Psychologist Answers Couples Therapy Questions | Tech Support | WIRED

I'm Dr Ora goralnik psychologist and psychoanalyst I'm here to answer your questions from the internet this is couples therapy [Music] support bye sweetie all right level Studio says you shouldn't have to change for your partner is an extremely silly oversimplification I agree that it's a silly oversimplification but there is some wisdom in it you know when people come to therapy to see a couple's therapist they often their hidden agenda is here's my partner help me change them and one of the main things I have to do in couple's therapy is kind of reverse that assumption

that really what needs to happen is your partner needs to change because that is not how it works for couples to live well together each person needs to take responsibility for themselves and see what they can change within themselves and how can they learn to accept and love their partner for who they are now that doesn't mean that we don't adjust and take seriously how we impact our partner but that is different from expecting your partner to truly change depresso espresso asks my boyfriend thinks he should say whatever hurtful thing is on his mind because

he values the truth well that is not helpful if you're talking in hurtful ways to your partner that is just not interesting not helpful only damaging the truth is not everything that comes to your mind the truth is what is constructive to the relationship Mutiny 34 is asking Reddit if you have to ask yourself if you love your partner does that mean you don't no that doesn't mean you don't people's feelings are something that comes and goes and changes all the time depending on the external and internal weather depending on things that are happening around

us whether it's in the relationship or out outside in the world so the way we feel changes all the time even though there might be a very steady undercurrent of love the way you feel from moment to moment or day to day can change and sometimes you can lose touch with parts of yourself and those are moments when you might ask yourself wait what's Happening Here how do I feel and that's normal dear Chanelle exclaims my boyfriend can't have female friends exclamation mark don't care controlling your partner is probably not going to be a good

recipe for a solid relationship and for a mutually respectful relationship you want people to be happy you want them to have like rich and full lives and if your relationship is based on limiting your partner's experience in the world that is going to eventually kill the relationship Zan Fox asks how do you know your partner is the one I don't know if there is the one I don't know it depends on what your philosophy of life is when do you decide to really commit yourself to another person depends on many things I don't know what

it means really to be the one but if you're in a relationship in which you're growing and thriving and feeling a lot of love and respect for your partner that sounds pretty good I think people carry within them a lot of intense fantasies that sometimes get in the way of being in reality if you're in a good relationship and you're thriving your life is getting better and you're full of love that sounds pretty good at Cojo an new asks what do you all do when your partner needs space and you crave closeness that is actually

uh almost the most common Dynamic that gets formed in our relationship and sometimes people can take turns in terms of who's the one that wants and who's the one that Retreats I sometimes think of it as a hair dryer kind of chasing a paper bag there's always some Dynamic of push and pull and what do you do about it first first of all accept that that's a common Dynamic if you use the metaphor of the hair dryer you might realize that sometimes the more you push the more the other person will need to retreat so

sometimes it's a good idea to paradoxically turn things around and when you realize that someone needs space move Back Lean Back take your own space take care of yourself do what you need and then when it's time you'll both come back together sepe the stud is asking is it just me or does couple ther theapy sound fun like I'm just allowed to talk to my significant other like they ain't sitting right next to me okay I do think couples therapy can be fun obviously that's what I do I don't think couples therapy is talking about

your significant others that's not a good use of the therapeutic space but it's a good chance to talk about things that it feels too risky to talk about when you're on your own and what you learn in coup's therapy is how to create space for a more risk-taking Dynamic interesting conversation that eventually you'll be able to take home and you won't need your couple's therapist for a Reddit user asks is the inner child real or just therapy jargon it's definitely therapy jargon but it's also a real thing in the sense that we all carry within

us our childhood and memories of what it was like to be a child and we still have needs and feelings that that pertain to that part of ourselves now some people continuously grow from their inner child and keep evolving and evolving and evolving and some people live in a more fragmented or dissociated way I'm not saying this is a pathological way of being it's just we're different that way and some people really do keep within themselves a part that really is like an inner child a part of themselves that hasn't necessarily developed and that they

regress to or turn to under certain situations and then they really feel inside like a child but I think it's important for us to all when we love another person to actually tune in and to see that all of us still have childish vulnerable needy small parts that are worth paying attention to KT said it asks are couples therapists not allowed to tell their clients to break up it's not that we're not allowed as couples therapists to tell people to break up I'm sure plenty of couples therapists do say to people maybe it's time to

break up I tend to be kind of a indeed an optimist and a romantic most of the time I like to support couples in their attempt to find each other and I don't really see my job as to tell people how to live their lives I assume if they're coming to see me they want to figure out a way to make things work and it might be really challenging and that's a good challenge to face because the challenge in a relationship is to find a way to accept and know your partner and take them as

