Testing Hey everybody Testing, testing, just want to make sure the sound is good.

I think it’s gonna be fun. Hey, everyone, welcome

back to the couples healing podcast. And today is one of the most important episodes that I will ever publish on this podcast. It’s literally the number one reason why I created this entire show in the first place. And it’s to share with everybody this perspective or this message about relationship healing. And it definitely has gotten a lot of pushback among certain groups of people. But I feel like it is so important. And so I created this podcast to get this message out. And I hope that it resonates with you. Okay, like I said in the intro, this is such a significant episode, because I want to share with you a crucial perspective that most people see very differently than me. But I’ve worked with hundreds of couples. And I want to share with you exactly why this is so important in terms of how to come together as a couple. And one of the reasons why I started the podcast in the first place was because there is not very many resources for the relationship. Most of the time, people are told you do your individual work, he does his work, she does her work. And then later, at some point in the future, down the road, you come back together. But the problem is that most people don’t know how to do that. I remember working with a couple recently, and that’s exactly what they were told they’re like, we’ve been doing this for about two years. Now, we’ve never done a couple session, because we were told in the very beginning, each of you stick to your side of the street, and then some time down the road, you’ll come together and they were thinking the whole time. How does this happen? And what does that look like? And when can we start doing this process because they wanted to come back together in their relationship. But again, all the advice that they were given was, don’t do that. And so there’s a lot of confusion and opinions about the relationship healing aspect of things. Like I said, After working with hundreds of couples, I want to share with you what I see is working and give you some direction and hope that healing is truly possible for you and your relationship as well. And so when people start this journey, so many people are just looking for tools and guidance and direction. And the most underutilized tool in all of this process is the relationship. So let me explain what I mean by that. So there’s an author and a researcher by the name of Johann Hari, he’s done a TED talk that has 16 million views. And the title of the TED Talk is everything that you know about addiction is wrong. And he said in that talk, he said that the opposite of addiction is not sobriety, the opposite of addiction is connection. That is such an important statement. And I see that true time and time again, out of all of the couples that I work with connection is the most powerful antidote to addiction. And so you might be wondering, well, how does that that doesn’t really make sense, or how does that work. And so it’s important that everybody knows, again, a couple of episodes, I went over talking about the core of addiction and what it is, and why people struggle with it. And to sum that up in a nutshell, addiction is a way for people to escape, painful feelings of loneliness, and shame and sadness, and fear. Connection is the number one thing that can alleviate, and resolve those painful emotions. Because we are wired to connect with other people, we need to have a close relationship where we can feel like we can be ourselves and we can be open, and we have somebody to rely on. And once people get that connection, then there’s nothing to escape from. Because you handle those painful emotions in a healthy way, you got connection, which is what most people are really seeking. And so when husbands when men know how to turn to their spouse in a way that lets them in, and they can share with them in a vulnerable way and feel like they’re getting the support and closeness and the spouse can do the same thing with him. Then it creates such a strong relationship which grows and builds us as individuals. And so, again, that statement by Johann Hari is so important. The opposite of addiction is not sobriety, it’s connection. Now, sometimes when I share this thought with people, or sometimes when women in particular hear that thought, it’s very, it can be very difficult sometimes for them to take that in because in their knee jerk reaction for so many people is they start to feel blamed for their addiction for the husband’s addiction. So I want to I want to share this in like such clear terms. That when we talk about addiction is that that connection is the opposite of addiction. It is in no way shape or form, blaming the wife For the husbands addiction, I wanted to be very clear about that this is not a blaming statement. And I want to explain this. So it makes sense.

