Anxiety is a signal that’s really good at letting you know something isn’t working – the only thing is, it’s not so good at pointing out exactly what that thing is. Diving into today’s question about anxiety in a relationship brings us to unpacking just what anxiety is, attachment styles, culture and epigenetics, and a whole lot more. We also talk about what it means to stop fighting your anxiety and begin to change your relationship to it, and how that can have results that resonate far wider than you might think.Quotes:“It’s contagious. It's really hard to be with someone who's anxious and not either feel anxious also or have a desire to turn away...or get them to stop it...or try to fix it, or fix them.”"When anxiety is coming at you, it's really, really overwhelming, and you either join it, or you try to change it, or you try to leave it."This episode is brought to you by our amazing sponsor, The Academy of Therapy Wisdom. Jules is one of their many educators, and because you listen to us, the Therapy Wisdom team is offering a secret code to give you free access to one of Jules' 1 hour Wise Conversations. Just visit therapywisdom.com and use the discount code "WDMP."Jules' new book is out now! Buy Setting Boundaries that Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered wherever books are sold.Share your questions with us at whydoesmypartner.com/contactIf you want to dive in deeper, consider attending our upcoming workshops. Learn more at whydoesmypartner.com/eventsMentioned in this episode:Therapy WisdomLet's take a moment to acknowledge our amazing sponsor The Academy of Therapy Wisdom. Jules is one of their many amazing educators. And because you listen to us, the Therapy Wisdom team is offering a secret code to give you free access to one of Jules' 1 hour Wise Conversations. Visit Therapywisdom.com or click the link in the show notes and use the ‘WDMP’ discount code." Therapy Wisdom

Welcome back to the WDMP podcast. Today’s question brought up a lot of feelings in us. More than anything, we want to offer our support and compassion to this listener, and any of you out there, who are feeling iced out of your relationship like this, whose partners react to conflict by threatening to leave or shutting them out for weeks at a time.We also have compassion for the person doing this sort of thing to their partner, for the pain they’re feeling, and the stuckness they must be experiencing. We know that so often, this is something that’s been learned over many years, from childhood, from one’s family and culture.In this episode, discuss some of the ways that someone might end up believing that this is their only option, but we also turn it around and ask, “What are you hoping for here? And have you looked at the cost? Can you find the bravery to try another way?Quotes:“If you have a dynamic where your partner is afraid that you're going to leave, you're basically in relationship with yourself.”This episode is brought to you by our amazing sponsor, The Academy of Therapy Wisdom. Jules is one of their many educators, and because you listen to us, the Therapy Wisdom team is offering a secret code to give you free access to one of Jules' 1 hour Wise Conversations. Just visit therapywisdom.com and use the discount code "WDMP."Jules' new book is out now! Buy Setting Boundaries that Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered wherever books are sold.Share your questions with us at whydoesmypartner.com/contactIf you want to dive in deeper, consider attending our upcoming workshops. Learn more at whydoesmypartner.com/eventsMentioned in this episode:Therapy WisdomLet's take a moment to acknowledge our amazing sponsor The Academy of Therapy Wisdom. Jules is one of their many amazing educators. And because you listen to us, the Therapy Wisdom team is offering a secret code to give you free access to one of Jules' 1 hour Wise Conversations. Visit Therapywisdom.com or click the link in the show notes and use the ‘WDMP’ discount code." Therapy Wisdom

When we talk about repair, we’re talking about a whole lot more than saying you’re sorry. Sometimes jumping to apologize right away can actually be counterproductive. On the other hand, letting something stay unresolved in a relationship leads to festering hurt and resentment. With today’s listener question, we talk about what happens when one person wants to engage in repair after a conflict, and the other person just isn’t ready to go there.Plus, we’re now officially celebrating 100 episodes of WDMP! We’re so grateful to each and every one of you who have listened, submitted questions, left reviews, participated in workshops, and in every other way supported us over the past 3+ years of making this show. Here’s to the next hundred!Love,Rebecca, Vickey, Jules, & AlQuotes:“If I initiate a repair and they are not ready to receive that repair, am I going to be okay? If the answer to that is “no,” then I'm not ready to initiate a repair, I'm trying to control [their] behavior.”“…out of connection with myself [is] out of connection with you.”This episode is brought to you by our amazing sponsor, The Academy of Therapy Wisdom. Jules is one of their many educators, and because you listen to us, the Therapy Wisdom team is offering a secret code to give you free access to one of Jules' 1 hour Wise Conversations. Just visit therapywisdom.com and use the discount code "WDMP."Jules' new book is out now! Buy Setting Boundaries that Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered wherever books are sold.Share your questions with us at whydoesmypartner.com/contactIf you want to dive in deeper, consider attending our upcoming workshops. Learnmore at whydoesmypartner.com/eventsMentioned in this episode:Therapy WisdomLet's take a moment to acknowledge our amazing sponsor The Academy of Therapy Wisdom. Jules is one of their many amazing educators. And because you listen to us, the Therapy Wisdom team is offering a secret code to give you free access to one of Jules' 1 hour Wise Conversations. Visit Therapywisdom.com or click the link in the show notes and use the ‘WDMP’ discount code." Therapy Wisdom

