very strong and healthy
relationship together where you've been together for several years?
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Oh gosh, it's such a hard question. So I think
this is going to depend a lot on the strength
of the desire for having kids. So one partner wants
kids and the other doesn't. This is one of relatively
few like non compromised situations, right Like, there's not a
compromise number of kids. One kid is not a compromise
(30:14):
between zero and two, right, Like, you really should want
to have a child in order to have a child.
Of course, many people, perhaps most new parents or parents
to be have some degree of ambivalence. But ambivalence isn't
the same as like, no, I know I don't want kids.
I think that if truly somebody believes it's part of
my life's path to at least try and have children,
(30:35):
I want to do that. That's a very reasonable compatibility
issue to end a relationship over. If, however, there's a
great deal of turmoil over that and a big tension
like I don't know, maybe I want to be with
this person instead, that might be a sign that the
desire for kids is perhaps less than the desire for
this relationship, And so you can weigh how much you
(30:56):
want these different things.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
That was a good way to sh share that because
it hits on both levels of like, yes, there's this
real lack of compatibility, but also sometimes life takes you
on a different path than you anticipated. You dream up
this whole idea in your head, much to how we
were discussing things in movies, and you have these experiences
and you get older and life goes a different way
(31:19):
than what you anticipated, and I think that's okay.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
It is that's such a good point. I think most
people have this like almost movie script of what they
want their life to look like. And the reality is
you could leave that relationship and not be able to
have kids. You could not find a different partner that
you liked. So you know, all kinds of things could happen.
You could be with that person, they could decide that
you want to have kids together and really have trouble conceiving.
(31:46):
There's just we don't actually know what's next, and so
you really have to just make the best choice that
you can given your values and your goals and knowing
that those change. That's something I do talk a lot
about is that even if you thank you and your
partner incredibly compatible, when you meet fifteen years later, you
might be really different. Your interests might have changed, you
(32:08):
might have changed in more fundamental ways, And so allowing
that space to grow and evolve together is really important.
And sometimes that does result in the end of a relationship,
and that's okay too.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Growing and evolving is really tough, especially when you fall
in love with someone and you have this idea of
what it's supposed to continue to look like. But it
is so important when you Before I ask this other question,
I wanted to ask about this I often feel like
people forget that when you enter into a relationship, especially
one that you're hoping lasts forever for life, you're supposed
(32:42):
to grow and evolve together, like you're supposed to communicate
those experiences and really go through life together even if
you're changing. But you have to do that with this
person in mind in a way. And I often feel
like I've met people and I've seen people experience where
somebody evolves and then they get mad at the other
(33:04):
person for evolving, yeah, or vice versa.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
It's a huge thing. I think there's a few layers
of that. One is like, yeah, we can't expect our
partners to be carved in stone, and any trait or
aspect of them that you liked it could change. There's
certain things that tend to be stable, but there's a
lot that can change over our lifetime. And if one
person is evolving and the other person is scared of
(33:30):
that evolution, that can be really painful in a relationship
and stifling. And then the other thing that just feels
relevant to this is I think sometimes people want less
of like an evolving, dynamic partnership and more of an
archetype of a partner like a here's this person, and
I have a story I think about with this that
(33:51):
when I was a kid and I was learning how
to read, my parents were having a hard time getting
me to be interested in reading on my own, and
so they got me these books that they thought would
really entice me. And they were like princessy little girl
books that I was really enthralled by, like, oh, okay,
I'm willing to read for this. And in one of
them there was a whole story about a big sister
(34:12):
getting married, and the whole story is little girl's following
along and as the flower girl, and the whole story
goes into great detail about the dress and the flowers
and the cake, and only on the very last page
do you see the groom's head just from the back
as they drive away in the car. He's just like,
not even part of the picture. He's an archetype. He's
(34:32):
just a placeholder, really, And I think all genders. People
can do that to their partners. They can be like, oh,
thank god, I've found you. I've looked for you. You
are my person, and slot them into their vision of
a life without actually clarifying do you want these things?
Do you think you're always going to want them and
clarifying like seeing them as a whole person.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Yes, I'm really glad that you shared that part. It
totally spun off. It was not my initial direction, but
I'm just glad we got there because it is really
important to see people as whole people. That's the purpose
of a partnership. It's an importance of being in a relationship.