So, when spouses hear when the wives hear all that means if he’s still still struggling with addiction, that means I’m not connecting with them. So this is my fault. This is not that at all. When I talk about connection, in this particular situation, what I mean specifically is that it’s not that the wife continues to pour her heart out, and puts herself out there and vote and is vulnerable over and over and again, and continues to get minimized or blamed or dismissed or criticized, that does not work. And that’s not what we’re going for, when we talk about doing this relationship work, what we’re going for, is helping him to learn how to open up and share with her in a different way, share with her in a deeper way. And him learning how to take in the connection that she’s trying to offer. Because so many women have been trying for years and years to connect with their spouse. So when they hear this idea, well, well, addiction is the opposite of connection, connection is the opposite of addiction. They can feel upset at that. But it’s crucial that you know that a massive part of being able to connect is the husband learning how to do that. It’s not the fault of the wife, if the husband is not able to take in her reassurance and support. It’s not her fault at all. It’s that so often husbands don’t have they haven’t learned that skill for a number of different reasons. And we’re going to talk a little bit about that later. But I think it’s so important that I clarify that one point that this is not her fault. The goal is for him to learn how to connect with her learn how to let her in, learn how to take in her reassurance and support. And for them to be able to respond to each other in a way that’s productive and healing. So this is absolutely not her fault if he’s still struggling with this, because she can’t do that work for him. So we want him to learn how to do that. And so a lot of times people will say early on, what you should be doing is focusing on yourself. And yes, while that is important, and I’m a big advocate of personal work, I love doing my own work. I like working with individuals who come in,

I’m a huge fan of individual progress. So people will often say do your work individually. So when you hear that you might think well what does that even mean? What does that look like? So for him a bird’s eye view for him, it’s for him to identify his triggers. For him to understand what leads him towards the addiction, what is he escaping from working through the shame and the negative beliefs that he might have about himself, and having healthy ways to cope with stress and painful emotions and day to day life? So that’s what individual work looks like for him. What does it look like for her? For her, it’s becoming educated about the addiction and the trauma that it causes. Also, that’s the same thing for him education so important, her having a way to process her feelings and the pain, developing connections and support, working through and resolving the triggers. And working through the negative beliefs that she might have about herself that the addiction can bring on or just make worse if they’re already there. And so a lot of it is the same work for him. So they’re both doing that type of work individually. I think that people mistakenly think that they have to do these things all by themselves or or with people who aren’t their spouse, which unintentionally, that that just meant that just means that they’re missing out on one of the most important and greatest resources for healing that we have as human beings, which is developing that secure connection in the marriage or in their significant relationship with each other. Traditional recovery is all about doing it on your own. And this word is getting gets thrown around like it’s this bad word, this idea of codependency, which essentially makes it a problem for you to rely on your spouse. It’s essentially saying like you should be on your own, you didn’t you shouldn’t have to look towards anybody else for that support or the validation or anything. And while that’s true, we don’t get our validation from somebody else. Having a person that you can trust and rely on is critical to our emotional, mental and physical health.

So again, that in traditional recovery, you’re told to stay in your lane, and she’s left in the dark about what he’s doing and his progress and what he’s learning how he’s growing. It leaves the relationship separate. couples are working separately. And I think that healing should include the strengthening of the relationship because

and I think it’s so essential that healing involves strengthening the relationship and bringing couples together instead of them how To do their work separately and independently. So again, do I think individual work is important? Absolutely. And you can do that work in tandem or in conjunction with the healing in the relationship, and learn how to connect with each other at the same time. Because most people live together throughout this whole process. And so if you’re just kind of say, Okay, I’m going to do my thing, you do your thing, we’re not going to really talk that much. And if we have to, we’re going to talk about the family and the kids and the finances and everything else. But we’re not going to really come together, it’s that never made sense to me to not include the relationship healing in the process, couples live together, they want to have a healthy relationship, they want to be closer. The addiction, of course, comes between them. So doing that individual work is important. And knowing how to come together as critical, instead of just leaving it to chance, instead of you guys leaving it to chance and saying like, Okay, well, when I’m ready, I guess we’ll come back together, or when I’m whole, then I’ll be able to be there for you in a different way. When in reality, being there for your spouse is a skill set. That’s independent of individual work. So yes, he needs skills. And sometimes people say, Well, why don’t you just send him to group and why doesn’t she go to group?

