Your Partner’s Emotions Are Not Your Job!

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Your partner is irritated. Your stomach drops. And suddenly PMDD turns a simple mood shift into a full-blown story about rejection, failure, and “I need to fix this right now.” I’m recording this one on a walk because sometimes the fastest way to get out of the spiral is to get out of the room, get into your body, and give your brain a break.

We dig into a core truth that changes everything in PMDD relationships: your partner’s emotions are not your responsibility. When we overfunction to manage someone else’s mood, we create pressure, resentment, and that familiar cycle of luteal phase conflict. I share a personal example of how “date night effort” can backfire when it’s done to force a mood change, plus why adults often struggle with emotional regulation and self-soothing.

You’ll learn practical tools for both partners: how to pause instead of reacting in the acute triggered phase, how to stop personalization and emotional reasoning, and how to separate facts from the PMDD story your mind wants to write. We also cover simple scripts for clarity and reassurance, and a powerful question that breaks the loop: “Is this about me, or is this about them?”

If you want fewer PMDD fights and fewer monthly breakups, press play, share this with your partner, and then subscribe and leave a review so more couples can find this support. What’s one mood shift you’re ready to stop carrying?

Transcript

Welcome And Walk And Talk

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to the In Love with PMDD podcast. I am your host, Dr. Rose, your PMDD relationship psychotraumatologist. I help you stop the monthly PMDD breakups. And today's episode is going to be a little different as I am out on a walk. If you've been my private client for a while or you've worked with me personally, you know I have sessions where we do a walk and talk. And what this means is you're getting your steps in, you're walking outside, you're being in nature. And a lot of times it's to get you out of that environment when you're feeling irritable, where you're feeling like you're filled with rage, or you're just needing to clear your mind and/or take some time away from your partner to really make sure that you're getting the tools on how to react to certain situations that you may be having in your luteal face. So I was just working with a client and I wanted to share this tool with you while I'm out here. It's a beautiful spring day here in California. It is the first of the month in May. I'm when I'm recording this. I'm currently on the series of the seasons in your PMDD relationship. So you'll get this episode after that is

Your Partner’s Mood Isn’t Yours

SPEAKER_00 1:00

over. But I wanted to talk to you today about how your partner's emotions, your partner's mood are not your responsibility. So a lot of times when you're in your luteal phase and even in other phases of your cycle, you take a lot of things that your partner says and does personally. What this means is for the individual who has PMDD, you're already noticing that you're not yourself. You're noticing that your mood is a little bit off. So if your partner starts to react differently or say that they don't like something, then all of a sudden you feel like it's something that you need to do to fix it. Like you feel worse about yourself. You feel like I need to do something to make this better. I need to make my partner feel better. And what that does is it creates this level of pressure on yourself. You're feeling this pressure to be a certain way for your partner to show up in a way that, you know, they're gonna shift their mood. And what the reason why this is so detrimental is because that's too much pressure to put on one person. It is not your responsibility to regulate your partner's emotions. Just because you love a person doesn't mean that you have to be there to make sure that they're always happy. And I know that this is particularly hard for the individuals who do not have PMDD because you wanna be that level of support. You want to be there for them, you want to be a supportive PMDD partner, but you're feeling like you can't manage your partner's emotions. So you feel

Overfunctioning Creates Resentment

SPEAKER_00 2:18

like a failure. You feel like it's something more that you should be able to do. You want them to come out of that luteal phase and that mood that they're in, so you try to overfunction. Maybe you take over more of the chores and you do more things with the kids, or you plan a date night, and then when they don't respond in a way that you feel is good, meaning they're not being happy, they're not being excited, they're not being more loving, they're not being more caring, then you all of a sudden internally get this level of resentment and bitterness and unforgiveness because you're sitting there like, I'm doing the best that I can, I'm doing everything that I know to do, and you're still not shifting your mood, you're still not shifting your emotions.