they are and address what is coming up in you that is getting in the way was this cheating asks last night I thought of another man while having sex with my husband should I tell him there's no one answer to that I mean one's Fantasy Life is generally one's private experience and you don't owe it to anyone but for some people in relationships it's actually exciting and a fun thing to know about what's going on in your partner's Fantasy Life and for some people it's too threatening so depends on your partner TMS to me is

asking successful couples don't fight less than other couples they fight better that's a quote from John gotman and Julie Schwarz gotman who have done a lot of research on coup's work I agree with that statement not disagreeing or not fighting is not a realistic possibility between two people that are obviously different cuz you're two people so you're not going to see the same way you're not going to need the same things you're going to disagree on things but then what happens when you disagree couples form a certain kind of political system between them so are

you an autocratic political system do you try to control each other or do you try a democratic way of negotiating difference listen well to each other figure out how to compromise figure out how to take turns fighting well is an art bipolar mind at no ease asks do men not realize that only showing affection when they want sex makes us disinclined to physical touch yeah that is a pretty common thing that women complain about I think one of the issues here is that certain men and this is luckily changing with the younger generation sometimes do

not really know how to establish a feeling of connection and affection and warmth when it's not sexual meaning they have sex as one of their only languages to actually feel close to another person which can be off-putting to a woman who has other ways of feeling affection and connection part of the work is to expand the vocabulary of what the man learns how to do in a way model and teach what it means to be affectionate when it doesn't immediately equal sex Savage on autopilot asks for those with homophobic parents how do I do it

tough depends how deep it goes I mean some people are homophobic because of just lack of knowledge and not enough experience in the world that can be a pretty thin layer of homophobia that with enough patience and time it's easy to break through when homophobia is deep seated and and and steeped in like a certain kind of fear and bigotry I think part of it is patience and part of it is developing really good boundaries and not letting the homophobic parent poison your life a Reddit user asks is it common to just listen to your

client and provide no Insight yes listening and helping a client understand what they're going through often involves spending a lot of time quiet Opening space for a person to listen to their own thoughts if you notice most of the time when people offer each other advice or Insight it's kind of useless it's rare for us to be able to offer something that is really helpful to another person and it's better to be quiet Mike Bane asks if all feelings are valid then does validation essentially lose all meaning no validation is often a very good thing

to offer another person people have a deep need to feel understood local bit asks is the truth more important than people's feelings in relationships no they both matter so the truth will be useless if a person is too upset or too hurt to deal with the truth so in a conversation or in a relationship people's feelings are the prerequirement to dealing with the truth which is of course very important when I say that the truth is important I'm I mean the truth of the matter like the thing that really matters I don't mean that facts

are important but sometimes people argue or talk about facts when they're really trying to get to the truth of what matters to them and in that sense the truth matters a lot rebellious mindbox asks what to look for in couple's therapist I think first of all to look for or someone who you feel comfortable talking to someone who you feel like is wise in a way that matters to you someone that makes both of you feel comfortable and not like they're siding with one or the other and someone who is not closed-minded or biased in

any direction you want someone who's open United biscotti 4402 asks what's a sign that tells you a couple's relation ship will not last well first of all I'm not necessarily in the business of predicting what people are going to do and what's going to happen because people surprise me all the time but there are signs that alarm me that make me feel like o something is not going well for these people and that's when first of all when the kind of Goodwill and curiosity about each other has evaporated for a long time and all that's

left could be a certain kind of disdain or contempt which will kill the relationship sometimes couples get stuck in patterns that feel almost addictive of like abuse or Mutual put down and when I realize that I can't convince the couple to move out of that stage or out of that mode then I think the relationship is doomed National Mouse asks I am no longer in love with my husband and do not know how to get back there that is a a painful place to be sometimes people go through phases in their relationship where they lose

touch with their love or the relationship is changing in a way that the old love is no longer relevant people are moving towards a new chapter in their relationship and they may need to be patient and wait for this kind of new feeling to surface but sometimes the relationship really is dying at least for one person and then it's a painful process of of starting to say goodbye burnning ego is asking if trust is lost in a relationship how do you gain it back to show your partner you're worth trusting it's a great question trust

is not something that you can earn by demanding it or forcing it trust is something that one experiences over time and if trust is broken what needs to happen is that over time the couple needs to be convinced that they're in a new and different place and sometimes it takes a long time a long time of consistent trustworthy behavior that registers with the other person and with a couple as a couple as the new reality of their relationship so patience intuitive Empress asks why do people think when they get in relationships they stop learning and