Today’s listener question comes from a partner in a neurodiverse couple, asking us to talk about navigating differences when one partner has neurological differences like Autism or ADHD, and the other is “neurotypical.”Oh boy do we have thoughts and feelings about this! We end up spending a lot of time sharing how neurodiversity impacts our own lives, helping us discover that it’s not about one partner being different, but about accepting the reality that we’re different from each other. Inside of that, we find a lot of unspoken expectations, fears, and hurts, but…we also find a whole lot of amazing opportunities.Quotes:Are you expecting that what closeness feels like to you is the same as what it feels like to me?We can't have unspoken expectations and think we're going to meet each other in the same place.How do we have a conversation that’s less about “you’re different,” and more about “we’re different?Not the same doesn't mean…rejection…it means not the same.This episode is brought to you by our amazing sponsor, The Academy of Therapy Wisdom. Jules is one of their many educators, and because you listen to us, the Therapy Wisdom team is offering a secret code to give you free access to one of Jules' 1 hour Wise Conversations. Just visit therapywisdom.com and use the discount code "WDMP."Jules' new book is out now! Buy Setting Boundaries that Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered wherever books are sold.Share your questions with us at whydoesmypartner.com/contactIf you want to dive in deeper, consider attending our upcoming workshops. Learn more at whydoesmypartner.com/eventsMentioned in this episode:Let's take a moment to acknowledge our amazing sponsor The Academy of Therapy Wisdom. Jules is one of their many amazing educators. And because you listen to us, the Therapy Wisdom team is offering a secret code to give you free access to one of Jules' 1 hour Wise Conversations. Visit Therapywisdom.com or click the link in the show notes and use the ‘WDMP’ discount code." Therapy WisdomTherapy Wisdom

Our brains are taking in an incredible 11 million bits of information per second! Thank goodness we’ve got our salience neural network - system of neural connections -- that filters all of that down to an amount we can actually take in and process! But that also means that there’s actually a whole lot going around us that we never perceive on a conscious level. So how do our brains decide what to take in or not? What happens when your partner’s salience network isn’t taking in exactly the same things as yours? It’s episode 2 of season 6 of the Why Does My Partner Podcast, enjoy!Quotes:"What is emotionally relevant to you is [most likely] different than what's emotionally relevant to your partner…so if you want to change it, you need to join each other and make it emotionally salient for both of you."This episode is brought to you by Therapy Wisdom.Jules' new book is out now! Buy Setting Boundaries that Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered wherever books are sold.Share your questions with us at whydoesmypartner.com/contactIf you want to dive in deeper, consider attending our upcoming workshops. Learn more at whydoesmypartner.com/eventsMentioned in this episode:Therapy WisdomLet's take a moment to acknowledge our amazing sponsor The Academy of Therapy Wisdom. Jules is one of their many amazing educators. And because you listen to us, the Therapy Wisdom team is offering a secret code to give you free access to one of Jules' 1 hour Wise Conversations. Visit Therapywisdom.com or click the link in the show notes and use the ‘WDMP’ discount code." Therapy Wisdom

Here we are in season 6 of the Why Does My Partner podcast! We want to start out with a question we’ve been getting a lot, especially since our boundary mini-series (go back and give that a listen now if you haven’t already!). It goes something like this:“I get that practicing boundaries means working to not personalize others’ actions, but also…isn’t it fair to ask them not to do something that doesn’t feel loving to me?”Of course, it’s fair! Take a listen to this episode to hear our thoughts on just that, as well as how practicing your psychological boundaries can actually mean speaking up for yourself more, not less, plus much, much more!Don’t forget to subscribe to WDMP on your favorite podcast app to stay up to date with the rest of season 6!Quotes:Your psychological boundary helps you figure out what you're not okay with…and [helps you have] relationally cleaner conversation about the thing you don't like.Setting a boundary is about adding protection, not punishment.I don’t need to make you more like me to be okay.I have worth just for being who I am. And I get to speak for that because if I don't, who's gonna?This episode is brought to you by Therapy Wisdom.Jules' new book is out now! Buy Setting Boundaries that Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered wherever books are sold.Share your questions with us at whydoesmypartner.com/contactIf you want to dive in deeper, consider attending our upcoming workshops. Learn more at whydoesmypartner.com/eventsMentioned in this episode:Let's take a moment to acknowledge our amazing sponsor The Academy of Therapy Wisdom. Jules is one of their many amazing educators. And because you listen to us, the Therapy Wisdom team is offering a secret code to give you free access to one of Jules' 1 hour Wise Conversations. Visit Therapywisdom.com or click the link in the show notes and use the ‘WDMP’ discount code." Therapy WisdomTherapy Wisdom