And sometimes people will say, Well, yes, though, why doesn’t he just go to group then and learn those skills? And why doesn’t she go to her group and learn how to communicate and open up to people, I see where they’re coming from when they say that. And I remember working with a client, about six years ago, he came in same same reason struggling with addiction and the impact that it caused his wife, and I told them what I’m sharing with you guys right now how critical it is this relationship piece, because it’s such a resource to help both people. And he’s like,

I don’t know, like, I

was told I should be going to groups, I’m gonna keep going to group and I was like, okay, that’s fine. And I’m not gonna make you do this, of course, this is your journey, I’m here to support you. But I’m telling you that doing this couples work will significantly help you guys move through this process and avoid so much unnecessary heartache, if you learn how to connect with each other. And so they did not want to do this work. They continue to go to their own separate areas, he had his group, she had her group. And what happened is that he got really good at developing relationships with them. But whenever he would come home from group or throughout the week, they would get into these big fights because they couldn’t communicate, they couldn’t understand each other. They didn’t know how to improve their relationship. So they just kind of got into these big fights, and eroded their relationship. And then they went back to group and they had a great experience, they had people who understood them, they could connect with them. But then when they came back home, it was the same thing, they did not know how to understand each other. And it was easy for him to open up and share with his group because there wasn’t as much at stake. So this is what I mean, she means so much more to him. This is true across the board. A wife means more to a husband than his buddy at group. So there’s less at stake. It does, it’s not as risky, or as vulnerable for him to open up to his buddy in a recovery group. Because the fear of rejection is not going to be there to the same degree. Because the primary relationship, the marriage means so much more. You see what I’m saying? is much harder. So this is sometimes what I do in session with couples, as I’m helping them learn how to communicate with one another. I’m trying to understand, Okay, tell me what happens on the inside for you what emotions come up, where do you get stuck? How are you internalizing and processing these fights? And once they tell me that I say, Great, that makes sense. Can you turn and tell your wife right now what you just told me? And for me when he and I are talking? Sometimes people come in and say, Well, I just can’t communicate, they can communicate perfectly fine. When it comes to talking to me. The problem is that it’s so much more risky and vulnerable. When I say risky, it’s like you’re putting yourself out there. And it’s so much more vulnerable to do that with the person who means the most. So yes, while there’s this mutual respect and care for one another, and a client, in a client therapist relationship, and I love my clients, I don’t mean nearly as much to them as their spouse does. And so when I say that makes sense to me, john, can you please turn and tell her that he starts to get nervous, and he starts to feel uncomfortable because it’s so much more risky. And so this is what happened was with the couple or the individuals that I was working with back six years ago, he had such a difficult time opening up and telling his wife because of those same reasons. He didn’t want to cause a fight. He didn’t want to say something wrong. He didn’t want to hurt her. And so what happens is, this fear shut him down in the relationship And the critical thing that most people miss is the guidance and the help and the support and the coaching, to know how to do that to know how to share in that relationship, because so many guys just don’t know how to do it. And it’s not because they’re not intellectually with it, it’s not it doesn’t have anything to do with that it’s, they haven’t seen that modeled. So often, when they grew up in homes, emotion is not prioritized. It’s not a common thing to talk about. Oftentimes, it’s something that’s they learn early on, Oh, we don’t talk about this, or I’ll get made fun of or parents don’t ever do this with me, I don’t feel like I can talk to them, I don’t feel comfortable. So they just don’t learn that skill. Other people, when they learn it young, it’s much much easier for them to open up and share with their spouse, because they’re not learning a brand new approach in the face of a very difficult ask, which is to be vulnerable. And so it’s important that you guys know that yes, you can do really good individual work. But that doesn’t translate to the relationship because there’s different dynamics, because the other person means so much. And it’s just it’s it can be, it’s to be able to share in the in the significant in the marriage relationship or in the relationship in and of itself. It’s a whole new skill that somebody has to learn. So doing that individual work doesn’t just automatically give them that skill for the marriage. One thing that I wanted to know is that betrayal trauma, we talked about this in the addiction context, right, addiction when somebody is escaping from pain, the goal, one of the goals is to share the pain that he has with his spouse. So he processes the pain in a healthy way. It’s the same exact thing with betrayal, trauma.

