Speaker 1: 0:14

welcome back little helpers. So I think by now you all know that Kibbe and I are absolutely obsessed with relationships, especially romantic ones, and we wanted to come back because I know that you all have heard us talk I mean a lot about about conflicts in relationships and romantic relationships and narcissistic abuse in relationships, and we've talked all about our love lives. But today we wanted to bring you an expert, someone who helps people with these problems and helps couples specifically. So before I introduce her, I just want to kick it over to Kibbe to tell you about her product, ours.

Speaker 2: 0:56

Ours together. Yeah, thanks, jacqueline. So we've been teasing this in the past couple episodes and we'll continue giving you updates, but we have been listening to you guys and people really want more support around having a loved one with mental illness, whether you're dating someone who you think might be narcissistic or abusive, or you have a loved one who's struggling with depression or anxiety and don't really know what helped them. We've gotten a lot of responses from you guys that you're looking for more ways to get support around this, and so, for that reason, we are building a lot of really exciting things through Kula Mind K-U-L-A-M-I-N-D, so a lot of different ways that we will, you know, give you guys the support you need. So stay tuned, we'll keep you, we'll keep you updated, but just want to tell you that we're going to come out with something really special in the next couple weeks.

Speaker 1: 1:53

Sweet, well. Well, the other special thing we have right now is Dr Marina Rosenthal, who is a licensed psychologist who specializes in helping high conflict couples change the way they fight. You can find her on at Dr Marina Rosenthal on Instagram and TikTok, where she talks about healing hard relationships. So, marina, please take us out of the echo chamber that we have formed together and tell us how you got into this work.

Speaker 3: 2:20

Yeah, thank you so much for having me so short, kind of more fun answer is that I have always loved giving relationship advice. I gave relationship advice pretty much from like age 13 onward not qualified to, but I just really wanted to be up in everyone's business and, knowing all about their relationships, gave advice on like my high school steps whenever anyone would let me. So it's just fitting this is my career ultimately, but like more formally, academically, when I went to get a PhD in psychology, my focus was on trauma and I had a really kind of binary belief system about how trauma happens, who perpetrates harm in relationships, and you know, I approached my work from a stance of activism, like I'm going to be an advocate for victims. I will never work with perpetrators, because I want to be this like unconditional safe space for people who've been victimized, particularly by interpersonal trauma and that kind of sort of worked, as I was just seeing individual clients like I could meet that goal of mine.

Speaker 3: 3:29

But then I started working with couples and it really all fell apart because relationship harm and relationship problems are just so complex and multifaceted. It became a lot less clear to me, like who is the victim? Is there a victim? Is this abuse, is it not? Couples themselves were really trying to figure that out, and they weren't looking for me to say like, well, here's your stamp of approval. One person here is an abuser. They were looking for help figuring out how to change, how to create a relationship like actually worth being in, and so I had to confront some of my own beliefs about relationships in order to become a good couples therapist and, you know, along the way, got to work with a variety of different types of couples, a lot of whom with just like more severe big stuff going on, and that led me to specializing in couples who have the particular problem of really intense conflict.

Speaker 2: 4:27

That's awesome. That's really awesome. I'm curious what kind of clients tend to come to you. What do you see typically? Of what stage do couples come and say we need couples therapy? Is it always when they're about to break up or do people actually have the wherewithal to go? We want to learn how to fight better, which is like such a cool thing that you do.

Speaker 3: 4:52

Yeah, I would say it's all across both the lifespan and relationship span. So I've worked with a lot of younger couples who are early in their relationship but very committed to each other or, you know, want to at least try to see if they can fix the loop that they're in before calling it quits. And then certainly I've worked with lots of couples who've been together, you know, 20, 30 years and often, you know, are kind of that stereotype of like we really should have got help a long time ago and we didn't. And here we are. Is it salvageable still? So really all across both the relationship and the lifespan.

Speaker 1: 5:28

Do you use any particular modality? By the way, I'm in a year's rotation of learning emotion-focused therapy, so I didn't know if there was any.

Speaker 3: 5:36

Yeah, I'm not an EFT therapist. I use integrative behavioral couple therapy which is kind of like ACT. I don't know if you two know it. Yeah, so that's the modality I use. It's a lot like eft, I think. Often people say it's like if you watched an eft therapist working and an ibct therapist, it would like look the same. You just might be conceptualizing slightly slightly differently. Interesting, okay cool.

Speaker 3: 5:59

That was mostly for my curiosity, but yeah, I when I when I need to refer um, I will take like go for either EFT or IBCT folks typically um, just because there is that like case conceptualization element.

Speaker 1: 6:15

I think is really helpful for high conflict in particular yeah, I mean, I know EFT really um conceptualizes I mean a it's big attachment style model, but it also conceptualizes couples as like an approach, an approacher and an avoider. Is that, is that really the dynamic that you tend to see in these high conflict couple? I mean, I know that's so oversimplified.

