Ep. 86: The Cost of Quiet: How to Have the Hard Conversations that Create Secure Lasting Love

In this episode, we sit down to talk about Colette's new book, The Cost of Quiet, and the patterns we see over and over again in couples therapy. We’ve watched brilliant, capable women slowly lose their voices in relationships, convincing themselves that staying quiet will keep the peace, all while resentment quietly builds. We unpack what really happens when conflict gets avoided, needs go unnamed, and emotional intimacy starts to erode. If you’ve ever found yourself thinking, “It’s not worth bringing up,” this conversation will challenge you to reconsider what that silence is actually costing you.

Episode Highlights

[00:48] Why writing The Cost of Quiet became a three-year mission
[02:41] The common pattern we see in high-achieving women who stop speaking up
[04:44] How conflict avoidance turns into self-abandonment
[05:18] Introducing self-connected communication and what it actually means
[08:22] The hidden cost of indirect communication in marriage
[11:53] A real-life example of addressing a small hurt before it hardens
[14:25] The 10 avoidant behaviors that quietly undermine connection
[16:17] What “quiet quitting” a relationship really looks like
[18:42] Emotional layaway and why avoidance never truly works
[22:54] How attachment patterns shape the way we handle conflict
[27:44] What to do when your partner responds with defensiveness or distance
[28:19] The “3 D’s and an F” communication report card explained
[35:18] When self-compassion becomes essential in hard conversations
[37:49] How assertiveness can create a virtuous cycle in relationships
[38:56] The difference between a surface marriage and emotional intimacy
[41:00] Resources, tools, and what’s next as the book launches

Links & Resources

The Cost of Quiet, available now: https://www.colettejanefehr.com/new-book

Ever stayed quiet to keep the peace and felt yourself disappear? The Cost of Quiet is for anyone who avoids conflict and pays the price. Reclaim your voice, strengthen your relationships, and experience real peace. Order your copy and join the movement: https://www.colettejanefehr.com/new-book

🎙️ Love the podcast? Come talk about episodes with us inside The Midlife Chat. It’s a free, private community just for women at midlife who want to keep these conversations going. We’ve created this space for real talk, fresh resources, and honest connection—where you can share ideas and resources, ask questions, and get support from women navigating the same season.  Come join us—we’d love to have you!

👉 Join The Midlife Chat here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/795863256460970/

Order The Cost of Quiet now! Colette’s new book, The Cost of Quiet: How to Have the Hard Conversations that Create Secure, Lasting Love, launched February 3rd. Order your copy today: https://www.colettejanefehr.com/new-book

Recognized by FeedSpot:
Top 60 Couples Therapy Podcasts | Top 100 U.S. Mental Health Podcasts | Top 100 Relaxation Podcasts

Transcript

Colette Fehr  0:03  
Welcome to insights from the couch, where real conversations meet real

Laura Bowman  0:07  
life at midlife, we're Colette and Laura, two therapists and best friends, walking through the journey right alongside you, whether you're feeling stuck, restless or just unsure of what's next. This is a space for honest conversations, messy truths and meaningful change.

Colette Fehr  0:26  
And our midlife master class is now open. If you're looking to level up, get into action and make midlife the best season yet. Go to insights from the couch.org and join our wait list. Now let's dive in. Hi, hey, I'm so excited. I can't believe it's finally here. My books coming out on Tuesday. It's insane.

Laura Bowman  0:48  
Oh my god, this has felt like the longest pregnancy,

Colette Fehr  0:50  
because it has been, I feel like I'm pregnant with quadruplets for three years,

Laura Bowman  0:57  
three years like I feel like, I mean, I've been on this process with you, but it just feels it's been I'm so happy for you that it's fine. It'll be over here.

Colette Fehr  1:09  
I know I'm ready to not be pregnant. I really am ready to birth the book into the world. It's very much a passion project. I started writing February of 2023 I think on February 10. So it's almost exactly three years from when I started writing the book, before I had an agent, a publishing contract, any clue that I would end up with such a big publisher, any of that, and I was just writing on my own all weekend, 5am every morning, and I was determined that I would get this information out into the world to really change the way people communicate in relationships, and, most importantly, for themselves, so we can dive into all that. But I am so excited, and I'm excited for all of you guys listening to hopefully read it.

