3 Things That Feel Like Love...But Aren't

Love can look calm on the outside while quietly falling apart underneath. If you’ve ever felt like you’re “doing the right thing” in your relationship but somehow ending up more distant, we’re putting words to why.

We unpack three patterns that often get mistaken for love: walking on eggshells, overgiving, and staying quiet about what you feel. We talk about how tiptoeing becomes suppression, why overgiving can come from anxious attachment and a fear of not being chosen, and how unspoken truth doesn’t disappear, it turns into frustration and resentment. Along the way we share what we see in couples every day: when defensiveness becomes the norm, partners stop feeling heard, and connection starts to harden into roommate energy.

We also get practical about what actually helps: emotional safety, nervous system regulation, and the ability to sit in discomfort without making it all about you. If two of these three patterns show up on repeat, there’s nothing “wrong” with you, but there is work to do, and it can change faster than you think with the right communication strategy and support.

If this resonates, come and say hi, subscribe for more, and share this with someone who needs it. What’s the one pattern you want to break first?

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Transcript

Welcome And What We Teach

SPEAKER_01 0:09

We're Michael and Amy, your couples connection coaches. Our mission is to help couples thrive using a conscious and holistic approach. This podcast is for couples and singles who want to unlock their relationship potential and reconnect on a deeper, more meaningful soul level. We share insights, client breakthroughs, and personal stories to help move your relationship from surviving to thriving.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Welcome everyone to another episode of Thrive Again, Your Relationship Podcast. Here with my beautiful wife Amy, and we do another podcast, right?

SPEAKER_01 0:45

We do another podcast. We do do another podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

You ready for this one?

SPEAKER_01 0:49

I'm always ready. Yeah. Ever ready.

When Fear Looks Like Love

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Perfect. Alright. This is actually really a really important topic that I don't think we kind of talk about a whole heap directly, but I thought let's address it today. Because uh it's it's something that is largely unspoken about. And I think that we just dwell in in this in this space, but we think that it's love. Like we think that this is how it's supposed to be. And um, I think what we found is um that once you know couples actually peer into this space and start to to work on some aspects of their communication and their connection, then they don't have to struggle and suffer silently, and that's kind of what we're sort of getting into today.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Yeah, I think it's like patterns that we get into, isn't it, like in our relationship that become almost normal, but they're actually creating more distance. But we think it's love. We think we're showing love by these patterns. So should we start with we've got three, hey? Three at for now, anyway. There's probably more, but today we're going to speak about three things that appear to be love but actually aren't in a relationship.

Walking On Eggshells

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Yeah, spot on. All right, let's go. First one walking on eggshells. And you'd probably be familiar with this if you've been in any relationship, because most of the time this is a dynamic that it either happens, you know, like as a once-off or here and there, or there's a real toxic pattern that's actually happening that you maybe you realize, but you don't really speak about it, and it's certainly something that you don't often talk to your friends about, so it never really comes out in the open. So we're bringing it out in the open, and um when we talk about walking on eggshells, we're talking about a dynamic where there might be fear, right? There might be fear from one partner of rocking the boat, right, of making things a bit wavy, and maybe we're used to or desire peace, and so that becomes the primary objective is to keep the peace rather than causing conflict, you know, making things shaky, firing up the other person. So what we do is we tiptoe around a little bit and don't quite bring up the thing that we want to bring up. Um, yeah, it's it is a form of yeah, kind of sidestepping in a way, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 3:27

Yeah, it's like you're suppressing suppression of your truth. You know, you have to watch, oh, how should I say this? I'm just gonna say it this way, and I'll try it this way. And um, yeah, when but we're not able to be authentic, we're not able to really just speak what what we're feeling or experiencing, and yeah, it it's exhausting. If you're gonna be like walking on eggshells in your relationship, it becomes exhausting, and then I guess ultimately what I what we've seen in relationships like that, they end up just shutting down to each other because it's too hard.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Yeah, yeah, and then because of that, neither of us are able to experience each other's authenticity or truth, and so we become more distant from each other because it's safer, right? It's safer to do that, and then when a pattern becomes entrenched, it becomes calcified, and this is what we talk about roommate energy. So it didn't just happen overnight, it happened because possibly one of you or both of you were walking on eggshells, worried about the the the way in which you want to communicate with them, and yeah, it's it's almost like this constant looking at self as to how can I best do this, and yeah, suppressing the way that you deliver the message.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

Yeah, and I think it's important to note here that if this is you and you you are in this situation where you find yourself watching your words, how you speak, what you say, because you're scared of conflict or flaring up or um you know distance, then I think there's there's an important part that you're not responsible for someone else's reaction. Like I think, you know, because uh ultimately when we used to walk on eggshells with each other, I'd be worried about how you would respond, right? But that's not my responsibility. That's your responsibility to monitor your own response and your own nervous system reaction. So yeah, I feel like that's just a another note on that um fact that if you are in a relationship where you feel like you're walking on eggshells, then just remember that it's not your job to um be able to be responsible for your partner's emotions.

