What to Do When Repair Doesn’t Make You Feel Close

This podcast episode is sponsored by Quince. Now that the nights are getting cooler, there's nothing better than getting into a really comfortable bed at the end of the day. Quince has become one of my go-tos for bedding because the quality is just so good. It lasts, and I love the color selection. And Greg and I have completely different sleep needs, so in order for us to sleep in the same bed, I use Quince bamboo sheet sets to help keep me cool. What I love about Quince is they make beautiful hotel-quality bedding in natural materials, from soft European linen to breathable organic cotton. Plus they have quilts, coverlets, and duvet inserts for those extra cozy layers. And everything is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands because Quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middle person. So you're paying for the quality, not the traditional brand markup. And it's not just bedding. Quince brings that same thoughtful approach to everything they make, from apparel and home essentials to cookware and furniture. We've gotten a few of our favorite clothing pieces from Quince as well. I love Quince's Quince bedding, and I know you will too. Make your bed your favorite place this season with Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to quince.com/tracy. Get free shipping on your order, and their 365-day return makes it so easy to change your mind. Now available in Canada and the UK. That's quince.com/tracy.

Propel Fitness Water with Gatorade electrolytes, zero sugar, and vitamins. Propel hydrates better than water to help you get the most out of your workout and get back to your best self. What propels you? Propel with Gatorade electrolytes.

Push your limits, train with precision, see the results. At Equinox, that's high-performance living. Iconic spaces that inspire. Personal training backed by real data. Unlimited group fitness classes from yoga and Pilates to strength and conditioning. Elevate your post-performance ritual with saunas, steam rooms, cold plunges, and more. Everything you need to lock in and unlock your potential at Equinox. Start today at equinox.com.

Welcome to Dear Dr. Tracy, the podcast that dives deep into the messy, beautiful world of relationships. I'm Dr. Tracy, clinical psychologist, relationship expert, and your go-to guide for navigating relationships boundaries, in-laws, and everything in between. Whether you're striving to rekindle the spark, set healthy limits, or build deeper connections, this is the space where real talk meets expert advice. Together, we'll tackle the tough questions, untangle the sticky situations, and uncover the small shifts that lead to big transformations in your relationships. So grab a coffee, settle in, and let's rewrite the stories you tell yourself. This is Dear Dr. Tracy. Your guide to creating relationships that feel good. If you've ever had that moment where you got stuck in conflict, then you did all the right things and repaired, and then you still didn't feel close after, this episode is for you. And I'm so glad you clicked play today. I'm going to share a recent experience between Greg and I. Now, this was one of those moments where, like all couples, we got stuck because Here's always what I want you to take away from the conversations that we have is it is healthy to have conflict because when you have conflict, you have this experience of moving apart from each other and then you come back closer together. Why do you come back closer? Because conflict gives us the chance to understand what is it that we need that maybe has not yet been said or stated. So this happened between us and what I want to do today is I want to talk about How do you then feel closer after? Because people experience that moment where you've said the things, you've repaired, and you just don't know how to then move past it. Okay, if you have not yet taken my free repair quiz, press pause and go take that now. It is such a cool tool. A lot of quizzes are going to put you in a box in terms of who you are. You learn your attachment style, you learn the relationship cycle. What I love about this quiz that I developed is that it's going to tell you what you need in order to get through the repair, and it also gives you a script you can copy and paste it. Now, one of you sent me the most beautiful DM, and you had said that you had tears reading the script of what you need to hear most when you are in that hard moment. And this person in our community, she then sent it to her husband, and her husband took the quiz And this is so cool because this is this is what I just hope to happen in this space. Her husband took the quiz, and then they had a powerful conversation afterwards where they both understand oh, this is what's getting us stuck. This is how we understand repair and moving close. So that that's just incredible.

All right.

Now that you've taken the quiz, I am going to tell you about that sticky moment last week. It is just such a human moment. I had coordinated. for us to have a date night. So both of the kids were out of the house. That is a very rare experience to happen at night. And knowing one of our strengths within our relationship, I tend to know what I want to do for a date night. So I said to Greg, why don't we stay in? I had a full busy day of clients, so I wasn't going to feel up for going out and then sitting in a restaurant, and it's noisy, and now I'm overstimulated with noise, but I'm already overstimulated from my day. So I sent him a text. And I took on the load of letting him know what I had hoped for. I said, I envisioned us playing a game tonight, something to connect. We've at some point in the last few years learned to play Ticket to Ride. I really like it. I was never really a strategy person game, but we have a lot of fun doing it. So I said, order what you want or make what you want. It doesn't matter to me. Just go ahead and do that. And can you get the game ready so that when I come home— I was coming home well after 6:30 because of my full day. And then I arrived home and I see the game on the table. And then the first thing Greg says to me is such a human thing. He says, what do you want for dinner? And in that moment, I just felt my gut sink. And I thought, oh, I was trying so hard to give you this date night to make it easier for you to make it so that we both participated in planning? And hang on, I know if you are one of the listeners who happens to be a male and you've bumped up against mental load and cognitive load conversations, you're probably thinking, what's so wrong with that?