Laura Bowman  2:02  
And it's such a testament, though, to, like, how long anything that you care about takes. And I feel like you did this in pretty record time. So just for people who are listening, who want to birth anything into the world, I mean, three to five years, guys,

Colette Fehr  2:17  
yeah, it's kind of how it goes. Yeah, it's like, the gestation period for like, a whale or something. I mean, I don't know that that's true, but there's somebody that's pregnant for two years. Maybe it is a whale. So some animal? God, yeah.

Laura Bowman  2:29  
So, so we take me into, like, what it was that you were like, I have to get this information into the world. What were you seeing in therapy or in your own life, where you're just like, Yeah, this has to be a

Colette Fehr  2:41  
book, yeah. So I would see, and especially since I mostly do couples therapy, I would see and hear people in my office, most of them women, not exclusively, of course, but mostly women saying the same things that I once said. I wish I had spoken up sooner. You know, I don't know how I lost my voice in this relationship. I don't know when I really started quiet, quitting my relationship. Now, people are talking about that term, but when I started writing about it, it was really only being used to refer to the workplace, but I was seeing it over and over again, and I had lived it in my first marriage, I think part of it is that I'm a very assertive, outspoken person, as you well know, I usually always say what I think. I'm not shy, I'm not scared to speak up, in general, and many of the women in my office are super intelligent. Most of them are super intelligent, very successful, whether it's like taking care of their family and the home, volunteering or uber successful careers. I mean, rocket scientists, brain surgeons, CEOs, entrepreneurs. So these are women who are not shy or afraid to speak up. Either they're assertive in other domains in life, but I would hear them and see them in my office, not saying things about their own feelings, about their own needs. And when you do that, that is avoiding conflict, it's an avoidant behavior. And there are lots of different ways we avoid you end up undermining the relationship without intending to, but most importantly, you start to really get into a danger zone within yourself, because ultimately, speaking up for your feelings and needs is what emotional maturity is about. It's what good stewardship of yourself is about. And so when you're not, you're self abandoning, yeah, I

Laura Bowman  4:44  
mean, what it said? It's so cliche of like two people are sitting in a restaurant that have been long married, and they're just silent dining. It joke. It the dining dead. And the joke is that they're not talking to one another because they know exactly. What each other has to say, and they don't want to hear it. You know what? I mean, it's like, it's like that people have gone through a rodeo of trying to get their needs met, and then they realize they're not going to get the response they want. It doesn't go well, and they begin to just get quiet,

Colette Fehr  5:18  
yes, yes. And you know, this is really the crux of the book, where it's maybe not something everyone wants to hear. I mean, first, let me say I give you in this book an exact process that I call self connected communication, that I've learned through years of intensive training and therapy, and that I've walked this journey in my own life. So I know that it works, and I just want to define before we I circle back to what you said, that what I mean by it works is that the number one thing is that you feel good inside you, you feel healthy, you feel confident. You know that you have a sage self, your wise adult, you that makes good decisions, that speaks up about what's important, that takes care of your own inner vulnerabilities and tends to your inner child, because we all have that little girl still in us. So this process is about doing that, and doing it in the healthiest way, by connecting to yourself, knowing what you feel, knowing what you need, and then being able to go to your partner. And I give a lot of scripts and an exact roadmap for this with self connected communication, to say things in ways that give you the best chance possible of being heard and responded to. Because you well, know, we all know we have no control over what our partner says and does, but you hit the nail on the head, Laura, is that one of the things I see in my office, and I hear from friends, and I used to say, like, in my first marriage, I did try to get my needs met, but I wasn't super clear. You know, it was like, I didn't want to be totally vulnerable for fear of getting, you know, dismissed or told that was ridiculous or rejected. And so I try to indirectly lay them out, and then the biggest thing is, when you do get those responses, what I hear women saying is, oh, well, I want to communicate, but I can't because of how my partner responds. And this is the big shift with emotional maturity as empowered women that we have to take, which is, you know, your partner's response may disappoint you, or it may be hurtful, or you may not get your needs met, but you have to say it anyway, and you have to say it in the way that sets you up for success. Because when you don't, that's how you get into self abandonment and resentment. And resentment is so toxic, like they say, drinking poison, expecting someone else to die, that it can give you all kinds of diseases, you know? I mean, I don't want to make these claims that are not exactly proven, but there's a lot of evidence that emotions like resentment, which is kind of a buried hurt and anger and all mixed into one, yeah, can really make you physically sick. So this is very, very, very important that you not lose your voice, and if your partner doesn't give you the response you want, I give you exactly how to handle that in the book too.

