Emotional Safety After Betrayal: Understanding Emotions, Trauma, and Relationship Healing (Episode 119)

Welcome to the Human Intimacy Podcast. Dr. Kevin Skinner with Marianne Michalis, licensed clinical social worker. Marianne, it's a busy time of the year for so many people. Graduations, school's coming to an end, it's rebooting for summertime plans. How are you holding up?

You know, Dr. Skinner, I was having this conversation just this morning with a couple of people just about how busy it is and how last night somebody was saying, why don't they plan things in April or March? Why is it all right now? This time of year, we're at the end of May, school's getting ready to be done and I'm doing okay, but there's a lot.

So to our listeners, this is really why I said this. Thank you for taking the time to be with us. And we hope that you will share this podcast with friends or others that you think could benefit. That's something that as you share it, it gives us a better opportunity to help more people. So thank you for being with us and please share this podcast with your friends and family. Today's topic, Marianne, is something that I think may be one of the more important ones. Last night in the Intimacy Repair Method, we talked about personal stabilization. And today we want to add to that in something that I think is really important, and that's emotions. We early, before we started the podcast, we were talking about congruency with emotions, accuracies, and am I sharing true, accurate emotions that I'm experiencing, or am I misleading or misrepresenting with my actual emotions? And as a part of that, we want to add to that is the concept of emotional contagion. Which is also a very important concept we'll be talking about. So your initial thoughts, Marianne.

When we're talking about emotions, I think so many times we, we have an idea that I am my feelings. I am my emotions. And I think we also have the idea that if I'm feeling mad right now or upset or frustrated or whatever emotion, and if I express that to somebody, it feels like it gets stuck there. And so if you're angry with me, I'm like, oh, Dr. Skinner's angry with me. And an hour later, 5 hours later, 5 days later, I might still be stuck with, oh, Dr. Skinner's angry with me. Whereas in reality, you may have said, hey, I'm angry with you, and moved on. 5 minutes, 5 hours, 5 days later, you probably have different emotions, but oftentimes we get stuck in that one emotion. In that moment of time with another person, especially if that hasn't been resolved. And so I'm hoping with our conversation today that we can also bring in this idea that we often really contradicting emotions and that our emotions are really fluid. They're usually not fixed and we're not cemented in them.

Thank goodness. I can't imagine being stuck on the angry one, or I can't imagine being stuck on the just suppressed emotion one. Right? We're all a range of emotions. We experience it that way. The interesting thing is when I'm feeling something and I'm not congruent with it, that's one of my bigger concerns when I work with clients who are working, even anxiety, depression. But when we come to sexual betrayal and the accuracy of emotions can be one of the reasons why couples struggle to repair because the emotions are not congruent with what's actually happening inside of me. So part of the experience of human intimacy is allowing yourself to be seen even in your emotions. And some people say, what are you talking about? I'm all over the place. I mean, I, my spouse knows I'm angry. But what's interesting about that is they might know you're angry, but they still might be missing the source of the anger, the depth of that pain, because all they're seeing is the anger.

I think it's really important to recognize Brené Brown was speaking. I can't remember if it was one of her books or if it was a podcast, but she said that most people, most adults, at least in the US, our range of emotions that we can say, oh, here's the emotion that I'm feeling. Most adults don't have more than maybe 8, and I could be off a little bit with this number, but most of the time people stick to about 3 emotions. And I remember reading the book by Dr. Edith Eger, and she talked about sad, mad, glad, and scared. And I was like, oh, okay. I can remember those because they rhyme. But most of the time, I think that we're not taught as children. When children have emotions, when they have really big crocodile tears and really big dramatic responses, oftentimes we're saying, you're fine. You're okay. It's not a big deal. And rather than saying, You feel sad right now, rather than taking out our labeler and labeling the emotions and giving children the gift of here's the emotion. We avoid it. We brush it off. We reassure, but we don't have the language oftentimes to even know. Yeah. So maybe I'm not really mad. Maybe I'm really disappointed or I'm really frustrated or I'm feeling really perplexed. But I don't have the language to even say those emotions. And so we really have a hard time. So we're slamming doors and our spouse can know something's wrong, but we don't often have the emotional words ourselves to communicate what we're feeling, what we're experiencing.

The language of our emotions.

Right.