A Luteal Phase Date Night Story

SPEAKER_00 2:59

And I know how this feels, really, really know how this feels because I was in a relationship where every single time that I would go into my ludial phase, my partner thought that he could do something to get me out of it. He would put forth more effort, be more positive, you know, take me out on date nights and do all these things. And I really appreciated it. But deep down, I didn't have the emotional capacity to show him because I was suffering so much in my luteal phase. It wasn't that I didn't appreciate what he was doing, but he was so disappointed when we would go out on these date nights and he would look across at me and I wouldn't seem connected. I wouldn't seem loving, I wouldn't seem happy. And that made him unhappy. And then all of a sudden, he had this bitterness towards doing all of those things for me because he was doing them to shift my mood. He was doing them so I would be in a place to be more loving. And in reality, a lot of times that I've pulled myself out of situations when I'm in my luteal phase, it hasn't been because of anything that my partner has done. So, what do I always say? PMDD is not your fault, but it's your responsibility to manage. So a lot of times when I have shifted my mood in PMDD, it's because there are certain things that I know that I personally have to do to get myself out of it. And sometimes partners are putting more pressure on us to get out of that luteal mood, to get out of that winter phase by doing more things. And I know that they're doing it for a good reason. I know that they have good intentions, which is why I'm gonna give you some tools today of what you actually can do. But the first thing is I want you to take the pressure off of your partner being happy. I think maybe a lot of us grew up where we thought that it's our job. If you love a person, it's your job to make them happy. Or I just want to make you happy. A lot of protectors and providers are like that. They feel like their whole purpose in the relationship is to make their partner happy. And if their partner's not happy, it automatically has something to do with them. That means they're not a good partner, they're not doing their job, and they take on the weight of the responsibility of you always being happy. That's not sustainable because there's stressors in life, there's triggers in life, there's PMDD in your relationship. There's so many things that can make your partner not be happy that have nothing to do with you. So I want you to just take that pressure off. You will be so free, you will feel like a weight has been lifted. This is what my clients have said. It feels like a weight has been lifted because I no longer feel like I have to manage my partner's moods. You know, if you have a partner that doesn't have PMDD and you're in a relationship with someone that's just moody, their moods are fluctuates ups and downs. Sometimes they're happy, sometimes they're sad. There's little things that could shift their mood. You're gonna be putting yourself through hell if every single time they get sad, you get sad. Every single time they get mad, you get mad. Or you feel that, okay, they're mad, I gotta make them happy, I gotta. It's kind of like how a parent may do with their child, where every single time their children have a negative emotion, they feel the need to do overperform and to get them out of that emotion. And I always tell my clients that are parents, it's not your job to make your child happy. It's your job to keep them safe, it's your job to educate them, it's your job to raise them. But there are gonna be times where your child is not happy and you have to let them go through those feelings and regulate themselves. Your partner may not know how to regulate themselves as far as when they're happ when they're upset, how to get back happy again. And you helping them is gonna not, it's gonna enable them to not get the help that they need in order to figure out how to regulate themselves. It was shocking for me to learn that there are so many adults that do not know how to regulate themselves. They don't know how to what I call self-soothe. Meaning if they get upset, they get triggered, they get angry, they don't know what they should do in order to not project that onto you. And that's no fault of their own because it really does start with the way that they're raised.