Trauma occurs, because the emotional bonds and the security in a relationship are broken. Because something or someone has come between the couple. And so when that happens, there’s no safety, there’s no stability, and it’s like we’re free falling, when it feels like we’re alone. And there’s no one to rely on. And we’re wired to seek security in relationships. Dr. Sue Johnson, she’s an amazing researcher. And she says in her in one of our books, that in her she has a book called love sense, it’s a phenomenal book to help people understand the critical nature of connection, how to leverage that, how do you guys create that in a relationship, she says that human connection is more powerful than our basic survival mechanism of fear. And that we are actually healthier and happier when we’re close and connected. There’s another researcher by the name of Bert Buccino from the University of Utah, and he reported that the single best recipe for good health and the most powerful antidote to aging, and that 20 years of research with 1000s of subjects show that the quality of our social support predicts. And there’s another researcher named Bert Luciano from the University of Utah, and he reported that the single best recipe for good health and the most powerful antidote to aging is connection. And that 20 years of research with 1000s of subjects shows that the quality of our social support, predicts life expectancy, as well as an increased ability to survive from specific disorders like heart disease. So not being able to connect, not being able to feel seen and heard and loved, continues to traumatize her. We talked about how the revelation or the becoming aware of the addiction is trauma,

yes.

And the rejection, the social isolation, the pain of these difficult conversations where she feels dismissed, and unheard, and minimize that continues to traumatize her. The fastest way to heal this trauma is to repair the relationship in which the trauma occurred. This is so significant. I want to emphasize this, if she goes to her group, that’s great. That’s important for her to have a network of people that she can trust because again, we’re not meant to be in isolation. And yes, it’s important to have a social network outside of our primary relationship, which is our marriage or our significant romantic relationship. It’s important to have that. But the fastest way to heal trauma is to repair the relationship in which the trauma occurred, because that’s where the damage was done. It wasn’t done in her group. It was done within her relationship. And so it’s critical that they learn how to do that, and come together in a way that heals that. Because not only does the addiction This is the best buffer against addiction. It’s the best antidote for the trauma as well. I hope that’s making sense. Now, again, sometimes the last couple of things that I want to share sometimes People say,

Okay,

that sounds good. The wife might say that sounds good. And again, when I say wife, I’m talking about the spouse or the partner. So just for simplicity’s sake, I just refer to her as the wife, but it’s the spouse, they don’t have to be married. It’s the same process if you’re not married, but again, just to kind of save time. Oftentimes, she will say, that sounds good, and I want that I want to connect with him, I want him to see and care for my pain, I want to be there for him. But it’s just not safe. It’s just not safe for me to be vulnerable and open. And that’s oftentimes what she’s told. But the reality is that that’s actually not true. It’s not safe for her to share and be vulnerable. If her husband dismisses and criticizes and ignores her when she shares. That’s the part that’s not safe. It’s not the sharing in and of itself, is how it’s how is that share going to be received? And so you might say, well, that’s my situation, whenever I open up and share, this is exactly what happens. So I can’t open up because it’s too painful. And I 100% get that. And I think a lot of people are there. And when I hear people say this, it’s it’s critical to understand that one of the goals in the process is to understand and remove the blocks to sharing, instead of abandoning the idea of sharing all together. So I worked with a couple a couple of weeks ago, a new couple came in. And I did an individual session with him first, to create this foundation, I do a deep dive session when I work with guys a one on one session for two or three hours to uncover their triggers, because so many people don’t understand what their triggers are. And they just fall back into the addiction. They don’t know why or how. So that one on one session is geared towards understanding what the triggers are understanding what’s driving that. And there’s some really powerful exercises that I can do one on one with people