You're not doing it for the aesthetic. You're doing it
because you want to feel love and you want to
feel good next to a human being. Like I do,
(35:15):
think there's lost in that. It's no different than people
they get a dog, maybe it's a golden retriever because
of the aesthetic it looks good. That's the white pick
at fins. I have the golden retriever. I got the tall,
dark and handsome. It's everything the way that it looks
instead of how it feels.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Yeah, that's exactly it.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
Yeah, this is the other question that came in, and
I thought it was good, especially given that you are
a sex therapist. How important is having sex with your
partner struggling with some confidence. There's some overweight stuff happening,
and this person just really wants some advice on how
important it is and maybe how to navigate that.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
Oh well, my heart goes out to them. I think
that's such a commonplace that people, maybe especially women, end
up in and sex is important for most couples. Obviously,
not all people's preferences are different, and so I would
first ask that question, like is this something that's important
to both of us? And if the answer is no,
then great, don't worry about it. But if it is
important to you and your partner, if you have a
(36:16):
relationship that includes sex and value sex, one of the
things that is most helpful is to flip the idea
of like how much sex does my partner or my
relationship need in order to not like wither because I
think that's often especially women, how are like conditioned to
think about it? Is almost like putting money in a
slot machine, like I need to put my deposit in
(36:39):
otherwise we're not going to have enough. And that's just
not a healthy way to experience your own sexuality. So
I would redirect back to the self in this case
and think about, like, what do I want out of
my sex life? If I envisioned a sex life where
I felt happy and healthy and excited and confident what
(36:59):
would that love like? And this is another example of
setting aside the aesthetic, because like I promise, no amount
of weight lost or specific body type is going to
change that internal experience of thinking about sex as something
that you have to do for your relationship, that you
have to do for your partner. That's like an inside
job issue, not the way that you look. And people
(37:22):
with all different kinds of bodies, including those that are
considered very like ideal, have those thoughts and that experience
of themselves as like I just have to do this
because this is what we're supposed to do. So I
would reconnect like what do you want out of sex
and how do you build from the inside out that
type of sex life rather than thinking about it in
(37:42):
terms of like how much do I have to put
in before my relationship dies? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Wow, when you compared it to the slot machine, I
feel like that's a very universal experience, just in the
ways that we've been taught and understood relationships and how
that dynamic, especially intimacy works within relationships. So you've given
me so many things to just my brain is like, Okay, Morgan,
we gotta maybe rethink look at restructuring try some different things.
(38:10):
But this is why it's so important to have conversations
like this, because without someone like you, with your knowledge
and expertise, we would never know any different.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Yeah, it's so true. You don't know what you haven't
talked about, and certain subjects are so taboo. Really, conflict
is pretty taboo. Sex is taboo, right, so you might
not feel like you have any place to go and
talk about, like, hey, this is what's happening? Is this normal?
What do I do about it?
Speaker 1 (38:36):
Well, Doctor Marina, thank you so much. All of your
words of wisdom and just your knowledge on this topic
are really important and I appreciate you being here.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
I've been holding on to this interview for a while now.
I love talking with doctor Marina and talking about something
especially that so many people are dealing with. But I
was holding on to it until it was the right time,
and that time is now coming. So my birthday is
coming up, as is my boyfriend's, and we decided a
fun gift would be to record our first episodes together.
So next week you will officially get to meet my
(39:15):
boyfriend and we have lots to share. So subscribe to
the podcast and you won't miss it. I'm really happy
that you're here, and I can't wait to yap with
y'all next week and introduce you to a very special
guy in my life.
With Felsman Couples. This week is all about you. Maybe
you're the couple that fights all the time, or maybe
not at all. Either way, doctor Marina has the feedback
you need to hear. She's a couple therapists who specializes
in high conflict couples. She will talk us through why
some people get stuck in escalation, how to spot the cycle,
and how do we connect and repair even when it
(00:37):
seems impossible. So let's do this. I have doctor Marina
Rosenthal joining me. She's a high conflict couples therapist, and
I'm really excited to get a chat with you.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Thanks for being here, Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Yeah, we listen. Relationships are a part of every BIS
day to day life, and it's really important that we
understand how to interact within those relationships. And I think
you were the perfect expert for this topic.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
I'm so glad to be here and totally ready to
dive in.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Yeah, and that's exactly what we're gonna do. But before
we get into kind of the nitty gritty, what kind
of makes it different between just a couple's therapist and
a high conflict couple's therapist.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yeah, so I'm a psychologist. I'm a certified sex therapist,
and I certainly work with couples who are not high conflict,
but my specialties working with couples who have found other
forms of couples therapy ineffective, who are looking everywhere and
being told I don't know, maybe you should just break up,
your relationship looks too terrible, give up. Basically I don't
(01:48):
know how to help you. Often the couples that I
work with have tried couples therapy and felt like their
therapist didn't know what to do with them, like they
just talked round and round, fought during session and left
feeling worse, feeling really discouraged. And so part of what
I do is meet those couples where they are and
help them how to figure out really concretely and tactically,
(02:12):
how to change the cycle that they're caught in. Because
even though things are really bad, if the relationship is
fundamentally safe, we're not talking about a situation of abuse,
often there are things that can be done, There are
ways to change the cycle. It's just that some of
the standard tips and tricks that might work for a
lot of couples don't work for high conflict couples.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Oh, that's really important because I think once you're told
by one person, it's like when you go to a
doctor and they're like, well you have this, and you
get bumped because you're like, that's my only option. Instead
this other variety for somebody to go and try another
avenue that they maybe didn't think they had the option for.
(02:51):
Does that feel accurate?