How do I share my disappointment? How do I share my frustrations, my hurt? In a way that comes across, because I've heard so many people say, the only time my spouse listens to me is when I'm yelling at 'em. Well, that's not the kind of communication that's gonna be productive, but that's what the pattern that they've got into. And so part of this journey of exploring our emotions is, first of all, we gotta understand our own emotions, and then we gotta figure out, am I congruent with these emotions? Because if I ask you, Marianne, how are you? And you've had a really crappy day. And this happens all the time. People ask, hey, how are you doing? Well, if it's been a really bad day, how often do you actually hear people say, oh, it's horrible day. It's been awful.

I think you may experience this as well, but I sit down with a client in my office and I say, hey, how are you doing today? How's your week been? And they'll say, I'm okay. But off of just my initial first glimpse of their face, I, I'm reading their body language. I'm reading what's going on in their face. And in that instant, there's a sense of, really? You said you're okay, but your eyes aren't saying that. Your face isn't saying that. Your mood, your energy's not saying that. Everything about you.

Your body language.

Yeah. There's nothing about you right now or what I just saw that says you're okay, but you're saying you're okay. And help me understand that. That doesn't make— so there's this incongruency, and I think that's what you're talking about.

And socially, I think we've been taught that, right? How you doing? Fine. I'm okay. We're doing all right. But when we dig into it, it's like, okay, what's the truth? Well, there may be parts of my life that are okay, and then there's this whole other part of my life that's falling apart that I don't know what's going to happen. So this congruency that we're looking for, emotional congruency that really can help us understand each other, it really is, am I safe enough to share this with you? Do I feel comfortable sharing what's happening inside of me with you? Because I'm not going to be emotionally vulnerable with you if I don't know if I can trust you.

So you're talking about some emotional boundaries.

Yeah, that's a term we would use because what happens when I can't open up with you, then you're going to get a more of a surface-level interaction. Let's just take a case like the betrayed partner, and they're feeling a wide range of emotions, but they don't feel safe enough to share them with their spouse because their spouse goes into a shame place. And so I'm feeling these emotions, but I can't go to my spouse because every time I do, it becomes more about them and the shame, and then I'm attacking them. And it's like we rinse and repeat the same unproductive cycle.

And my emotions aren't being validated, and it feels like it just sucks all of the life out of me, and I'm still left with a bigger hole than when I started.

So I can't express the emotion. I'm afraid to. And as a therapist, I'm trying to create this congruency of emotions where I can actually speak a truth and it be held rather than being dismissed or being minimized. So this process then is First of all, can we create an environment? And that's the language we would use, an environment that is safe enough for opening up. And can we do that? And if we can't do that, then we got work to do. We got couples work that needs to be done because those moments, if you can't hold each other in those moments, those experiences, where are you going to put your emotions? Do you have a group to talk to? Do you have a sponsor to talk to? Do you have someone you're going to talk to? Can you journal about it? Because if you can't If you can't talk about your authentic emotions with the person who you want to be closest with, they're going to go somewhere. They need to go somewhere. Friends, family, religious leader, where are they going?

I really want to highlight this because oftentimes if we're dealing with betrayal trauma, as we are in this example, we often have depression. We often have anxiety. We often have some really big barriers to that ability to be relational. And as you talked about that shame, if my partner shuts down in shame, that means I can't reach them.

Hmm.

If my partner isn't regulating their own emotions, if they're not in an emotionally stable place, it is so hard for me to show up. Because that's not gonna be a place that's open that my emotions can be received. And so if I'm a betrayed partner and my partner comes to me, you know, trying to connect, and I am so depressed that I can't get out of bed, I'm not in a relational place at that space.

And maybe to that, I would add, I need to be nurtured. I need someone to be present with me to be able to witness what I'm experiencing. That's sometimes extremely valuable. When individuals, they need support and they get it, that actually helps them out of those darker places.

Right. And I might need it from somebody who feels more safe than my partner who just betrayed me. That might not be the safest place for me right now because all my trust has been broken and I don't know if I can trust you. And of course you're the one that I want to turn to, but it doesn't feel safe for me right now. And I see that We know that there's often isolation and avoidance with betrayal traumas, part of the PTSD symptoms. And so recognizing that isolation can really show up, and then we've got the deeper emotions. I may be in a space where I desperately need that emotional connection, that place to honor the emotions, but it's gotta be safe. And it doesn't feel like my friends or my family are there. I've gotta find a support group. I've gotta find someplace.