Speaker 3: 6:37

Yeah Well, that's actually a question I get a lot. I think with the popularity of Instagram, a lot of people will kind of come in saying like I think we have like an anxious, avoidant dynamic, for example, and that definitely like is real and exists and can turn the gas way up on conflict. I don't see it as like the only reason that couples end up in these loops. There are other types of loops and other drives for them. So I would say it's like a common explanation for what's going on, but definitely not the only one. And that's one of the things I try to take into my work and also teach to couples is to take a really curious, individualized mindset to their relationship, to think like what is actually going on for us and, whenever possible, to kind of step away from some of the jargon and to look at it more concretely, like literally, what's going on, what am I feeling, what am I doing? What's my partner feeling, what are they doing, and to kind of break that down in order to discover what cycle you're in.

Speaker 2: 7:40

Can you give us an example of the like, the typical case that you tend to see like high conflict? I'm sure people can, you know, understand what their conflict looks like. But can you kind of give us a little bit of like, what can it look like the kind of demand withdrawal type that Jacqueline was referring to? But when you're saying, oh, it can look like other things, give us some like pictures of what that looks like that looks like yeah.

Speaker 3: 8:07

well, one thing I want to say is like I think sometimes the language high conflict will lead people to believe like these people must just be chaos in their lives in general, they must be a mess, and that's really not my experience. I think often very intelligent people end up in high conflict relationships and often there's kind of like a mismatch in type of intelligence. So you'll have somebody who's a really highly emotional, intuitive person paired with someone who's hyperlogical, for example, and that's a really common pairing that I see in lot of folks who are discovering things about their own or their partner's neurodivergence. And you know so like not at all all the time, but I definitely will see a decent number of couples where one person is autistic and the other partner has ADHD and that's the source of conflict is sort of like processing style, neurotype. Those ways of approaching even just like a problem can create these perpetual loops.

Speaker 1: 9:09

Yeah, I was potentially in that dyad so I mean, I think there was other personality stuff going on. Yeah, that's just sort of. That's interesting to me. Do you tend to find that these people are carrying the same problems with them relationship to relationship, or do you tend to find that it's more the alchemy of these two people?

Speaker 3: 9:29

Yeah, that's a really good question and it kind of gets to some of the things that I know we want to talk about in terms of how to know if your relationship is kind of doomed or not. Really often I see that there is an alchemy, like a very specific thing, between two people that no one else has ever brought out of either of them before and they're both a little bit shook by it, like why is this happening? Like I wasn't like this with my ex, and maybe they don't totally believe their partner when the partner is saying like I wasn't like this with my ex either. Like this is not normal for me, why are we like this with my ex either? Like this is not normal for me, why are we like this.

Speaker 3: 10:06

So that's actually really common, that there's not kind of like an identified troublemaker who's the person bringing all of this intensity and conflict into the relationship. Of course, when you take into account, you know personality and you know one person perhaps having much more severe mental health challenges going on. Sometimes there is one person who's driving a great deal of the turbulence in the relationship and that can be really important to notice. But, like with any mental health challenge, the way that the partner interacts around their partner's stuff even if it is their stuff does actually have a really meaningful effect on how the relationship goes. Stuff does actually have a really meaningful effect on how the relationship goes. So there can be codependence for lack of a less jargony word and other just like patterns that can pull up, even if it is your partner's. You know stuff that's making the two of you fight, you're still part of the equation.

Speaker 2: 10:57

Wow, I didn't know that. I think I always assume that we're bringing these patterns like two people are bringing the patterns over and over again and then it could be a particularly problematic combination, like someone who's a people pleaser and then another person who's like likes being pleased, right, and then they combine and then there's a lot of you know stuff coming up there. But it's interesting that you're saying that a lot of your couples will meet and go whoa what is this? We're in a high conflict couple.

Speaker 3: 11:28

I think it is you know that you bring your stuff wherever you go, but that just the other partners that you've had, the way that manifested was much less problematic than the way that it's showing up with this other person because of their unique stuff. So, yeah, I actually really like the word alchemy for describing what happens.

Speaker 2: 11:47

Hmm, when you know I'm glad you said that the first thing people think of is the high conflict, right, Like the. I just imagine people who are like fighting and throwing things and screaming and shouting, like that kind of thing.

Speaker 2: 12:01

I have been in that kind of relationship so I've, and I never have been since, but I that's what I think of is like the I love you, but I you know like I imagined that, but can you give a picture of that, or like an example of a type of high conflict couple that you tend to see more and more these days? Or you're like ah, this is like the common type of client I tend to see.

Speaker 3: 12:26

Yeah, well, I guess, to sort of start with like a definition, I tend to think about high conflict in terms of like three things that might be happening. One of them are all three and one is frequent conflict, like way more than you feel is tolerable, reasonable, healthy. The next is intense conflict, so having fights that are big and messy I personally am fine with the word toxic. I know sometimes people don't like it, but you know it's like unhealthy, poisonous to your system, and then conflict resolution sucks, like you go to sleep and that's how you resolve the fight. Not that you actually resolve the fight, you just burn out or agree. We cannot keep talking about this and then with a good night's sleep, maybe everyone feels a little bit better. But there was no collaborative problem solving empathy, like it did not actually end properly.