Speaker 2 (02:53):
It is? I use that analogy often encouraging people to
get second opinions, encouraging people to be really thoughtful about
are you seeing a specialist first of all, somebody who
primarily works with couples, specialized in couples, And then are
you seeing a therapist who's not going to be overwhelmed
when you come in and talk in circles? A lot
of high conflict couples have one partner, if not too
(03:15):
who have some degree of neurodivergence, who have a partner
with ADHD or who is autistic, and therapists sometimes misunderstand
what's happening and assume bad intent or assume like, oh,
you're just not following the rules. I gave you rules
and you didn't follow them, and actually what's going on
might be neurodivergence might be trauma, might be a bunch
of other things where there's not a bad guy, there's
(03:37):
nobody to be blamed, but we do need to figure
out how to meet these people where they're at and
help them work together for the relationship that they want.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
How often is it that you have couples come in
and you see, oh, yeah, this has been going on
for a long time and you're finally just now starting
to realize this is getting worse. Do you often see
them come in at the point where they feel like
there's now return or do you feel like you are
starting to see couples more and more at the very
beginning of a relationship and they're going to try and
(04:07):
do therapy proactively.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
I definitely get both. Because of the nature of my specialty,
I think I tend to get more of those last
chance couples than maybe other people are. But I have
worked with many people who are dating, who are not married,
who haven't ultimately decided that they're going to go forward
with their commitment or not, but want to actually put
(04:30):
in the effort to address the problems they're having before
calling it. And I think that's so wise, especially for
couples who are having kind of like messy fights. What
I've found is that often you could break up, find
a new partner, and some of those patterns will follow
you to that next relationship if you don't actually address them. So,
whether this is the person or not, it's not going
(04:51):
to hurt you to figure out what the heck is
going on.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
So, if we're working in that proactive space and you
take someone like me who you know is new in
a relationship but they're starting to navigate and obviously they
want one day to get married. When you see someone
like me, what is some potential advice you would give
them to be like, maybe work on your relationship in
this capacity to ensure you don't have X y Z
(05:18):
later down the road. I think there's this missed opportunity
when it comes to like singles or people in new
relationships where we're not really prepping them for what's to come.
It's more just like, yeah, you want love and you
want to be married, and that's really cool, but also,
here's some things you can potentially do to avoid kind
of long term disaster.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah. I think that's so important and it's something I
talk a lot about that we have these big aspirations
for most people that I talk to want to get married,
and they want to stay married for life, right, Like,
that's a very typical desire. Of course, not everybody wants
those things, but a lot of people do, and unfortunately,
I think most people are not prepared with the both
(06:02):
like behavioral skills, communication skills, and also the mindset to
effectively achieve that goal. So you go in with this
beautiful goal and you're like, Oh, I've met my person.
We're going to be so happy together, And then the
very natural process of a relationship developing and changing over
time takes people by surprise. Something I say often is
(06:23):
like everybody knows that, kind of like truism, Like, oh,
marriage is hard. You've heard that a million times. I
think often no one explained and really walked folks through, Well,
how is it hard? What are we talking about here?
What's normal and healthy? What do we expect? What should
we see as warning signs and problems both within the
self and also within the relationship. So in terms of
(06:44):
some proactive things, one of the things that I think
is really under utilized is thinking about your differences as strengths.
So starting off in a relationship, people are often drawn
to each other, not just because you're compatible you have
things in common, but also because there's qualities where it's like, oh,
you're a little different from me, and I like that
(07:04):
about you. I know that when I met my husband,
I loved that he was really chill. He's like a calm,
mellow person. He doesn't get riled up easily. It's like, Oh,
this is so soothing and relaxing. I feel so emotionally safe.
He's not an escalator. He's never going to be the
person during a fight to say a mean thing or
like take it too far. That's just not him. But
(07:27):
let's like take that trait and look at it from
three hundred and sixty degrees. He's really calm, he's really mellow.
