Latest / The Virtual Couch / The Power (and Struggle) of Honest Communication in Relationships - Tony Answers Your Questions

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The Power (and Struggle) of Honest Communication in Relationships - Tony Answers Your Questions · The Virtual Couch

0:23
Hey everybody, welcome to a special episode of The Virtual Couch.
0:26
Maybe it's not going to be special.
0:27
Maybe this is going to be what you're going to see a lot of in 2026.
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Happy New Year, by the way.
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And that is a question and answer episode. And they might go long,
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they might go short, but I really love answering questions.
0:39
And I get a lot of them and I don't do a lot of things with them as much as I would like.
0:43
So please send your questions and you can go through the website at TonyOverbay.com.
0:47
You can send them to me through social media on Instagram at virtual.couch or
0:51
TikTok at virtual couch or through Facebook at Tony Overbay licensed marriage
0:56
and family therapist or sub stack, sub stack.com slash I believe it's the virtual couch.
1:01
But I want all your questions. If it's a couples related question,
1:04
I would love to hear both of your hot takes on the situation in your relationship
1:08
or anything around marriage, around ADHD,
1:12
emotional immaturity, narcissism, navigating a faith journey,
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a faith crisis, anxiety, depression.
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And if I don't have an answer for something, I was going to say I might,
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I probably won't even try to cover that, but I really want to get to everything.
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And I can even tell you the things that I know and the things that I don't know,
1:28
and maybe some good resources. And I'm going to do more live question and answers
1:32
on TikTok and on Instagram.
1:34
And Substack is starting to do some with live video as well.
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I would highly encourage you to tune in to those live Q&As as well.
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Today, I have one just to get started. And it's one that came in just a few hours ago.
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And I thought, what a fun experience or something that I could just jot down
1:52
some notes and then give my thoughts.
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And it's one that I think is going to start, at least if I'm really being honest
1:58
with my outline. in one direction and probably go in a direction that you don't anticipate.
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Yes, I am even talking about things like intimacy and sexuality,
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even though when you hear what I'm going to say, it's sure not going to sound that way.
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Stick with me to see how am I going to bridge what you're about to hear into
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that high charge topic? Let me go with the question. Here we go.
2:18
Hi, Tony. My husband and I have been married for a little over two years.
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Overall, our relationship is solid and we're both really intentional about communication.
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We actually just had a conversation a few days ago about staying more closely
2:29
connected, especially because my husband travels for work fairly often.
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A few nights ago, he went to a friend's house for a guy's night and had planned
2:37
to stay there for the night.
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Before he left, he told me that he texted me before he went to bed just so that
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I knew that he was okay. That felt reassuring, especially given our recent conversation.
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When I woke up the next morning and didn't see a text, at first I assumed,
2:50
okay, they probably stayed up late and just fell asleep.
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But then as my morning went on, my mind started filling in the gaps.
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What if something happened?
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And I think as a old man that I am now, I go to the proverbial,
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what if he's lying in a ditch somewhere?
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But also she said we literally just talked about
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communication so when he finally did text me he explained
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that his phone had died he couldn't find a charger until that
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morning he apologized profusely his explanation made
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sense to me and she said what surprised me was that even though i understood
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and wasn't angry with him i still felt anxious and unsettled for quite a while
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after my thoughts had calmed down but my body hadn't caught up yet she said
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i'm not trying to make this into a bigger issue than it is but i'm curious why
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did this affect me the way it did And is this something that we should talk
3:32
about more or should I just let it go?
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The reason I want to start with this question, it's because it can seem pretty benign.
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And I would also say that most anyone listening is going to immediately have
3:42
some judgment. So I want you to just acknowledge that is some of the thoughts
3:46
that I had initially were, OK, did he have a little bit too much to drink? Did he pass out?
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Was there anything nefarious going on? But at this point, I want to assume good
3:56
intentions, give him the benefit of the doubt.
