Relationship Expert Reveals How to Fix Your Relationship Instantly with Jayson Gaddis

In this Episode

• [02:47]Jayson Gaddis reveals his mission to heal relational wounds, born from his own devastating relationship failures.
• [06:50]Why most relationships crumble under pressure and the new tools needed to break destructive blame cycles.
• [12:05]Transform demanding communication into irresistible requests, plus the four non-negotiable pillars of secure love.
• [14:14] Orion uncovers the hidden patterns that control how we connect and disconnect under stress.
• [17:03] Jayson’s discovery: how he completely rewired his nervous system to flip his attachment style.
• [22:13]The authentic check-in method that plugs couples back into each other’s inner world.
• [36:22]Orion discovers why healthy relationships require strategic separation, not constant togetherness.
• [38:31]How your fun factor reveals whether you’re thriving together or limping through unresolved conflicts.
• [46:45]Jayson’s final wisdom for a stellar life, plus where to master these life-changing

Jump to Links and Resources

About Today’s Show

Hi, Jason. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here. 

Thanks, Orion. I’m grateful to be here.

Before we begin, please share a bit about your purpose, passion, and what drives you to do what you do today.

I’m here to serve and help people with their relational world, as it was painful for me in my own life. I went and tried to solve that problem and figure things out, and I just like to share along the way. I’m really on a planet to build a more connected, relational world.

You’re definitely doing that. What was your challenge? 

I was an emotionally unavailable man in a relationship. I would push women away and make them feel wrong. I did that for almost a decade, and I finally realized I was the common denominator in that issue. 

Then, I was like, ‘Oh, if that’s true, I could actually change what’s inside of me.’ I can’t change what’s outside of me, but I could change what’s inside of me, and I could change how I do this whole thing. I’ve become intensely curious about myself and others. I went to graduate school and started studying.

What was the moment where you figured out it’s been a decade, and then all of a sudden you’re like, ‘Oh, wait a second, that’s me,’ because usually we cannot see our own fault.

I know, right? It’s so hard. I was sitting in the car with a woman I was breaking up with, having another breakup conversation in a Whole Foods parking lot, and it just sounded like a broken record. I sounded like I was saying the same things, and she was crying and feeling emotional, and here I was again, breaking up with another good woman. 

I was just like, “What is my problem? Maybe I’m the problem.” I sort of had that thought, and I said it out loud. Of course, she was like, “Do you think?” I was like, “I really think something is going on with me,” and I meant it this time, and I drove away from that breakup conversation feeling inspired, not because I dodged another hard conversation, but because I was onto myself.

How did you transition from being blocked and emotionally unavailable to suddenly opening up? What has your relational life looked like since then?

Well, in graduate school, I was ready. I wasn’t ready, and then all of a sudden, I was. It’s hard to change when we’re not ready, as you know. All of a sudden, I was ready, and my mind opened. I became very curious about myself. I started reading books. I went to graduate school to study psychology. I just devoured everything in my graduate degree. 

I met my wife there; the wall just started coming down, and I began shedding the self-protection I had built up over three decades. The timing was perfect for her to come into my life, because she also had worked through some stuff to be ready to meet me, and I became ready to meet her. 

I joined a men’s group. I started doing outside training in Gestalt therapy. I wanted to understand everything I could, so I began to cry, emote, and learn about my feelings. This process helped me become emotionally literate, and I started applying that in my relationships. It was like I was alive for the first time. 

That’s so beautiful. Can you share one special moment where you were so proud of yourself for being where you are in your relationship?

I broke up with my wife when we were dating twice, because I went back into my pattern of being scared and kind of running away and shutting down. I went on a month-long meditation retreat. This was after we broke up the second time. When I came back, she had left the door just a little bit cracked open for a conversation. 

She’s like, “I only want to talk to you if you want to talk about marriage, or I basically don’t want to talk to you ever again.” 

Whenever people get stressed, they don’t know what to do. They want to avoid. They do their patterns of shutting down, running away, blaming, and defending.

I had done a powerful therapy session with a guy, one of my mentors. Sitting with myself for a month, finally kind of realizing, again, my problem and how I’m the issue, and I’m just terrified of intimacy. 

I came back and owned all this in a vulnerable way with my wife, and then I, within a couple of weeks, asked her to marry me.

Wow, that’s amazing. And now, look at you. You’re helping the world with their relationship. What do you think is the most challenging thing for people when it comes to relationships?

Activation and conflict. Whenever we get stressed, people just don’t know what to do. They want to avoid. They do their patterns of shutting down, running away, blaming, and defending.

We all do it, and it’s understandable. Especially if we understand where we come from, our childhood, what we learned from our family, our parents, our siblings, and our caregivers. But if we keep applying the same techniques to get through hard things, we’re probably going to fail or not. It’s not going to work out. 