Speaker 3: 13:17

So those are the three kind of like traits of high conflict couples that, if really any of them resonate, it's not a formal diagnosis. You can just say like yeah, that might be us, you don't need somebody to diagnose you with it. In terms of what I see more and more, actually, I think the most common pattern that I've been seeing in the past five years or so is the weaponization of therapy speak, which is really interesting because I mean I love lots and lots of therapy speak and jargon and psychological terminology is so, so useful and real and valid. Seeing people spend a lot of time on YouTube, on TikTok, listening to podcasts all of which have like an educational aim and potentially warp some of that information through their own lens, you know, to kind of serve their own ego or get to a simple answer, that's actually a really interesting theme I've been noticing more and more.

Speaker 1: 14:16

Yeah, I mean that certainly happened in my relationship and it's sort of this like positioning of him as the mature one or as the experienced one. Um, I don't know what question I'm aiming at with this, but that it just felt like a manipulation tactic. When you see these high conflict couples, how do you differentiate between two people who are weaponizing therapy, speak and yelling at each other and not able to solve conflicts? How do you differentiate between that and abuse? Or do you?

Speaker 3: 14:58

Yeah, I mean that's kind of like the number one question and that's why for couples therapy, there really needs to be like a proper assessment period before you start therapy. So if you're a therapy consumer, if you're looking for a therapist, a really great question to ask is, like what's your assessment process? Like how do you get to know us and our problems? And for me, especially if you are in a more high conflict relationship, I would really recommend looking for somebody who has a little bit more of a structured intake process where you know maybe you meet together all three of you you and your partner and the couples therapist the first time, and then you separate out and meet individually with them and then come back together. And a really important feature of that is that none of that first period is actually couples therapy, it's assessment. The therapist is figuring out like what is appropriate here, what recommendations might I make?

Speaker 3: 15:49

And that investment of time and money can feel really frustrating, like why aren't you helping us already? But unfortunately it's just necessary Like you have to actually first ascertain if couples therapy is even going to work or is safe to work. So definitely that's something that I'm evaluating and continue to evaluate throughout work with a couple, because sometimes you know, a relationship may not be abusive and that can change over the course of the relationship due to a variety of factors. So this is really critical and I think it's a critical question for anyone in a really like messy, turbulent relationship to figure out how much freedom do I have here? How much am I being controlled? How afraid do I feel and you know I use afraid in a pretty broad, abstract way, not like I'm afraid I'm going to die, but like how much am I shaping and contorting myself to prevent my partner's reactions? Because their reactions, their pouting, their moodiness for five days would be so unpleasant that it's just not worth it to like have a different opinion. Wow.

Speaker 2: 16:59

I was just thinking of a Jacqueline's relationship where, yeah, for us, for us learning couples therapy like, what are the things that you that you assess with that? And maybe this is also for couples to kind of do their own self-assessment but that, what you described, can be really hard to pick apart, and I the difference between, like this is an abusive relationship or a conflictual one that has an ability to change. In therapy, like I, we were just taught that there are these questionnaires like conflict assessment, and they'll ask questions like do you fear for your life? Do you feel fear for your safety? Have you ever hit or punched each other in any way? And that's the thing that will determine for us as therapists like, oh, this is actually something that would need like another kind of treatment for abuse instead of couples therapy. So how can you, what do you look for in besides for like those structured assessments that are like, oh, maybe this is not a good couple for couples therapy.

Speaker 3: 18:08

Yeah, I mean, those questionnaires are a great like starting place and I that's another thing I think I would look for as a client is like did your therapist send you a bunch of questionnaires and did some of them ask these types of questions? Because, really, as a client is like did your therapist send you a bunch of questionnaires and did some of them ask these types of questions? Because really, as a therapist, I want to have some clue that these are issues before that first meeting so that you know I can really shape the way we structure that time to be safe for everybody. So that's another kind of like green light that you might want to look for.

Speaker 3: 18:37

Yeah, it's really nuanced, because people can be horrible to each other in a mutual way that is not coercive, that doesn't have an element of that kind of like more sinister manipulation, Like people can just suck and be mean and hurt each other in very significant ways. And even when it comes to physical abuse, this is something that I think is like tricky to talk about in a nuanced way, but the reality is like research shows that the majority of physical aggression in relationships is bidirectional, and that isn't just because one person is defending themselves. It's like got a name for it situational couple violence or common couple violence, what it used to be called. These are like real things that happen and I think actually a lot of couples feel a ton of shame like, oh my God, I can't believe like we put our hands on each other during a fight. We can't tell anyone that People are often very confused about how mandatory reporting works and so they might not even want to tell a therapist because they're like, oh, they're going to arrest my husband, you know, because I hit him and then he like threw his hands up and I fell over or something like that. That's really very unfortunately common in relationships, and common doesn't mean okay, but it is something that happens.

Speaker 3: 19:50

But even that type of spun out physical aggression in the middle of a conflict doesn't necessarily indicate this like underlying dynamic of control and control is really the word that I come back to over and over again in addition to fear.

Speaker 3: 20:07

So you know, if someone says like I'm scared of my partner, like I don't think I could leave safely, Obviously that's a huge red flag for abuse. But if they say like I can't waste an opinion, I can't see my friends, because you know, I don't like the way that my partner acts when they feel rejected. When I'm with my friends, I can't, you know, make autonomous choices, have autonomous opinions, because they will just be so unbelievably unpleasant, Even if they never yell or scream or swear. They just will be so unpleasant. That's a form of control. And then it creates coercion because, in order to avoid that unpleasant reaction, you're shaping yourself, and so you know. That's really what I'm looking for, and what I would encourage people to look at within themselves is this sense of having to twist yourself in order to just like, live your life in peace.