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And I want to use my four pillars of a connected conversation,
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which pillar two then is I'm not going to say, that's ridiculous.
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I don't believe you. Even if something seems a little fishy.
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And then pillar three, I'm going to go into questions before comments and pillar
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four, I'm not going to take a victim stance.
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And that pillar one is giving this person the benefit of the doubt,
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assuming good intentions that he didn't say, oh, I cannot wait till I pull the
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old, my phone died and I fell asleep gag on my newlywed wife.
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But again, nothing blew up. Nobody yelled as far as with the data we have here.
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Nobody's cheated. Nobody lied.
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Something really important is happening underneath the surface.
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And it is such a fascinating concept where I get couples that come to see me
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after 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 years.
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And there are some deeply entrenched patterns that are happening in the relationship.
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Trying to help a couple early in their relationship is, it's a dream.
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I want to say it's a fantasy that comes complete with unicorns and pots of gold.
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And it's something that I really want to help with.
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And often when I do work with newlyweds and I've done some premarital counseling,
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I really want to acknowledge that the things that won't seem like a big deal, I'm not saying,
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oh, they're a big deal, but they are the lower charged topics that if you can
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get the right communication tools early on and learn how to communicate about
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those things, even if they're a little bit uncomfortable,
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that is going to save you so much grief and heartache and assumptions and then
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getting into the trenches of these deeply rutted neuropathways of patterns that
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are happening in your relationship.
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So that's why I wanted to start the year off with one that's going to seem a
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little bit benign, but take a look at where we go with this.
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I want to validate her by her saying, is this something that I even need to
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bring up or do I just need to let it go?
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Because it's not catastrophic, so why bring it up? But then I think the irony
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is these are the moments that start to build the slow residue of your lived
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experience as a couple where resentment can start to grow or whether things like intimacy,
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and I'm not talking just sex yet, but emotional intimacy.
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Honesty, safety, security, and trust where those things can actually deepen
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by having conversations that maybe seem like they're really not a big deal.
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The first thing I want to do then is normalize this right out of the gate.
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Her reaction doesn't mean that she is insecure or that she's needy or dramatic or overthinking.
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And also, I don't believe that his response means that he's up to no good or
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that he's not trustworthy Because we want to start from a place of,
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again, assuming good intentions or there's a reason why people do or say the things they do.
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And a lot of that comes from their family of origin, the things that they saw modeled.
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And so that's why I want to start from a place of giving somebody the benefit
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of the doubt, especially early on in a relationship.
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But I can understand why this is where a lot of people get confused.
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Just because something isn't catastrophic
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doesn't mean that it isn't worth talking about or significant.
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Because your nervous system, your central nervous system doesn't only respond
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to danger. I believe it also responds to meaning.
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And in this case, her brain quickly accepted his explanation.
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It made sense to her. And she knows him better than any of us do.
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And he did apologize. and so she said no alarm bells
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were going off logically okay that makes sense but her
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body had already picked up on something else she said
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we just talked about staying more connected and then this happened while her
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mind said okay that makes sense that's good
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and if anybody has been in the emotionally immature or narcissistic
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relationships there was a complete absence of oh really like
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you don't do things like this either or i told you that i wasn't going
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to text you actually there wasn't this blatant gaslighting
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or denial so that's why while her mind
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was saying okay we're good her body was still saying are we
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though are we actually changing something here because we just had a conversation
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about this a couple of days ago so that lingering anxiety isn't an overreaction
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first of all it's just the way the body works it's going to take time for your
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central nervous system to calm down even if you hear something that makes perfect
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sense but it's also a little bit of unresolved meaning.
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Those emotions are there to act as messengers, to tell you to pay attention to something.
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Now, just because it's telling you to pay attention to something doesn't mean
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that that is something that is a horrible thing, but it's saying,
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hey, let's bring a little awareness here because bodies don't just shut that
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stuff down just because logic shows up. They need time.