And the emotional connection, if we could call it that, is part of what pulls us out of those places that are difficult. If you say, "I'm fine," when I ask and you're really not fine and I pick that up, what message does that send to me? You don't want to share with me, or I don't believe you. And that does not create an environment where we're not gonna connect there because I'm literally what I'm hearing or feeling from you is leave me alone.

Right. And that's gonna be unsettling for your nervous system. If you say, how are you? And I say, fine. And your system is like, what? You don't look fine. You don't sound fine. You're not fine, but you're not telling me. You're left with some unresolved, like, huh? Questioning, because how do I believe that?

And there's times where it, maybe it's not the right timing, but even then I may say, you know, it's been a rough day or it's been difficult. I've been struggling. I bumped into some triggers. I'm angry right now. Those are congruent. And right now is probably not a good time, but thanks for asking. Then we're congruent with those emotions. My bigger concern, Marianne, is when we stack day after day, week after week, and even month after month of I'm fine, to the point where there really isn't an intimate relationship. There isn't these conversations that are happening. I don't really know what you're feeling. I don't know what you're experiencing. And I've, I've seen this with parent-child relationships as well, where we grow so far apart that I really don't even know this child, or I don't know what's going on. I've seen that with clients. Like, I don't even know what's going on in their life right now. I don't know what they're thinking. And that in my experience is really a problem socially in our culture where we've got relationships that we need, but we're not creating them.

I wanna comment on that word fine. Our friend Brett Williams, he taught me an acronym or that fine stands for an acronym. He calls it freaked out, insecure, neurotic, and emotional. So when somebody says, "I'm fine," it automatically translates as freaked out, insecure, neurotic, and emotional. And that might be what's going on for the person. We use that word "fine" as a blanket, as a "get me out of here." It's, it's just a, it's a pass-through, not engaging, not connecting response. And I think it's important to recognize Oh, okay. There's a reason why this person isn't showing up. And one of the things that I hear from my clients over and over is, I don't want to burden people with my problems. I don't want to be seen as a crybaby or somebody who can't handle it. And so we often, I often see stoicism showing up and the stoicism often shows up with, fine, I'm fine. I'm handling it. I don't want to burden you with my problems. And so therefore I'm going to remain closed off to you. When in reality, as human beings, especially in the disconnected world that we live in, we want and need connection so much more deeply. And if somebody were to come to you and say, I'm actually, I'm not doing so great right now. I'm not sure that I want to trouble you with it, but I really appreciate you asking. I'm going through some really hard things right now. That feels so much more sincere than fine.

Sure.

I should go.

Because the authenticity there is coming out. See, I think the other side of this, Maryanne, is we aren't in a culture where we're comfortable, can I say that, with each other's emotions, with others' emotions. If somebody literally comes in and just shares all their emotional stuff with you and you really don't know them, That, ooh, right? But when it's your spouse or partner and you haven't seen this side of them, sometimes that's very endearing because I'm finally seeing something that you're feeling. I can't tell you how many betrayed partners have come to me and said, after this emotional conversation, there was a disclosure, but in that disclosure, I finally heard and felt and their emotions and what they're experiencing. And that actually drew me closer to them. Because I finally am understanding what's going on in that mind of theirs. To me, that's such an incredibly important part.

I think so too. And I think that we live in a world where we are increasingly disconnected. As I was hearing you talking about being able to share with somebody, you know, and we often don't share with strangers. I want to challenge our listeners and viewers to look at how often do you turn to AI? Because I know a lot of people that will say, I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to have this conversation. Let me go to AI. Or they have relationships with AI, which are even less connecting than with a human being. Love to challenge our listeners and viewers to look at How am I showing up in my relationships? How am I showing up with my emotions? Even just my emotional honesty about where I'm at.

Mm-hmm.

And, and that would probably be the place to start. How am I emotionally? How, how checked in am I to my own emotions and where are my emotions contradicting what I'm doing or saying versus where I really am? How honest am I, am I being? With my emotions and with other people.

And Marianne, when we do that kind of a gut check, what do we do when we realize that we haven't been being honest? We haven't been being truthful about how we've really felt. And so our spouse in many ways does not even know us because we didn't take a stand or share our emotions or our fears or anxieties. And so we just kind of went with the flow. Maybe even developing internally our own resentment. Like, I'm so resentful that you're doing XYZ, but I'm not able to tell you that because I'm afraid that you'll be upset at me. And so we're living in this world of I'm frustrated, I'm resentful, and you don't even know it.