So, we have to learn new ways of being under stress with another person that we care about. That’s just a lot of people don’t want to do that. They want it to be easy. They want the other person to change. They don’t have to do anything. This is human beings.

But when you change, the world around you changes. It’s so true, because every time I blame my husband for something, I’m like, ‘Okay, he’s my mirror. What’s going on here inside of me that I don’t want to see, that I’m pushing away?

How long have you been married? 

13 years, something like that. 

It takes real practice for a couple to be an awesome team.

Oh, nice work. Exactly. You’re in it long enough to know how hard it can be at times, and it takes real practice for a couple to be an awesome team. 

How do you work through resentment? In every relationship, we had moments of conflict. I feel like women get hurt, and they hold on to it more than men; they hold on to resentment a little more. We’re more sensitive, I think. 

How do you heal and forgive super painful things? Like many people, I have a tendency to do this, regardless of gender. When a conflict arises, I often find myself reminding my husband of something that happened a decade ago. How do you get over that?

Well, first, I want to just say that I tend to disagree that women are more sensitive. I think men are as sensitive. We just have a lot of social conditioning that we mask on top of our sensitivity, and we have coping strategies like shutting down and claiming we’re fine to make it look like it’s not a big deal to us. 

But deep down inside, most men are hurting, and they’re sensitive and they’re they’re holding on to a resentment. They just train themselves that, ‘it’s easier if I just don’t bring this up and I just stuff it. I’m fine.’ So, regardless, I think it’s a human thing. 

To answer your question, there are two ways to get through a resentment. This is what I have people doing in my courses. I say, “Okay, write down what you’re resenting in a sentence.” 

‘I resent that my husband had another relationship before me, and he still kept the open loop, and he kept talking to this woman while we were married for five years, and I didn’t know about it.’

So, you change that sentence to: ‘I expected my husband not to have this conversation with this woman.’ 

You changed the word ‘resentment’ to ‘expectation.’ You actually had an expectation that you didn’t maybe talk about, often it’s not talked about, and the person’s not meeting your expectation, and then you’re going to be angry and hurt about that. Now that’s an obvious one where most couples would agree that’s not okay in a marriage. 

But let’s say it’s, ‘I expect you not to be angry ever, and I resent that you’re angry.’ Is this where we have to challenge our expectations? Maybe it’s not okay. Maybe the issue is the expectation, actually, not some big resentment. 

Men have a lot of social conditioning that they mask on top of their sensitivity.

That’s just one thing we can do to play with, ‘Huh, are my expectations too high, too unrealistic? Was I not open, clear, and transparent about my expectations?’ 

Number two, whatever the resentment is, we have to dissolve it through seeing the benefits of whatever happened and the drawbacks if it didn’t happen. That’s a way to cognitively work on it. 

Then, maybe a third way is that we actually talk about it and work through it, and we both feel deeply understood so that the charge around the resentment is aired. You’ve heard me. You felt me. You see me in it. Then, there’s a commitment to maybe a realistic behavior change. That’s another way that we can work through a resentment. 

How do we communicate our needs better? How do we become aware of our expectations? I guess we’re going to go through the exercise. 

‘I’m expecting… I’m expecting… I’m expecting.’ 

But how do we communicate this in a kind way? Because usually when there are expectations, even if we logically can see that, ‘Oh, I have this expectation from my partner,’ when it comes to communication, many emotions can rise. 

Totally. I like to say we change the word ‘need’ to ‘want’ because people don’t like the word ‘need.’ It sounds needy, and people don’t like being needy. It sometimes comes across as demanding or, as you mentioned, not caring, kind, or respectful. 

Whatever the resentment is, we have to dissolve it by recognizing the benefits of what happened and the drawbacks of not happening.

Saying ‘I want’ is sexier. 

It’s sexier. I think it’s better if we stick with our desires. But knowing deep down, some of us do have non-negotiable needs, and we’re clear about them. I like to say there are four kinds of core needs, and there are not many more than these four, which are to feel the need to feel emotionally safe, seen, soothed, and supported and challenged. So, those are four Ss; easy to remember. 

I got a couple of those from Dr. Dan Siegel, who is an attachment researcher. All of us, if we want to secure a good relationship, need those things. We can’t be in a fulfilling relationship and not feel like our emotions are welcome. Or not feel like we’re seen for who we are. There’s no repair. That’s the soothing part. We’ve got to repair all the mistakes we make and the challenges we have together. I think every human needs those. We want to turn those into wants. 

‘I want to feel emotionally safe here. I want to feel like I can express myself with you around sadness and anger, and not have it turn into a huge fight every time. I want to feel like we both repair. I want to feel soothed, like you have my back and I have yours. I want to feel like you believe in me. That would be great. What do you want?’ 