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And consistency and then safety cues to eventually settle. That's not mistrust.
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That's your physiology. That's the way the body works.
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I really do believe that meaning takes precedent over the events over time because relationships,
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while they are built on these small individual moments, they're probably more
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so built on the story that we tell ourselves about those moments or the story
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that those moments start to tell us about the relationship.
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And meaning often sounds like, am I a priority?
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Do my needs actually matter? Do they land? Are they heard? When it really counts,
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do I matter? Is this somebody that I'm going to be able to trust?
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Am I chosen? Or I appreciate feeling like I was understood, but was that just
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the right words to say in that moment? Because it isn't about a phone dying.
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It's whether about reassurance and repair are consistently followed by behavior,
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by someone taking ownership or accountability for their actions,
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not just saying the right things.
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I want to talk a little bit about one of my favorite things lately,
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co-regulation, because I think what she was really reaching for was co-regulation.
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When she asked him to text her before bed, she wasn't asking for control or surveillance.
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She was asking for co-regulation. And that's the process of saying,
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hey, your presence helps my nervous system feel safe.
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We are co-regulating each other in a healthy way, hopefully at this point,
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but it helps my system feel safe even more apart.
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And when it works, it sounds like, okay, I know you're okay. And I also know I matter.
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And so now I don't have to fill in the gaps with worst case scenarios.
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When that co-regulating moment then doesn't happen after he said it would,
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the body doesn't just move on and go, well, we gave it our best.
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The explanation shows up later and that's good. But the nervous system already
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did its job. It scanned for safety and it did not find it in the moment.
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And this gets into differentiation, one of my favorite concepts.
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A differentiated response isn't managing his emotion. I don't want him to get mad at me.
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It's allowing him to have his own emotional experience as I share mine.
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It's not swallowing your feelings or emotions or playing small.
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And it's also not escalating it immediately into a fight because that's maybe
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what you saw modeled in your childhood.
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And that's the only way that you feel like you're going to be heard or understood.
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It's being able to say that I can hold onto myself and I can stay connected
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to you, which might sound something like, okay, I know your explanation makes
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sense and I appreciate it.
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But I would also like to share about how that landed for me.
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It's a me thing because I noticed my body stayed anxious longer than I expected.
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Isn't that fascinating? And we're married. And so I would love to talk to you about it.
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But if you're going to get defensive or take the victim response,
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then over time, I'm not going to feel very safe sharing my emotions.
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I think it might help me to feel safer if we talk about, let's say,
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backup plans for moments like that.
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And I'm not saying I can see a logical brain guy saying, got it.
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I will buy some extra charging cables. I will keep those in my car and,
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or it might be like where there was anybody else in the house have a phone just out of curiosity.
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And I would hope that the guy would not go like, okay, well,
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so I did bad taking the victim stance versus having the courage to say,
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I didn't even think about that.
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Because again, this isn't blame and it's not control it's ownership and it's connection.
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Now over time, it can sure start to feel like blame and surveillance and scorekeeping.
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This is why I think this is so interesting to talk about with newlyweds.
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And if you are deeply dug into these unhealthy patterns, then that doesn't mean
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that there isn't work that you can do.
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We're talking about getting together and collaborating. And we want to eventually
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get the two of you saying it's us versus what has taken down the relationship, not me versus you.
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And the more conversations you can have over these things that maybe seem a
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little bit insignificant, if we can address these things with the small challenges
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that come in life, life, then it's going to keep them from becoming the bigger ones later.
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And here's what I really wanted to talk about when I first saw this question
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come in is I don't think I've spent enough time talking about people figure
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out a way to really do what matters.
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And I want to slow this part down a little bit. If I had some good music in
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the background, it would be very, very intentional right now,
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because I think this is one of those moments where I want to go find a soapbox.
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I can feel myself getting a tiny bit animated.
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Just know that this comes from love, from sitting in this chair with couples for a long time.