Self-Soothe Your Own Way

SPEAKER_00 6:53

Right now, I'm raising a 16-year-old. She's in 11th grade. And you know, when you go through puberty, you go through hormones, you get your period, you get your cycle, you have all of these things going on, and it's new for you. There's different moods that she shifts into and I allow her to self-soothe. Could I come in and tell her how to soothe herself? Absolutely. But the way I self-soothe is not the way that she self-soothes. I'll give you an example. When I'm feeling irritable, when I'm feeling like there's PMDD rage inside of me, because again, I've suffered with PMDD for over 20 years. I know when I'm feeling off, I know when I'm feeling triggered, I know what I need to do. And it's not have a deep conversation with my partner. It's not address all of the things that are going on in my mind. It's I need to get outside. I need to get outside, I need to put my headphones on, I'll start listening to music. And I just put myself in a place where I can give my brain a break from spiraling over all of the things that my PMDD brain is trying to tell me. Because a lot of times PMDD is telling you lies. And if you just sit in that space and listen to them, you're gonna end up feeling worse and worse and worse. So I need to get out of my head and get into my body. I need to move my body in some kind of way and I need to get outside. I've been outside when it's dark, I've been outside when it's light, I've been outside when it's cold, I've been outside when it's when it's hot. But I know that that's what regulates me. There's a level of self-awareness that I have. And it's different for some of my clients. Some of my clients literally go to a cafe and they sit and they have a cup of coffee, or they have a cup of tea, or they go meet with friends, or they go to the movies, or they go get their nails done. There's no right or wrong way to manage your PMDD symptoms and to regulate yourself when you feel triggered, but it has to be your way. So, what I will say when you're trying to figure out what works for you, do not copy what someone else is doing because you're gonna get frustrated. Like if I said, hey, every single time you're triggered, go on a walk. This is why I don't make cookie cutter programs because what works for one client is not gonna work for the other. It can be even more triggering for you to go on a walk because maybe you don't want to move your body. Maybe you're in a place where you want to just relax. Maybe your body is so triggered that you need a massage. So I can't tell you that going out and getting a walk may be the right thing for you. I can say, hey, you can try it, but you need to know what it is that you need to do when you are trying to regulate yourself in a way of I know that I'm triggered and I need, I want to address what I want to address, but I want to do it in a way where my mind is clear. A lot

Stop Fighting In The Acute Phase

SPEAKER_00 9:27

of times what happens, the mistake that's made is you're trying to fix a problem in your PMDD relationship while you're still in that realm of being initially triggered. There's something that ha that's called the acute phase when it comes to trauma. That means you're in the phase where you're feeling the most pissed off, you're feeling the most angry, you're feeling the most triggered. All of these emotions are not just going on in your mind, but they're going on in your body. Your body is literally reacting to the story that your PMDD brain is telling you. And if you're the partner that doesn't have PMDD, your mind, a lot of it for the partners, it's the ego. The ego is telling you, how dare you let her talk to you like that? Why are you taking this? You deserve better than that after all you did for her, and she's treating you like this, you deserve better. Maybe you should be with someone who doesn't have PMDD. You know, all of these things are going on in your brain and you're feeling the need to react to it because the ego is saying, Yeah, yeah, I shouldn't take this. I deserve better than this. And now you're projecting all of that rage in the acute phase onto your partner, and you're doing damage because you're saying things that you don't necessarily mean, but you mean it in that moment. And so your partner's feeling it. But then later on, when you calm down in a way where you can think clearly, you look back on the things that you said and you're like, oh, well, I didn't mean it like that, or I should have taken some space. Like you always have this level of regret. And so what I want to tell you is when both of you are triggered or one of you is triggered, take the boxing gloves off. This is not the time that we need to sit down and talk about what happened, go over the scenario. I even tell this with my private clients if you come to me for a session and you want to talk about, we always do solutions, action-based. Every tool that I give you is gonna lead you towards a certain action that's gonna get you the result that you want. It's not about blaming anyone, it's not about shaming anyone. I get very clear on where is it that you wanna go? What is it that we wanna solve here? And then I give you the tools on how we can get to that point, doing the least amount of damage as possible. So