Laura Bowman  8:22  
That's like the big piece for me, because there are many years I even remember us talking years ago and just difficult seasons in my own marriage and thinking that the way to make it better was to be indirect, was to give somebody a lot of space to, I don't know, try to work from the outside to smooth things over. I had all different, like, indirect ways of handling disconnection in my own marriage, and that may be effective. I mean, we're sometimes like trying. We're like trying to get a soda out of a soda machine, and we just, like, start pounding on it, or we push every button just to see what will work. And sometimes something like that will work. But ultimately, what it does to the self and to your relationship with yourself becomes so deleterious, and I think that what you hit on about the cost of quiet, not just being about what happens in the relationship, but what happens to your relationship with yourself exactly.

Colette Fehr  9:27  
So the title of the book is the cost of quiet, how to have the hard conversations that create secure lasting love. But the cost, the biggest cost, is destroying your relationship with yourself and having secure lasting love is something that hopefully you can create with your partner, and in many, in many cases, when you show up in this different way, with this different method, you can but you create secure, Healthy Love, secure attachment within yourself. And when you have that, nobody can. Take that away from you. So you know the cost, the greatest cost, is you, your relationship with you, and also your relationship with a partner, potentially. And this applies also, even though I focus on romantic relationships, it's applicable to your friendships, your relationships with your parents, your children, your co workers. You know, this is not just about romantic it's all the same principles apply. I'm just a couples therapist, so I honed in on that. But quiet, in this sense, is really a euphemism for conflict avoidance. And sometimes the version of conflict avoidance is what we women can tend to do a lot, which is self silence exactly what you just described. And I've done it too, the most talky, chatty person alive, I've self silence so many times because as women, we're nurturers, our relationships tend to be very important to us. We want them to feel good. A lot of us have been cultivated with this people pleasing mindset, that being helpful and selfless and putting other people first is noble. It's what we should be doing, and that if we make a thing that doesn't have to be a thing into a thing, we're just poking the bear, rocking the boat in a way, yes, that creates a bunch of instability and won't go anywhere anyway. So it's very easy, and it's super insidious, those daily choices. So this is the first thing is that I want to say to people, you have to address the small things. You cannot sweep those little frustrations under the rug. And if you know how to communicate effectively with this, like,

Laura Bowman  11:47  
Give us an example Colette, like, what's a small thing that somebody would brush aside, but they could address

Colette Fehr  11:53  
anything where you're like, your partner comes home, all right, I'll give one for my own life. Steve came home the other day in a very bad mood, very bad, and I could feel the energy and the tension radiating off of him. And, you know, I used to when I was younger, automatically assume it was about me, or fear that it was about me. In this case, you know, just in a quick, objective analysis. I'm like, This can't be about me. I haven't even, like, seen him. I mean, I guess it could have been, but I'm figuring it's probably work, right? But when I tried to, like, be super friendly and warm and whatever, I felt like he was a little bit short with me, and it really didn't feel good. I didn't love the way I was spoken to, but it's one of those things that would be so easy to go, okay, he's clearly had a terrible day. Yeah, he's in a bad mood. And I do think we should give our partners some grace. However, I think part of being a good relational partner is being aware also of how you speak to your significant other, even when you're in a bad mood, like we, we do have to think about that. That's what a relationship is. So that's something I might have dismissed at one stage in my life. Instead, I'm not going to confront it right then and there in that moment, but shortly thereafter, I said, you know, when you came in, I noticed that you were kind of short with me, right? And the meaning I made of it is that you've had a bad day at work, but also that you're not really worried about how you talk to me, that it isn't the priority that I think it should be, right? That's my story that I'm naming out loud, and the way it made me feel, I mean it. It hurt me, right? It's not this enormous thing. It's not relationship ending, of course, but it hurt. And then I'm asking for what I need. You know, next time, could you try to be a little more aware and just speak to me more gently, make sure that you're respectful to me. And in this case, this landed. Well, you know what I didn't do, which is also avoidance, is self silence, stuff it down, tell myself it didn't matter. Or go, what's wrong with you? I haven't even done anything. You walk in the door acting like this. Stop being such a dick, right? I have a part of me that would like to handle it like that.