We talk about it. And again, we have to give these to ourselves and the other person if we’re going to expect to receive those. But we always want to try to give what you want to receive first. I think that’s just a good practice.

If you want love, you want to give love. If you want forgiveness, then give forgiveness first, and it will be reflected to you. It’s a give and take. 

What are the attachment styles, and how do we shift them?

People don’t like the word ‘need.’ It sounds needy, and people generally dislike being perceived as ‘needy.’ It sometimes comes across as demanding.

There are two main ones: secure and insecure. Within the insecure, we have two subcategories that most people have heard of: anxious and avoidant. It’s often how people hear them. More technically, they’re called anxious ambivalent and anxious avoidant. 

I like Stan Tatkin’s terms here, which is ‘island’ and ‘wave.’ The wave is the anxious one. The island is the person who wants to be alone and is under stress. They’re the avoidant type. Because ‘avoidant,’ that word, can get strong for some people. So, ‘wave-island’ is kind of a fun way to think about these. 

There’s another type that’s kind of its own category, which is called ‘disorganized.’ It just really comes from a more traumatic childhood where your caregiver was both a source of safety and a source of terror. That gets really confusing in the psyche and in the nervous system for people. That plays out in adult relationships, and it becomes very hard. 

So, the movement, of course, is to move from ‘insecure,’ whatever your style is, to ‘secure,’ but do it together like a team. That requires really good communication, consistent repair, and those four core needs being met in both directions. 

As we practice relationship skills and ways of being, we make a movement towards a more secure type. Now, having said that, what I’ve learned in working with people for over 20 years around attachment is that your style can change, but signs of insecurity will always be there. 

For example, let’s say you and I have been married for 20 years. I don’t heal my attachment style. It’s not like this thing that goes away with enough therapy or with enough practice. It’s a nervous system thing that just turns on and off. If I get triggered by you, and you go shut down, 20 years later, I will still have a spike in my nervous system and feel anxious and scared and a little upset that you have withdrawn from me. 

But the difference between insecure people is that they blame and defend, and they can’t figure this dynamic out. 

A secure couple says, ‘Okay, this has given our nervous systems a kind of retreat. I want to talk about it. Let’s treat each other with respect and dignity and kindness, and let’s get better and better at communication so that we can handle that undercurrent of our nervous systems in a better way.’

Always want to give what you want to receive first.

That’s really the difference.

Can you give me a real-life example of some of your students who went from one style to another, and how they did that? What was the most helpful thing for them?

Let me talk about two things there. I’ll talk about myself, and then I’ll talk about our students. Prior to getting married, I was more on the avoidant spectrum, so under stress, my wife was more anxious, my girlfriend at the time would pursue me and want to connect and talk, and I was like a, withdraw, retreat guy. 

The moment we got married, it was literally shifted overnight. I became the anxious one, and she became the avoidant one, and that’s how it’s been for the last 18 years. 

How can that happen?

Well, my theory is we both had two parents, a mom and a dad. My dad was more avoidant, and my mom was more anxious. I got both downloads in my nervous system. So, depending on the context and the level of dependency, I was more dependent on my mom. That’s the key feature of attachment relationships. That’s different from our friendships. We depend on this other person for everything, especially in a marriage, with family, money, and emotional support. 

So, the attachment system turns on, but in a different way. My theory, again, is that I had this weird dynamic with my mom where she would disappear on me—silent treatment, just shut down. That was very upsetting to me as a little kid. I tried to get the connection back with her a lot. That was the more emotionally dependent relationship. I just think that’s what I committed to in a marriage—a more emotionally dependent relationship. 

Do you have kids now? 

Yeah, 16 and 14, a boy and a girl. 

I feel like, when you’re a coach and you know all the right things, but then you’re a parent, and you do all the wrong things. I’m thinking about my little one. Like, ‘Wow, I’m really screwing him up.’ I hope not. 

As we practice relationship skills and ways of being, we move toward a more secure type of relationship.

How old is your kid? 

Five and a half. 

Oh, great. 

These are the most formative years of his life. I have this pressure. I have arguments with my husband, and sometimes he sees them. I’m like, “Oh, gosh.” 

As you’re talking as a male, I’m thinking about my son. I’m like, ‘Oh, he’s gonna be attached, and then he’s gonna get into a relationship, and then he’s gonna get in trouble, because he mirrored me when he was a child. Oh gosh, what am I doing now?’

I hear you. It’s a tall order to be a parent and to do it well. That’s what’s so great about parenting, that I love, is my kids keep me accountable to the kind of man and the kind of adult I want to be in the world.