studying their partner LOL people grow change and evolve all the time one of the things that happens in relationship is that our perception of our partner can get fixed and while our partner is growing we don't really want to see it there's something about it that might be threatening or alarming to us and that's when the relationship starts freezing but yes people are changing and growing all the time not to mention that we are governed to some degree by our unconscious which keeps sending us all sorts of unpredictable messages that will change the scene anyhow

so yes change growth is happening all the time Jos leiki asks what do you do if your family member doesn't like your partner not an unusual scenario and it's not an unusual scenario not necessarily because family members specifically don't like Partners but when you form a couple you're forming a kind of a new unit and the family of origin around that unit needs to rearrange itself and that's not necessarily a comfortable rearrangement so people will resist the intrusion of someone new into the family system and that is a challenge for the couple to establish their

own boundaries I think if the relationship is important to you you try to really create a good boundary around your couplehood and make the other family members secondary to your couplehood muggle cat lady asks am I unfair 37 male boyfriend hates cleaning should I charge higher rent oh it's a funny way to phrase a question but generally I think it's a good idea for couples to have a fair Arrangement between them and something that feels fair to both of them now that's often a very difficult question because some people actually most people view their own

work as more of a contribution than their Partners if a grown man doesn't like cleaning it would be good to ask the grown man what would you want to do instead as your contribution to the relationship and it would be a good conversation to have happily ordinary asks how do I get over my husband cheating on me complicated question there's no one answer to that question it obviously depends on what happened what was the cheating about was the cheating in response to something that's going on in the relationship something that you can work through in

the relationship was the cheating a habit that someone brings into the relationship hard for them to be honest hard for them to be steady some cheating can be completely unrelated to the relationship but just like establishing trust is something that takes time getting over cheating is something that takes time and manifests in consistent Behavior debris away asks has anyone broke their family's multigenerational codependency trait yes plenty of people have the passing on of multi-generational habits beliefs IDE ideologies and problems is very common we all come into relationships with our own past and with our family's

past we all carry within us a legacy of how to be in a relationship what to expect of a relationship I can think of a recent couple that I worked with where the wife was talking about how every woman across the generations before her divorced a failing husband failing to thrive husband hband and she was married to a lovely man and she was like I don't know how I break this cycle how do I not assume that history is just going to repeat itself so yes it's a common thing to do to be influenced by

past generations and it's a good challenge to have to do better saram sarvat makam asks how exactly does psychoanalysis help the patient if I had to quickly summarize the main tenance of how psychoanalysis helps and I think it's a very powerful and wonderful mode it is first of all in helping us become acquainted with our unconscious with things that we're not aware of that drive us and the second is to understand that what happens early in our history has a powerful impact on what's Happening Now in our lives and once we learn what we're bringing

in from our history our own history multigenerational history we can become Freer of it Chipotle lover says I'm in an Intercultural relationship and sometimes it can be so hard please any positive anecdotes experiences or words of wisdom would be appreciated yeah first of all we're living in a world where Intercultural relationships are more and more common I think Intercultural relationships in a way manifest a more extreme version of what it means to be in a relationship in general which is that you're in a relationship with someone who is different from you by definition I find

Intercultural relationships particularly interesting in the sense that what you see in a much more explicit way is how culture shapes the private experience it's always true we all come from a part particular Legacy in a particular culture we all carry within us different ideology IES different class systems I mean in a way every couple is an Intercultural couple but when it's much more explicit I find that it forces people to really tackle and be aware how culture kind of really shapes us and the work that couples do when they're in Intercultural relationships is pretty profound

work okay Megan Flores is asking how do you know it's the right Time to Leave a relationship it really depends if the reason you're leaving a relationship is because of the what how you're feeling or because of something that's happening if you're asking yourself how do I know that I'm ready to leave a relationship then you check in with yourself are you still curious about your partner are you is there still goodwi that you're generating or do you feel kind of like dead inside like you lost the livelihood of your feelings now if you're one

wondering about whether whatever is going on in the relationship is time to leave that's a different question is the relationship feeling too toxic is it feeling like you're trying and trying and trying and nothing is changing do you feel like the relationship has sort of reached a dead end then it's time to go error Global asks I think I have to leave but I can't bring myself to do it how do you build emotional strength to leave how do you build the emotional strength I think part of it is finding this sense of Truth inside

yourself kind of knowing that that's the right thing to do and being both Brave and caring enough about your partner to do it well meaning to do it with care for the other person for yourself and with respect for the relationship tumble cus asks husband 37 male was upset I 33 female guided him during sex not sure exactly how to interpret this but what was upsetting about that interaction if we're talking about a man that doesn't want feedback that's an issue why not what's what's the purpose of having sex if you're not communicating about what