Speaker 1: 21:03

I. That is basically what my relationship was like. I think what was confusing was like in some ways, we control our partner's behavior through, maybe, how we react. That's very normalized. Like you you know, if your boyfriend goes to a strip club, you're going to react probably not well. And then they lose some bit of autonomy. Um, it's like at what point that's sort of a socially sanctioned control control.

Speaker 1: 21:37

Um, I found it very hard in my relationship to know what was acceptable that he was preventing me from doing by his reaction, not by him saying you literally can't do that, but there'd be so many things where I would come back and he'd be like curled in the fetal position and just like cause, you know, eyes closed and just telling me he was like imagining me having sex with someone, or you know that that wasn't like not even relevant or just like being a dick, you know, for a while. And so, yeah, I mean I would reduce like a lot of my behavior, but but sometimes it would be like, you know, some people think it's acceptable for you to never hang out with the opposite gender again, or I mean I don't, but some people, you know that's normal to them and so I guess, putting my previous shoes on, I'm kind of like at what point do you know that the control is out of control, that the control is unacceptable?

Speaker 3: 22:43

Yeah. Well, the thing that's so hard that you're hitting on is that this is a spectrum, right Like there's, you know, healthy at one end and there is incredibly pervasively controlling at the other, and relationships fall somewhere in between at the other. And relationships fall somewhere in between, and so you may experience like a high degree of control with certain things and then like very low control with other things, and in some relationships you might be like, yeah, I actually don't care about those things that my partner is so controlling about and like, fine, who cares? Those are not important to me. I can easily say yes to them. It's almost like a values match where, yeah, I didn't want to go to strip clubs anyway, so, like, no big deal, I don't have to go to the strip club, or I have no friends of a different gender, so this is actually like not an issue for me to say yes to that. But I think what starts to become problematic is when things that are valued for you, be them small or big, start to be the topic and also just like what I think of as kind of like basic autonomy.

Speaker 3: 23:47

This question came up recently on my Instagram and I got into like a really interesting conversation with my community about it, which is like, is it acceptable for your partner to tell you, hey, I don't want you to see a massage therapist of a different gender, assuming that these people are heterosexual? Obviously, this kind of breaks down if you think about somebody who is bisexual or pansexual. But like, we'll set that aside for a moment that you know this is a question that honestly, I've got this in DMs like quite a few times that you know my is a question that honestly, I've got this in DMs like quite a few times that you know my partner wants to see my partner, who's a man, wants to see a woman massage therapist and I'm just not comfortable with it. Why can't he just see a man or vice versa? And this is an example where it might be really easy for you to say, sure, I'll just see a different gender massage therapist.

Speaker 3: 24:38

I still find it a little bit concerning in terms of control because it has to do with the other person's body and who touches them. So I think that's an example that teased it apart a little bit for me, like when it's control problematic, you still might say, like, sure, I can easily accommodate that, that's your choice, but personally I don't want anyone telling me what I can do with my medical care, what type of providers I can see. That feels a little more sinister to me. It has to do with my body, and so that's like a line that we're teasing apart, but ultimately there's not one answer to you know, is it too controlling or not? It's based on your experience of it. That's actually one of the most interesting things about control is that the other person doesn't have to intend to control you, right Like they can intend nothing and you can feel incredibly controlled.

Speaker 2: 25:27

I have so many questions as you two were talking. It's just so interesting because I think that we're craving guidelines where we want like really clear black and white yes or no's. It's okay for your partner to, you know, have this kind of interaction with the opposite sex or something that someone they're attracted to, and I think that's we're given that in specific cultures, right, like you know, in some certain religions it would be really unacceptable for the wife specifically to show parts of their bodies in public, right, so, and that's that's okay. So I think we're craving those kind of guidelines. But, as you're talking on and what Jacqueline's description was, my question is, like who would be in the wrong right, who's right and who's wrong?

Speaker 2: 26:20

Let's say I'm a woman who loves flirting and loves attention from men, and that's something that's really highly valued to me, and I go out and I do it and um, and then my partner gets jealous and upset about it. And then, um, then who's in the right? Right, like who? Who, of course, that partner would be controlling me or by being upset, because I would think, oh, in order to make him happy, I would not, I couldn't do that, um. But then who's in the right, like in that, let's say, a couple shows up in your office with that like I want to. Just, you know, I just want to be the bell of the ball, and every man, like you know, pant at me and the guy's like well, that makes me upset. Where do you go with that? If one, if the woman, for example, feels like coerced into not doing something they care about, I think this is such a great opportunity to talk about relationship, agreements and shared values.