Laura Bowman  14:21  
Oh, I think a lot of people handle it like, yeah, I've handled things like that before.

Colette Fehr  14:25  
Yes, me too. Me too. 100% so this is where you're self aware, though. And what I argue in my book is that I define broadly all of these different types of avoidant behaviors, that there are 10 main avoidant behaviors that are all you know, when I say quiet, they don't all sound so quiet, but they're all avoidant. So if I say, What's wrong with you, you're being such a dick. Like go back to the office if you're going to act like this. Believe me, that's actually how I'd like to be. But it's avoidant because I'm. Not expressing my true feelings and my deeper needs, which is to say, look, it's okay if you're in a bad mood, but I do need you to be mindful of how you speak to me and talk to me with respect no matter how you're feeling. Right, that is me advocating for me and saying, like, right. I'm not blaming, I'm not accusing, I'm not attacking, but I am taking the time to name my feelings and name my needs and whether he responded well or not. In this case, he did. I've done a good thing for me, because otherwise, every time you don't, there's like a little layer of yuck. Eventually that yuck hardens into resentment, which eventually turns into distance and disconnection. And then the big problem, one of the costs, is that eventually you get to a place where the relationship is so disconnected, it becomes detached, and then at that point, you can't always get it back. In fact, you usually can't,

Laura Bowman  16:03  
yeah, you don't even care to express yourself, right? You? Yeah, there's no, yeah, yeah. Is that the quiet quitting you talk about? Is that that phase where, like, people are just attached and kind of orbiting around each other?

Colette Fehr  16:17  
Yes, and what it starts way before. So I think I do want to say, and I just wrote about this this morning, and of course, I wrote about this in the book three years ago, that so many of us are quiet quitting long before we realize so I just want to name first of all that there are times when quiet quitting your relationship is a survival strategy. There are many reasons people can't leave sometimes, and I've worked with women like this, and I've been in this situation in the past myself, where you really know you can't leave for a variety of personal reasons, and you have to stay, and the only way to take care of yourself is to detach. So I don't want to act like there isn't a time or place, but that if you're quiet quitting, as we're calling it now, right, detaching and staying in a relationship for financial reasons, for your children, whatever it may be, I want you to make a conscious choice. What happens, far too often is that we start quiet quitting unconsciously, even things as little as, okay, I'm not going to say anything because it won't go well, it won't be received. Doesn't matter. Anyway, maybe I shouldn't feel this way, right? I get into I have 12 myths in the book that women tell themselves that prevent them from speaking up. And one of them is, you know, just for an example, like they should know. I've said this before, they should know. And the reality is no one can know, and no one can know that you're feeling that thing in that moment. So all of these things can be the insidious, quiet quitting, where you don't address the small stuff, you avoid conflict, you stop sharing emotionally. You stop making bids for connection. We know from the Gottman research that bids, small bids, matter something as little as like, oh, did you see this meme to something bigger, like, wow, I had this really big crisis today at work, and I want to tell you about it. I'm feeling so scared and rattled, right or like expressing appreciations all of these things that it takes a relationship, that it takes for a relationship to be running well, to be connected, to have emotional intimacy, we just start to foreclose on those things,