Observe First Then Pause

SPEAKER_00 11:34

the first thing I wanna really say when you're using these tools is if you feel the shift in your partner's mood, do not immediately go into action. And I know it's so hard. I want you to sit with it. Sit with it. You can observe what your partner is doing, observe if this is a pattern. For some of you, your partner has a pattern of maybe certain things piss them off. And you have to just be aware of that. If certain things piss, for example, I have a lot of clients that road rage, you know, like traffic pisses them off. If they have to sit in traffic every day, their mood is gonna be shifted. That's not something that you can fix. It's not about getting them a new route so that they don't go into traffic. It's recognizing if my partner sits in traffic and they come home and they're pissed off and they're cranky and they're like, oh, babe, I was in traffic all day. You're not gonna believe what happened and all of this other stuff. And then you automatically try to go into fix-it mode. You can't fix traffic. There's so many things that are outside of the realm of your control. Let them be pissed off because they were in traffic. It's okay. It's very temporary. I've told you this before. Emotions last for 90 seconds, and then after that, they they sort of dissipate. But it is the story that you tell yourself in those 90 seconds that's gonna determine the damage or non-damage in your PMDD relationship. Meaning if your partner's pissed off because of traffic, and then maybe they start going into other things. Yeah, and you didn't call me while I was at work today, and and I you didn't pack me a ledge. And so because they're pissed off with one thing, it starts to trickle off into all of these other things, and then they start spiraling. And then what you can do is fall into the trap of explaining yourself to your partner while they're triggered. You do not want to do this. This is not a hill that you want to die on. This is not a fight that's gonna get you anywhere because they're already in that combative mode. They already want to argue, they already want to fight. And if you sit there and go toe-to-toe with them, no, because I didn't mean it like that, or I was gonna call you and you start getting defensive because you feel like they're blaming, you're gonna get in this cycle where you're gonna start fighting because now you feel like your partner is attacking your character. Now you feel like it's something that you need to do in order to prove that you didn't do what it is that they're saying that you did. That's not your job. It may be that your partner's just pissed off, and it doesn't matter what you do, they're gonna be pissed off. You have to really sit with that and just tell yourself, a mantra. I do it all the time because I had to learn this lesson too, because I was overfunctioning. I was trying to fix everything. And I said, my partner's mood has everything to do with them and nothing to do with me. My partner's mood has everything to do with them and nothing to do with me. Could I have done something that triggered them, that pissed them off? Absolutely. But that emotion that they're feeling, I cannot control it. They have to decide when they don't want to feel that way anymore, when they're wanting to have a conversation that's that's rooted in clarity and say, you know what? Because once they calm down, they tend to be more rational and say, well, maybe they didn't mean to say it like that, or maybe they didn't mean to do it like that. They're more understanding. Your partner's not understanding when they're pissed off. They're looking for more reasons to be pissed off. So take the weight off of yourself and thinking that you have to fix it. Sometimes, and I know this is very hard to sit with, your partner may just be pissed off with you. And it may have nothing to do with you. It may be because they're stressed out in other areas. And the quicker that you allow them to sit in that and you don't retaliate and you don't be mean to them back, the quicker that they can come out of it. Because what happens is if a person, I call it if when someone's in a boxing ring by themselves, if your partner's taking jabs at you and they're saying things that are below the belt and they're doing things that are not nice, I'm not saying number one, I'm not saying accept abuse. But what I am saying, if they're just being a little bit irritable or short with you or shutting down and you're still being yourself. If you're my private client, you know one of my tools is just be loving. If you want to be supportive, if you wanna shift your partner's mood, just be loving. Just be loving and let them calm down. And then once they look back on the argument that you're having or that they're having with themselves at this point, they're gonna say, well, she didn't even really, she didn't even really say anything back to me. Like when I was being however emp, they're going to regulate themselves and say, you know what? I'm just gonna go ahead and talk to them about what's really bothering me when they are ready. You cannot pull it out of them and make them be ready before they are. So when you don't fight with them, you don't give them any other ammunition to stay in the mood that they're in. So sometimes you have to distract yourself. Go outside and do something outside of the home if you can. If you have kids, maybe you take your kids and you guys go do something. You have to have a list of at least five things that can shift your mood and make you happy. So if you're listening to this right now, I want you to write down your five things. What are your five things that you can do to shift your mood? Not to make you happy, not to get you just shifted. Shift it from pissed off to you giving your brain a break because our cortisol levels are not supposed to be that high for that long. So the problem with PMDD is that you're in your luteal phase for approximately 10 to 14 days. It's not sustainable to be pissed off for 10 to 14 days straight. You need to give your brain a break. You need to give your body a break. Your body is holding in all of that trauma, all of those triggers. And if you don't find a way to release it, you're gonna be feeling more and more pent up. You're gonna have a lot of pent-up energy, which is where rage comes in. So once you have gotten to the point where you can say, you know what, my partner is pissed off, but that's okay. I don't have to do anything about it. Let me just give them some time. My partner's mood is not my responsibility, even though PMDD may be telling me, oh, it's your fault that they're pissed off. It's your fault that you didn't do this. So don't listen to that, okay?