Does that mean that he's like the most proactive person
on the planet. Yeah, it actually doesn't. He's not. And
so then when that comes up, being able to hold
the whole person and be like, oh, yeah, like here's
this person I chose. I really like one aspect of
(07:47):
this trait. Another aspect of it is driving me up
the wall right now. But they do go together. And
that doesn't mean you can't ask for change. You can't say, hey,
here's what I need from you differently. But being able
to keep holding on to the parts of your partner
true you to them and not making them bad, I
think is so important.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Wow, I've never thought of that kind of juxposition of
a trait, and you just made my entire mind kind
of blow. Okay, these are all the things I love,
but I've never really looked at it from this bigger perspective. Gosh,
that's great tip. So cool. We often hear that communication
is the key, make sure you have great communication. This
(08:25):
is so important. Is it that important? And if so,
why is it so important because it's getting lost in
translation because it's so thrown around very often.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
That's such a good point. I think any of these,
like truisms, pieces of advice you've heard all the time,
can get a little distorted. And it is true that
most couples who reach out to couples therapists say communication
is a problem. We can't communicate. Most people say that's
the problem, and I would agree. I think that often
is the problem. But the way that communication is going
(08:58):
awry can be really different from couple to couples. So
some couples don't communicate right, They don't share things that
are concerning them, like hey, you hurt me, could you
not do that next time? That just gets unsaid and
builds up resentment. That's not the type of couple I
tend to work with, because I work with high conflict
couples where people say this stuff. The issue isn't repressing it,
(09:19):
it's how it gets delivered. And very often what happens
is that something that's really like a vulnerable emotion like
oh that hurt me, I felt left behind, I missed you,
I felt betrayed. These soft kind of tender feelings that
would bring our partners toward us get wrapped up in
a whole bunch of other stuff like criticism, like attacks
(09:41):
on their character, like describing them in ways that feel
really icky to them, and then they have to fight back,
and that's when you get a lot of defensiveness and
it can start a loop of really negative communication where
nobody's getting hurt. So I think that communication is key,
but first we have to figure out what is not
working in a given couple's communication dynam And even if
your relationship is going great, you can still think through
(10:03):
like what's our achilles heel? Like what communication trap are
we most likely to fall into so that we can
spot it when it starts to come up.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
You mentioned this spotting that this is happening when you're
communicating with someone. Is there an alertness to that where
you're like, oh, that doesn't feel right, Like how is
somebody supposed to pinpoint something that's normal versus something that's
probably not what's supposed to be happening.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Yeah. One of the things I really encourage is for
people to practice mindfulness within themselves and within their relationship,
not like sitting and meditating, but just being observational, like, oh,
that's really interesting. I noticed that when I described for
like two minutes straight how I didn't like something that
(10:55):
my husband did, he seems withdrawn and quiet, and then
he's said okay in a flat voice, and I didn't
feel very good afterward, like huh, what just went down?
And it's easy to point fingers and go like he's
just being defensive and he can't take any critical feedback
and blame him, but like, okay, let's actually pause and
(11:16):
look at me. Did I neutrally make a request? Did
I go on and on about all the terrible things
he's done and all the things I've imagined he could
have done. How did I show up? How would it
have felt to me if he described me that way?
And just observing, like what effect am I having on
the people around me? In the same way that we
(11:36):
do in other relationships, I think, really seamlessly, like, oh,
my friend didn't seem to like it when I gave
her advice, so maybe I won't do that next time.
Or it seems like my coworker would rather not chit
chat during time at lunch together, Final'll chat with somebody else, right,
Like we're often pretty perceptive in other relationships and don't
do that same self assessment in our romantic relationships.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Do you feel often happens because people get so comfortable
And I'm seeing often in relationships that you get so
comfortable with this person that they come your springboard for
everything that's happening in your life, and you just get
used to that, and it's someone that's around all the time,
and then you wake up five years from now and
you've thrown all this stuff at this person and back
(12:22):
and forth that it's just easy and comfortable, and you've forgot, oh,
that's another human being.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Yeah, I think that's a huge factor if you're with
someone all the time, day and day out. You're doing
both your romantic love life, but you're also perhaps caring
for pets together, doing finances together, making meals, raising kids,
whatever folks are doing. It's a lot on your relationship,
and over time most people lower their standards of like
(12:51):
baseline respectful communication, baseline treatment. And to some extent that's okay.
That can reflect just that you're very comfortable with each other.
You don't always have to be in your cutest clothes
looking perfect in front of your long term partner. You
can really be yourself. But I think sometimes its slides
too far, where if we actually wrote down, and as
(13:12):
a couple's therapists, in some cases it's my job to
actually write down like, oh, this person said in these
exact words, like you care about nobody but yourself, you're
lazy and selfish. Would we think that was a nice
thing to say, Like, would we think that was a
respectful way to talk to your partner? No, of course not.
But we're not putting it through that lens.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Yeah, yeah, gosh, And it's really hard. I feel like
you do get so comfortable and there is that kind
of gray area that things get crossed over. Where it's comfortable,
but also there is such a thing as too much comfort,
and we just don't really see that to your point
from the bird's eye view or seeing it in that moment.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
That's a good example of something I talk about a
lot that some people hold a belief that honestly, I
think is from like romantic comedies or I don't know
where we got it, but this idea that you should
be able to say literally anything to your partner and
they should just be okay with it. You should be
able to tell them your worst thoughts about them. You
should be able to tell them sometimes I think about
(14:13):
my ex and what my life would be like with them,
and that they should just be able to roll with that.
And most people just can't handle that level of kind
of like critical content, and often it's not that meaningful, right,
Everybody has fleeting thoughts that are negative about each other,
and your partner doesn't need like a billboard update on
like oh I had this thought about you and then
it passed. They really don't need that. And so breaking
(14:35):
down this myth that you need to be able to
tell your partner exactly what you're thinking in every single
moment in order to be authentic. That's just not true.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Yeah. The older I get, the more I have learned
that romantic movies and rom coms have definitely sabotaged the
way that I perceive relationships for sure. What are some
ways do you speaking of sabotage that you feel like
people are sabotaging their relationships.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Yeah, that's such a good question. So Number one I
think is like unreasonable expectations. And when I talk about
this sometimes I get a little pushback because we don't
want to tell people to settle. That's really not the
spirit of what I'm saying. I actually believe generally we
get more out of our relationships by expecting a little
bit less or by having reasonable, realistic expectations for like
(15:24):
what one other human being can actually do for us.