Speaker 3: 27:27

You know, I think we often assume that we all understand concepts like monogamy and in the exact same way, but we don't. People have different thresholds. Some people find it really hot to think of their partner flirting with other people and then coming home and having sex with them not with other people Like that could even be a turn on. That's not wrong, that's perfectly fine, but everyone has to understand that that's cool, right, like so these are things that ultimately need to be agreed upon. I think if flirting and feeling that kind of like erotic aliveness is really part of who you are, that's not wrong. And it's also not wrong for a partner to say, like I want a partner who doesn't flirt with strangers. Like that also seems pretty reasonable. Right, you may not be compatible in that way, and so then how that difference gets navigated is kind of like where the rubber meets the road in terms of whether this relationship is healthy or unhealthy, like okay, we have a difference. What do we do with that difference?

Speaker 1: 28:29

If you had, yeah, so I guess. So if you had a couple where there was a lot of control in that sort of vein of like, my reactivity is going to be so punishing, Even if it's not me telling you you can and cannot do that, I mean and given that it's a spectrum, this is kind of impossible to answer but are there ever couples where you're just like, yeah, this isn't going to work, Like this isn't workable, and us trying to work on it is risk, even if there's, maybe not like physical abuse? I was in a couple of bad relationships. Now I'm in a great relationship and my, my concern for myself as I go into this year of couples therapy is that I'm just going to be like I go into this year of couples therapy. Is that I'm just going to be like break up.

Speaker 3: 29:23

It doesn't have to be this hard. Like break up, yeah, well, definitely. I mean like, ultimately right. Psychologists are providing medical care and if you have like data-informed reasons to believe that the medical treatment that they are contracting you to provide is very unlikely to work, I actually would think of myself as being obligated to communicate that like that feels really important. People are not always going to be happy to hear that and they may find help somewhere else, but I do think that feedback like that, honest, direct feedback, is critical.

Speaker 3: 29:59

I don't frame it in terms of, like your relationship is not going to work. The way I think about it is like here's what I see right, like here are the concrete differences, the way you're managing the differences, the way you both see the problem. This is. These are the reasons why I am not seeing like a good prognosis here. I'm not seeing a high likelihood of this changing based on where you are right now. That could change, but I don't have tools in my pocket that I can offer you that are going to create change, given where you are right now, and so I don't feel comfortable providing care to you. Here's what I think would be helpful, you know, in terms of maybe individual therapy or other or other treatments that might be more appropriate.

Speaker 1: 30:43

What are the, what might a couple look like where you make that assessment? I mean, what are the kind of? I guess is it like a resistance to the intervention? Is it like a resistance to change?

Speaker 3: 30:57

Yeah well, certainly just like scary stuff, like number one. If one person is really scared, if their safety is in question, then couples therapy is not a good fit because they won't be able to be honest in therapy and if they are honest they may go home and get punished for it. So that is why those individual meetings are so important, because that can get communicated one-on-one instead of as a group. So if I am really concerned about somebody's safety, you know there's a space to communicate that directly to that person and to figure out like where they're at. And that's part of that one-on-one interview is to be like what are your needs and how do we ensure your safety?

Speaker 3: 31:37

At the more severe end that includes things like safety planning, but at the more kind of verbal control and aggression end that often involves resourcing. What are your individual therapy resources? What's your support network like? If you're not ready to be out of this relationship, then how are you going to be okay in the interim shift? Then you know, how are you going to be okay in the interim. If it's a couple where you know it's kind of safe to deliver feedback to them together, it's going to be okay for them. If I say like, listen, I don't see this working for you, then usually it's down to one or both partners having a really strong belief that the other person is entirely at fault and like an unwillingness to collaborate on change.

Speaker 1: 32:28

So is that something that usually reveals itself over time?

Speaker 3: 32:32

You know it's, yes, it can come out over time, but I do feel like it often is evident quite quickly in an intake process, because you know, if you ask someone like what's the problem, and they tell you all about okay, well, here's my partner, does this and this and this and this and this and this and this, and okay, like, how do you see yourself in that picture If they only have really kind of like superficial ways of including themselves as a part of the problem? And then if we kind of push on that and go like, okay, but you know what would they say? Like what would they say is your contribution? Is there any flexibility to think about it from a different angle and see yourself as like a player? It doesn't mean you have to think you caused all the problems, but like, can you even see yourself as a player in this dynamic, as opposed to somebody just sitting on the sidelines and like having stuff thrown at them?

Speaker 2: 33:21

that's interesting. What about if people listening, um, we get this message sometimes of, oh no, I am, when you just have, like that one person, you're one person sitting there and they go oh no, I feel like we're fighting all the time. I am afraid to even bring anything up and talk because I'm afraid it's gonna end in fight. So I feel kind of controlled in that way. Um, they think it's all my fault, I think it's all their fault and they're wondering. They're sitting here listening to this, wondering like should I break up with my girlfriend or should I break up with my boyfriend or should I take them to couples therapy? I mean, our answer would be like it depends. But are there things that people can see if like, oh no, I'm actually in a really bad relationship and I need to get out?

Speaker 3: 34:25

to get out. Yeah Well, you know, the more severe relationship aggression is always going to worry me greatly, like if your partner has hurt you physically. That's really scary, you know. That's something to take incredibly seriously and be addressing proactively. If they're sort of like prone to verbally attacking you and saying really horrible things about you and, as honest as you can be, looking at yourself, you're like, yeah, I don't see how I do that too, that that's coming at me. I do not see how I am, you know, provoking that, throwing that back at them. That kind of seems like a them thing.