Greg was coming to you and asking, what do you want to eat?

How considerate. He's not just assuming that you're going to have a plate of pasta and make you this big bowl of pasta meatballs and it's not your thing.

Yes.

And okay, 2 truths. Something that Greg and I have talked about is called the decision fatigue. And oftentimes, part of my load that I really struggle with is that I am the decider. I make the decisions. What's for dinner? Or what time should we put the kids to bed? And I think this is such a common experience. And I remember one time coming home to him and he had asked me, what's for dinner? So it's a bit of my trigger point. He had said, what's for dinner? And I said, you know, love, I've just made 1,000 decisions already, and it's now 5:30. This is another day a few years ago, and I just need you to make a decision for dinner so that it's not one more choice I have to make. I know Zach also talks about this in the mental load work that he does, and he encourages men and fathers to practice giving their partners the choice because then you are doing the labor already. So let's even reframe this. Had he come to me and said, hey, Do you want pizza or chicken bites? Because we found these really delicious chicken bites. If he had come to me and given me those 2 options, that to me would have said he already did the thinking behind this, and now I just have to make a decision. And that's not what happened. So we just had one of those tough moments where I felt disappointed, he felt like he had failed me, and there's our cycle right there. We ended up going through the repair. We were both able to see what each of our parts were in it and to talk about how we're going to move forward and to really take ownership and accountability. And By the way, if you haven't, I have other episodes around what repair looks like, around the good ones, around the not so good ones. I'm going to link one of my favorite episodes. I did this one with Greg and we talked about a bad apology, and you need that one. So we went through the repair, we did all of the steps, and then we moved forward with our night. Now here's the thing though, is that the feeling lingered.

Mm-hmm.

And I just felt myself really in that shutdown place afterwards. And fair enough, someone could be thinking, really, Tracy, about him asking you what's for dinner? And this is where I'm gonna go with this part, okay? Because while it sounds small, whatever name— as you're listening, if you're out walking, if you're doing a task, just pause for a moment. Name for me the last starting point. What was the trigger into the last time you and your partner got into a disagreement? Was it dishes? Was it the laundry not being done? Was it chicken? When I sat with Rayne and Chantel on the podcast, they had shared the conversation about burnt chicken. It's always 9 outta 10 times something so small. I have heard it all. In my book, I Didn't Sign Up for This, I share the story about sausages. Emily and Matt come into my office and they're arguing about sausages, but I know it's not really about sausages because it's about the deeper thing. What is it really about? And that is when we can drop into the harder, more painful emotions and the attachment longings and needs, or even our fears that we don't tend to sit in and we tend to share. Someone recently asked me, is it ever just about the dishes?

Yes.

Sometimes it is just about the dishes. Please, can you do the dishes? I asked you to do the dishes. Can you please just do them for me? Sometimes it is just about the thing, but a lot of times it's about what the thing represents. And if I were to dig a little bit deeper and share this with you, what this represented for me was a deeper feeling of being unseen. I had worked the day back to back with clients, meaning I didn't have a beat for myself. And then I was being asked to make another decision. And that for me is my core wound of not being And these wounds, if you haven't yet explored them with me through my quiz or in my other resources available, these wounds don't just start with our partner. They're mirrored back to us from our partner. And that I think is so tricky because if I were to sit in our conversation with Greg and say, it's your job to see me, you have to do this, this, this, that's not me digging into also my own stuff. And how then do I allow myself to be seen within the context of my life?