So setting yourself up for success first of all, just
by having realistic expectations, I think is a great place
to start.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
I love that, And because I also do have had
moments in my early relationships where I did have unrealistic expectations.
So as you were saying them, like, yeah, there are
moments of there where I definitely should have owned in
my relationships that I was expecting things and it was
convoluted in the sense that it was like, I'm not settling,
(15:57):
and I'm asking this of you instead of seeing that
person is who they were, and I was asking the
wrong person.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Yeah, it's such a good point. I think this is
a big conversation that's being had right now, which is
what can we expect of each other? And if a
person can't meet your needs, what do you do about it?
Do you leave because they can't meet your needs? Which,
to be clear, is absolutely always an option. And I
think in the dating stage, if you're trying on different partners,
(16:26):
it's really appropriate to not invest more time in somebody
if you realize they're not likely to meet my needs.
This is just who they are. If you've tried on
a lot of somebody is if you've had multiple serious
relationships that over and over you're hearing like, this isn't realistic.
Nobody's going to be able to meet these needs. Sometimes
that's worth kind of looking into and cross checking are
(16:50):
what I'm saying are my needs? Are they actually needs?
Or are they things that I can be fulfilling for myself.
But for folks who are in a long term commitment,
for whom leaving a relationship is very complex due to
kids and money and property. It's very often just not
that simple. I think we want to pretend that it
is and be like, if you're not one hundred percent happy,
(17:10):
leave now. And of course, if that's what you want
to do, and you can do, that's great. But I
tend to try to want to meet people where they're at,
which often is like, I don't know. What I want
is for this to be fifteen percent better, and I'm
having a really hard time getting there, and it seems
like one option might be leaving, but that would be
a huge hassle, and I do love this person. It's
more ambiguous, it's murkier.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Do you often feel like with these couples once they
get to this point and they come to you and
they're wanting things to get better, do you feel like
it has built up so much over time or is
it just one moment in the whole volcano explodes.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
What's really interesting a lot of high conflict couples. We're
high conflict from the very beginning of their relationship, which
I understand might go like, okay, well, then get a
different relationship, and again that's a perfectly valid option. What
I've found also, though, is that a lot of the time,
the reason they're high conflict is like they're working out
(18:08):
some stuff on each other, and often there's a lot
of trauma involved, and people are facing some of their
own personal demons in a way through this relationship, and
it is all showing up and that's painful, it's unpleasant,
but there can be some really fruitful work on the
other side of it. Like often high conflict couples are
(18:29):
just like madly in love. The love is so big
and they just do not know how to stop going
on this escalator of intense conflict and are very much puzzled,
like why do we do this? What is up with us?
We're in love with each other, we are compatible. Why
do we keep acting like this? Is like almost confusing
to them, And that's part of my role is helping translate,
(18:51):
like what is actually going on here for you too?
Speaker 1 (18:54):
When they've had one of those fits and it happens
and they come down off of it. I see a
lot of people talk about how they struggle with reconnection
after a fight because it does often result in like
some resentment. There's feelings and stuff there. So how do
couple start to reconnect after maybe it's high conflict, maybe
(19:15):
it's just a big fight, Maybe it's just the same
fight that keeps happening over and over.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Yes, that's such a critical skill, and I think it's
one of those where everybody wants their partner to make
the first to move. Everybody wants the other person to
come to them and be really patient and offer repair
and be the one to reach out that alive branch.
And I often tell people that it's like a radical
(19:40):
accountability where you are both going to jump first. You're
both going to move first, and you're going to keep
your eyes on your own work and focus on how
can I repair, not like what repair do I deserve
from my partner? Because while people are in that mindset
of like, Okay, I'm waiting come on over repair with me,
you're very prickly and unlikely to actually receive any repair.
(20:02):
So I encourage people to just think what can I
personally do, like, what is in my power to reconnect
and repair? Setting aside for a moment the ways I
think that I've been injured in this conflict and we
can come back to them. But in order to get
back to some degree of connection, it's often necessary for
both people to receive some amount of kind of like, hey,
(20:24):
I'm here, I'm sorry that sucked. Can we hug? Can
we just breathe together?
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Yeah, it's often hard to say that. To your point,
we do get prickly after fights. We feel very strong
in how we feel. I think that's human nature. We
just really want to defend how we felt and why
we felt that way. But that's an even harder moment
in your life to look at someone and say I
just fought with you, but also I really need a
hug from you.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
It is, and you know for some people it might
not be a hug, but like just being able to acknowledge, like, hey,
I have a role in I see you. My goal
is for us to not be fighting anymore. And then
on the flip side, it's really important when your partner
offers that alive branch to not knock it out of
their hand, which is something I see happening a lot
where people are so caught up in like the self
(21:14):
righteousness of I was wronged in this, and you said
this to me and it was terrible that they reject
attempts that their partners make to repair with them.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Yeah, and rejection is already hard enough as it is,
let alone rejection when you're feeling that way and vulnerable
after something like.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
That happens exactly so then they pull back and they're
not likely to offer it again in that moment, and
you aren't getting the repair you needed, you're not really connected.