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Over two decades now, I want to say this as much as I can.
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I'm going to probably say it more and more, but people figure out a way to do
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what truly matters to them, not what they say matters, not even what they wish
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matters, but what actually matters.
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Now, a low charge, but easy example I go to often is golf.
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If anyone really enjoys golfing, and I'm talking, this is something they love
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to do, which a lot of people do.
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If they like to golf, they're not late for tee times. And I'm talking almost
12:54
ever. And I don't use a lot of all or nothing language.
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My son is an assistant golf pro at a place. And I had asked him at one point,
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hey, are a lot of people late for their tee time? He's like, no.
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And this example comes up often when I'm doing couples therapy.
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If the person just says, you know, I wasn't able to do this project or do the
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thing that she had asked me to.
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And I'll try to find a nice way to bring up
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with each of them certain things that are very important and would
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they have found a way to make that happen and I'm grateful when
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somebody's honest and says oh yeah I'm never late for golf because golf doesn't
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care about your intentions they don't care that traffic was bad or that your
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phone died or that you lost track of time they just say sorry about that but
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we'll still take your money thank you very much and good luck finding something
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to do for the next four to six hours so somehow magically people tend to figure
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that out alarms Alarms are set,
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backup alarms are set, calendars get checked, cars are packed the night before.
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Outfits are laid out like a little kid for the first day of school,
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like it hasn't been done in a long time.
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Backup plans appear out of thin air, and then I'll have the same people sitting
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in my office, maybe a guy telling his wife, I really tried to make it to the kids'
14:00
production, school production on time, or man, I really meant to remember that,
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or you know what, I will not do that again.
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And I really do believe them in the moment, I really do.
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Then there's the next time. And the next time is just different enough.
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Oh, man, no, I get it now. I didn't understand that that was that important
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to you. But now I will. I will make sure that I put a reminder in the calendar.
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But if it was a golf tee time, guys, like if I even said, hey,
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play golf lately. Oh, yeah, I played a couple of days ago.
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5 a.m. in the morning. First off the tee, man, we were right there on time.
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And sometimes I realize, oh, man, I did not realize that.
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Yeah, my bad. And what happens often is that then, yeah, that next situation,
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then it's a little bit different.
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The variables are a little bit different. Oh, no, that last one's a school play.
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This one was the kids' awards ceremony. I didn't realize that was as big of
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a deal, but now I get it. School play, awards ceremony, I got it.
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I will not miss any of these things again.
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That situation wasn't exactly the same. I didn't realize it mattered in that
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way or, okay, no, I get it.
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Again, until the next time. I want to add a couple more examples here because
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when I talk about people figuring out ways to do things that matter to them,
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and I hope it doesn't sound like I am being harsh or I'm saying that everybody
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is doing these things on purpose or that I'm calling anybody selfish or lazy because I'm not.
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But what I'm saying is I think we all have a version of selective competence.
15:16
We all have things that we magically become brilliant at when it really matters to us.
15:20
I have a friend who was a surgeon. He has told me about standing over human
15:24
beings when they are about to code or tap out and he makes these life-saving decisions.
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But then there was another time where he talked about his wife being out of
15:35
town and he's calling her like it's some 911 emergency because he can't figure
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out, I'm not even sure what to do because our daughter didn't have any clean
15:41
underwear and we had to go to school.
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And I'm not telling that story to shame him, although I think you'll get a kick
15:46
out of it. I'm telling it because it's such a clear example of how the brain
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works because he's not incapable.
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He's not dumb. He's not helpless. He's brilliant.
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What's happening is that in that moment, he's saying without saying it,
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this really isn't my sweet spot. It's not my zone.
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It's not my priority. And this isn't where I'm going to organize myself.
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And here's the deal. If we're honest about that, then we can work with it.
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But if we pretend that it's, I just can't, then we can't.