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This piece about the repair and how so many people I know can relate to that feeling, which is you've repaired and now you just don't feel close. And it was really interesting to observe myself afterwards. And by the way, if you're new to the podcast, if your partner has just sent this one over to you, here's what I want you to know. I, as a psychologist and couples therapist, I'm not yours here on the podcast, but I'm a human first. I love taking these everyday moments and opening them up because I know if it's not us having conflict about date night, I know it's the next person who is struggling about planning what to do with the kids, or the next person who had conflict with their in-laws, or so it sounds like that. And I love then taking what we as ordinary people experience and then opening it up. And applying the strategies, the concepts, the understandings, the conceptualizations of what my world is like as a therapist psychologist. So here's what I think happens after conflict is that the front of your brain says, okay, we did the thing. I heard the story. I heard us talk about how we're going to move forward. And the behaviors we're going to change next time and how we'll plan about that. I heard it. And yet I don't want to be close to you. What's up with that? I believe that part of that is your nervous system. It's your body. So here's the analogy I like to think of. You know, in that moment when you're driving in the car, you're on the highway. So I'm in Canada, 120 kilometers an hour, and someone just about swerves into your lane and you slam on the brakes. And then you resume. And for me, what I've experienced in my body is that, oh, okay, we're out of danger. Danger is no longer there. Or you're in the woods, the bear is there, you've changed paths. Okay, good. I'm out of danger. I'm no longer in danger. But guess what happens? Your body is still trying to catch up. So in the car example, I'm feeling tingles through my fingertips. My legs are tingling, my heart is still racing, and it takes a solid beat to come back down. I believe that to be true in our romantic relationships and actually any of our relationships is that it takes time for your nervous system to catch up to what the front of your brain already knows. And that also too is something that Dr. Dan Siegel talks about in his Mindsight book. It's a 2013 book. It's older, one of my favorites, but it's the connection between the front of our brain and the back of our brain, the connection between our limbic system, the back of the brain, and your prefrontal cortex, which is the one that can say, okay, we've been through this.

Today's episode is sponsored by Primal Queen. Okay, I know this sounds a little wild, but one of the most nutrient-dense foods humans have eaten for generations is also something most of us have largely stopped eating: organ meat. And honestly, I understand why, because I'm not asking Greg to cook me liver for breakfast. But I've been learning more about it, and I discovered that beef liver now naturally contains nutrients like vitamin B12, vitamin A, iron, and copper, and that it contains more iron than many familiar cuts of beef. What interested me is that it isn't about finding one magic nutrient, but that our bodies rely on a network of nutrients that support our normal functionings— things like energy production, healthy blood cells, our cognitive function, our immune health, and our muscle recovery. And I know preparing it and knowing this about organ meat are 2 completely different things. And that is actually what interested me about Primal Queen. They've put nutrient-dense beef organs into 2 easy capsules a day. There is nothing to cook or mix. You don't taste the organs, and the bag even smells like peppermint. And the quality of the organs also matters. Primal Queen uses grass-fed, pasture-raised organs with no added hormones or antibiotics. Their product is gluten-free, it's non-GMO, it's third-party tested and encapsulated in FDA-registered facilities in the United States. They also have more than 25,000 reviews and a 4.6-star rating. It's important to know where you are with nutrients, especially things like iron and vitamin A. If you are pregnant, taking medication, managing a health condition, or wondering whether this is right for you, please speak to your healthcare provider. For a limited time only, our listeners are getting a free month of Primal Queen plus 4 free gifts at primalqueen.com/tracy. That's primalqueen.com/tracy. Dot com slash Tracy to get a free month and four free gifts today. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. So please support the show and let them know we sent you.

So let me normalize here that if you've had conflict recently and you struggled to feel close after. It is normal to struggle with this. That is the first thing I want you to hear from me today, because maybe like me, what I did after that is I heard the voice of shame inside of me. Oh, she's a tricky one. She said to me, "Oh Tracy, here you are. You're difficult. You're too sensitive. You really hold on to this. Why can't you just move forward?" Oh. Shame for me is often the, why can't you? Why can't you just? That one is so sticky and I don't like it. And I also know this part of me has been a protective part and I don't need to get rid of her, but I also don't need to follow and listen to her and let her guide me, right? Because the shame piece, if I were to follow that part of me, then I would be like, oh, okay. So just go over there and do this and do that. And I would just would not feel aligned and connected with myself. So that's one piece. Recognize where you go right afterwards. This is a normal thing people experience. And I really like the aspect of bringing in compassion. When I first started to learn tools, this is more around Kristin Neff's work. When I first learned self-compassion, I found this to be a really powerful strategy with my clients because so many of us get stuck in this critical shame and blame Place on ourselves, not necessarily on others, but on ourselves. You're so stupid. Why can't you just, you should know better. And so people would come to me in therapy and I repeatedly bumped up against this experience. People would come to me repeatedly and they would say something like, I'm having a struggle with this. And they would name a very normal struggle, struggles that many people have. But then the very next thing outta their mouth would be, and it's so stupid that I'm struggling with this. I can tell you for certain that does not move you forward. I've sat with people for years and that criticism, that shame, and that blame on yourself or even on others doesn't move anyone forward. And the antidote to that then is fierce self-compassion. I say fierce because oftentimes people think compassion is like, oh yeah, just be nice to you and say the nice thing. No, compassion can sometimes say something like, I'm having a boundary where I'm not going to open this person's text message, and that's me looking after myself in such a kind, loving, nurturing way. It might also sound like saying to you, using the more softer, kind part, which is, I'm struggling and it makes sense to struggle, or I haven't been able to move past this yet, or of course I'm struggling with this. I love the words Yet, and of course, they are so humanizing and grounding and supportive and compassionate. So I brought in compassion for myself in this moment of, of course you're struggling with this. This makes complete sense. You've just had a piece of conflict. Your body is exhausted. You're tired. You had expectations and hope. So of course you got into a hard moment. And so of course then it's hard for you to move past that.