I'm wondering, Dr. Skinner, how often do you think that happens and we don't even know ourselves?

Well, I'd say often.

I think we're probably pretty emotionally numb a lot of the time. We're going through the emotions of relationships, but not really even engaging. We might not even know where we're at.

You know, I think that's the truth in many cases. And the reason why is when I run groups and do the therapy that I do, it's not uncommon for couples to come to my office or group members to say, I haven't dared to say XYZ. I don't want to fight, or I don't even feel like I can express myself to my spouse because when I do, then it's, oh, it's all about you. And a friend of mine, he once said it really well. He said, in every conversation, we have an opportunity to open someone up or close them down. Our response can help them blossom and flower and let out that energy, the truth, their experiences, their life, or we can shut them down. I think it should be the goal of all of us to find a way to help people open up. Going back to what Thích Nhất Hạnh said about one of my favorite stories is when he talked about Plum Village, where he said, we just get together and we just listen to each other in a deep listening. And we just sit as people talk, or you may not agree, but you meditate while they're talking, trying to understand this human being, what they're sharing, what they're experiencing. I love that concept of deep listening in those type of situations. But we aren't good at it. We're shutting people down because we're uncomfortable with emotions.

Well, I think we're uncomfortable with our own emotions. So we walk in the door and we've got our headphones in and we find some food and we turn on the TV. Like, I think we do— we have a lot of numbing behaviors that we engage in that rather than sitting down and seeing and connecting, we're not— we're not connected to ourselves. We're just kind of going through these motions of kind of dulling our senses ourselves so that we're not really feeling a whole lot. We're just kind of going through. And I think that's important, an important part of this conversation. How emotionally in tune am I with myself?

Yeah.

Where am I medicating so that I don't even feel my emotions? I don't even notice my emotions. Somebody looks at me and I'm okay. I pull up my phone and I go somewhere for a really quick dopamine hit, 'cause that's easier than engaging in conversation.

I wonder, Maryanne, how often we tune out those emotions with our devices, looking at our TikTok or an X or whatever we're looking at, because what has the media done to take us away from emotional stop light that says, let's check in here for a second. Red light. Let's check in. What's going on? I wonder how much we're just turning to other things externally because we don't want to feel, we don't want to experience what we're doing. And so we just readily just turn to some application on our phone and just numb out, doom scroll for a period of time. By the time we get back, we're distracted and we're going and doing something again, rather than this pocket or window of time where we could say, Wow, what am I experiencing? I feel sad.

Right?

I wonder what would happen if we just took some time out in our lives and did an emotional check-in. What am I experiencing? Ups, downs? How am I today? And I think that internal awareness would actually help us to live more intentionally.

And, and so if someone were to say, I don't know how to do that, Dr. Skinner, I think that's where I would start saying, that's okay. And I think it has to be really, really intentional. And I always talk about left pinky toe. Where's your left pinky toe? Ooh, I don't know. Or what's going on with your right elbow or your earlobe or whatever it is. We have to stop and go, let me go find that part of my body. I need to go. Intentionally focus on it and shift my brain consciously to say, let me go find that part of my body and see what sensations are there. It, it's there, it's connected to me, but most of the time we're pretty disconnected and that's how we oftentimes are with our emotions. So being able to say, oh, let me go notice any emotions that I'm feeling. It takes some time and we can do that with a body scan. Let me just notice any tightness, any discomfort in my body. Oh, that's interesting. Oftentimes my clients will say, oh, there's a tightness in my chest. That's Oftentimes in our torso and our chest area, that just our upper part of our body, that's where we're carrying emotion. But most of the time, unless we consciously are aware of it, open, curiously looking for it, we don't know.

And often because we haven't either been trained or we're uncomfortable with our own emotions. See, I think the other side of this is, am I comfortable When I have emotions, I've talked with many people who really express a discomfort. I don't want to feel because when I feel it makes me more anxious and it's kind of like this snowball effect. And so learning how to sit with your emotions and just be an observer without it being a threat, without it influencing your nervous system and just, wow, listen, just notice these things coming into me, feeling the physiology of what's it doing to my body? What are the thoughts that are coming with this? And then you identified some core emotions, right? Mad, sad, glad, right? Happy, disgust, joy. These range of emotions are the most common emotions that we have as human beings. Can I identify them? That's also a skill, is stepping back and realizing what we are experiencing, the emotions. Daniel Goleman wrote a book many years ago called Emotional Intelligence. And I think that that's the concept here is how do I develop this intelligence? And he would actually argue that it is a learned skill. We learn how to increase our EQ, as he calls it, that emotional intelligence. I actually liked that idea because I didn't grow up in a family where emotions were freely discussed. I didn't understand when I got married how to have these more meaningful emotional conversations because I didn't have the template. As I often say, you can't do what you don't know. And so when I read something like emotional intelligence, I'm like, great, I have hope here because I can learn. And to me, that, that's a very important thing. I can learn.