Speaker 3: 34:58

Honestly, the thing I see more and more which, jacqueline, I think you're alluding to in your couples therapy journey is people where, honestly, I think they want to break up, but there's just a lot of structure that makes it difficult for them to break up. I don't always call that high conflict, but I do think it's a huge problem, almost like an epidemic that you know, life is really expensive and people are hugely incentivized not to get divorced in particular, but even just break up. If you, you know, have like affordable rent together or whatever, it just can feel impossible to end a relationship and I do feel like I see more and more couples staying in relationships where it's like you don't want to be here. You seem miserable because the alternative is just so inconvenient.

Speaker 2: 35:47

In those cases it's always like find a way out. Or are there some of those cases where it's like, yeah, actually there's a lot of life structure that you'd be sacrificing if you were to break up. Let's really work on it Like how.

Speaker 3: 36:02

I probably am on the breakup side, you know as painful and inconvenient, and you know, obviously people's kids become a huge actor in this. But, like I will say, you know a thousand times that having a high conflict relationship is not better for your kids than getting a divorce Right. So it's like, if those are the options on the table, I would choose the divorce 10 out of 10 times rather than subject kids to this type of dynamic. People really overestimate how much they're able to shield their kids from their relationship too. Yeah, you know, I know.

Speaker 3: 36:38

There are just sometimes like realities of life in which case I would be a huge proponent of like a separation where you keep sharing property or you know a way to say, like this isn't working, we cannot be married people together anymore, and maybe like we literally can't live anywhere else. But to figure out a creative way to not be in this endless loop, because you know staying in a situation where you're hurting each other, where help is not available, and saying like well, housing is expensive, that that does not feel like a sustainable, healthy place to be indefinitely yeah, I love that you said that yeah, well, I was just gonna say I think I I concerned most.

Speaker 1: 37:21

So my sister got a divorce and it's the best thing that ever happened to her, but at the same time he has like leveraged the kids and um in I mean this is a simplistic way of putting it but like turn them against her. Um, I mean, she's an alcoholic, she did her share of fucked up things, but the extent of the alienation is uh, doesn't fit the crime in a way, um or the memory of the kids, and I would just worry that there are some people who would stay in rather than have the kids like vindictively used against them. When I think about like if I had married my previous partner, that I think would be my biggest fear is like do I trust him to divorce me? Well, you know like and I just do you have any idea of like? You know like and and I.

Speaker 3: 38:07

Just what do you have any idea of, like, what you do with that? Yeah, no, it's like horrible set of options. Right, because you're right. Like often, the problems that led people to have a really toxic relationship in the first place are going to be barriers to, like, a conscientious, pleasant divorce. Um, you know, good mediationiation being focused on the bigger goal. I think people can get really stuck on the like short term battle and not see the bigger picture. Like what's the goal here? What do I want? You know, I see a lot of moms and I relate to this so much really struggling to let go of control.

Speaker 3: 38:49

Like the kids may eat a lot of junk food at their dads and like they may watch a lot more TV than I would allow or or whatever, like feeling like I can't get divorced because I would lose control. And you know again, it's like such a primal feeling of like, no, I can't do that, I can't do that Ultimately, like I would stand by that. You know, exposing your kids to a toxic relationship is so much more hazardous than screen time or Cheetos, or you know, whatever it might be, that the fear is Well that would drive me crazy, though.

Speaker 3: 39:20

Yeah, same same right. Like it's it's really tough and and it's like my heart goes out to anybody in this situation because it's it's not like there's like a great option the if your partner is incredibly wounded and prone to act out like vindictively, in which case you know it goes beyond, like my couples therapy work, but you know it's a good opportunity to like really got all your resources in place.

Speaker 2: 39:45

Yeah, I'm just like so glad you know it's a good opportunity to like really got all your resources in place. Yeah, I'm just like so glad you're we're talking about this, because I didn't know the research behind it, but just my gut feeling is like separating in an unhealthy relationship it's better than staying together with kids. But I hear this all the time where people are terrified to break up because you know of the financial things, but also like, oh, I'm going to mess up my kids, they're going to be hurt by the separation, and I'm like I think you guys staying together is not better. But you know, it's good to hear the expert saying that. I have a question Talking about the topic of like vulnerable I don't want to say vulnerable narcissism, but also seeing a weaponizing of.

Speaker 2: 40:32

There's like weaponizing, incompetence and vulnerability, and this is places where I've heard therapy terms being weaponized. Basically, what I'm saying is for people who actually control through their being vulnerable, right, like being wounded, being hurt, being the victim, and that could be so confusing because then the other person is like oh my gosh, I'm hurting this person, I'm the bad one. But then you're seeing this other person, the vulnerable one, going like oh, I'm triggered, I'm traumatized. You doing this is making me feel dysregulated, right? So do you see that a lot Are you seeing sometimes people using, like, the victim role to do bad things in a relationship, or like how do you know when that's like I hate to say, legitimate, but you know what I mean? Like definitely.

Speaker 3: 41:28

I mean, I think about things really just like functionally, behaviorally.