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We can't work on that together. Or another one, another person that a friend
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of mine, an attorney billing out, I just learned recently,
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I think over $800 an hour, who missed a major school event while his wife was
16:23
out of town and his explanations, I couldn't find the email that said what time it started.
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This is a guy that one time explained to me an insanely complicated trial strategy,
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which involved weeks of planning and layers of contingencies and timelines and
16:33
moving parts and coordinating with staff.
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It was like a military operation, but this school event puzzled him.
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He could not figure out the next step.
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He could not find that email. Again, he is not incompetent. He's not incapable.
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And that one, I did have a little fun with him. And I just said,
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oh, so anything else you could have done? Couldn't find the email?
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Have you ever thought about calling the school?
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I'm sure there's a school portal somewhere. Text another parent.
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Call the parent of one of your kid's friends. Call your kid's teacher. Check the calendar app.
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Drive by the school. Check the voicemail from the school. Do literally anything
17:01
other than just shrug your shoulders and go, no, no, no.
17:04
So when somebody says, I couldn't, what I often hear is, oh,
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I didn't. but I need you to accept my explanation so that we can move on because
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yeah, this isn't very comfortable for me and I just need the other person to
17:14
take it. A lot of times the explanation is legitimate.
17:17
Phones die, schedules change, life happens. But if it keeps happening,
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here's where it becomes, I wanted to say clinically interesting,
17:24
but I think it's just interesting and relationally important to the marriage.
17:27
Behavior is a language. And over time we start to understand what people are
17:32
telling us through their behavior, especially when their words are consistently
17:36
eloquent and beautiful, but their follow through is missing.
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This is what I call very affectionately the right mouth noises.
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Because a lot of people are wonderful in the conversation they say the exact
17:46
right things like man i get it no that makes sense i'm going to do better i
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understand why you would feel that way you're right i do want to go after a
17:53
career or that i am going to try harder i do want to read that book.
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And I'm not even saying they're lying in the moment, but they're not being honest with themselves.
18:01
If they continue to say the right mouth noises and even make that sincere face,
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but then they don't follow through, that's a them thing.
18:08
And their partner is going to start to get frustrated and tired with it.
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And I know there's a few possibilities.
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This is where differentiation and I think honesty matter. One,
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they genuinely don't view it as a priority, but they say the right things,
18:19
make the right mouth noises, because they just genuinely don't want conflict.
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They're conflict avoidant.
18:24
They're conflict averse. They want the conversation to end.
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They still want to be seen as the good guy or they want their spouse to just
18:29
calm down. It's not a big deal.
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Or two, they genuinely mean it in the moment. They really do think,
18:35
no, I really do want to change. That feels good. They feel good.
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But the second the moment passes, other things take priority again and again and again.
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There are some really interesting examples here. And I told one a long time
18:46
ago that I got interesting feedback because the feedback I got was from people
18:51
that I think missed the point that I was making.
18:52
I met a summer league one time with my son, Jake and my son-in-law,
18:56
Mitch, and we are going to drive to Chick-fil-A to get food.
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And I see an Ike's sandwich shop, which we now have where I live now.
19:03
But at the time, those were a novelty.
19:05
And so I just said, hey, do you guys want Ike's? And they were both saying, sure.
19:09
And I said, no, no, we're going to Chick-fil-A because that's what I said we
19:12
were doing. And they both, I think, were absolutely fine if we would have gone to Ike's.
19:16
But what I had been realizing in the weeks leading up to that was how often
19:21
I say, hey, let's do this thing. and then I impulsively change.
19:26
And while people might say, oh no, that's okay. But in their internal world,
19:31
they're already planning on Chick-fil-A and what they're going to get.
19:34
And let's say that they don't want Ikes, but they also don't want to make me
19:40
upset or they're worried that I will get angry or frustrated or whatever that looks like.
19:44
It's okay for me to say, hey, here's what I'm going to do. And then that's what I'm going to do.