each other want but if we're talking about someone who gives feedback in a way that is critical or humiliating then that's good to know depends how you give each other feedback people are very vulnerable when they're sexual with each other and they want to be treated with care and respect M Kishi asks why is it when you're in a stable fulfilling relationship people want you to ruin it with marriage or kids couples often find that even when they're in a very content space there's always this kind of drive to take it further to go further

and one of the ways that marriage and kids introduce this further and more into a relationship is that marriage to some degree means you're forming a certain kind of contract with your community so you're extending what you're doing with your relationship Beyond yourself and often you do that so that you're creating a space to raise kids and for some of us raising kids is an incredible experience that expands your own and your couple's meaning in the world it's the option to take care of other people which is for some of us like the best thing

that ever happened like tears in rain asks is resentment a normal inevitable part of all romantic relationships unfortunately we are not perfect as humans and sadly resentment is a pretty normal thing in relationships it's not a great thing part of what people do for example in couple's work is they figure out how not to accumulate resentments but to first of all work within themselves about what's bothering them if before they dump it on someone else and then find a way to talk in a way that you're asking for what you need or saying what's troubling

you ideally Without Blame and that's when you are less likely to develop resentments mocha jaav asks do you always fight with your other half on the same things over and over again yes in a way couples typically have one or two fights that happen in one way or another throughout their relationship ideally you want that fight to evolve and change over time but we do tend to repeat the things that bother us and matter to us temporary headache asks I 38 male accidentally ended up tracking my wife's 38 female periods and realized that my entire

life revolves around her cycle concerned about her health and wondering if I should say something first of all Let's ignore the fact that one accidentally tracks the partner's periods I don't know what that means that's not an accident so for example if we talk about women's Cycles menstrual cycles have a lot to do with hormones so women describe like all sorts of shifts actually it's not always in one or the other direction shifts in their libido shifts in how they feel within their body or shifts in mood and irritability shifts in how tuned in they

are to their partner depending on moods the other interesting things about these Cycles is that the pheromones change and people who are really tuned into each other like the partner's desire and level of libido can change based on the woman's Cycles all of these biological aspects of our lives have a very powerful subliminal impact on all of us not just on the in this case the woman direct maximum asks my wife always puts the kids first and rarely pays attention to me anymore and I feel unloved what can I do that is not an unusual

thing to happen in a relationship when kids enter the picture sometimes the partners need to settle into being somewhat marginalized by the kids that do take up a lot of attention but sometimes this said wife might need some help to pull out of the hyperfocus on the children and that is usually done not by way of criticism but by making sure she has enough help or support with the kids so that she can pull her attention away from the kids and back towards her life as a love partner cranberry jelly is asking how to address

emotional regulation while still letting partner feel his feelings let me just first say that emotional regulation is a hugely important topic between couples because there is a certain Zone realm of emotionality within which we function well as people so when people are too shut down or too excited or too angry they can't really listen to each other and they can't really take in information and they can't talk properly and how to find a way that you feel comfortable with each other is the ongoing art and dance of being in a couple we learn about our

partner slowly and gradually what helps them regulate themselves like are there things that you do or say that are too triggering for your partner and not conducive to a good conversation are there ways that you can in your own behavior help your interactions be more contained and then you have to ask your partner to be responsible for their own level of excitation and their own regulation down added asks why would a woman never really initiates sex but says It's amazing And she seems to overtly enjoy it there are many ways to think about this question

I mean one is in traditional ways that men and women are raised women are not supposed to initiate sex they're not supposed to even want it it's shameful that's an old style way of gendering sexuality and then there's the question of like individual preferences some people are just less inclined to initiate they want to be pursued they want to be found and that's kind of their sexual orientation that doesn't mean anything about liking sex it just means that's their orientation now that doesn't mean that it doesn't change you can talk about it and you can

see what works for the person but it's not an alarming sign sh shiman asks my boyfriend 26 male distorts SL changes the story about bad things that happened to him and I 26 female can't take it well there are many reasons why people distort things or change things I mean some of it might be actual conscious distortions because they might feel shame or they might feel embarrassed or they wish things were different or better but then people constantly distort their own histories and their own stories because of defenses because they're uncomfortable with things and they

they have a different take on reality than what other people see most of the time the facts of the story are not really what's interesting so arguing about facts or distorting facts is somewhat of a waste of time because what's interesting is what matters to each person about the story they're telling so if someone is distorting a story what might be interesting is not arguing about the fact of what happened but how does this person experience the story they're talking about okay that's it those are all the questions hope you learned something and see you

next time