Speaker 3: 41:34

And so you know, even if you don't think, oh, my partner is like a vulnerable narcissist or whatever ultimately, like we are responsible for coping with our own emotional experiences in like a respectful way that isn't harmful to other people and someone you know saying something that rubs you the wrong way or living their life in a way that brings up your own insecurities is not, like an excuse for, you know, being harmful with your feelings.

Speaker 3: 42:04

You know big feelings are real and can be a facet of how someone experiences the world, but they don't give you like a pass to just be like well, I acted, however, because I had all these big feelings. So I think there's just this like emotional maturity component where, if you see your partner not having the skills to handle their emotions in an adult, not having the skills to handle their emotions in an adult, non-harmful way, that is going to be really grating and really exhausting Like they. You know we're interdependent, we're not completely separate as partners, but ultimately, like if they are needing you to sort of like walk them through every feeling and attend to every feeling they don't resource themselves in other ways. That's going to burn out most partners.

Speaker 1: 42:49

Eventually I've also been there, all in the same relationship. Yeah, I mean it's interesting, because the experience of like seeing him sad and anxious I mean he would also get really angry and bring me at other times but like, just just that it's so hard to be like dude, you need to like man up. I know that's a bad phrase, but I'm just saying like I can't, I can't deal with you being sad and anxious anymore. It we're not used to thinking of like sad and anxious as toxic or as something that you need to. I mean what I wanted him to do was regulate, but I think we're used to seeing it.

Speaker 1: 43:34

If we tell somebody, if we want somebody to stop being sad and anxious, it seems like we're saying you need to suppress that, um, versus if we see somebody who's angry, we would say you need to regulate that.

Speaker 1: 43:43

But sometimes, like when you're, you know, when you are just being yourself, and that person responds with mopiness and, um, you know, just wanting comfort constantly, as you say, it wears on you and you start feeling like a bad person or a shitty partner or a monster or all you know, all of the above, and I that feels like maybe one of the less talked about dynamics, um, but it's still functionally like one partner is being, is doing activity that is valuable to them and the other responds with a punishing emotional experience, and so then you are controlled, and that's the dynamic emotional experience and so then you are controlled and that's the dynamic yeah, it's, I mean, it's really shaping right Like it can make your life really small if you don't realize that's what's happening and just gradually modify and modify, and I think at the less severe end this is something that just like I think a lot of people can probably relate to experiencing like I don't know.

Speaker 3: 44:46

Really mundane example is like in my relationship early in parenthood when I would be like, okay, I'm going to go do this thing. I have been momming and working and like doing all the things and I'm going to go whatever, I'm going to go to brunch, I'm going to go to a workout class and my husband would be like, oh, you're leaving me with the baby, Like show all of this visible stress. When, like I was like you've got it, I know you've got it, You're going to be okay, and that was also shaping right. I found that punishing. I don't think there was a manipulative intent to it, but it did have that effect and so, even at that, more like non-pathological end of the spectrum.

Speaker 3: 45:26

These can be things to call out in your relationship and notice like I want to take care of myself. I think it's important. I think you agree with me that it's important, but when I try to, it looks like it's a huge bummer for you and I don't want to bring it up because it ruins the tone of our day and like that's very much a conversation that we had with my husband, who's definitely like not a covert narcissist, you know. So like these things come up, it's real relationships, involve these dynamics and I think people don't always know what to do with them.

Speaker 1: 45:57

I think I'm I've been enjoying lately trying to find less the therapist-y language or less shaming or judgmental language to describe processes, because I think people get really hung up on. Is this abuse or is this not abuse? And I do. I'm kind of toying with this concept now that you bring it up of like. Do you like the shape that you are in this relationship? You've been shaped, no matter whether the behavior is toxic or not. Is the way that is the shape that you are taking on, something that you respect, admire and enjoy being, or is it not? And there's no fault in that. It's just like I don't know. Maybe that's a way of telling whether you're in the right relationship.

Speaker 3: 46:42

Yeah, no, totally. It makes me think about sometimes. Sometimes I get to work with people who are quite a bit younger and like earlier in their life experience I used to work in a VA, so it's like younger men and their partners and something that can come up. A lot is like sort of just like natural development, where maybe someone will meet their person and they're like you are my person and they're like you are my person, but like I'm not really like adulting yet, like I'm not totally ready for all, you want me to like do all these things you know that are totally appropriate things.

Speaker 3: 47:13

I see myself doing them, say in like two years, but whoa, right now it feels like a lot Like you want me to stop smoking weed all day, every day. Or you want me to like not play seven hours of video games on the weekend, and I think that's correct. I think you're right to want those things, but like, oh, I wasn't quite ready to stop doing those things. And I think that idea of like do you like the shape that you're in works well there, where it's like, yeah, you weren't quite ready, but like you're reaching and you're growing to be the person that ultimately you desired to be, and it might take a couple of years for the two of you to meet in the middle versus, you know some, somebody who's being asked to change in a way where it's like, no, I didn't ever see myself making those changes.

Speaker 2: 47:55

My question is can you, can you give us a picture of what couples therapy can look like? Like, even if even if you have like a favorite case or favorite like example, I just imagine that so many people would benefit from couples therapy but they might be afraid that it must mean that you have to split up or they can't even picture what it would be like to go from high conflict to, you know, fighting better or using skills. Can you give us like a like what? Would that look like.