I want to shift some of our conversation. I want to also talk about the contradictions that we have with our emotions. And what I mean by that is how difficult it is if I've been betrayed Or if I'm, you know, either, either party, doesn't matter, but how difficult it can be to desperately want to connect with my partner and yearn for love and connection from my partner and also feel like I hate them. They've hurt me so badly. I want nothing to do with them and how so many times we have emotions that are contradicting. Mm-hmm. They, they don't seem like, how can I sit and have these two different sides? We can feel like, oh, maybe I'm bipolar or something. It doesn't make sense that I have such an opposite range of emotions. And it feels like I'm a little bit crazy because it doesn't make sense.

So what you just described reminds me of a conversation I had with Dr. Al Sieber when he was talking about resiliency. Because he identified the traits of resilient people. And one of his core findings is what he called both/and, not either/or. And that was his language. So I asked him about that and he said, you know, when we think of resiliency, we typically think of it as if this person's really resilient. But he said, what's more accurate is they have resilient traits and they have difficult days and they have those difficult experiences. That don't just disappear. And the more healthy way, he said, to look at resiliency is, I'm developing the skills so when trouble hits, I know how to respond effectively. What you're describing there is a both/and, not an either/or. I hate you, I'm disgusted by you, and I want you to nurture and love me. And so the way he described that, and I firmly believe this is accurate with what you just described. Yes, it's going to be both. And it may even be in the same conversation. So when we put ourselves as an either/or, and this is important for both parties. Well, what, 5 minutes ago you were this way. What's wrong with you? Well, something triggered, something happened, and we shifted into this other place where right now I'm angry and disgusted with you. So which one is it? Well, it's both. It's both. I want you to nurture me and I'm angry at you. Well, how can it be both? You tell me you love me and you cheated on me. How can that be?

And if I, the partner in between that, where do I go? What do I do with that? You don't want anything to do with me, but you want to connect. And so I'm standing here going, I have no idea what to do here. I have no idea how to connect with you because it's fire and ice, fire and ice. What do I do here?

And the best response there is, I'm here regardless of whether it's fire and ice. I want, I want to be with you because you matter to me. And I want to figure this out. And of course, if we have that attitude, like, yes, it's going to be both. Yes, yes, yes, it's going to be both. Then we have an opportunity to look at this and say, oh, this is where we're at. Though I would say that betrayal may add that the depth of the disgust, because I mean, even before the betrayal, there are things you didn't like about your spouse. Now with that, it's like, ugh, right? And then there's this other part that you see them and you still have those parts and those feelings of love. That to me is the reality of life. And I think when we put ourselves in either/or situations, is when we get trapped or stuck. I thought I was through this. I thought I'd recovered. I thought I'd healed from this. Well, no, you're a human being and you're going to continue to have temptations or cravings. And you're also going to have incredible awareness and opportunities to thrive in your recovery because you've got more information than you've ever had. But to think you're never going to be tempted again, or to think you're never going to experience PTSD symptoms again, or trauma symptoms, it's setting yourself up for a failure.