that

because I can be very, I can tailor the process to them specifically. And so the goal is to be able to clear out and resolve these internal blocks and the fuel that leads to addiction. So we did that session, he felt tremendously better, because we’re processing these negative beliefs and the shame. And so the next session, I wanted to do a couple session because I want to get them to have a foundation, because like I said earlier, they are living together, most couples live together. So they’re constantly fighting, if they constantly misunderstand one another, it erodes the relationship before, it just continues to break down the relationship before it can actually have time to thrive. And so I want to get them to have a solid foundation. And you can do that in a short amount of time by giving them some initial tools, so they can create stability. So I said, Okay, cool. We’re gonna meet next week. And we’ll, we’ll have our call, then. The wife texts me two days later, after his individual session and says, We are not going to make it Can we please have our call tomorrow instead?

And so I’m like, of course, let’s have you guys in that this is like, we need to get some stability sooner than later. It sounds like so I meet with them. And she feels devastated because any time he or she opens up to try to share with him, or if she’s in pain, and she wants some support or understanding. Every time she opened up. He responded by getting defensive, or avoiding the conversation. Or he would minimize and say like, Oh, this again, how many times do we have to talk about this, this isn’t even that big of a deal. And you keep bringing up the same thing over and over again. And he would avoid the conversation. This was destroying the relationship because their negative cycle was getting in between is getting in between them being able to connect with one another with one another. So in this session, and when I work with couples, this is where I this is what I would mean when I talk about the goal is to understand the blocks instead of abandoning the idea of sharing, we want to understand what’s getting in the way. There’s nothing wrong with him. It’s just that the reaction is not conducive to healing the relationship. So when I asked him, I said, hey, what happens for you when she opens up and talks? He’s like, I get really defensive, I get angry, and I want to talk about this stuff. I said, Okay, that makes sense. If it causes a fight, I understand how you wouldn’t want to talk about it. But what does it feel like for you? When she brings up something from the past? When she talks about the pain that she’s in? What does that feel like? What does that bring up for you? Because our our responses, our reactions, rather our response to how we feel. So I want to understand what are you feeling that’s causing this, this defensive reaction and he says, I feel so bad about myself when she brings up this pain, because I know that I’ve hurt her. And the last thing that I want to do is feel awful, and know that I’m continuing to hurt her. And so I just pull away because I don’t want to keep hurting her and I just don’t want to feel so bad. Because I feel like I’m a failure. I feel like I’m not worthy. And it’s just it’s excruciating for me said that’s a very important insight. And so he went on to clarify, it’s not that I don’t care about her. Of course I care about her. It’s not that I don’t care. The reason why I get defensive and shut down isn’t because I don’t care. It’s because it’s so painful for me. And I can see that it’s painful for her. So I want to avoid causing more damage. So I just pull away. So I don’t continue to mess things up. I said, that’s a such an important insight. Can you tell her that right now? And same thing, right? People are like, okay, that’s easy to tell me. But when he has to look at her and say, the reason why I shut down and avoid and get defensive is because I know this is hurting you. And I feel so awful that I’ve done this to you. And I’m sorry. When she heard that it completely transformed and changed how she interpreted his reactions. Instead of her thinking to herself, my husband doesn’t care about me. He doesn’t want to talk about the pain that I’m in. I’m all by myself. Whenever I need his support, he’s not there for me, because he doesn’t care. That was her. That was the way that she interpreted all that. And it makes sense why she would think that, and I and and for the women who are listening to this, I would under I would guess that that’s similar to how you feel as well, if that’s what happens, if that’s the reaction you get from your husband, when he shared with her the reality and the truth of why he did that, and he shared how he felt, instead of just reacting, it completely changed the paradigm for her. And she was able to see, he actually really does care it he cares so much that it hurts him knowing that he’s hurt me by his actions. So he wasn’t unable and he would have continued to be unable to articulate that on his own.

He had to get help.