I totally agree. I’ve done a lot of self-development. I’ve done bazillion seminars, traveled the world, and done all this cool stuff, but where I’m learning the most is from my son. He definitely holds me accountable, and I’m definitely a better person because of my son. 

So, you started talking about yourself, and then you said you’re gonna share about your student.

So, what happens in our course? Specifically talking about our nine month course, our coaching certification program, where people come into that course and they have just had a string of insecure relationships, where they just got stuck in their patterns with their partner, and they don’t feel seen, they don’t feel emotionally safe, and they don’t feel they have a good handle on the repair process for soothe. 

So, they come and start practicing with other students in the cohort. They begin to feel more seen by their peers than they do in their own marriage. They feel more supported there. They do that for nine months and get a ton of practice. They really develop the capacity for good listening. 

Meanwhile, their partner at home isn’t really changing much, and they’re really changing, growing, and developing. They experience all these amazing secure, attached, and felt-type of relationships. 

They’re like, “Wow, this is what it should feel like.”

And I say, “Yes, this is what it should feel like.” 

Then, they have to wrestle with what they’re getting at home versus what they’re getting in the course, and the kind of new version of themselves that they want to see in their relationship. It either brings the relationship at home closer together, and they inspire their partner to be a better teammate, or it creates an end to the relationship, which is also fine.

It’s a tall order to be a parent and to do it well. What I love about parenting is that my kids keep me accountable to being the kind of man and adult I want to be in the world.

Yeah, it’s similar to when people attend seminars. Sometimes it happens to them when they have a breakthrough. I think this is why my husband and I like to evolve together; no one is left behind. 

We used to attend all those seminars together. Everything that I learned brought me closer to my husband. But actually, studying the principle of Kabbalah was freaking amazing for our relationship. It taught us that arguments are all about ego. 

Wow. Yeah, they’re just ego.

It really brought us together. What kind of practices do you have with your wife today that you didn’t have before?

That’s powerful, by the way. I just want to really validate that the Kabbalah is such a deep model, a deep way of being, a way of living life. I just think it’s really cool you’re doing that. 

Practices—we have a simple one. Every morning, we greet each other, regardless of whether we’re in a fight or disconnected. It’s just a commitment and agreement we have. We see each other in the morning, and we hug. We look at each other, and we kiss. 

We might take a breath or two when we say good morning, no matter how bad it is. So, that’s just a through line that sends signals to the other person’s body and nervous system, letting them know, ‘I’m still here. I care about you even though I kind of hate you right now, and I just want to run away.’

Sometimes when you do that, the hate disappears, or at least a little bit. 

Well, it softens, it changes. 

Because you’re present, you’re not in your mind. When we get stressed out, our soul kind of leaves our body, and we’re not even here, and then it gazes. 

You know what happens to me and my husband? Sometimes when we look into each other’s eyes, I just feel like my body goes into relaxation; just by being seen by him, my nervous system gets into the parasympathetic. I feel safer. 

When he is avoidant, I don’t feel safe.

Yeah, and we often take that personally. That’s great. Eyes are a great way to connect. I always say, even when you’re fighting, you want to look at each other. You don’t want to be driving a car or staring at the ceiling in bed. 

You want to actually turn on the lights and look at each other because we regulate through the eyes. We can convey. It’s really hard to look someone in the eyes and be really, really mean and really, really hateful. It’s just harder. 

Plus, when we look into each other’s eyes, we don’t go into long-term memory, where we store all the times of ‘you’ve done this before to me.’ 

So, when you’re going to fight, you want to make sure you’re looking at each other. 

That’s a good point. We did the Imago Dialogue. You probably know that. We used to practice Imago Dialogue. And also, say three gratitudes before we go to bed. 

It was amazing. It became more like a chore, so we stopped it. But I think subconsciously, we still do that. We make sure that we give thanks for even the little things.

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The thing with any practice, like a weekly date night or three gratitudes, lying in bed together, is that it can get rote and stale. 

It was so exciting at the beginning. 

It loses its steam because the human brain wants to automate everything—make things easy and effortless, so we don’t have to think about it, and then we don’t have to even be present. We can just do the activity without actually being there. So, it’s good to mix it up. Just do that for a while, a month or a quarter of the year, and then change it up and do something else.

What are some things that you’re doing in your relationship, or recommend your students to do in their relationship that are super helpful, like little tips and tricks that you can do daily with your partner?

Well, one thing is just a check-in. Too many couples don’t check in daily. Now, you’ve got to be authentic, real, and vulnerable. As vulnerable as you’re willing to be. If you’re not, you can say that, which is, ‘I feel guarded right now talking to you.’ 

That’s fine, because that’s kind of vulnerable to say that, but you want to keep it real, honest, and open. How was your day type of stuff. We don’t necessarily talk about the minutiae of the day, but we want our partner to know and be plugged into what we’re going through in our lives all day, every day. 