Years ago, I worked with a client who had gone through a really messy, really, really painful divorce. And I remember her talking about seeing her ex at a family event, a funeral or something. And it was so hard for, for her even just to be in the same space with him. And then she walked into a room. And saw from the back and thought, well, that's an attractive man. And then she saw him being really kind, doing something really kind for a child or with somebody else. And she was so attracted to him and she felt so crazy. How could I possibly be attracted to this person who's caused me so much pain? And I think that's what we're talking about. And, and I think if we can give ourselves space And if we can look at our parts, at least I, I really love to look through this parts lens of there's a part of me that's still hurt and there's a part of me that is attracted to the goodness of this person. I think for me, at least, that gives me space to really be able to hold the, the both, the and together. And also that person, my spouse or my partner who's betrayed me. There are good things about them that I love, and there's a part of them that has hurt me. And also, so not just my own parts, but also seeing the parts of other people. I also just wanna add to this conversation that I think one of the most important tools in understanding our emotions and other people's emotions is my emotions are mine. They're my responsibility to manage. So many times I hear my clients say, well, I can't do that cuz so-and-so won't like that, or so-and-so will be uncomfortable. And so we hold back or we betray ourselves and then we build the resentment. If we can recognize the person who's sharing right now, even if they're screaming at me, these are their emotions. They're actually not about me. It's, this is about where they're at in this space and time. And if I can detach and just kind of be curious about that, I don't have to take it personally. Whatever's coming out of them is really just what they're feeling, what they're experiencing, which has nothing to do with me per se. I may have some behaviors that have influenced how they're feeling, but what's coming out of them is their emotions. And if I can say, oh, Oh, that's theirs. That gives me a little bit more freedom to be empathetic and to have compassion towards them if I'm not owning it, if I'm not taking it on as my own. And I think that's an important emotional boundary. That's yours and that's okay, and you need to manage yours and I need to manage mine, and we can co-regulate here if we can hold space for each other's emotions and I don't have to react just because you are having a big reaction. That's yours, not mine.

That's a perfect segue into the final concept today of emotional contagion. That's what you're describing. You're feeling emotionally intense. Emotional contagion is I come up to that intensity and match it. So that's typically what happens. You're feeling down, depressed. I feel down, depressed. You feel anxious. I feel anxious. That's emotional contagion. When we get into trauma and acting out behaviors and shame, the contagion that occurs prevents us from doing what you just said, co-regulating, holding each other. And so when we break or interrupt that cycle, then that means the contagion is I'm allowing you to have that emotion. And I say allowing because I can shut down your emotion. So I'm allowing that emotion and I'm honoring that you're there. And I can be with it in a productive way or an unproductive way. And that's the difference between emotional contagion, where I match it and where I can separate myself out. That concept is so incredibly important. It's actually part of the Intimacy Repair Method course, because if you're emotionally contagious with each other, it's like a virus. You both get sick. And ultimately, we need to be able to understand emotions, not feel threatened by them, understand them in a productive way. So the conversation can lead to a connection and understanding, not one of separation or shutting it down.

So I have, if I were a listener, I have one question here and I don't know the answer. Maybe as you're responding, I may have some thoughts show up, but I often have clients say I'm an empath. I soak up everybody else's emotions. And I'm wondering, about your thoughts in this conversation. If I'm struggling with absorbing all the emotions around me, how does that fit in here?

That's a perfect example. So if I'm an empath, then the contagion of other people's life experiences can overwhelm my nervous system. Because I look at this more of a nervous system experience. What's it doing to me being an empath and taking on other people's experiences? If it's overwhelming my nervous system, then I'm probably not going to allow myself to get too close to them. Or I will take on what they're experiencing and tell them how I would solve that problem because I'm trying to overemphasize the experience because it's now my experience and you're the one going through it, but I'm literally sharing it through my lens. So it can be too much and the nervous system can get overwhelmed.

And so this is a place where we need to figure out then some boundaries to not let that energy in, to not soak it up and to not all of the other emotions coming off of the other person. I think is what you're saying as well.

We could go on in this conversation. This could be its own podcast because, and eventually again, we have to talk about that. Am I taking on the load of their emotions of other people? And is it overwhelming my nervous system? And so being able to separate out, but I think that awareness that I'm actually experiencing that is really a first step is, am I taking on too much of other people's experiences? And if so, then I'm anticipating how they're going to respond. And I'm anticipating this and I'm anticipating that because that's how our brain works. But if I'm anticipating all of that, I don't allow myself to step back and look at what's happening to me internally.

Right. I'm getting hijacked from outside sources constantly. Yeah. Thank you for answering that, Dr. Skinner. I think that's a question that if I were listening, I would have wanted to ask. So we hope it's great.

Great conversation today, MaryAnn. Any final thoughts?

If you've had any emotions coming up while you listen to our podcast, invite you to take care of yourself. Our intent is to always bring helpful content, helpful ideas, helpful conversation, and we're really grateful for you being here. And I'm grateful, Dr. Skinner, for this conversation, for your time today. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, MaryAnn. And thank you to our listeners. You guys have a great week and we'll look forward to seeing you again. Here on the Human Intimacy Podcast. Thank you so much for being with us.