PMDD Stories And Cognitive Distortions

SPEAKER_00 17:25

Do not listen to that. Think about what's happening with the story that you're telling yourself because your partner is pissed off or angry or shut down or not connecting to you. Think about it. What is the story that your mind is telling you? What is the level of responsibility that you're putting on yourself as a result of your partner being upset or being sad or being depressed or having anxiety? Because a lot of times, some of these are just symptoms of PMDD. But the partner is taking it personally and thinking it must be something that I did because they're treating me so differently. I don't feel love from them. I don't feel connection from them. What you need to understand, your partner has their own stress, their own triggers, and their own personality. But sometimes when you're in your luteal phase, PMDD will translate that as, oh, my partner's off, so that means I did something wrong. Oh, my partner's distant, so that means I'm being rejected. Oh, my partner's frustrated, so that means I'm the problem. Their emotion is information about them. It's not a verdict about you. It is not defining who you are and what you're doing in the relationship. It is their individual emotion. Allow them to have their individual emotion without you making up a story about how you're the problem. So there's this thing called personalization. If you've ever heard a lot of partners say, like, I wish, or the individuals who have PMDD, I wish my partner just wouldn't take my mood personally. I wish they wouldn't take my PMDD personally. That's because there's a cognitive distortion that happens. Everything becomes about it's something that I did. That is the story that you end up telling yourself again and again and again. I did something wrong, I did something wrong, I did something wrong. Why? Because you've assigned their happiness as your responsibility. It's like going to work. You've made it your personal job to keep your partner happy, to keep them satisfied, to keep them being loving. You've made it your personal mission for them to be that way. So if they're not, you're taking it personally. So you do this thing called emotional reasoning. So you say to yourself, I feel rejected. So then all of a sudden, you mean, so that must mean that they rejected me because I feel rejected. You can actually feel things and it not be true. Emotions can be liars. You have to choose if you want to accept the emotion as truth or just say this is a PMDD emotion or this is just an emotion that I have because my partner's in her luteo face. You have to get into that point where you can say to yourself, when something happens that you don't particularly like, like maybe your partner changed the plans of something that you all were supposed to do together. You may say to yourself, oh, they changed the plans, so they don't care about me. The first part is true. They changed the plans. The second part is the story. They don't care about me. Did they ever say that they didn't care about you? A lot of times when I'm going on private sessions and I'm talking to clients, I'll ask them that question, well, what did they say? And they're like, You don't understand, Dr. Rose. They meant this and this. Yeah, but what did they say? Did they literally say that they didn't care about you? Well, no, but I know that's what they were thinking. You don't know that that's what they were thinking. You're not inside your partner's brain. And a lot of times when you make assumptions about what your partner's thinking or what they're feeling or what they're believing, you're causing yourself to suffer even more. So PMDD doesn't just change your mood. It changes the meaning you assigned to your partner's behavior. PMDD is going to make you feel and think that your partner is out to get you, that your partner's not supportive, that your partner doesn't understand you, that your partner doesn't think that you're compatible, that you're supposed to be with somebody else. PMDD is going to be telling you that story because you're going to get into that negative loop. And until you come to terms with maybe this is just something that's happening because I'm in my luteal phase. And so my PMDD brain is telling myself another story. I literally have to say this to me all to myself all the time when I'm in my luteal phase. Is this what's really happening, or is this my PMDD brain telling another story? So this is how you get into your PMDD fights and your PMDD monthly breakups. First thing that happens is your partner has an emotion. Right? Then you internalize it. You say that it's you, then you say that it's your fault. Then you create the story loop in your mind about why it's your fault and what that means about you as a person and you're a monster and all of these things. Then your reaction happens, your tone changes, your vibe changes, you start to withdraw, or you get defensive. Defensive because you almost feel like they told you something bad about yourself, even when they didn't. And I know that I know what this feels like because I've done it before, where I feel like, I feel like they think I'm a bad. Person, or I feel like they think I'm insensitive, or I feel like they think. If you're saying to yourself, I feel like they think, then you know that you're in the loop of a PMDD story because you're feeling that they think they didn't actually say that. So you didn't react. You're not reacting to what your partner did, you're reacting to what the your thought you thought it meant. You didn't react to what your partner did or said. You're reacting to the story that you made it mean in your mind. So when I when you want to get yourself out of this loop, if you find yourself in this pattern like I was for so many years, so many years, first thing I want you to do, when you notice that your partner is upset and they're in a different mood and they're in a mood that makes you feel bad or makes you feel responsible.

