My partner shuts down when I get upset

Like many couples, Michelle and Dan struggle to communicate, especially when one of them is dealing with something difficult. Often when Michelle is upset, Dan feels completely lost on how he can help. Because he hasn't felt successful in all of his attempts, he winds up shutting down. He wants to fix, solve and solution, and it's just not what she needs. If you love someone, of course you want to help relieve them of their pain. But this race to relief is blocking something so important for both of them. We begin the conversation trying to understand why this pattern keeps happening. You can order Vienna's National Best Seller 'The Origins of You' here and you can get a signed copy here.

Om Podcasten

We all have the capacity to create long lasting change. I’m Vienna Pharaon, a licensed marriage and family therapist. I’ve spent over 25,000 hours working with individuals, couples and families, which has given me a front-row seat to our capacity for change, no matter how challenging a story might be. This is a show where I speak with anonymous people every week about the challenges they’re facing. And even though this is not how I work with actual clients – which has months, sometimes years of trust built together over time – it’s pretty incredible where a one-off conversation with someone you don’t know can lead you. In fact, I think it’s quite remarkable. I’m the author of the national best selling book ‘The Origins of You,’ which explores how to break family patterns so that you can liberate the way you live and love, and create the life and relationships you’ve always wanted. What I have found time and time again is that our unwanted patterns in our adult lives is unresolved pain from the past that’s grabbing for our attention. If we can be brave enough to face our patterns, a lot of beautiful healing work can happen. That’s why the show is named This Keeps Happening. I hope what you hear today helps you as you go through your own journey.