Overgiving And Anxious Pursuing

SPEAKER_00 5:42

Great, all right. Hope that lands for everyone, and of course, there's you know a little caveat there that there needs to be some level of um articulation in terms of delivering a message, right? So it doesn't just mean that you should be able to hurl abuse or comments at people, um, because yeah, there is an element of responsibility with delivery, um, but yeah, it's when we're editing the way that we're, you know, communicating to a degree that we're really suppressing ourselves, it's totally not healthy.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, should we go into number two? Yeah. What's the number two pattern that helps that keeps couples disconnected, I suppose?

SPEAKER_00 6:23

Yeah, yeah. It's sort of like it's the things that that that we think are love and keep us connected, but what they really are is fear dressed up, and and I think that well, the second one we've got down is overgiving. So this is when you overgive, like you try to connect with them, you're trying to show up, you're trying to fix all the problems, you're constantly leaning in, and sometimes we're doing this to the degree where we're giving ourselves up.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Yeah, hence overgiving. It's not just giving, because you know, like a lot of people that overgive have a big heart and then they really want to help and they want to connect, but it's when it's to the detriment of your own energy and your own self that this becomes a really, really bad cycle that's harming both of you.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

And often the overgivers, they have like um a sense that they're they're not enough, they're not valued enough, they're not loved enough, or that they're they're not chosen. So that behaviour of overgiving mm is also maybe a byproduct of not feeling like that in the relationship. So they feel like the more that they give, the more that they'll receive love. But yeah, it's not a very healthy way to be in a relationship if you're essentially giving up yourself um constantly to feel chosen, to feel loved, to feel valued.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Yeah, so typically these are the people that are pursuers um or anxiously attached, um, and they just desperately want, you know, that that connection, that validation, that love, and unfortunately there's an overfunctioning aspect of this which in a lot of cases pushes the your partner away because they feel like they're suffocated from that too. So it ends up becoming the the behavior becomes the thing that pushes them further away when actually what you're trying to do is to try to pull them in closer.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, overgiving, hey, like you can I I have friends that are like that. I've watched that and um yeah, I hope I wish for them that they um notice that pattern because sometimes it's so normal because they might have modelled it from their mother, and that's how she was in a relationship or how she was in as a person. She just gave and she's so generous. But healthy love is not measured by how much you give, but by how honestly honestly both people are res resourced and reciprocal. So it's both of a give and take. It's it's not just um yeah, all give and no take.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

Yeah. Yeah, well said. So just reflecting on you know the last uh the first two, which is walking on eggshells, just consider yourself or your partner. Do you notice this in your relationship? And then secondly, overgiving and um and just like who is there an overgiver in the relationship? Is it you, is it your partner, without judgment, just observation and awareness at this point? Um, because it starts from there, right? It starts with awareness, and I think once we know and can see the pattern, then we have agency to work on it and and to grow into something that's healthier. That's not love to be overgiving, it's not real love. Like we're we're trying to manipulate um a uh we're trying to manipulate a a relationship in a way, um, to to bring that closeness, but but yeah, it's at the expense of self often.

Staying Quiet And Resentment

SPEAKER_01 9:57

And the last one, the third one?

SPEAKER_00 10:00

Yeah, staying quiet about what you feel.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

It's it's actually quite normal though, isn't it? You think about how we've been raised and how our you know, like what we've been taught at school. Oh, don't say that, don't speak up about that, be quiet, you know, like um, yeah, I feel like don't speak up about how you feel is such a an ingrained thing for a lot of us, but I think there is a big difference between staying quiet about what you feel and actually being able to share that in a um I guess a vulnerable and gentle way, you know, like because I think the delivery and the communication of that can come across very differently, yeah. You know, so there's also an art to be able to speak up about what you feel, and it's very important to be able to do that in a relationship because otherwise you're suppressing a part of yourself, you're really suppressing your your emotions, you're suppressing like what who you are at your core, and that's really um yeah, it's not what we want in relationships.