Everybody loses.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Yeah, to your point, it is very much a critical skill,
and there's a lot of critical skills and relationships that
we just don't learn about until especially until you're in
them and you're going through them. There's so many things
that you can't be taught until.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
You're in it. And it's so true.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
This is one of those to what you're saying.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Yeah, it's such a funny thing. I think even if
you had the best role models in the world for relationships,
there is a practical just living it is different. And
then the reality is a lot of people don't feel
that they received good role modeling around what a healthy
relationship looks like, and that ranges from My parents seem
to have a great marriage, but they never fought, and
(22:23):
so I just didn't see what does conflict look like
all the way to my parents had terrible, out of
control fights, and I never wanted that to happen in
my life.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Again, you just mentioned that, and it made me think
of something because I've heard this from people. I've heard
it from guys i've dated, I've heard it from girlfriends.
When you are in a home that there's zero conflict,
is that a good thing or is that hurtful to you?
(22:52):
Understanding what conflict looks like?
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Yeah, I don't recommend that the goal be zero conflict
because ultimately, conflict is like a primal form of human connection.
It's inevitable. And so what zero conflict usually means is
that the conflict is happening, but it's happening underneath the surface.
There are bad vibes. There is weird energy that comes up,
and kids are super perceptive to that. And so even
(23:18):
if no one's fighting, nothing has been said, often people
will be like, yeah, I knew mom was mad because
she just like silently made dinner or whatever. Even if
there aren't bad vibes. Though, you still, to your point,
aren't getting those skills in that modeling of like rupture
and repair, Which going back to this idea of like
what is a realistic relationship. That is a realistic relationship
(23:41):
is that we will have many ruptures and negative interactions
and then need the tools to repair them. It starts
at the beginning of life and it never goes away.
And so if you never see that, it really is
a disservice.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Yeah, very much so. I saw you also mention in
your social media content that high conflict couples tend to
fight more about relationship dynamics than they do about concrete topics.
What exactly does that mean?
Speaker 2 (24:07):
I know it's abstract. It's one of those that if
you're a high conflict couple and you heard it, probably
your brain just like lit up, and if you're not,
you're like, what now? More like I guess typical couples,
although I think being high conflict is relatively common, But
more typical couples, the couples that a lot of therapies
are built for, actually have fights about thematic issues. So
(24:28):
division of labor is a really common one. Sex is
really common one. Money, And of course all those topics
have underlying themes and meanings. It's not just the surface level.
But if we solved the problem on the surface, we
might actually solve the problem. The conflict would go away.
If magically wave your wand division of labor is just solved,
(24:48):
problem solved. For high conflict couples, they might talk about
those topics in their fights, although interestingly, very often they
don't actually have conflict. Couples typically fight about things like
how close are we? What does it feel like in
our relationship? Do I feel you slip away from me
and I don't like it? Do I feel you trying
(25:08):
to pull me closer and I don't like it? These
kind of like internal psychological dynamics are often what high
conflict couples are fighting about.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Oh wow, I'm glad you explain that, because I saw
that and I was so curious. But it makes sense
because just like we have to get to root causes
about our things and our health, like to your point,
this is the root cause.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
That's exactly it. And it's part of why therapy can
be unsatisfying for some high conflict couples, because there's all
this brainstorming and troubleshooting of like, Okay, what can we
do differently about money or sex or division of labor,
and systems are tried or new communication skills are tried,
and ultimately, at the end of the day, no one
has named, hey, you're actually not fighting about any of
(25:56):
that you're fighting about, like what does it mean to
be in relationship? What can I expect of you? It's
very philosophical, high conflict couples are often really smart and
get caught in these logic traps with each other where
it's like, what is accountability? What does it mean to
validate another person? Can we expect that of each other?
(26:17):
It gets deep.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Oh I love deep stuff though. I think that's awesome,
So there is a beautiful side to that, but it
does also bring on the other side, which is conflict.
When I imagine these couples, when they go through a
lot of these experiences, will then have negative thoughts feelings
about their partner. Is that normal? Is that even just
normal for regular couples to have negative thoughts or bad
(26:42):
feelings about their partner.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Yeah, this is so normal for all couples. I will
die on this hill and I do so pretty regularly
on social media and stir up some feelings about it.
Everybody has so many thoughts every single day. And the
interesting thing about thoughts is we're not direct control of them.
We can't actually prevent a thought, and research shows actually
(27:05):
that trying to prevent a specific thought Stopping a thought
makes that thought more powerful, It makes it more intrusive,
It makes it feel more like, Oh, I can't get
it out of my head. And so the most healthy
way to handle thoughts is to either just let them happen,
like oh, that was a thought anyway, moving on, or
to evaluate them like is that really true? Is that
(27:25):
actually factual? Or am I just really mad right now?