If we’re too busy, at least once a week, have a deeper check-in. 

‘How was the week?’ 

‘Wow, we’ve barely survived the week because we’re so overwhelmed.’ 

It’s so good to see you. Finally, we’re here. What’s alive for you? Let’s each take 30 minutes to talk about what’s up for us.’ 

Then it’s also a practice for the other person to be a really good listener, to do what I call LUFU (Listen Until the other person Feels Understood), and you can validate feelings, and reflect what you heard. There are a lot of little ways we can become better listeners. 

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But I feel sad when I hear couples not being plugged in to each other and knowing what they’re going through and farming that out to therapists or their friends, because, 

‘Well, my husband doesn’t really get me, so I just go to my girlfriends for that, or I go to my therapist for that.’

Okay, you can do that, but you’re missing out.

Sometimes I’ll ask my husband, “How was your day?” 

One word, “Good.”

I need more words. I think because my husband is so busy talking to so many people all day long, and when he comes to that point, he’s just too tired. 

He’s like, “Good.”

How can I allure him to share more?

One thing you could do is not let him just say one word, like ‘I’m fine,’ or whatever. ‘It was good.’ 

Sometimes, as adults, we do this with teenagers. 

‘How was your day, sweetie?’ 

And they’re like, ‘Good.’ 

They don’t want to talk, right? We have to work a little harder as a listener and ask more creative questions. 

‘Tell me about the hardest thing you went through today,’ for example. 

‘Tell me about the thing that inspired you most.’ 

‘Who was the most difficult person you had to deal with today, and what happened? 

You could ask those kinds of questions, and then the other one is like a context thing of like, 

‘Honey, I feel like I don’t always know you, and I know you’re a guy, and you’re going through a lot, and you have all the people you talk to all day long, and I miss out on you as a person, because you just share one word, and I would love us to find a way as a team to explore each other’s world a little bit more. Are you open to that?’ 

So, you could have a contextual conversation about that and see if he can get buy-in. Does he see the value of that or not? Could that be actually meaningful to him, too, and feel nourishing instead of draining? 

We’re endlessly fascinating, I think, human beings. When we get stuck in our one-word responses with our partner or stop asking, that’s when we start to fall a little bit asleep. 

We need, as a couple, to say, ‘Hey, this doesn’t feel good to me. I want to get to know you more. I want to know what you’re going through. I would like you to take an interest in what I’m going through. How can we do that together?’ Those are ideas,

Every man has something he’s passionate about, something he could study and listen to podcasts about for hours, but then it’s complicated to talk to you about it.

That’s great. I like the idea of asking more questions. I actually never thought about that. I usually say, “I need more words,” and then he kind of opens up more on some days, and less on other days. But I love that. 

It’s so easy to drop into victimhood. 

‘Oh, I’m just gonna go and be a little bit upset, and forget about it,’ where I can just take responsibility, ask the most interesting questions and not miss out on a really beautiful conversation and connection.

You might find that he’s actually interested in it after all. Even men love to talk about what they care about most. It could be sports, business, money, politics, or exercise. Every man has a high value on something that he nerds out on, that he could study and listen to podcasts for hours on, but then it’s like complicated to talk to you about it. 

Let’s say, ‘Well, you just say. Teach me about the thing. I want to know why you love this thing so much? Tell me more about it.’ 

If my husband were into golf—I find golf pretty boring myself—but if I were married to someone who played golf, I would have to push myself. Because I have golf in a certain box, right? And like, ‘Oh, golf is dumb,’ or whatever. 

But if my husband loves golf, I want to take an interest in it. ‘Why is this so fascinating to you? Tell me more about it. Teach me about it. Let’s go golfing and show me how, just because I want to enter your world, and I want to spend time with you.’ 

That’s amazing. It takes dedication, because sometimes, if you don’t like golf or another topic, you don’t want to really talk about it, like, ‘I can’t believe it. He’s talking about golf all day long, and I have to hear about it all day long. And now we’re having a conversation I have to hear about again.’

But he might also be more emotionally available. He might be more fun. He might be more animated when he speaks, which actually creates a connection. He might be in his heart or his body more when he’s talking about things he cares about.

To acknowledge a man’s being is truly nourishing, and it’s going to feed him in a way that praise cannot touch.

How can a woman make a man feel the most loved, secure, and cared for?

I had a client recently say he wanted to be admired by his wife. That sounds like his ego. So, some men, depending on where they are in their development, want their ego stroked. 

‘Good job.’ 

‘Thanks for providing.’

‘Here’s a medal, here’s a trophy.’ 

But even those guys, they just don’t know it. They’re not aware of this, but underneath that, they want to be acknowledged for their being, not what they’re doing. And to acknowledge a man’s being is truly nourishing, and it’s going to feed him in a way that praise cannot touch because praise is what you do. 