Because the train because those cycles were that they get into these back and forth would happen instantly, the smallest thing would set off this entire thing. And it wasn’t about these little small things, it was just it activated the whole cycle. It’s just the match, right? That that you’ve got a pile of gunpowder, it’s not the match. That’s the problem is the gunpowder that’s piled up. So it doesn’t take much to blow the whole thing up. This is the same thing, what happens in relationships, it doesn’t take much to reactivate the entire painful reality of like, we’re in a really bad place. And this hurts. So he was unable to do that on his own. And so by getting that help and doing this work together, I was able to help him uncover what was going on for him what was driving these reactions and have him share with her in a different way. And it’s transformed it and by the end of the session, they’re like hugging each other. They call me saying we’re about to divorce 60 minutes later, 90 minutes later, they’re hugging each other. And it’s just it’s astounding to me how powerful connection is. And I see this over and over again. It’s so powerful to help people heal from hurts to change our beliefs, to change our understanding when we can simply connect in a different way. And if he went off to his group, and told him and processed all of this with him, that exchange never would have happened within the relationship. And likely he wouldn’t even have been able to do that in his group. Because they talk about different things in group, they process different things you talk on an individual level. So doing this relationship work is critical. But it’s so of course like this, this almost goes without saying it’s so important that you you approach it in the way that will work. Because if you do just traditional couples therapy, I’ve had so many people come in and say we went to a couple’s counselor. And it was awful, because they give advice that isn’t specific to healing addiction and trauma. It’s like go, you know, reflective listening or spend more time with one another, go on dates, be more patient forgive each other more. That stuff is not. It doesn’t address the core of what’s driving addiction and trauma. So we have to address it in a way that actually works. And so when I share with you this the story of the session, again, it’s so incredible for me to see the progress that people make in such a short amount of time. And this is why again, it’s like I hurt for people I feel so bad when they’ve been doing this on their own for so long and their relationship is falling apart and it’s not their healing work individually is not bringing them closer together. I just think it could be done so differently. You could avoid so much heartache, you can have so much more stability if you simply approached it in a different way.

And so another benefit this is maybe the last thing that I’ll share with you guys. There’s so many benefits, but one that I’ll highlight right now is that

when couples learn how to come together, just like what I shared in the story, it prevents continual misunderstandings. It can it prevents continual spiraling because of these cycles for months and years, because those things caused so much damage. Because once you come together, you can have different conversations and open up and communicate more clearly, the truth of how you feel and what’s going on. It avoids and eliminates these misunderstandings that continue to cause problems, defensiveness, the lack of empathy that does not stem from addiction. This is a very common misunderstanding, people think, Well, my husband doesn’t have any empathy for me, he doesn’t have any compassion. That’s because the addiction is causing that. That’s not true. defensiveness, avoidance, lack of empathy, lack of compassion, those stem from feelings of not being enough, and feelings of failure and shame. It has nothing to do with the addiction. people misunderstand that. And the reason why the defensiveness and the lack of empathy comes from the shame or the negative beliefs about ourselves. Just like the client that I just shared with you, he felt like a failure, he felt worthless, he felt awful. And what happens is, when somebody feels this screw, excruciating pain, it’s near impossible, it’s so difficult for him to and when somebody feels this excruciating pain, it is so difficult for them to put that on the shelf, and focus on the pain of somebody else. Because they’re drowning in their own pain. They feel like failures, they it’s the worthlessness is so painful. And so what happens is when that all gets brought up, his attention goes to how bad he’s feeling. And then he sinks, because he’s not able to be there for her. So the goal is to be able to heal the core of that problem, we want to resolve the shame, we want to resolve that sense of failure and self worth those self worth issues. Because when you do, empathy and compassion are a natural result of not having that it’s empathy and compassion are a natural result of seeing somebody else’s pain. And when you’re not blocked by your own pain, then the default is to care for the other person. When he’s not doing that, when he’s being when he’s not being compassionate or empathetic. It simply means it doesn’t mean that he’s a narcissist. Again, this is another sometimes people think, Well, my husband’s a narcissist, because he doesn’t care, I can be crying on the floor, and I’ll just walk right by me. The reality is that they’re blocked by their own pain. And it feels very cold to get that reaction. And it’s extremely painful when those things happen. And I’m not saying that that’s okay. Because it’s not, we don’t want that to happen. But if we want to resolve it, we have to just approach it from a different way, instead of beating them up and saying, again, sometimes you’ll get messages from from, I don’t know, common sources in terms of like recovery work and books and things. They’ll beat him up and say, like, you need to step up and be there for your wife, what’s wrong with you, it just reinforces the shame. So we want, we want him to be there for her, we just have to approach it in a completely different way. So the goal is to heal it at the core. This is again, a big part of what I do in the deep dive is understanding what is that the core and healing that so that sets the stage for her to get her support and her needs met? Because he can actually start to be there for her. So how do we do that? Given all of what we share today, you probably can guess it. The answer to heal this shame. And these blocks is connection. Bernie Brown who is a fantastic researcher, which maybe many of you have heard of. She says that the antidote to shame is connection. It’s to be seen and understood and accepted. And when men learn how to share in a different way, just like my client, did I share with you with you a few minutes ago, instead of him becoming defensive and upset and avoiding his wife when she was struggling, I was able to help guide him to understand how he feels share that with her in a vulnerable way, which changes her perception of him. So that instantly the energy in the conversation shifts because when somebody is vulnerable, it naturally will elicit a different reaction in the person who hears it. There is enormous power in a couple’s relationship. When couples get the tools to come together, and they get the direction that they need to tap into the power of their relationship, we can heal so much faster, we can avoid so much unnecessary heartache, and truly find a level of happiness and fulfillment that we just cannot find anywhere else or in any other relationship.