Laura Bowman  18:42  
yeah, and I'm, I'm sure that's one of those things, like you said, people quiet quit years before they're aware that they have Yeah, and so making it conscious. And I also heard Lee and I deal with avoidant behavior in my work, avoidant behavior and anxiety can tend to go hand in hand. And I heard somebody call it emotional lay away. And I love that, because it's like you think you're the reason we avoid is because we don't want to feel what we think we're going to have to feel. But I think that the thing we have to realize is we feel it anyway. We're carrying it around anyway, so even like, like you said, with the resentment, it's impacting your body, it's impacting your relationship with yourself, it's poisoning you. You feel it anyway. So even if you think you're avoiding it and you're putting it on that emotional layaway, you're

Colette Fehr  19:35  
not right, right? You're not. And that's a big this. I love that term too. I've never heard it. So it really is part of what I'm hopefully helping people to understand with this process is, you know, you start small, you take little risks. And, you know, just a shout out for men out there and some women, even I, who loves emotions and. I mean, I'm a therapist, right? Like you. If you don't love to talk about deep, emotional things, you don't do this job. That's for sure. Even I don't want to have these long, drawn out emotional conversations all the time in my personal life, the more you do this, the more efficient these conversations become. And if you can really embrace speaking up for yourself and listening to your partner with curiosity, validating their perspective, which doesn't mean you have to agree with them and empathizing with their emotions, which simply means you don't have to feel what they feel. It just means you make an effort to understand, right? You join with somebody you are going to have conversations that are quick, that are deep, that are helpful and that create connection. Sharing painful moments and painful feelings is the most connecting fuel we have, and so many of us are avoiding that. We don't want to say we're hurt, we don't want to say we feel shame. We don't want to admit that we're angry or disappointed, so we sweep it under the rug, and then, like you said, it's in there cooking. The second thing is that the fear you have of talking about these things, the anticipation of the thing is far worse than the thing itself. And once you start ways, always, once you start doing this, you build an emotional muscle for it gets easier and easier, but you also realize, Wow, I dreaded saying something, and it like was so not bad, right? So you're, you're, it's the discomfort, and especially since and I go in depth into attachment styles, attachment science and family of origin, experiences and modeling, because it really does shape us. Most of us, especially at midlife, emotions just weren't attuned to in the past, in our generation or beyond. You know, I had great parents, and they were never like, are you feeling anxious? You know, it just wasn't like that. It was like, you're fine. Get out there, wipe your tears. You know, it was very pull yourself up by the bootstraps. So we are not used to and we haven't seen it modeled to turn into a conversation and use a soft startup, which is what I call a delicate dive, right? You're not going to jump in with an attack. Is this a good time assess your partner's readiness, talk about that part of it first, and then you're going to have a short, useful conversation where you share what you feel, you express what you need, and if your partner does engage, then they reciprocate in kind, and you know what's going on in each other's inner worlds.

Laura Bowman  22:54  
So I'm just imagining this in real time, because, like you said, everybody does come equipped with their own childhood experiences, their own default attachment styles, and there's a lot of people who feel like conflict is a failure and scary, and they will do anything to put like a lid on it. So does it presuppose? And I know, because we've talked about this a lot, that it doesn't, but does it help when you have one partner who's able to be more equipped to have these conversation, who can guide this and model this, or can two kind of conflict avoidant people muddle their way through this? Yeah, and how does that? How does