SPEAKER_00 11:06

Yeah, yeah, and your needs and your wants and your desires, and they they've all been sort of squashed down if you're unable to express what you feel. And the problem here is that most of the time in relationships that are unhealthy, there's defensiveness. So the defensiveness from your partner acts as a wall that deflects back your your feelings, and so people feel voiceless, they feel like they're unheard. And a lot of the time, this is what couples come to us for. Um and it's a real shame, it's it's really sad because the defensiveness is something that can be worked on and can be overcome fairly rapidly, but unfortunately, couples wait until it gets like years and years down the track of one partner suppressing, like speaking up about how they feel, because they're worried that it's gonna turn into conflict, they're worried that their partner's going to you know disconnect from them, and that's the last thing that they want. So once again, it's about just keeping things steady, keeping things calm, but it's at the expense of your own voice.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

Yeah, and I think it's important to remember that like unspoken truth does not just disappear, it often builds up, and feel you can feel frustration or resentment and and it and it accumulates to create this disconnect ultimately. So um that's not what you're wanting in relationship. You're needing that safe container to be able to speak up in a in a way that is you know expressing your truth. But that's a whole nother thing that you know I guess that's what we need to learn is how to um have a safe container and how does that even work and look.

Emotional Safety And Nervous System

SPEAKER_00 12:58

Yeah, because I I need to know that that that that's gonna be okay for you to receive that and not turn it into something about you. I need to know that that's okay, that you or that that you have capacity to sit in discomfort when I'm when I'm sharing that. So can you sit there even though it's about you, or even though um I'm really upset and I know that you don't you'd rather me be happy? Like if that's hard for your partner, then there's some work in your relationship, and it's not just them, it's also you 100%, because yeah, it we we both have uh the parts that we play in this dynamic. So so yeah, that's why we run the reconnected union, right? Like this is exactly the reason these three things make up such a large chunk. So if you're hearing that you know you're at least got two of these three things that happen in your relationship on a repeated like a repeated basis, like that's why we we run through a communication strategy, that's why we get you guys to tune into your attachment needs and and your you know your childhood and how that actually links into the way that you connect with human beings now, so that we can get a softness like uh about the way that we we communicate with it, not like a hardness or a calcification of this is my way, but breaking those old patterns.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

Yeah, and I think most importantly, the foundation of a healthy, thriving relationship is emotional safety, and that's that's uh I guess a big chunk of what we teach in the Reconnected Union is your nervous system regulation, ability to stay in the discomfort, to hear what your partner's saying, even if it is you know impacting you. Um, because too often in relationship we just turn it into defensiveness and shut it down, and then that you're not ever going to grow or evolve in a relationship. So emotional safety is the foundation of all of our work that we do, and it's something that can be taught because it wasn't probably taught in many of us, too many of us in any capacity. So yeah, regulating yourself, staying in the heat, being better at the discomfort, uh, is all part of um I guess um true love and not just love that's dressed up as fake, like we have in these these three points.

Reconnected Union Invite And Wrap

SPEAKER_00 15:26

Yeah, yeah, spot on. So yeah, if if that interests you, I know that um coming up, like we've we're we're getting a lot of interest. We we booked out the May one, so we've ended up running a June Reconnected Union, so we've opened that one now. Um, it's already filling up, um, and that's on the 9th of June, is the next one. Uh, and then we are running another one later in the year. But like if if this is you, I I would recommend just just even just touching base and getting on a call with us so that we can kind of see where you guys are at and even offer you guys some tools. We even have heaps of free resources that we can kind of flick your way, even if it's not the Reconnected Union. Um, but it does include a one-day retreat in a beautiful location, and I'm so grateful that we've added that on to the Reconnected Union. Oh, it's super affordable, and yeah, you know, payment plans and things like that are available, but like why the the retreat is such a beautiful addition to this is because like in real time you guys are working on this connection together. It's not just you know studying and working on communication like practices, it's yeah, it's it's real life scenarios that you guys are in and working through this with some guidance and safety.

SPEAKER_01 16:43

Yeah, yeah, beautiful. Well, I hope you enjoy the rest of your day, evening. Thank you so much for listening.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

We'll see you on the next podcast.