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Maybe even a better example is I was talking with a client once who this person
19:52
was going to come over and help her to fix some projects around the house.
19:54
She was a single mom and the person kept saying, oh man, I was going to,
19:58
but then this other thing came up or I was going to, but then this thing got in the way.
20:02
And while i understand that since he was going to
20:05
do it for free he was volunteering to help her which
20:08
is incredible i don't want to take anything away from him from doing
20:11
that but for her it was continuing to
20:14
let her down to the point where that was happening with a lot of people in her
20:18
life and it was hard for her to really trust anybody and it was hard for her
20:21
to not go to man what's wrong with me that people just don't follow through
20:25
when they say they will and so i had a chance actually to talk to the guy at
20:29
a later date and he handled it like a champ where,
20:33
you know, and at first he said, Hey, I'm not getting paid for that.
20:35
But even to have the courage to let her know, Hey, you know what?
20:38
I'm going to make time on this time, but I want you to know that if another
20:41
job or project comes up, that's something that I can get paid for,
20:45
then I hope you can understand that that's going to take precedent.
20:48
Even just so she knew versus just, Oh man, no, I, yeah, something else came up.
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And what he came up with, which I loved, was he just said, no,
20:57
I like to tell myself I'm a man of my word. So if I say I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it.
21:01
And if somebody else says, hey, I've got this opportunity for you to do another
21:05
thing, then he is going to say, can I do that at a different time, a different day?
21:09
And if not, then I think I'll have to pass right now. And again,
21:12
I don't know if that was just the right mouth noises.
21:14
It really felt like that was who he was and what he wanted to do.
21:17
Number three, they have no real intention on following through,
21:20
but they're skilled at saying what needs to be said so they can keep their spouse
21:23
hopeful, just enough hope to buy them time.
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And then the spouse on the other side of that starts feeling something that's
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hard to explain, but you kind of feel it in your bones. It's the, I'm not chosen.
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I'm not a priority. I'm always the thing that gets handled later.
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Or another way that I hear it is I do feel like he tried to understand,
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but I'm not actually, I'm not chosen and I don't feel protected.
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I don't feel safe. And here's the tragic part, if the partner who's disappointed
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keeps letting it happen or letting it go, keeps smoothing it over,
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keeps saying, no, it's okay, I understand, you're busy, you have a lot going
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on, the relationship learns that that is fine.
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Not because it's healthy and not even because it's okay, but because patterns
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are reinforced by what we tolerate.
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And I want to say this with as much love and as clearly as I can,
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eventually, most people value
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honesty, even when it stings over being disappointed over and over again.
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Because repeated disappointment starts to mess with your reality.
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You start asking yourself, man, maybe I am the problem. Am I too much? Am I crazy?
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Did I imagine how important this was? Because it felt like it was important
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in the moment when we had the conversation.
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And then as a couples therapist, I find myself often saying,
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oh, no, no, you're not crazy, but your body's starting to pick up on a pattern.
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The real invitation here is this moment isn't about fault.
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It's about honesty and about learning how to say things that might bring some
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discomfort and then recognizing we're still okay.
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We can have difficult conversations and still love each other and still stay connected.
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If this level of communication isn't truly something that someone's willing
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or able to do consistently, then differentiation asks, can I be brave enough
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to say that out loud instead of promising something that I can't sustain?
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And in this scenario, if he genuinely believes it in the moment,
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differentiation also asks, well, can I self-confront?
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Can I be curious about why I can say this and mean it, but something always
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seems to get in the way and not diffuse that or project that over onto my partner
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to put it onto them. That's a me thing.
23:14
Because what message is that sending to my partner? Because when something truly
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matters to you, again, a work project, a deadline, something you're passionate
23:20
about, you don't rely on good intentions. You build systems,
23:24
you problem solve, you anticipate obstacles, you figure it out.