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I want to pause here and offer another piece of support for you. If you are struggling with conflict where you just are not able to move through it, and you've heard lots of people say the repair is the most important skill, and also I want to back that up by also saying, if you have never been modeled the repair, you can't expect yourself to know how to do it. That's why one of my most popular workshops is actually called After the Fight. Mm-hmm. How to feel close again? That's the piece that I want people to really learn. So I'm giving you one piece here in the workshop. I break down four steps for you so that you and your partner, you can follow it.

Four steps.

I break it down. What are the four things that you need to do for a really solid repair? I also walk you through a lot of the things that you don't want to do at the beginning, and then I also talk about why repairs are so hard. I had one person in our community share a message with me after that workshop, saying she had pages. Of notes afterwards, which was so cool to hear. And I'm also in that workshop, I break it down and give you multiple ways for you to then feel close, because that's the most common thing is what I'm talking about here is it's hard to feel close again after. But I'm not going to leave you hanging today. I want to give you 3 small things that you can try next time if you struggle to feel close, if this lands for you like it did for me last week in that hard moment, so that you, first of all, you've done all the things Or you take my workshop so that you know how to do the things. But then second of all, you don't get stuck in blame, shame, or criticism of yourself because something feels hard. You now can say, okay, you know what? Dr. Tracy struggles with it too. Me too. This is a normal human experience. As I'm saying that, you don't get to see the video. I'm holding my heart. My hand is on my heart. I think it is such a compassionate thing to be able to say to yourself. So now here, I want you to then remember this key piece, okay? Before I give you the 3 things that you can try, and you get to choose which one's best for you, I want you to remember. This. Oftentimes what we do is we wait to feel a certain way before we take action. I want you to know that this is problematic because feelings, they are going to stick. And when we have more distressing feelings like anger, uncertainty, anxiety, sadness, pain, loss, grief, guess what shows up even louder beside those feelings? It's the stories. The stories get louder and stronger. And oh boy, are we so good at telling stories about ourselves and our partners. Okay, so I want you to know this: don't wait to feel like you want to. This is the understanding that taking action is more important than waiting for the feeling to be true. And I want you to hear this from me. You're allowed to feel what you feel. Your feelings are real and they matter and they're important. And at the same time, they don't have to guide the action because you clicked play on here, which already tells me one of your values. If you're part of this community, it means that your relationship matters to you. And so in those moments where you're thinking, oh, I just can't get close and we've done the repair and I just don't wanna be close and I'm still digging my heels in, you come into the What really matters to me right here, my relationship, being close, and I can do things that still feel aligned, that are aligned with my values and what is important to me, and hold my feeling at the same time. Now, that's a really interesting piece because it almost requires you to have this tension between these 2 things. And the tension is, I have this feeling and I've often thought that I should get rid of the feeling before I do the thing. Well, no, I can hold the feeling and also Do the thing. Here are 3 things you can consider next time. Okay. One is physical touch. I often think about my babies when they were crying, young toddlers bumping their heads, or even just last night when one of them bumped their heads. I don't pat them at a distance and go, there, there, you're good. I hold them tight and we need that. So find a way to have physical touch that feels good for you. Here are some ideas. You could put your feet on your partner's lap as you sit on the couch. You could go for a walk and hold hands. That would be a great one because that's the bilateral movement, and that one is really good for your body. Hold hands. You could have a 30-second hug. I love 30-second hugs because that's going to release oxytocin. Okay, that's the cuddle hormone. It's the bonding hormone that makes you feel close, and it's just 30 seconds. Find some way To have your bodies touch each other. Maybe you watch a show, but you're not on opposite ends of the couch on your phones. You're close together. And if a full snuggle does not feel good, don't do the full snuggle. Find what feels good. Maybe this one is not it. Maybe you do the second one. The second one is to share one thing. So sit beside your partner and share one thing from your day. The conflict you just had and how you've worked through it, keep it off the table. Every time you go back into it, your nervous system ramps back up again and you're just going to spiral more into it. And I get it because here's a hard Sometimes our bodies and our brain are so familiar with conflict. And so instead of actually sitting and sharing about something really good about our day, we then do this whole conflict spiral of, okay, I'm going back into it. That feels familiar. I know how to do this. I don't want you to do that. So share something that— an experience you had, a moment that sparked joy for you, or a moment that felt hard. And the condition on that though is you both listen to each other. Okay, last one. Do one small thing for the other person. This might be texting them with something that you appreciate about them. This might be pouring the coffee for them. Maybe it's even getting their lunch out or getting their toothbrush ready with the toothpaste at night, whatever that could be. Something small that says to them, we're in this together and I'm so glad it's us. All right, I want to hear from you. I'm always super curious. Are you someone who has a hard time after conflict being able to move forward? And if you are, are you one of those people who goes to that place of maybe there's something wrong with our relationship, or we need to dig more and figure out why this happened, or what, what does that sound like for you? Head over to Instagram, send me a DM. Or I'm also over on Facebook or in my emails. If you're on my newsletter, you know I'm there. People who are on my newsletter, I absolutely love this part actually. Every news— every week we send out 2 newsletters. One is my deeper thinking, the other one connects to this podcast. And I have some really stellar replies from all of you. It's one of my favorite things actually. So anyways, send me a reply. Let me know what you think, what resonates from this episode. Are you the one who has a hard time just moving forward? Is it your partner? And maybe this is actually helping you to understand that.