Colette Fehr  23:33  
that work? So I would say most of the time it is going to be two conflict avoidant people muddling their way through it together and growing and being messy and trying new things. This is a relationship. Is the ideal, the number one a romantic relationship crucible for personal growth and emotional maturity. You really develop in a relationship, because it pushes on your partner and the intimacy of it that close proximity is going to push on your old wounds, your trigger spots. We all have them. I don't use trigger even to refer to trauma. It could just be anything that bothered you in the past, not being tended to, being hurt by somebody. We're all scared of rejection and abandonment, so a relationship pushes on those things where, when you're single, those buttons aren't pushed, and most of the time it will be two people that don't feel super comfortable with conflict. And what's happened? It's classic, like you talk about with anxiety and avoidance going hand in hand, if we haven't had positive experiences with conflict, or we haven't seen it going well like imagine what it would be like if we grew up in households where we saw parents having an argument, maintaining a level of respect and decorum, but acknowledging their feelings, including anger, working out their struggles and coming back together. To repair because we know from the research, the gottman's research, Dr John Gottman and his wife Julie, decades and decades of research on couples that's really given us evidence based concrete evidence, for everything we know about relationships that repair is the number one factor for couples who last that in relationships, we're constantly rupturing and repairing, and the people who do well are those who repair well and repair often. So if we were to see that modeled in our families, we wouldn't be so scared of conflict. And what I explain in the book is we're scared of conflict and we're conflict avoidant because we haven't seen it go well, or when we've tried to get into it, it's gone into destructive conflict, which is very different from constructive conflict. So we're like, Ooh, I don't want that again. We don't know the way to handle it normally, and we have or effectively. And we have to understand this is where it goes to attachment science that because we're biologically wired to bond and we're pro social herd animals, anything that feels like a threat to our relationships is inherently scary and somewhat counterintuitive. So you're humming along at dinner, maybe you're not saying much, right? Just to translate this into the real world. And there's that thing that bothered you the other day, and you hadn't said anything about it, but it keeps popping up in your head. You know? It's a little counterintuitive to want to disrupt the piece at dinner and say, You know what, I just can't get this thing out of my mind. Can we talk about it? So we have to understand that it is natural to feel afraid of conflict, yet we have to step into it anyway. And when we have a method like self connected communication, where you really tune into yourself, you get clear, and then you express yourself vulnerably and assertively, knowing that you can't control the other person's response, then you begin to see, okay, conflict doesn't have to be so awful. It doesn't have to be so destructive. And even if I don't get the response I want, I can take care of myself inside and be okay. And then we begin to have a new relationship. It's the hugest piece.

Laura Bowman  27:24  
It is the biggest piece. And, yeah, I mean, and we talked about, we talk about it a lot on the podcast, but very often you don't get the responses you're craving. Or the thing where it's like, we sweep it under the rug, and then there's nobody ever circles back to it, like, that's a really common, oh,

Colette Fehr  27:44  
yeah, I've done it a million times, yeah. Like, all of a

Laura Bowman  27:47  
sudden, you know, you haven't. It's like a Cold War. And then all of a sudden, they're like, Did you see the game? And you're like, Oh, we're talking now, yeah. And nobody ever circles back to what, like, the impasse was, which is terrible, but, but what I'm going back to is this moment where you may not get the kind of response on the other end, even if you show up this way. And so take us like the step, the level deeper of what you're going to get is some information, yes, about your next step.