And so I'm having the thought like that example from earlier,
maybe someone's having the thought like my partner doesn't care
about me, they're really mad right now? If we pull back,
is that actually true? Is there actually evidence that your
partner doesn't care about you? Or is that just the
thing you were thinking in the moment and we can
let it go. And I think a lot of people
(27:46):
find this very scary to imagine that you might have
negative thoughts about your partner. I think, more importantly, your
partner might have negative thoughts about you. And for many
people that is so scary. It's really scary to imagine,
what if my partner has a fleeting negative thought about me,
does that mean we shouldn't be together? And there's just
a real fear of what that would mean. And I'm
(28:08):
always trying to help normalize, like this is just part
of having a brain. We don't have to make it
so scary.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
Well, and oftentimes too, when people have these negative thoughts,
they're not acting on them. Correct, It's just in there
and it's existing, and something just like pops through and
then it goes out the other year.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Yeah, exactly. I had a real that blew up a
little bit in which one of the lines from it
that was like, these are normal thoughts. And there were
all these examples, and there were a few that people
freaked out about a little bit more, and one of
them was like, there's some things about an ex that
I miss And there was a lot of like if
you're thinking about your ex, you're in the wrong relationship,
(28:48):
like get out. And I really think that comes down
to just that fear, like what if my partner ever
thinks about their ex Ooh scary. I don't want to
think about that. That makes me feel really insecure. So
I'm going to say that's like evil and and no
one should have those thoughts, when in reality, I'm pretty
sure that pretty much everybody has had that type of thought.
Like I think that pretty much everybody has had a
(29:10):
fleeting thought of like, oh I missed that one quality.
Oh yeah, but they're sucked in this other way. Anyway,
moving on, it doesn't have to be so scary.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
Yeah, thank you for normalizing that. I think it allows
us to be human a little bit more, and getting
the chance to continue to be human is always a
better experience than not and thinking more robots.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
And like scolding ourselves for not being robots and scolding
other people. I don't think that works out very well.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
No, it does not. I did have two of these
questions from some listeners from the podcast that I wanted
to ask. I thought they were important. Is choosing not
to have kids worth ending a very strong and healthy
relationship together where you've been together for several years?
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Oh gosh, it's such a hard question. So I think
this is going to depend a lot on the strength
of the desire for having kids. So one partner wants
kids and the other doesn't. This is one of relatively
few like non compromised situations, right Like, there's not a
compromise number of kids. One kid is not a compromise
(30:14):
between zero and two, right, Like, you really should want
to have a child in order to have a child.
Of course, many people, perhaps most new parents or parents
to be have some degree of ambivalence. But ambivalence isn't
the same as like, no, I know I don't want kids.
I think that if truly somebody believes it's part of
my life's path to at least try and have children,
(30:35):
I want to do that. That's a very reasonable compatibility
issue to end a relationship over. If, however, there's a
great deal of turmoil over that and a big tension
like I don't know, maybe I want to be with
this person instead, that might be a sign that the
desire for kids is perhaps less than the desire for
this relationship, And so you can weigh how much you
(30:56):
want these different things.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
That was a good way to sh share that because
it hits on both levels of like, yes, there's this
real lack of compatibility, but also sometimes life takes you
on a different path than you anticipated. You dream up
this whole idea in your head, much to how we
were discussing things in movies, and you have these experiences
and you get older and life goes a different way
(31:19):
than what you anticipated, and I think that's okay.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
It is that's such a good point. I think most
people have this like almost movie script of what they
want their life to look like. And the reality is
you could leave that relationship and not be able to
have kids. You could not find a different partner that
you liked. So you know, all kinds of things could happen.
You could be with that person, they could decide that
you want to have kids together and really have trouble conceiving.
(31:46):
There's just we don't actually know what's next, and so
you really have to just make the best choice that
you can given your values and your goals and knowing
that those change. That's something I do talk a lot
about is that even if you thank you and your
partner incredibly compatible, when you meet fifteen years later, you
might be really different. Your interests might have changed, you
(32:08):
might have changed in more fundamental ways, And so allowing
that space to grow and evolve together is really important.