Curiosity Questions That Break The Loop

SPEAKER_00 22:43

I want you to ask yourself this question is this about me or is this about them? When you ask yourself that question, what you're really doing is you're stopping the story. Whenever you become curious, cognitively your brain shifts from telling yourself a story on repeat, which we are the intrusive thoughts, and it shifts into curiosity. And curiosity is what's gonna keep you grounded at this time. When you begin to ask yourself questions, it's like you're coaching yourself. It's it's positive self-talk where you're like, okay, this is what I would do with my private clients. Is this a really okay, so your partner had an attitude with you and they came home and they said all this, and now you're feeling rejected. Okay, what did your partner actually say? And if they start going off into a story about how they had a bad day at work and they feel stressed out and they don't feel like you got you all are connected, it's a possibility that your partner can feel like you're not connected and have nothing to do with you. That could just be the state that they're in. Maybe they just feel like you're not connected. It doesn't mean you did anything wrong, but if they're communicating something to you, to say, okay, I'm glad that you told me. Now we can address it. We don't need to address it by me doing more things. We can address it, okay, what is going on for you? Because guess what? That's your partner's emotion. It may not even be your emotion. What if it caught you off guard? What if you all thought that you were good? And then they come and say, I feel like there's a disconnect, or I don't feel like you support me, or I don't feel like that's their feelings. If you don't feel like I support you, okay, thank you for telling me. How can I make you feel more supported? Versus, what do you mean after everything I did for you and you don't feel supported? It's not about blaming them. They're literally telling you, I don't feel like you support me. You're not blaming them for the emotion that they're having. You're appreciating that they're in a place where they're communicating it with you. And the solution is they want to feel more supported. You lovingly say, What can I do to make you feel more supported? Okay. So you're returning the ownership. You're saying, this is my partner's emotion. I don't have to carry it. And I know that can sound a little selfish because you're like, well, we're in a relationship. They shouldn't have to go through their emotions on their own because we're in a relationship. Yes, you are in a relationship. And what your job is, what your actual job is, is to support them and whatever it is that they're doing to manage their own emotions. Not you manage their emotions, but I support whatever your process is. As long as it's healthy for this relationship and it doesn't go against our morals and values. If you need to take space, take space. If we need to be more connected and do more things together, let's do more things together. I'm supporting you in whatever it is that you need to do in order to feel emotionally regulated again. And again, you don't even have to use the psychology terms. You don't have to say in order to feel emotionally regulated again. I almost think it's important to do this in your own language, however you normally talk to your partner. I support you in whatever it is that makes you feel good. Again, as long as it doesn't go against the morals and the values, I'm not condoning cheating or lying or any of those things or vices, you know, drinking, smoking, all those things. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about I support whatever it is that makes you feel I support whatever it is that makes you feel better as long as it's healthy. I would put that on there because some people, you know, they have vices and they have things that they turn to when they're stressed and they're overwhelmed and triggered. And I don't want them to say, you gave me permission to do whatever makes me feel good. No, no, no. As long as it's healthy, I support you, babe. Is it your job to fix it? No. For partners, I know this is a lot because you want to fix it. You don't want to see a suffering and PMDD. And I love you all for that. But you cannot take that on as your personal responsibility because guess what? When you have stuff going on, it leaves no room for you to have support because then you're gonna be feeling like I can't have a down day during the luteal phase. I can't have an off day during the luteal phase. I have to be there for my partner. I have to do this and this and this and this. No, you have to manage one person, and that is yourself. And as soon as you do that, everything else will be better. Everything else will transform as long as you commit to doing that. Your partner will love you, care about you, support you so much when you're regulated because they can feel your love. What happens when you're in conflict is you're creating a wall so where they can't feel that