‘I praise you for your actions and everything you do, honey.’ 

And again, the male ego loves that, but a deeper man cares about being known and seen for who he is and what he’s wrestling with, and just his beingness. 

‘I love your presence.’ 

‘I love the way you look at me.’ 

‘I love when you are with our kid, our son, our daughter, and the way you hug our child.’ 

‘The way you are when you have a certain look that you do.’ 

That’s the kind of stuff that we want to acknowledge

That’s so beautiful. Just by hearing you say that, I felt so happy. I guess it goes for when a man praises a woman, is it the same?

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I think so. Some people are like, ‘Men want to be respected.’ 

‘Women want to be loved.’ 

There are all these memes on Instagram about all this sh*t. At the end of the day, to me, it’s all b*llsh*t. 

What we all want is to feel just cared for and accepted for who we are in our beingness. I do think women tend to be more appreciated when we’re not making them wrong for their emotions. 

Oh, absolutely. 

If a man can get good at validating a woman’s feelings, empathizing with her, and in no way making her wrong for how ‘emotional’ she is, that’s foreplay, and it goes a long way. It’s attractive. 

It’s like, ‘Thank you. I don’t have to go to my therapist or my girlfriends to bring my heart, my pain, and my joy.’

If a man can get good at validating a woman’s feelings, empathizing with her, and in no way making her wrong for how ‘emotional’ she is, that’s foreplay, and it goes a long way.

So many women are like, ‘You can’t handle me. You can’t handle my feelings,’ and that sucks. That feels really lonely to be in a marriage where your husband can’t handle your feelings. I think men need to step up and learn how to better understand and be with a woman’s heart, including her pain and joy.

I think men also need to understand that our emotions are what make us who we are as somebody who’s creating life through her in this world. It’s part of our DNA to be emotional, in tune, to feel the environment, and to be expressive. Sometimes, it’s like a fire. It can burn, but it can also give so much love. 

When you validate a woman, then she doesn’t need to be that yucky burning fire. She can be softer and loving, and she can feel safe. When a woman feels safe in a relationship, her nervous system just comes down, and she’s not in this heightened state. 

Yeah, exactly. 

I like what you said about that validating gaze; it’s amazing. A man doesn’t have to say much if he’s just there in the present and just gazing. That woman who has so much emotion is usually extremely sensitive, can sense it, and only that presence and that gaze can make her go back to love.

We men have a bad habit of fixing, giving advice, or getting triggered by your emotions, and it starts a fight because I take your emotions personally, which is just a sign of a ‘lack of differentiation’ in psychological terms. 

I’m not letting you just have your experience. I want your experience to change so that I don’t feel uncomfortable. And if guys could just get like, ‘Oh, all I need to say is like, ‘Wow, that sounds hard. I’m here. I’m with you,’ things like that, and you don’t have to know a lot. 

If you can genuinely mean it and be present, you’ll relax, you’ll soften, you’ll feel safe. Then, you might share more, and then he might learn more about you, which would be really cool.

When my husband tried to fix me, because this is how you guys work, sometimes I find myself telling him, 

Men need to step up and learn how to better understand and be with a woman’s heart, including her pain and joy.

“You’re trying to fix me. I just want to complain. Let me complain.” 

He’s like, “Oh yeah, I remember that. Okay.”

That’s cool. That’s great. He’s open to feedback, because a woman should be able to say that.

I have an amazing man. I’m so grateful for him. There are ups and downs in our relationship, but he is a great gift in my life. 

That’s awesome. We want partners who are open to feedback. 

‘Hey, you don’t need to fix me.’ 

‘Hey, will you please just stay with me? I don’t want advice right now. I just want to vent and get this off my chest, and I just want you to be present. Can you do that?’ 

‘Okay,’ without shutting down, and turning it into a big fight.

How do we create healthy boundaries in a relationship? We do a lot of things together, my husband and I, when we both work from home. I feel like it’s almost like he’s taking on me as if I’m a part of him. Sometimes, there is a lack of boundaries. How do we create healthy boundaries? 

Are you saying because you guys work closely together at home? You’re always together?

Almost. 

I had a mentor tell me that intimacy is the dance between separateness and closeness. Intimacy is not just closeness. It’s the dance between space and connection. I think if people can reframe intimacy that way, they would learn over time that taking time alone or time away from their relationship actually generates intimacy. It actually helps the relationship. It’s like giving it some oxygen, giving it some room to breathe. 

Kids need this too. Parents who constantly intrude on their kids’ space are invasive and intrusive. The kid’s going to learn to dissociate in the face of a ‘helicopter’ parent, let’s say. 