So I hope that all

of what I’ve shared today has made sense because I want to give you guys Some hope that it’s possible to heal from the pain of this situation in significantly less amounts of time. And that does not mean we’re cutting corners, you can heal much more thoroughly. And and you can move through the process in a way that you just can’t

do it.

When you focus on your individual healthy healing, and don’t include the relationship component to it. Yes, there are many extenuating circumstances, there are some circumstances that I wouldn’t do couples work, specifically, the Hallmark The reason the number one thing that would prevent me from doing couples work is if the husband is not open to doing the work. If he does not accept responsibility for the addiction, if he’s not interested in changing if he’s not interested in and healing as as an individual and ridding himself of the addiction, if he doesn’t see it as a problem, then I would not do couples work short of that in just about every other situation. I definitely want to help give couples the tools to come together and start creating stability between them so that they can start to connect and resolve so much of the hurt that they feel. And again, it has to be done in the right way. And with the right timing. But once you approach it in this way I i can i can’t underscore how amazing the process is for people as they simply learn how to do this together. I hope that this was helpful. I would imagine that many of you might have questions, I would love to hear from you. This is sometimes difficult as a new podcast, because I have so much that I want to share. And a lot of times questions will come up that I would love to clarify. But without knowing the specifics, it’s hard to really speak to all of them. I hope I’ve clarified some of the questions or concerns that people have had, maybe when they hear this idea of connection. If there are additional questions, I would love to hear from you. You can reach me, I’m going to put that as in the show notes. I I’d love to get ideas for podcast episodes in terms of what you guys want to hear. If you have questions. If you need some help. If you need some guidance or support in the process and you want to get some information about how do we get some more help, you can reach me at support at

healing couples.org.

I would love to hear from you. Hopefully this episode makes sense. And it gives you hope that is possible to heal. And I look forward to seeing you guys on the next episode.

Or if you wanted to just get some help in this process of or if you wanted to get some help. So you’re not doing this process by ourselves. And I would love to support you in this and help create this kind of a situation. Or if you wanted to get some help in your own relationships, you’re not doing this by yourself. So you don’t need to figure it out by yourself. I would love to support you. And so you can reach me at so you can reach out to me and let me know if that’s your situation or again if you have any other questions or things that you’d like to learn more about. You can reach me at support at healing couples.org