Speaker 3: 48:27

Well, couples therapy is awesome, so don't be afraid of it. My husband and I go to couples therapy. We really enjoy it. So even if your relationship isn't high conflict and you're like I don't know, would we benefit? There's this like I don't know if this is actually true, but people tend to say that couples wait like seven years to go to couples therapy, which definitely is a long time, like from when they would have benefited from it. And even being a couples therapist, I think my husband and I waited like a solid year too long, which is wild to me that, knowing everything I know, we, we delayed it and a lot of it was me just being picky and like, oh well, I have to have the best couples therapist in the world because I am a couples therapist. So you know, don't delay. You don't have to totally know why. If you're feeling like we're not where I want us to be, it's a good reason to go and you don't have to go forever. Often you can get a lot of great work done and maybe like eight sessions or something like that, and then pop back in. For high conflict couples specifically, I think what can happen like it's really beautiful, it's magical. It's why I have made this.

Speaker 3: 49:37

My specialty is you can start to see what felt like an intractable problem in a whole new light. You can start to see, like wait, this thing that I thought was my partner being a jerk and or us being incompatible, maybe it's something else Like, maybe it's this systemic, mutually driven loop that we're in, where we're both like pedaling the bike and it's going round and round and actually maybe there's things I can do differently to impact that. And what's so powerful in a relationship that isn't abusive is that one person's actions and like improvements radically improve the relationship. And that's actually a great way to tell if your relationship is or isn't abusive. Because if you make changes, like really positive changes, and your partner sees them and shapes to them and and you know responds to them, that's a really good sign that shows that there's this like mutuality and mutual investment. Um, you know so. Both people like taking accountability for themselves, learning how they show up. There's often really deep work around, just like how you came to communicate this way, what modeling you experienced in from your parents and past relationships, like how you learned to fight this way.

Speaker 3: 50:55

And ultimately, you know, I tend to tell high conflict couples like listen, you may always be like a little bit spicy. You might always be a couple who has arguments. You know I actually am a hothead and so I relate. I always say like I would be great in a high conflict relationship. I would like really know how to burn it down. So it's like I'm not going to become not a hothead. I can have all the tools in the world. I still have kind of like a quick flare up reaction to things. So your relationship may have that characteristic, but you can learn how to work with it, how to like dance with it and move with it, rather than have it be this just like wall that you run into and ultimately it doesn't have to get in the way of you living the type of life that you want to have. You can be very compatible with somebody where there's a little bit more of that spice. That's completely fine.

Speaker 1: 51:45

All right. Well, marina and I'm calling you Marina because Dr Rosenthal is our advisor, so that's very weird to me that we have a second Dr Rosenthal here. Thank you for walking us through this. I think we have been trying to tease apart these concepts so much and we often run ourselves in circles every time we try to define things. It's all of the exceptions are there, all the spectrums are there, and so it's it's just helpful to have you on and kind of toy around with these ideas with us from the perspective of somebody who really works with these couples and has seen success. And I was wondering if you have any resources you suggest books, articles, podcasts, anything like that for our high conflict couples out there.

Speaker 3: 52:37

Yeah, well, I have a few things I can offer. One of them is free. I have like a high conflict starter kit that if you go to my Instagram and click my link in bio it'll pop up. It's called like calm conflict starter kit and it has three like actual techniques that are things I do with real couples that you can try out in your relationship. So that's like free and you can just get it through my Instagram. I also have two kind of like guides that I sell. One is called Take a Break and it's all about how to like effectively pause a conflict with your partner and kind of.

Speaker 3: 53:17

We talked earlier about an anxious, avoidant dynamic. This is really helpful for people who maybe have that dynamic because you feel like you don't know how. If you're the more avoidant person, you don't know how to end a fight. It's like I don't want to be talking about this anymore. Or if you get really overwhelmed, if you just start sensory overload and overstimulated, like how do I make this stop, and you maybe feel like I would say anything to make it stop and your partner is desperate to solve the problem and feel connected again. And your partner is desperate to solve the problem and feel connected again.

Speaker 3: 53:49

And so this is like a toolkit of a skill that I teach to couples of like taking a break or taking a time out and effectively coming back, and it's one of the number one things I see couples do wrong, where they're like oh, we already tried that. And like, did you, how'd you do it? And it's like, oh well, you did 47 things wrong, so that's why it didn't work. So this is me kind of like walking you through how to actually do this right. And then I have another guide that's a little bit more expansive, which is called what the Fuck Did you Just Say to Me? And it's communication skills for high conflict couples and it's really kind of digging into some of the most common like communication twisters that high conflict couples get into and specifically what you can do to get out of them.

Speaker 2: 54:28

Awesome. We'll put all of those links on the show notes and our website so listeners can really easily find them.

Speaker 1: 54:35

I feel like that's an entire separate podcast. It's like all of the things I mean. Communication twisters is something I want to know more about, so I'll be looking this stuff up, but for now, thank you, marina. So much for joining us. Little helpers, if you don't want to have high conflict with us, please go ahead and leave us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and we'll see you in a couple weeks.

Speaker 2: 54:56

No, we can't coerce them, Just kidding. You're free to do whatever you like and we love you either way.

Speaker 1: 55:04

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