We want to give our kids space. We want to give our partner space. We want to take space. That’s the boundary we have to set.

Like, ‘Hey, I know it’s Friday night. We normally hang out, see a movie, go on a walk, or whatever, and tomorrow night (advance notice is always helpful), I’d like to be alone. I want to go hang out with the guys.’ 

‘I just want to watch a movie by myself.’ 

‘I just need to not be around you or people. It’s not personal. It’s not because I don’t love you. Of course, I love you. I am feeling overwhelmed, and I would love some time alone to check out and check in with myself. We can co-agree that that’s okay and welcome in our relationship.’

I’ve never thought about actually asking to be alone at home. I always felt like I had to leave the house to be alone. It’s interesting. 

Whatever space you have, it could be at home or outside of it. It’s each person; it’s going to be different for each of them. 

What do you think is the best thing that every couple should learn to do?

Have fun, of course. If the fun factor isn’t happening in your relationship, it’s probably because you’re not dealing with the most important things – the challenges. That’s kind of my two-part answer. 

Fun is diagnostic. If you’re too serious, overwhelmed, or disconnected, that’s a problem. You want to get connected so you can have more fun. Then, the way to have more fun is to get exceptionally good at the conflict repair cycle through really good communication. 

That means we, as a couple and a team, can repair any snag that comes up between us. We’re just that solid, and that’ll free us up. It frees up our resources internally to play and do interesting things—go on adventures or co-create together. 

The way to not limp around in your relationship is to know every time how to get to zero, how to get back to a good place after you’ve had an argument, disagreement, or disconnection.

Too many couples don’t know how to do that, and then they’re walking around kind of like with an injury in their relationship, and they’re limping as a couple. The way to not limp around in your relationship is to know every time how to get to zero, how to get back to a good place after you’ve had an argument, disagreement, or disconnection. 

Okay, teach me how to do that. 

There are two ways. We can start by talking, or start by listening. Those are the only two options. Let’s say you and your husband got into a snag of some kind of challenge, and it’s been an hour, and it’s in the evening, and you’re both at home, and there’s tension in the home. 

It’s like, ‘Okay, I could just let this go, and tomorrow it might be better, but that would be me not standing up for myself. So, I’m going to say something.’ 

So, you approach him and again, talk or listen. What do you want to do? Let’s say you talk. If you talk, you’re not going to say, ‘Hey, you were mean to me earlier. You.. You… You…’

You’re going to say instead, ‘I was kind of a jerk in that conversation. I want to take responsibility for my part.’ 

You say whatever you did. 

‘I raised my voice. I shut down. I blamed you for something. I was late,’ whatever. 

Then you empathize, ‘I can imagine the impact on you was that you felt.’ 

Just look at them. You know them, and so you know how it felt for them. 

You say, ‘I saw you shut down. I saw you retreat. I’m guessing that felt really bad, which probably hurt. You probably felt judged and criticized by me. Is that right?’ 

And they say, ‘No,’ or ‘Yes, thank you,’ or they say, ‘No. It’s more like this.’ 

Then, you go into listening mode, which I’ll talk about next. When you talk, you’re always leading with personal responsibility and then imagining the impact of your behavior on them. 

If you listen first, you say, ‘Honey, I know we’re kind of disconnected right now. I just want to listen to what happened to you. I want to understand you and your position, your perspective. I’m all ears whenever you’re ready.’ 

And then they say, ‘Okay, you did this, you did that. I don’t like how you came at me there. I felt you were judging me and stuff.’ 

And as you listen, there are four main things you do. You reflect what you heard. 

‘Sounds like, according to you, I was judgy and sharp with my tone of voice.’ 

And then you asked, ‘Did I get that right?’ 

And they say, ‘Yeah, that’s what I just told you.’ 

And I was like, ‘Okay, cool. I just want to make sure I got it.’ 

And then you validate their feelings, and they say, ‘Yeah, that was really frustrating and hurtful.’ And you say, ‘Okay, that makes sense, frustrating and hurtful. It totally makes sense because I did do that. I was a jerk. I did raise my voice, and I was sharp with you.’ 

And then you empathize. ‘Gosh, I just really appreciate you bringing this up. It just sounds really hard and crunchy, and I can imagine it feels heavy and not fun for you. You wanted a good night, but now you are not having one.’ 

If we’re with a good teammate, they reciprocate. It’s mutual. They do it back to us.

So, that’s it. Talk. Listen. What are you going to do? Of course, if we’re with a good teammate, they reciprocate. It’s mutual. They do it back to us.