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So why are we not trying to figure these things out with our partner or for
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our partner or give them an honest answer that maybe isn't something that I'm interested in?
23:36
And then we can talk about why. The question here isn't, is he a bad guy?
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It's not even, is he lying?
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It's not even, does he care? The deeper question is, is this something he's
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actually willing to organize his life around?
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And if the answer is no, or even I'm not sure, then differentiation asks for
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honesty, real honesty, not just the right mouth noises in the moment.
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Because intimacy doesn't come
23:56
from saying the right things. It comes from doing the things that you say.
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You matter enough to me to figure this out. So this conversation,
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it isn't necessarily a red flag.
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It's more of like a yellow light moment. And those are moments that either get
24:09
talked through, and then they can be turned from yellow to green,
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or they quietly accumulate and they go through a darker shade of yellow until
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eventually this becomes a red flag.
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And bringing this up doesn't mean that it has to get bigger.
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If it does, that's a sign of emotional immaturity. If I'm bringing something
24:26
up and my partner immediately makes excuses or takes a victim role or pushes
24:30
it back on to the person who's bringing it up, that's not going to build intimacy
24:34
or connection in the relationship.
24:35
The way that emotionally mature couples stay emotionally close is to have conversations
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and to be able to express the things that they would love to see in the relationship
24:44
and then stay in the conversation to see if that is something that the other
24:47
partner is interested in or even understands if we're in the same ballpark,
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what we're talking about.
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Now, I said earlier that I'm going to go into the deep end of the pool,
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the world of sex and intimacy.
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That's where this pattern shows up most painfully. And it might seem like a
25:00
little bit of a stretch, but it's the same pattern playing out in a different arena.
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It's where I see this dynamic cause the most confusion and heartache and where
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couples have been entrenched in unhealthy patterns for such a long time.
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Because everything that I just described, the right mouth noises,
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genuine intention without follow through, the feeling of being understood but
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not chosen, nowhere does that land more or harder than in a couple's intimate
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life. Let's talk about intimacy.
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Let's talk about sex. The thing that's part of most, if not all marriages,
25:28
and the thing that It gets weird faster than people expect as a couple's therapist.
25:33
And then people don't know how to talk about it without turning it into a courtroom
25:37
and litigation and having to defend themselves.
25:40
I see a lot of couples and I see couples all the time who over time fall into
25:44
what is by definition, basically a sexless marriage, less than I believe 10
25:48
times a year or sex becomes transactional. It becomes a duty, a chore.
25:52
It becomes a pity offering. It only happens after the, let's say the higher
25:56
desire partner has begged enough or sulked enough or gotten sad enough that
25:59
the lower desire partner thinks, okay, if I don't do something soon,
26:03
then they're never going to stop doing what they're doing.
26:05
So fine, I'll do it. So you'll stop feeling bad. And then they finally,
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hopefully come into my office.
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And we'll sort a few things out pretty quickly. The higher desire partner usually
26:13
needs to stop begging and pressuring and stop shaming.
26:16
They need to stop turning sex into a measure of worth. And we need to create
26:20
some genuine curiosity instead of coercion.
26:23
And almost always the lower desire partner. And I love the work of David Schnarch
26:28
who says this is not pathologizing it with sex.
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There's a lower desire cleaning partner in a family. There's a lower desire
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cooking partner in the family.
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But the lower desire partner will often say, you know what? yeah, I want to repair this.
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I want to be more intimate. And I'm telling you that those sentences,
26:45
those mouth noises are some of the most important moments that you'll ever feel in the room.
26:48
Because sometimes I really do believe it's a sincere yes.
26:51
And the person who has been overly anxious and clingy has just wanted to hear that.
26:55
And they need a third party, a couple's therapist, an intermediary at times
26:59
to be the one to say that, or to be the one that guides them to that conversation.
27:03
But sometimes it's just the right mouth noises.