for them.

And if you are looking for more support, I've got links in the show notes for you to do that. If you are looking to book a fall intensive, I have one spot available this fall. This is one of the most beautiful ways I have come to work with couples. I absolutely love spending this time with you, and I'll leave more of that, that detail in the show notes. I'm finding it's more impactful for couples that when you are feeling stuck, when you have a really specific issue you are trying to work through, I get it. It makes sense to not spend a year in couples therapy. And I also get that when you do commit to once a week session or 1-hour sessions, that life is so busy between you and your partner and managing the kids and trying to navigate work and visits with family, all the things. The intensive is a chance for you to deep dive into the patterns and the issue and to actually make those changes. I do them in person and I do them virtually. And what I'm finding It's it's it's I think about the dose effect. If you can only do one hour a month, okay, I get it. I'll meet you there. And at the same time, sometimes that dose is not enough to actually make the changes. And I know that for couples therapy, it takes quite some time before you really start to see the return on investment. As always, thank you for clicking play, and I will see you next week. Maybe Greg will join me next time.

This podcast episode is sponsored by Quince. Now that the nights are getting cooler, there's nothing better than getting into a really comfortable bed at the end of the day. Quince has become one of my go-tos for bedding because the quality is just so good. It lasts, and I love the color selection. And Greg and I have completely different sleep needs, so in order for us to sleep in the same bed, I use Quince bamboo sheet sets to help keep me cool. What I love about Quince is they make beautiful hotel-quality bedding in natural materials, from soft European linen to breathable organic cotton. Plus, they have quilts, coverlets, and duvet inserts for those extra cozy layers. And everything is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands because Quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middle person. So you're paying for the quality Not the traditional brand markup. And it's not just bedding. Quince brings that same thoughtful approach to everything they make, from apparel and home essentials to cookware and furniture. We've gotten a few of our favorite clothing pieces from Quince as well. I love Quince bedding, and I know you will too. Make your bed your favorite place this season with Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to quince.com/ Get free shipping on your order, and their 365-day return makes it so easy to change your mind. Now available in Canada and the UK. That's quince.com/tracy.

Push your limits, train with precision, see the results. At Equinox, that's high-performance living. Iconic spaces that inspire personal training backed by real data. Unlimited group fitness classes from yoga and Pilates to strength and conditioning. Elevate your post-performance ritual with sauna, Everything you need to lock in and unlock your potential at Equinox. Start today at equinox.com.

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