That’s why I feel like relationship training is so important. We studied with Alison Armstrong and Harville Hendrix. He studied with more people. It’s super helpful to know those tools. They don’t raise us with that toolbox. We just model our parents, and we don’t know why we…

Act the way we act. Then, we frustrate, we go in circles. People need to realize that by listening to your podcast, asking for help, and reading a book, they can get better at this. No one’s taught this stuff, but we can all improve. The brain is plastic, and we can change. No matter how old we are, we can evolve our communication skills and get better and better at this. 

How do you stop judgment? 

I don’t try to stop judgment. I allow myself to judge, and then I try not to judge. Let’s say I’m judging my wife. She can always feel it when I’m judging her, by the way. So, even when I try not to, it just comes out sideways.

She’s like a psychic.

I guess, something like that. I learned years ago in Buddhism that I just watched the judgments kind of cruise by. It’s like in meditation. They’re just like thoughts. Like, ‘Oh, look at me judging.’ I get really judgmental sometimes, depending on the context and content. I allow myself to judge away. 

But in my high-stakes relationships, the relationships that are most important to me, I try to get underneath the judgment and be like, ‘Why is this so activating for me? Why am I so bothered by this person and their behavior?’ 

And then, if they’re a close friend, I bring it to them as skillfully as possible by saying things like, ‘Hey, I don’t like how you did that thing. I’m finding myself activated, and I’m also curious why this is so triggering for me. I’m pretty sure it’s not even about you. You’re kind of just the messenger. I have something to learn here, but you trigger me. You do this thing that’s really activating. But I don’t want to be this way with you. So, I’m going to work on why that’s so upsetting to me.’

Then, I might take it to my therapist or coach or my meditation or something, and I might learn that I’m projecting a disowned part of myself onto the person. Let’s say I’m judging them as needy and clingy; it’s probably because I’m needy and clingy, and I’ve pushed that away, and I haven’t owned that in myself.

I’m taking this course. It’s all about self-development and stuff like that. There’s one woman I like; I appreciate the things she said. She’s awesome. Every time on Zoom, she gets really close and lights a cigarette in front of the camera.

Oh, wow.

Admiration is nice, but what nourishes a man is being seen for who he is, not just what he does. Share on X

That irritates me so much. I don’t need to talk to her about it. I’m not her mom. But when I try to reflect on why it bothers me so much, I don’t really know. What do you think it can be? 

If I were you, because that would bother me too, I would feel unconsidered. I would feel a little violated in the space, as if it is being violated by someone who’s misattuned, not relational, and not reading the room. I have a trigger there. It’s like a loud person who talks super loudly.

When I did that, you had a reaction. 

I would be reacting as well. I have a thing with misattuned, loud people who are not reading the room and being insensitive to the impact of their behavior. So then I have to look at, ‘Where am I doing that? Where am I a bulldozer with my energy? Where do I talk too much, too loud?’ I just look in the mirror.

That’s awesome. Thank you for that. That’s amazing. I have a tendency to do that sometimes. 

Yeah, me too. 

That’s pretty cool. What are your three top tips for living a stellar life?

Be really connected to myself, number one. Number two, be really connected to the most important people in my life. This has to do with number one: stay really connected to my heart and my why—what I’m up to in my life, my mission, and my purpose. And not let my ego take over. If I can just do those couple of things, I’m living a pretty good life.

That’s amazing. Is there anything else you want to share about relationships, or anything else you want to share with our listeners today?

We’re living in a pretty divided world. If we look around, that’s what it looks like to me. I see a lot of carnage, pain, and disconnection out there. 

So, the antidote to that, to me, is to get connected, to be relational, to put on our relational hats and say, ‘Huh, I wonder what it would look like if we tried to solve this problem together instead of against each other.’ It starts with me and myself and I in the mirror. 

Then, I take it to my next relationship, my wife and then my kids in my home. ‘How can I be more relational at home and be more considerate of the impact of my behavior on the people closest to me?’ 

And then, if I can take that to the next circle out, to my community, work, or wherever, perhaps we’ll develop a bigger, more relational world, and we’ll solve some cool problems together. I just think it starts with us, starts at home. 

I just challenge people to ask, ‘Am I being that relational leader? And if not, can I get the tools and the skills to do so?’ because I think that’s what we need.

Amazing. Where can people go to get the tools and the skills that you’re teaching?

Relationshipschool.com is probably the easiest place. Right now, we’re enrolling our coaching certification program, where you have to come to Boulder a couple of times, and then the rest is on Zoom. You can find out more about that training and any of the other courses at relationshipschool.com.

Amazing. That was a really powerful conversation. Thank you so much for sharing your vulnerability and honesty, and for shining your light in the world and helping so many people.

You’re welcome. Thank you, Orion, for being such a curious, caring person. 

Thank you. And thank you, listeners. Remember to connect with yourself, connect to your loved ones, and connect to your heart, mission, and purpose, and have a stellar life. This is Orion, until next time.