27:06
Sometimes it's the thing that they know they're supposed to say,
27:09
especially with me sitting there, guiding the conversation, making it safe,
27:12
helping them not feel attached.
27:13
And then there are times they genuinely mean it, but then nothing changes.
27:17
They'll say, no, I want to work on it. I'll work on it in therapy.
27:19
I'll start reading books. I'll take a course. I'll initiate more. I'll prioritize it.
27:23
And the higher desire partner is at times in tears, grateful, truly.
27:28
And they're not trying to be a jerk about it. They're relieved.
27:30
They feel hope. They're so grateful now that we're going to have these conversations.
27:35
They get out of the office and days or weeks go by, months go by and nothing changes.
27:41
And the higher desire partner eventually says some version of,
27:44
I would just rather know, like I could handle a hard truth, but what I can't
27:48
handle is living in limbo. I can't continue to do this anymore.
27:51
And I remember a friend of mine once said that when he went to his therapist,
27:54
that that therapist said, but you can because you are.
27:57
And that broke my heart as a therapist, because when somebody keeps saying,
28:02
yeah, no, that's what I want, but their behavior says, no, you do.
28:05
Start to feel like you're going crazy.
28:07
You start to doubt yourself. You start to feel unwanted while being told,
28:10
no, I want you. You're loved.
28:11
And that is a uniquely painful place to live. And here's where I think Carl
28:16
Rogers absolutely nails it with this concept of the curious paradox,
28:19
which says, when I accept myself as I am, then I can change.
28:22
I think this is one of the best examples of that curious paradox in real life,
28:26
because in this scenario, when the lower desire partner finally has that courage
28:29
to be known to say the true thing vulnerably,
28:32
whatever that truth is, even if it's too difficult to hear, it creates a kind
28:37
of a clean clarity that's actually stabilizing because then the higher desire
28:41
partner can stop spinning.
28:42
They can stop guessing. They can stop trying to decode mixed signals.
28:45
They can accept the reality. And from a place of acceptance,
28:48
then you can start to do the work because now if the couple wants to repair
28:51
intimacy, now they can do it with genuine curiosity between them,
28:54
honesty, teamwork and actual behavioral follow through.
28:57
So if one person, the higher desire partner is now saying, hey, I would love to.
29:02
Are you even thinking about it right now? And if the lower desire partner says,
29:05
and feel safe to say, I'm not, I haven't thought about it much at all.
29:09
Because now, instead of that person collapsing into shame or diffusing the anger
29:13
on back onto their partner, man, I told you I'm going to work on it.
29:16
They can say, I'm not, but I'm willing to talk about it right now.
29:19
So what's that like for you?
29:21
What does that feel like? Or how often are you thinking about it?
29:24
It takes courage to be known and it takes courage to know your partner and to
29:28
be able to operate from a place of,
29:30
if we can start having these conversations, we can start to work on this situation
29:34
and this concept of whole object relations in the relationship where other things
29:39
in the relationship might be going really well.
29:40
And we can embrace those and we can make space for these that maybe aren't going as well, but matter.
29:46
That gets you to hopefully more connected conversations, more genuine intimacy,
29:51
not these hope crumbs, not with maybe next week,
29:55
not with the mouth noises because intimacy and
29:58
i'm not talking just sexual i'm talking emotional physical cognitive intellectual
30:01
spiritual intimacy doesn't grow in confusion it grows
30:05
in truth and honesty that's one of the best ways to truly build trust even if
30:09
it doesn't feel comfortable if you have questions about this question then send
30:13
them into me go through my website or send them to me at contact at tonyoverbay.com
30:16
i want to do more of these i want your questions and i I will provide answers
30:19
and I appreciate the support. Welcome to the year 2026.
30:24
I hope this is going to be a great year. Taking this out per usual,
30:27
the wonderful, the talented Aurora Florence with her song.
30:29
It's wonderful because I am telling you, if you get the right tools,
30:31
you do the work and all those wonderful things.