And sometimes that does result in the end of a relationship,
and that's okay too.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Growing and evolving is really tough, especially when you fall
in love with someone and you have this idea of
what it's supposed to continue to look like. But it
is so important when you Before I ask this other question,
I wanted to ask about this I often feel like
people forget that when you enter into a relationship, especially
one that you're hoping lasts forever for life, you're supposed
(32:42):
to grow and evolve together, like you're supposed to communicate
those experiences and really go through life together even if
you're changing. But you have to do that with this
person in mind in a way. And I often feel
like I've met people and I've seen people experience where
somebody evolves and then they get mad at the other
(33:04):
person for evolving, yeah, or vice versa.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
It's a huge thing. I think there's a few layers
of that. One is like, yeah, we can't expect our
partners to be carved in stone, and any trait or
aspect of them that you liked it could change. There's
certain things that tend to be stable, but there's a
lot that can change over our lifetime. And if one
person is evolving and the other person is scared of
(33:30):
that evolution, that can be really painful in a relationship
and stifling. And then the other thing that just feels
relevant to this is I think sometimes people want less
of like an evolving, dynamic partnership and more of an
archetype of a partner like a here's this person, and
I have a story I think about with this that
(33:51):
when I was a kid and I was learning how
to read, my parents were having a hard time getting
me to be interested in reading on my own, and
so they got me these books that they thought would
really entice me. And they were like princessy little girl
books that I was really enthralled by, like, oh, okay,
I'm willing to read for this. And in one of
them there was a whole story about a big sister
(34:12):
getting married, and the whole story is little girl's following
along and as the flower girl, and the whole story
goes into great detail about the dress and the flowers
and the cake, and only on the very last page
do you see the groom's head just from the back
as they drive away in the car. He's just like,
not even part of the picture. He's an archetype. He's
(34:32):
just a placeholder, really, And I think all genders. People
can do that to their partners. They can be like, oh,
thank god, I've found you. I've looked for you. You
are my person, and slot them into their vision of
a life without actually clarifying do you want these things?
Do you think you're always going to want them and
clarifying like seeing them as a whole person.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Yes, I'm really glad that you shared that part. It
totally spun off. It was not my initial direction, but
I'm just glad we got there because it is really
important to see people as whole people. That's the purpose
of a partnership. It's an importance of being in a relationship.
You're not doing it for the aesthetic. You're doing it
because you want to feel love and you want to
feel good next to a human being. Like I do,
(35:15):
think there's lost in that. It's no different than people
they get a dog, maybe it's a golden retriever because
of the aesthetic it looks good. That's the white pick
at fins. I have the golden retriever. I got the tall,
dark and handsome. It's everything the way that it looks
instead of how it feels.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Yeah, that's exactly it.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
Yeah, this is the other question that came in, and
I thought it was good, especially given that you are
a sex therapist. How important is having sex with your
partner struggling with some confidence. There's some overweight stuff happening,
and this person just really wants some advice on how
important it is and maybe how to navigate that.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
Oh well, my heart goes out to them. I think
that's such a commonplace that people, maybe especially women, end
up in and sex is important for most couples. Obviously,
not all people's preferences are different, and so I would
first ask that question, like is this something that's important
to both of us? And if the answer is no,
then great, don't worry about it. But if it is
important to you and your partner, if you have a
(36:16):
relationship that includes sex and value sex, one of the
things that is most helpful is to flip the idea
of like how much sex does my partner or my
relationship need in order to not like wither because I
think that's often especially women, how are like conditioned to
think about it? Is almost like putting money in a
slot machine, like I need to put my deposit in
(36:39):
otherwise we're not going to have enough. And that's just
not a healthy way to experience your own sexuality. So
I would redirect back to the self in this case
and think about, like, what do I want out of
my sex life? If I envisioned a sex life where
I felt happy and healthy and excited and confident what
(36:59):
would that love like? And this is another example of
setting aside the aesthetic, because like I promise, no amount
of weight lost or specific body type is going to
change that internal experience of thinking about sex as something
that you have to do for your relationship, that you
have to do for your partner. That's like an inside
job issue, not the way that you look. And people
(37:22):
with all different kinds of bodies, including those that are
considered very like ideal, have those thoughts and that experience
of themselves as like I just have to do this
because this is what we're supposed to do. So I
would reconnect like what do you want out of sex
and how do you build from the inside out that
type of sex life rather than thinking about it in
(37:42):
terms of like how much do I have to put
in before my relationship dies? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Wow, when you compared it to the slot machine, I
feel like that's a very universal experience, just in the
ways that we've been taught and understood relationships and how
that dynamic, especially intimacy works within relationships. So you've given
me so many things to just my brain is like, Okay, Morgan,
we gotta maybe rethink look at restructuring try some different things.
(38:10):
But this is why it's so important to have conversations
like this, because without someone like you, with your knowledge
and expertise, we would never know any different.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Yeah, it's so true. You don't know what you haven't
talked about, and certain subjects are so taboo. Really, conflict
is pretty taboo. Sex is taboo, right, so you might
not feel like you have any place to go and
talk about, like, hey, this is what's happening? Is this normal?
What do I do about it?
Speaker 1 (38:36):
Well, Doctor Marina, thank you so much. All of your
words of wisdom and just your knowledge on this topic
are really important and I appreciate you being here.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
I've been holding on to this interview for a while now.
I love talking with doctor Marina and talking about something
especially that so many people are dealing with. But I
was holding on to it until it was the right time,
and that time is now coming. So my birthday is
coming up, as is my boyfriend's, and we decided a
fun gift would be to record our first episodes together.
So next week you will officially get to meet my
(39:15):
boyfriend and we have lots to share. So subscribe to
the podcast and you won't miss it. I'm really happy
that you're here, and I can't wait to yap with
y'all next week and introduce you to a very special
guy in my life.
Hosts And Creators
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Morgan Huelsman
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