Colette Fehr  28:19  
So I get into this in depth in the book, but I love one of my favorite metaphors. I love metaphors, but that I came up with is the most common responses we get that don't feel good, especially as women from men, are what I call the bad partner communication report card, and it's 3d and an F, right? Okay, so it's defensiveness, dismissiveness, distancing and fixing. So just in short, right? You say something, let's say you do? You take great care to say it gently and clearly and kindly, and your partner immediately gets defensive. You know, first of all, it's normal to have grievances. If you're close to anybody at all, you're going to have complaints. Complaints about behavior aren't the same as criticizing the whole person, and we want to refrain from making global statements about someone's character. It's very hard to hear feedback, and defensiveness is often a sign that that person has their own inner shame, that they may not be aware of, that they don't have enough sense of self to tolerate hearing that something they did upset you or bothered you, and it feels very invalidating and painful to be on the receiving end of defensiveness. And in fact, it's one of Dr John gottman's Four identifiers for the pathways of the Apocalypse, yes, yes, what he calls the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, that if you get defensive, you know, it's one of the predictors of divorce. So if you're listening to this and you have a tendency to get defensive, you're normal. It's human, and it's really worth it to work on that, because you do have to be able to hear feedback, and sometimes it's negative or critical. Of the behavior distancing is, you know, often can look like stonewalling even, which is another one of the four predictors of divorce. You pull away, you remove yourself, you retreat. Sometimes you ice your partner out in silence. These are incredibly destructive and painful communication tactics to be on the receiving end much of the time the person is not intending to be hurtful. It's the way they've learned to cope with what feels like a scary moment. They're scared of conflict too, but it can be really, really damaging to your partner. And then, of course, dismissiveness. This is one I feel like I've gotten in multiple relationships in my life because I am so emotional, and a lot of people haven't learned how to sit with emotions. So I would often get told in past relationships and even with my husband early on, before I before I trained him, well, which was like, Okay, call it. This isn't a big deal. Why are you making this a big deal? You shouldn't be upset. You shouldn't react this way, right? It's very, very painful to have feedback that what you're bothered by or upset about isn't really a thing, and screw that. But it happens a lot. And then fixing is women do this too, but men in particular are big problem solvers. And what fixing really is is one a very well conditioned muscle, the desire to be valuable and that they struggle to sit there and feel helpless when you're in pain, but yet, what we've got to do much of the time is just be with people in their emotional experience. And again, the gottman's talk about this blows people's mind, and I talk about this all the time on social media, that 69% of a couple's problems are not solvable. They will continue to argue over the same things in perpetuity, because they're about character or personality, or you're just not going to see eye to eye. Now, 31% are solvable, but whether it's solvable or unsolvable, you have to focus on feelings first and then fixing so if you connect in the emotions, then if there's a solvable problem, you can get to that second. So you know, just back to these responses you are going to get them if your partner hasn't done the work, and a lot of people haven't, and even if they have done the work, we're human. We react very quickly. The brain is wired for a negativity bias, right? And these little moments, blips, feel like a threat to your nervous system. It feels like a threat to your connection, to hear your partner's upset with you. So it's gonna happen, and then what we've got to do then is make sure we're offering ourselves a lot of validation and self compassion when we didn't get the responses we want. Really take care of our inner child and nurture her like, Wow. Good for you. You put yourself out there. You said how you were feeling, you were very conscious about being clear, kind, respectful, but also telling the truth and being vulnerable. And it was so disappointing and hurtful to get that response from your partner, but you did it anyway. You did a good thing, and I'm here meaning your wise adult, your Sage self with you to your vulnerable inner child, and then in terms of your partner, you're either going to go back to them at another time, and hopefully you are going to do this, although, if it adds up, then you have information. And say, look, I put myself out there. I made a great effort to tell you how I was feeling and what I needed, and I got a defensive response. And when you got defensive, this is how I felt hurt. The message I got, I always want everyone to name their story rather than accuse their partner. The message I got is that it's not safe to share my feelings with you. This makes me feel like the next time I shouldn't bring something up, and I don't want that to happen, because this relationship is important to me. Can we talk about it? Can we work on it? And if your partner is open and receptive, because you're coming in, you're not firing bullets, you're coming in with honesty, but that vulnerability and assertiveness, you're not attacking. And if they're able to engage with you in a conversation where the two of you explore. You know, why? Why does your partner get defensive? Can they be curious about that? Can you guys talk about it? You can grow together. But if, every time you open up and you take this approach, and no matter how good of a job you're doing and being vulnerable and assertive, you're. Partner shuts you down, stone walls you, yells at you, insults your character, tells you you're too much, then you've got painful but very important information about what your relationship can and cannot offer you, and you can make decisions.

Laura Bowman  35:18  
Yeah, and I'm imagining, obviously, that this process at a certain point would be best facilitated with a therapist like that, that you really get the most out of it, not with just the book, but also with being helped by a therapist and doing work on yourself. I mean, if people are ready for that journey.

Colette Fehr  35:40  
Yeah, that's the journey. I mean, I think that it is possible to do a lot of this yourself, but what I say in the book too, is, especially if you have a significant history of trauma, it may bring up too much stuff where it is really better to read the book and do the steps I give. It's very experiential. There are a lot of exercises and activities that can help you learn how to show up for your inner child, to flesh out parts of self, to get clear about your feelings and needs. Because that's another big problem, is a lot of people, and I know you hear this in your office too, will say, like, I don't even know what I'm feeling. I don't know what I need. And what I want to remind everybody is you do it's in there. You already have the answers. So I'm giving you a method for how to do all of this that makes it as easy as possible, but you're also right that sometimes you are going to need more. And I give resources in the book to find a good therapist who knows these experiential models and can help you with this kind of journey, because communication isn't just about the words you say. It's a much deeper process of knowing yourself, of taking care of yourself, of being conscious of your partner. And this is why, at the end of it, all assertive communication is so important, it gets a bad rap because it's Miss it's confused with aggressiveness. As women, we're still labeled difficult when we're assertive, when men are just applauded, but we've got to just push all that aside and realize that when you're assertive, you're clear and you're direct, but you're also kind, right, you're tactful, you're diplomatic. And when you show up this way with your partner, and you show up this way for yourself, you're going to be healthy, you're going to build your confidence, and you're going to have the best chance possible to have a deeply connected relationship that lasts. So I hope everyone will get a copy and share with your friends and really work on this to whatever degree you're comfortable with, because ultimately, it's about, you know, developing yourself more than anything.