love. They can't feel that connection. And that's why it's easier to be in conflict and say hurtful things because you're not feeling connected. If you're feeling connected with your partner and intimate with your partner, you're not gonna be talking to them crazy because you're gonna be feeling loving towards them. But when you don't feel loving towards them, it's easier for you to hurt them in ways that you may regret later on. So the next step is to ask for their intention. I always say, again, if you're my private client, did your partner hurt you maliciously? Is it possible for your partner to hurt you? Yes, it's gonna happen. It's going to happen. But did they do it maliciously? If your partner did it and maybe they got busy at work and they didn't call you when they were supposed to call you because they got busy at work and because they're stressed out, because they're trying to keep their boss happy, all of these things. Did it hurt your feelings that they didn't call you? Absolutely. Did they do it on purpose to intentionally hurt you? No. So when you when you're curious instead of blaming them, then you get in a place of saying, okay, this happened. I felt this way. I felt rejected. I felt abandoned when my partner didn't call me because I felt like I don't matter to them. I felt like I'm not as important as they say that I am, because if I was, they would have called me. Like you see how you're telling yourself this story, you're continuously going on and on and on. Again, I'm telling you because I do it too. And you can get it out because this is what I do with my private clients. This is why we have the sessions to talk about these things before they have the conversation with their partner, because this is something that they don't need to hear the story. They don't need to hear the story that you're making up in your mind or that your PMDD brain is telling you. They need to deal with the facts and the truth of the situation. But sometimes they can't hear the facts because you haven't gone through processing the story. So processing the story is actually something you should do separate from your partner because it's gonna be so easy for your partner to get offended when you're processing a story, because a lot of the story, it's things that they would get offended by because it's a lot of blaming. It's like, yeah, when you said this, I felt like this and I felt like this. And if they don't mean to make you feel that way, they're gonna get really offended that you feel that way. And then you have to deal with another problem. Have you ever gone into a situation with your partner where you went into the conversation to solve a problem and you ended up arguing about how you were trying to solve the problem because more things were said that made the conversation and the conflict even worse? So we're not doing that. You're gonna have a safe place to process it. You're not denying the fact that you're telling yourself a story, but you process the story separate from your partner. Okay. So for the partners that have PMDD, you're not gonna absorb your partner's emotions as your responsibility. You're just gonna observe. You're gonna observe what they're doing and you're gonna slow down and say, How is this making me feel? And is this me or is this PMDD? And then you're gonna become curious before you react. When you go to them to talk about it, you're gonna be asking questions. You're not gonna be blaming, and you're not gonna be shaming. Because if you don't blame, you don't shame, they don't get defensive. Okay.

Reassurance Scripts And Session Invite

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So for the partners that don't have PMDD, be aware that when your partner's in their luteal phase, your actions get misinterpreted. Is that your fault? No. But just be aware that that is a thing. Things that you may be doing with good intentions, pure intentions, your partner may be taking it differently. That's not your fault, and it's not your responsibility to overexplain at all. So, for some examples of what you can do is for asking for clarity and reassurance and just say, hey, I'm upset. I'm just stressed out, but I'm not upset with you. You can say to them, this has nothing to do with you. I still feel connected to you. When you do that, you're taking the weight off of them of having to fix your mood. Okay. So if this is something, if this is a loop that you know that you and your partner have been struggling with in your PMDD relationships, go to inlove with pmd.com and book those private sessions so that I can get you in the pattern of working through processing the story that's coming up when your partner's mood shifts instead of doing more damage in your PMDD relationship. Remember, not everything your partner feels is yours to fix. It's not yours to carry, and it's not yours to take personally. Okay. It's not yours. And you're gonna feel the freedom and the weight of that be lifted while you're still feeling connected and supported to your partner. You got this.