Laura Bowman  37:49  
Yeah, and I just want to give a personal anecdote, because, I mean, I'm never going to hold my marriage out there and say, like, we're we're so perfect, we're not, but I will say, and I've had to, like I've gotten the benefit of hanging out with our author for a long time, but it just getting better at this, working on this, showing up in an assertive way, and saying things in a way that they can be heard has helped my marriage, and I've also seen that is given my husband permission to bring his grievances for excellent point for a long time he did not do he was very people pleasing. And like he will bring things to me now, of like I didn't like the way you handled this and and you know what? I'm meeting it with curiosity instead of defensiveness. And this creates a very virtuous cycle of like I can express that I'm disappointed. I love you, but I'm disappointed, or this is what I need and and being able to build a better container for conflict. It's the whole thing

Colette Fehr  38:56  
that's beautiful. You just said so eloquently, exactly what this is about. And it's very true that when you change the way you show up, it often has a cascading effect. It gives your partner permission. It's very hard because of the way we're wired when we have mirror neurons, meaning we mirror what we see in someone else. So when someone is really vulnerable with you. It often invites vulnerability from that other person. You know, a lot of the time we think we're communicating. This is another thing I see in my office. Women will say, Well, I do say it. I say how I feel and what I need, and then I hear the way it comes out. It's very, very critical. It's all about the partner instead of we need to be talking about ourselves and our own emotional experience, and then often, we are going to create a virtuous cycle where conflict becomes not a scary thing, but an opportunity for growth and connection, for us to self disclose, for it to be safe, to share upset moments, most things are misunderstandings. Anyway. Way, and they can be cleared up and repaired, and then you feel really close to your partner. And you know, one final thing I just want to say, I call it a surface marriage, but if you're in a relationship, as I once was, where things look great from the outside, and maybe you love your life, but you're not sharing your emotions, you're not sharing feelings, you're not talking about needs, you're not addressing tough moments or grievances. You're just not going to have emotional intimacy or connection, and a deeper relationship is possible even with two conflict avoidant people just not the same thing as avoidant attachment, right? And I differentiate this in the book, just people who are scared to say the thing, you know, you can muddle through this together. It's not going to be perfect, but there's so much opportunity for a much richer, deeper connection. And the book is something you can also read with a partner and do together and grow together. Oh, as you should Yes, and I should say, since we've got a few days till the book comes out, I have created a cost of quiet toolkit that gives you a lot of like communication tools at the ready that's free if you pre order the book through my website for the next couple of days, and also, if you buy more than one copy to give to your friends, and I hope you do. I have created a digital course that goes with the book. It's only about, I want that, yeah, it's really, really a distillation of everything. So it's very actionable, and it'll give you some tools for emotional regulation, which is such an important part of this process that we didn't really talk about but is a given that these you have to know how to regulate yourself and be in that window of tolerance before you have these conversations successfully. So check out those resources on my website, Colette Jane fair.com, C, o, l, e, t, t, e, j, A, N, E, F, E, H, r.com, and please spread the word, because we're finally here. The book is going to be born on Tuesday. Yay.

Speaker 1  42:11  
It's here. She's she's here.

Colette Fehr  42:14  
And so far, you know, I've had some people read advanced copies, and people have told me that they got so much out of it. I've really put the best of everything I know from almost 15 years of being a couples therapist into this book, so I do think you'll get a lot out of it. So great. All right, everyone, thanks for listening, and we hope you got some great insights from our couch this week, as always, and we'll see you next time. Bye, guys. Bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai