Episode 161: We’re In Couples Therapy - Ask Us Anything!

Do you ever hope that our therapist takes your side?

Oh, absolutely. I agree. Sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn't.

Hello and welcome to the Pillow Talks podcast. We're your hosts, Vanessa and Zander Marin. I'm a sex Therapist with over 20.

Years of experience, and I'm just a regular dude. We share the ups and downs in our relationship while giving you step by step techniques for improving yours.

Make sure you subscribe for your weekly double date full of totally doable sex tips, practical relationship advice, hilarious and honest stories of what really goes on behind closed bedroom doors, and so much more. It's the sex education you wish you'd had. So a few months back, we released episode 144, surprise. We're in Couples Therapy.

Surprise.

And we talked about our journey of being in therapy in this season of our lives. We shared a lot of, like, practical information about how we found a therapist. And we also got really personal about the resistance one of us had to going and also shared some tips for how to ask your partner to go to therapy with you. So if you haven't listened to that, episode 144, we're in couples Therapy. It's a really good one. Definitely recommend checking it out first.

But.

But after we released that episode, we got so many questions. People wanted to know more about our journey. So we decided to come back today with an Ask Us anything Couples therapy edition. So we gathered all those questions. We also put out a call on Instagram and said, you know, if you have any questions about couples therapy itself or our personal experience of going to therapy, let us know. So we're doing a whole episode about therapy because no shocker here, we're big proponents of it.

We love it.

Despite the resistance that maybe we will maybe get into a little bit more in this episode.

You're being all coy about it. We said in the last episode.

I know. I want people to listen to the first episode because it was. It's a good one.

It is. It is a good one. It is a good one. And yeah, that was. That was one real major question that got asked a lot after that first episode that we haven't answered up until this point.

So.

And we might, we might today, if.

You are curious about therapy overall or just feeling really nosy today, this is a great episode for you to listen to.

But before we do any of that, we gotta read you this week's review of the week. This one is actually about our original couples therapy episode.

Ho ho.

Wow. Fortuitous. Fortuitous.

We don't pick These reviews of the week, by the way, our team does, so we can be surprised by them.

Yeah. So our team did a really good job picking a, you know, a synergistic review to give. This person says been loving this podcast started with the why we're child free episode, which I loved. And then kept listening to the others. As a new therapist married to another therapist, these topics are my jam. I appreciated their vulnerability during the couples therapy episode so much. It actually made couples therapy sound fun. Ha ha. My partner and I don't have any issues right now, but I hope that we do down the line so that we have a reason to go.

We will talk about that in this episode, actually. But thank you. Thank you so much for that review, guys. This is something I did not know before I had a podcast. Reviews actually are important. I just thought they were kind of meaningless.

It's like a vanity thing.

Yeah, but they genuinely are so important for a couple of reasons. One, the more and better reviews a podcast has, Spotify and Apple are more likely to show it in the like suggested podcast section. And two, people who are stumbling around. Stumbling, that sounds people who are like looking for a new podcast to listen to, they are going to look for ones that have higher reviews because, like, who wants to waste your time with a poorly reviewed podcast, right? So it just makes the podcast more enticing to new people. And we're on a big mission here, guys. Like, we really want to change lives. We want to bring more intimacy into the world. And so we need your support helping us reach more people. So we would be so grateful if you take the time. It's like 60 seconds just to leave us a quick review. And here's how you do it. Go on over to the main, main pillow talks page in Apple Podcasts. Scroll down to the bottom and you'll see where you can star. Like leave a star rating and leave a review of the podcast. If you're not on Apple Podcasts, if you're on like Spotify or Google, you can give us five stars. And also make sure to follow the podcast wherever you are listening to it as well. All of those things help. But if you hear your review read in an episode, you are the winner of a prize. So. So you can email us@infomtherapy.com it's just our little way of saying thank you, thank you, thank you for helping support the podcast.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

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So I guess we should just get right into it. We were a little coy in that first episode and we said very vaguely why we had decided to start couples therapy. It's not our first stint in couples therapy. Like I said, we're big supporters of it. We've been to couples therapy other times before and for other reasons, but we were coy about why we were there.

We were also really in the midst of like working through the thing that we went through there for.

We were in the messy middle.

Yeah.

We were sharing before everything.

We were in the middle of it, and so it didn't feel appropriate yet to. To share. I mean, I guess we could have waited to record that first episode a bit longer, but we also just wanted to be vulnerable and, like, tell you what's going on.

And Ron, in the moment. So, of course, by far and away, the number one question that we caught is, why were you there? So, Xander, do you want to share a little bit about why we decided to go to couples therapy?

I do. I do. So we went to couples therapy to decide how to share with all of you guys that I have a history with addiction. So a number of years ago, I asked for some help getting sober because I needed it, and I've been sober ever since then. So this has been quite a journey for me. On the one hand, it's been a really private journey. It's something that I talk about just with, like, my close friends and family and. And, you know, like, not with half a million people. Right. But on the other hand, that sobriety, that journey I've been on, it's a huge part of who I am now, and a big part of what Vanessa and I do, what we're passionate about, is sharing who we are. Right. So backing it up a little bit, like, early on in my sobriety journey, we both decided it just didn't really feel appropriate to share publicly because, like, one, it was really new at the time, and two, I wasn't even involved in the business, like, in the same way that I am now. Like, we certainly weren't, like, doing podcasts together and showing up on Instagram together all the time and stuff like that. So it just didn't really feel like that was the time. But what we both were in total agreement of was like, yeah, somewhere down the line, it's gonna feel right to share, but we don't know when that's gonna be. And we just kind of left it at that. So the years went by, and I started feeling more and more like, this is something that I'm feeling ready more and more ready to share. And then eventually was feeling like, yeah, you know what? I am ready to share. So I was the one that asked if we could go to couples therapy just to talk through, like, what is it going to feel like to share that with our audience? How am I going to share that? How are we going to share that? How are we going to feel about that? What might come up for Both Vanessa and me. And when we share that, yeah, this.

Is a really vulnerable piece of information to share. Like, there's a lot of judgment around addiction, and there's a lot of secrecy around it, despite the fact that I think pretty much every family is touched by addiction in one way or another.

It's so pervasive.

It's this huge, shameful secret that nobody wants to talk about. And I can even speak for myself. Like, I, you know, before having a partner who, you know, had addiction as part of their life, like, I had my own preconceived notions about it.

I did, too. That's one of the. That's one of the main reasons why so many people struggle to ask for help in the first place, is because everybody so desperately wants to not have to label themselves that way. I certainly struggled with that.

And so being, you know, having such a public platform, I was really nervous about the kind of response that we were going to receive. Like, I was always supportive of the idea of Xander sharing his truth. I knew that that was important, and I knew that it was yet another way that we could serve you guys, like, to just share his story and to be open about it and try to take away. You know, we're all about busting up shame, mostly around sex, but we're starting to, like, talk a little bit about the shame, you know, around addiction as well, too. So I was just. I was scared, I'll be totally honest. Like, I was scared of the kind of reaction that we would receive. Like, are we gonna get really judgmental and mean responses from people? We worried people might feel let down. And I also worried about even the positive ways that we would impact people, like, how that might be overwhelming. Like, getting a lot of stories from people saying, I'm struggling with addiction. What do I do? Or my partner struggling with addiction but won't get help? What do I do? And just, like, the weight of that. I mean, when you have almost 600,000 people, you know, just on Instagram alone, that's like, not even counting our other communities that we've built. Like, it's just a lot of people, a lot of energy. And so I wanted us to feel prepared with how to manage that energy. And so, you know, some of the resistance that came up for me initially was it was so interesting because it's like we were both on the same page about wanting to share this, and I think both going into it with eyes wide open of the potential impacts that it could have. But my feeling was like, shouldn't this be Something that we should be able to talk about ourselves. Like, it wasn't a problem. I'm putting that, like, in little air quotes, you know, but we. Yeah, we just kind of kept tripping up, having the conversation about, like, what would this look like and what could it feel like, and what would we do if we got this kind of response? And so eventually it did get to the point where I felt, you know, I've got to stop judging myself and putting this label on, like, oh, we can't do it ourselves. What's wrong with us that we, like, can't have what seems to be a very clear and easy conversation? And I had to get to the point of recognizing, like, it's. It's valuable and this is a big enough decision to bring somebody else in to help us figure it out.

Yeah, I mean, kind of like how I needed help. I had to come to the realization that I couldn't do this alone with myself, you know, getting sober. And, yeah, we. We realized, like, yeah, we want. We. We want a neutral third party who can help us walk through some of this stuff.

Yeah. So we actually, after that first episode came out, we did a very. Xander did a very short story on Instagram, just, like, sharing the most bare bones part of it. And we didn't even say, like. I don't think we did say that was the reason from the podcast episode. We just kind of wanted to, like, dip our toe in and see what it was like. Unfortunately, the responses that we got were so supportive. Like, people were just really kind and shared. Like, thank you for your vulnerability and your honesty and sharing that. So it gave us the courage and the confidence to continue moving forward and, like, sharing more parts of the story. But it's still really fucking vulnerable. Yeah, really fucking hard. Like, I know that there are people who are going to judge you and judge us for it. And that's scary and sad and really just hard. It's really hard. So I. Yeah, it's important to me to, like, keep being vulnerable and open and keep sharing. I think that, like, the more that we can share, the more we can help people feel not alone in their struggles again. Two very different topics with sex and addiction, but the same sort of theme, like, our belief in the power of sharing and vulnerability. But that all that being said, it doesn't make it any easier. So I'm glad. I'm really glad. I'm, like, tripping over my words. I'm glad that we had the support to talk about it and had a safe space to just feel into all the emotions that came up. Because there were a lot of emotions that came up.

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I just want to say, if you're listening to this, if you or someone in your life is struggling with alcohol or substance addiction, the very best advice that I can give you is, number one, go to an AA meeting. They are everywhere in the world. It is very non judgmental, whether it's alcohol or substances. Like, just, just try to look for an AA meeting. You can probably find one, whether in person or virtual, like within the next hour. And then two, like just Google substance treatment centers in your area. Like, those are the two very best pieces of advice I can give you. There's zero shame in asking for help. In fact, it's a lot easier when you have some help. You do not have to do this alone.

And I'll say for all the people out there who haven't experienced addiction personally, take some time to feel into your preconceived notions about it. And again, I was there with you too. I really thought that addiction was simply a matter of willpower, of like, well, they just don't really want it. Like, they don't want it that bad to stop. If you really wanted to stop, you would stop. I really thought that. And even going through graduate school, being trained as a therapist, like having to take addiction courses, like, I still kind of came out of it thinking that a little bit. And I realize now how wrong that is, how important it is that we look at addiction as an illness, as a disease, and give people struggling with addiction the same sort of compassion and empathy we give somebody struggling with cancer or struggling with depression. Like, it's a really difficult, really difficult thing to go through. And it takes so much bravery and courage to get sober. So I'm just, oh, babe. I just want to send a little shout out to anybody out there who's is sober or just really wants to get sober. Like, it's really brave. It's really brave. And I. Oh, I did not expect that. It's really brave. And I admire you and I hope that you get. I hope that you get the support that you need.

Thank you. Thank you. I feel like I have it. I feel like I have it.

I wasn't talking to you, but.

Oh, whoops.

But I mean, I'm also talking about me.

Classic, classic addict behavior.

Okay, let's move on. This next question. It actually kind of fits in with a little bit of what we were talking about. A lot of people ask, should you do couples therapy if you don't currently have any problems, I say abso freaking lutely. Therapy is so much more effective and so much easier and so much, and honestly more fun if you go before things are horrible. Like the main thing. You know, speaking as a couples therapist myself, one of the main determining factors in whether or not therapy was going to be successful is how long the couple waited. And that's why it's so tough that there's this stigma around therapy that people don't want to go. And so they end up waiting until, like, somebody's threatened to divorce, somebody's threatened a breakup in order to go. And even for the most skillful therapist, it's really fucking hard to bring a couple back from the brink of disaster. So go before you think you need to go. Every couple can benefit from therapy. Every couple can benefit from better communication skills, more empathy, more awareness and understanding of yourself and your relationship dynamic. Like, we don't learn how to do relationships right, so most of us are just, just mucking our way through. And therapy is a great way that you can learn more tools.

Yeah, I think it's whenever, whenever you're at a point where you start to see, you're starting to see some patterns like, huh, we seem to be. We seem to get into the same type of disagreement often, even if you are skillful at resolving it. And, you know, for the most part, it's something that happens, you know, whatever your feelings are maybe a little bit hurt and everything is fine the next day and you move on. It's like as soon as you're noticing a trend or a pattern of something like, huh, it seems like we keep getting tripped up by this thing. And yeah, we're good at repairing it, but, like, it would be nice if we just didn't get tripped up by this thing or, you know, like, whatever, whatever it is, whether it's a dynamic or you keep having the same fight or, you know, I don't know, you're. You're struggling with different viewpoints on, on something, how to raise your kids or whatever it is. Like, it's so valuable because I think that there's a, there's a really large. If you were to, like, graph out, like, everything is perfect in your relationship to like, you guys are about to break up. And if you were to, if you were to kind of like put this on a, on a continuum, like, you start to notice things being an issue pretty early on, and there's like a long way to go before it really. Things really start to get off the rails. And I Think that's what Vanessa's talking about is we tend to wait really, really long to get help. It's like we start to notice that, huh? Yeah, this, this thing that happens between us, like every couple of months doesn't feel very good, but it's like, doesn't happen that often that like, I'm really going to pay that much attention to it. Like, you can put up with that shit for years and years and years until you can't. So you might as well like identify that really early on and get some proactive help.

And also any sort of milestones too. Like, I love premarital counseling. If you're deciding whether or not to have kids, if you're deciding whether or not to move, like, big milestone decisions are great times to go to therapy too.

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And this kind of leads us right into our next question. We had a lot of versions of this. So one person.

This is a very valid, very valid question.

Yeah, one. One person asked. It seems like many people who go to couples therapy come out worse off. And another person said, do you think therapy sometimes digs up stuff that wasn't a problem? And I think this is a direct reflection of people waiting too long to go to therapy.

This is kind of like, I mean, I thought of a really morbid example, but it's like, God, it seems like people who go see oncologists tend to come out with cancer diagnoses where it's like, yeah, you could look at it that way. If they hadn't gone in there, they would have never known that they had cancer. But like, or you could look at it like, well, no. All these people coming out have cancer, so it must not be a good idea to go to the oncologist.

Yeah. So it's that you've waited too long. And so therapy. Yeah. Once you start it, if you're already on the brink of divorce or breaking up, like, the therapy is not going to be able to save the relationship at that point, so you are still going to go ahead with the breakup. And so a lot of people, like, see this from the outside. Like, oh, my friends, like this couple that I'm friends with went to therapy and then they broke up.

And it seemed like everything was great. It seemed like everything was fine, but.

It'S like you just didn't see the inner workings of the relationship. You didn't see how bad things had gotten. So it's not that the therapy caused the breakup. It's that they waited too long. The therapy couldn't save the relationship.

And I think also another dynamic that can come up which is, like, taking that to the next level. This is a little further beyond the, like, oh, from the outside, it seemed like everything was great, and then all of a sudden, like, they're getting a divorce or they're breaking up. I think it can also be like, it can seem to one partner in a relationship that everything seems totally fine. And it is totally possible that, you know, you have one partner in a relationship who is really upset about a lot of things and keeping things in. And they've been keeping things in for a long time. They've been building resentment. They've been stewing about things. And then you finally go to therapy and all this stuff comes out. And so, I mean, I guess it's ultimately a question of, like, yeah, do you want to be living in a fantasy land where, like, you don't know that your partner is upset about something, and then all of a sudden, one day, they, like, drop the divorce papers on your table and you have, like, no idea why it happened, or, like, would you rather just know what's going on? So I think that that happens a lot. And this is the reason again, it's the reason why we say better to go earlier. It's the reason why we say if you are upset about something, don't hold on to it. You might think that you can just forget about something or push it down and you'll be okay, but, like, you aren't okay when that happens. It gets worse. And yeah, it's way. It's. It's way better to. To have an awkward. A seemingly awkward conversation about how something Felt a bit hurtful right now than it is to like, wait five years and then have a. You know what? I've been, I've been pissed at you for the last five years. I kind of hate you. And like, I've hated you for a long time. And like, this isn't gonna work.

Yeah, yeah. And yeah, in terms of the, like, digging stuff up that wasn't there, it's not like a therapist is like secretly planting things in your head. Like, you hate your husband, you wanna break up with him. You know, therapist isn't like meddling in that sort of way.

Also, that would mean that, like, if they, if they. I mean, if you wanna get really cynical about this, if the therapist is like trying to meddle and trying to get you to break up, like, you're not gonna see them for very long, long either.

So, yeah, it's not that they're introducing anything to the relationship, but sometimes what can happen is that things that you push down or tried to ignore like, resurface and you thought that you were done with them or it wasn't a big deal or enough time has passed. But feelings don't work that way. What we resist persists. If you try to push something down or ignore it, that will not work. It will come back to haunt you. And so that might happen in therapy because now you're, you're talking more openly, you're being more vulnerable with each other. So those things might resurface. But it's not that therapy caused a problem that wasn't there before. Next question. Do both partners have to want to be there in order for it to be productive? Yes.

Yes. I was at. Well, I would say yes and no. Long term. Yes. I do think that there is some space for. If one person really wants to go and the other person is a bit on the fence, but, like, open to trying for a couple of sessions. Yes, you can absolutely do that in the hopes that this, you know, the person that's on the fence will get enrolled in the idea and totally on board within a couple of sessions. What is not going to be helpful is if you have one person that's into it and another person that is, like, checked out and you are going for like months and like, you're just not, like, you're not going to get anything out of it.

I disagree with you on that one. Having sat as a therapist for a lot of people who did not want to be there, it doesn't work if you don't want to be there. Well, I don't Mean, the issue is, I think that want is a strong word. Like, it doesn't need to be. I'm jumping for joy. I'm so excited. I really want to be here. I'm so into it. Like, you can be nervous, you can be unsure if it'll work, you can be scared, you can be anxious, you can be like, I'm. I really don't know. But you have to be willing to give it an honest shot.

Yeah.

Like, I've had clients come in before, couples where it's like, you know, one partner's so excited to be there and the other partner is just stone faced. You get nothing out of them. It's like pulling teeth. And, you know, I know I would know from like the first five to 10 minutes of meeting a new client. Like, this isn't gonna work.

Okay, so let me revise what I was saying. I think that there's a difference between want and willing. Like, yeah, it's great if you both want to be there, but if one of you wants to be there and the other one is willing to be there, I think that is. That is okay. I think that yes, if, that if that willing. If, if you're like, you know what? I don't want to, but I'm willing to do this. And it just stays at willing for like months and months. Like, you're probably not gonna get that much out of it. Like, hopefully that person starts to see the value and starts to actually feel that, oh, yeah, I do want to be here. I see the value in this. I'm getting something out of it. I can see that our relationship is getting something out of it. But yeah, you, as long as the person is willing to, because that, if you're like, I'm willing to, I have some serious resistance. I think if you're open to. I also pro tip talk about your resistance in that first set, like, as early as possible. That is going to be the best way for therapy to be successful is if you are honest about your resistance and you just lay it all out and say like, yeah, say to the therapist, you know what? My partner really wants to be here. Like, she's the one who asked me to come. I'm willing to be here. I have some reservations. I want to talk about them. Here's what I'm resisting. You know, here's what's coming up for me. Like, that's going to give your, your therapist all, you know, everything they know in order to show up as best as possible and to understand, oh, okay, like, you've never been to therapy before, or like, oh, you went to therapy last year and you had a really bad experience or, you know, whatever it is, so that they can kind of like, tailor their approach and, you know, be understanding of where you are at and kind of guide you through, hopefully.

And go. Definitely go back and listen to that episode 144, because we walk you through at the end of the episode, I believe some specific tips for how to talk to your partner and get them into a willing place.

Yeah, I mean, I think as I'm thinking about this more, because I think it's so common in a relationship that one person really does want to go, and they're. They're trying to get their partner from, like, being a hell no to a maybe to a okay, I'm willing to like to a yes. And I think that using the lang, instead of trying to be like, I want you to want to go, that's going to be a really high bar for a partner. That is like a no right now. So it's probably like, you should not use that terminology. Like, oh, I really want you to want to go. Like, let's try to use the word like, hey, would you be willing to do this for our relationship? Not for me, for our relationship. Yeah, I think that that should be really the standard or the benchmark, because if you try to tell someone that's super resistant, I want you to really want this, that's going to be a polarizing thing. They're going to be like, well, I don't want that right now. So screw, like, screw that. How am I going to want to do that versus, what is it that you need in order to get from resistant to, like, willing enough? All right, next question. Babe, now that. Now that we are willing enough, how do you know if you should start with couples therapy or individual therapy?

This is a good question. I say if there's any sort of issue coming up between the two of you, start with couples therapy. I just think for most couples, like, that's a better starting point. Of course, you guys are unique individuals, and there's definitely great work that you could do individually. I mean, the ideal circumstance would be that you're both in couples therapy and you're both in individual therapy, but that's a whole lot of therapy.

You have to be. You have to really want.

Yeah, you have to really want that. It's a lot of money. It's a lot of time commitment. I understand that that might be tough for people.

There's a lot that you will get out of that, though, if you are really invested in your personal development. Oh, you will, you will be shocked at how, how much bang for your buck you do get.

Yes. I mean, I'm, I'm all for that. I'm a big proponent of that. I'm just saying, like, I know a lot of people, especially people who are nervous about therapy in general. Like, that might feel like a tall order. So.

I know. Yeah, no, no one wants. Who's like, never done. This is like, okay, cool. Yeah, let's do it. For all therapies, three therapists, let's go from zero to three.

So I would say start with couples therapy. And a lot of people, you know, a lot of people when they were asking this question, there was a lot of self blame coming up. And most of this was from women of like, well, I feel like I'm the one with the problem. I'm the one that needs to be fixed. And I just believe, like, there's any sort of dynamic between the two of you, then the two of you should get help together. It's not a, like, it's not a blame. It's not a whose fault is it? Like, of course you might have brought different stuff, you did bring different stuff into the relationship than your partner did, but we don't need to compare. We don't need to identify the problem child. So I would only go to individual therapy if you're like, I'm struggling with something personally outside of the relationship. Outside of the relationship, it has no bearing on my partner. So, like, like, if you're dealing with depression or anxiety and, you know, there's. It's nothing about, like, I'm depressed because of my relationship or I have anxiety about my partner, you know, not being emotionally vulnerable with me unless it's something like that. You know, if it's purely a you thing or you have some sort of past trauma that you want to resolve, but even then, like, having your partner there along with you, because the trauma is probably affecting them too. Like, it's just all my long winded way of saying in 95% of cases, I think starting with couples is generally best.

And you can absolutely ask your couples therapist, hey, I'm really open to your feedback. If you, you know, if we got to a point where you think that there are any of these dynamics or things that I would be better served addressing in individual therapy, like, your therapist will absolutely tell you that, like, you know, it's their job to be, like, upfront and honest with you about that, where it's like, hey, it feels like we've addressed everything that we can as a couple. I think there are some things that you could explore on your own that would be, that would be more beneficial. And I think the, like, the flip side of this, the reason, another reason why it's great to start with couples therapy is if you, if you already have a sense, this is probably a couples therapy thing, but you were to go to individual therapy first. I think what might come up for you as the person who wants to do this, you might actually end up, end up having some bigger feelings or almost resentment towards your partner. Because what will likely happen is you'll go see an individual therapist, you'll start talking about it, you'll kind of bring up all the stuff that's going on, and then you'll get validation from your therapist being like, yeah, this is a couple's issue and you really need to be able to address this with your partner. But you're not addressing it with your partner. You're addressing it with an individual therapist. So the likelihood that you, that this becomes an even more charged thing for you where you're like, oh God, like, why won't they go to couples therapy with me? Like, it is much easier to just start with, hey, could we please go to couples therapy? Rather than you kind of going to individual therapy, getting yourself all riled up about it and then realizing that you're in the wrong place.

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Out, so remember to go to cozyearth.com pillow talks to enjoy. 30% off using the code Pillow Talks. And after placing your order, select podcast in the survey and then select Pillow Talks in the dropdown menu that follows. Okay, so speaking of individual verse couples, a lot of people are asking, like, do you ever meet separately with your couple's therapist? Or I guess, kind of like, yeah, can you see the same therapist, like, individually and as a couple's therapist?

So this really depends on your therapist. Different therapists have different rules for how they will do this. So our therapist, for example, has explicitly stated that he will not meet with us separately.

We had to sign an agreement saying.

That, yeah, he's like, I'm the therapist. So a lot of couples therapists, we view the client as the relationship. So he's like, my client is the relationship. So I don't see either of you guys separately.

I mean, there's even. So I think in that agreement, there's even something where, you know, covering a situation where, like, if Vanessa goes to the bathroom and I tell him, if I were to tell him something that he felt like, needed to be shared, you know, with Vanessa, if I told him, like, some secret or something that, like, he is obligated to tell Vanessa, like, he will not keep any secrets, you know, from either of us.

Now, that being said, when I was seeing couples, I would occasionally see people individually, and we had to be really clear on what the purpose was. And there was, like, very open communication about, like, here's what we're covering in individual sessions. Here's why we're doing an individual session. So I would often do that if there was some very personal, separate aspect that the person was bringing into the relationship. So, for example, I did it a lot with people who had experienced sexual abuse. Like, they wanted to have separate sessions to kind of talk about and process the trauma that they had gone through.

And kind of gave you all the, like, all the context.

Gave me all the context, and then, you know, come back together with their partner to, like, share the story, to talk about different, you know, resources and tools that we developed for that person. So in certain cases, I did feel comfortable doing that. There's no one right way here, and one way is not better than the other. But if it's important to you to be able to meet separately with your therapist, like, that's definitely a good question to ask beforehand when you're deciding who to see as a therapist. And one of the main reasons that therapists don't do this is because of the next question that we have, which a lot of people ask us. Do you ever hope your therapist takes your side? So there is a lot of sensitivity out there around this whole idea of taking sides. Like, people were very concerned about this. Like, what if my therapist thinks my partner's the right one and I'm the one who has to change? And some people honestly even did share. Like, I felt like the therapist often took my partner's side or often took my side, and it didn't feel fair. Like, therapists are human, too, sometimes. Like, we're, you know, even though we're trained to be objective, like, sometimes therapists make some mistakes here. But anyways, because there's so much sensitivity to this ide of taking sides or liking one person more than the other. A lot of therapists say, like, I just won't meet with you separately because I don't want to feed into that fear that, like, oh, well, I've. You know, I've done three sessions separately with Sarah and no sessions with Robyn. So, you know, I don't want Robin to think that, like, Sarah's my favorite. Or, I know Sarah better. Or, like, Sarah better.

Yeah. Or, like, yeah, you've developed more of a relationship with someone.

Yeah, exactly. So let's go to this question, though. Xander, do you ever hope that our therapist takes your side?

Oh, absolutely. Sometimes I. Sometimes he does, and sometimes he doesn't. I mean, I think that he. I. I rely on him to take my side when. When he. When. When I'm right. Oh, and to call me out when I'm wrong.

Interesting way of when I'm right.

But I think, like, that, you know, to sort of advocate or, you know, back me up in something and then also call me out on things.

Interesting.

I shouldn't have said when I'm right. That was mostly. That was mostly a joke. We. We have a somewhat, like, jokey relationship.

A very jokey relationship with our therapist, which is kind of easy to do.

It's easy to do when, you know, Vanessa is a therapist. I'm very familiar with. With therapy stuff, and so, you know, we kind of make some therapy jokes.

Okay. I will be honest, too, though. I. Yes, of course. Like, we're human, and we all want validation, and there's nothing more Val than a freaking therapist being like, yeah, I see your point there. It's like, of Course, you want your therapist to be on your side. But a really good therapist, like I said a few minutes ago, the way that they are viewing you is that the relationship is the client. So they're really focusing on that. It's not about, like, one person's right, one person's wrong. And a really good therapist actually looks at this as having three clients, your relationship, and then each of you individually. So in order to do be a good therapist and, like, do a good job with couples, you need to help both people feel attuned to and feel seen and feel respected. And that can often be a very difficult juggling act. But it's important to, like, be able to validate everybody. So we do, like, you know, the style of therapy that we do is, you know, he. He operates in his own style. There are other types of therapists who, like, absolutely would not give us the. The same sort of direct feedback that our therapist does. But we specifically wanted a therapist who was going to be really engaging and give us, like, clear and direct thoughts and guidance, especially because we were coming into this with, like, a very, you know, quote unquote, practical situation that we wanted to discuss. So our therapist has definitely said, you know, he'll hear us both out. He'll validate, like, yeah, I see how you feel that way. That makes sense to me. And then he'll say, like, I think that maybe you guys should go in this direction. Or, like. And he'll, you know, he said, like, Xander, I think you're looking at that. You know, I think the way that you're looking at that is not the most helpful. Or, like, Vanessa, I think that, like, Xander has a point here in this, you know, so it's not a you're right or you're wrong, you're bad, you're good type of thing, but he will give us his opinion.

Yeah, that's what I was gonna say is that, yeah, he's never. He's never saying, like, oh, Vanessa's right here, and Xander is wrong. I think that if you are seeing a therapist, I mean, I don't want to speak in absolutes, but I do think, like, if you are seeing a couple's therapist that is using language like that, that's probably not super helpful, like, because that just feeds into this dynamic that, like, you know, that there is a right person and that there's a wrong person. And, like, how's that going to feel for the person that is, you know, they're saying, like, oh, you're wrong about this. Like, like, that's that's not very healthy. But I think, you know, he will, he will call it, you know, hey, I think that, you know, probably what would be best for your relationship would be to do something a little bit more in this direction or more in that direction. So it's, it's easy for us to tell. Like, you know, was, was one of us advocating for something that was ultimately closer to what he is, is recommending for us. So yeah, it's, it's never like, oh, yeah, you're right, you're wrong. But it's more like, oh, you know, he'll kind of call out, okay. Huh. This thing that you're saying maybe doesn't sound that reasonable. Have you considered it this other way? And so it'll kind of be like, oh, okay, yeah, that was a little bit more the way I was thinking about it. Or that was a little bit more the way Vanessa was thinking about it. Or maybe it's totally something in a third direction that was like not how either of us were thinking about it.

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All right, people also Wanted to know, do you keep conversations for your therapy sessions?

So the idea here is, are we keeping things from each other, like, during the week and saving them to talk about in the therapy session to dump on each other? Okay, so the answer is yes, but with a very important caveat. We tell each other that we're gonna save something to talk about in therapy. So this can happen in a number of different ways. We sometimes might just say straight up, like, hey, we wanna talk about this specific thing. Let's just save it to talk about then. Oftentimes that comes up because we're busy. It's just like, we don't really have the time to talk about this right now. And we already know we have this hour carved out and protected on our cal. Like, let's talk about it then.

Yeah. Like, we're going to get more value out of talking about it with him than we are trying to squeeze it in. Right now we're doing a million things, and we're, like, not sure how it's going to go.

Yeah, we also do that if we are. Have. We start trying to talk about something on our own, and we have any sort of friction, it's like a really nice container where we can just say, okay, you know what? We're starting to, like, get a little bit tense around this. Why don't we put a pin in it and we'll talk about it in therapy? That hasn't happened that many times, but I think that is such an incredible therapy benefit for couples that, like, you have this way to pause to stop yourselves. Like, we talked about the value of the pause last week, the episode about the Four Horsemen. Definitely listen to that if you haven't. But, like, how important it is to pause in conversations. So being in therapy gives you a great way to do that. Like, hey, you know what? Actually, why don't we save this? Let's talk about it in therapy. But in terms of that caveat, we don't surprise each other with things in therapy. And this is something that a lot of people were scared of. We got a lot of questions, like, along the lines of, like, did any of you, like, drop anything? You know, any huge news or big, surprising secrets or shocking things? Like, in therapy, I think a lot of people just have this fear that, oh, my God. And maybe that's even preventing you from going to therapy in the first place. Like, what's my partner gonna drop on me now? Like, drop the. This bomb on me?

Yeah, I think it's. It's, you know, it's like, People get really nervous about, like performance reviews at work. Like, oh, they've been saving up, they've been saving up all the, all the bad stuff to tell me and they're going to drop it all on me in this moment. And that is, that is what happens. That's what some bosses do at some companies. And that sucks. And in theory, that is not the way that's supposed to happen. And I think I would say the same is true with couples therapy, though of course there are people that, that do this. And so I think, you know, this is a great thing to talk about, you know, in the first session or two when you start couples therapy is like, hey, how do we want this to work? How do we want this to operate? What are some ground rules?

I mean, in general, yeah, I think it's a good rule to not surprise each other with anything in therapy. Give each other a heads up, like, put a pin in things, but don't shock each other.

That being, that being said, of course, when you were in the middle of a session and you're talking about something you might absolutely be reminded of. Oh, you know what, Actually this thing happened this week and now that I'm looking at it this way, like I have some feelings about this or I have something I want to bring up or share.

Well, actually, I want to walk back what I said because there are, like, sometimes there are things that we really struggle to tell our partners. And therapy can be a great container to like, be able to share something that you feel really vulnerable about. Vulnerable about, and have a therapist there to like, guide you through that conversation. So there may be, like, I was just thinking about somebody who's maybe you have experienced sexual trauma like I was talking about earlier, and you haven't shared that with your partner. Like, therapy can give you a really nice, safe container to do that. So I walk back like, it's, it is okay to go into therapy and, you know, have something that you want to tell your partner for the first time. But I think like, like I would say that's for bigger pieces of information, like a one time kind of thing rather than a. Like, like what you don't want to be doing is storing things up to spring on your partner because you're like, annoyed with them or something. Like, you get into therapy and you're.

Like, here's the laundry list.

Here's a list of all the things you've done wrong this week. Right. Like that. That can be really challenging.

Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I, I totally agree with. Even as I think that, yes, if there is that something that you need support with from a therapist in order to talk about with your partner and that's why you want to go to therapy, then, yeah, by all means, absolutely do that. But, yeah, it's more of the ongoing, like, week to week. Like, yeah, you know, it wouldn't feel good for either Vanessa or us if, like, okay, we are in therapy for this one, for this one reason. But then each week it's like, oh, yeah, no, actually, we're going to talk about, like, this thing that I didn't like and that thing that you did wrong, and I haven't told you about any of these things. Like, then it just feels like we're keeping score, and that would just kind of, like, create a dynamic then where I would feel like I would need to do that, too. And, like, yeah, that's like. That's like, like the antithesis of why we are. Are in therapy in the first place.

It also ties into the next question that we got asked. Do you get upset about things said during sessions? If so, what do you do? So, yes, you for sure are gonna get upset about things said during sessions. And I think the reason for that is that therapy is a place to learn new skills. So you're learning how to communicate with each other in new ways, and you're trying things out, you're testing them out, so you're not always going to get it right. And therapy is also a place to be raw and vulnerable and open. So you very well may say things. I mean, I would. I would say be prepared that your partner is going to say things that hurt or upset you. But therapy is the. The perfect place for that to happen because you have somebody, like, trusted and experienced there to guide you through, like, either understanding your partner, processing and navigating those feelings on your own, or repairing after something hurtful has happened. And all of those are valuable skills.

Yeah, I mean, I think so. To answer the question, though, if so, what do you do? First I'll say what not to do is do not, like, stew. Sit on that thing and be like, oh, I guess we're in therapy and they have a right to say that. I don't get to. I don't get to say anything about that. Or, like, I'm gonna stew on this till, like, two weeks from now and then drop another bomb of like, or.

Until we leave the session. Yeah, don't. Don't do that.

Yeah, like, sure, don't do that. Like, yeah, no, you are in there, but your partner just Said something, hey, that didn't feel very good to me because. Or, you know, even if you don't know, hey, that didn't feel very good. I'm trying to figure out why. Like, can we try to figure out, like, what. What happened there or something like that? I mean, yeah, the. The point of therapy is to be able to process emotions and to share emotions, even if you don't quite know what they are. That's why you're there. All right, so. So speaking of, like, working through stuff, people also want to know how much do you. Did you guys work through in sessions with your therapist versus with each other afterwards?

This is a really interesting question. I think we did a lot of work outside of sessions, especially right after sessions.

Yeah, we're like. We're, like, fired. We're, like, fired up. It's like our walk back to the.

Car, the walk back to the car, the drive back home. Those have actually been some of the biggest breakthroughs and insights. And that's what I think is so cool about therapy, because I'm not saying that to, like, downplay therapy that, like, oh, it wasn't that good. We did most of the work on our own. It was like we were getting a ton of value and insight in the therapy itself. And then it continued outside of the sessions, too, because we were in such a good place. We were talking about things, like, we just continued the conversation.

So, yeah, I mean, he puts us in a. In a. You know, we have that hour, and he puts us in a trusting place where it's like, oh, yeah, we're talking about this in a way we haven't before, and we're trusting each other and we're feeling good. You know, we feel like we're on the same team about this. And so, yeah, we just kind of keep. Keep the fun times rolling afterwards.

Yeah. So I. I think it's just, like, a nice little benefit you're getting extra. Extra therapy.

But I. I could see this really being different for. For every couple. You know, I think, like, if you are. If you're talking about something that feels, like, really serious or maybe a little scary or it's your first time in therapy, you're just kind of dipping your toes in, like. Yeah, I could absolutely see at least at first feeling like, okay. Like, after the session is over, it's like, okay, we did it. We don't need to. You know, we don't need to talk about this again until next week or, you know, whenever the next session is. So I could see this going all Kinds of different ways. And, you know, and if you are finding. If you are in therapy, I don't want to. I don't want you to hear this and think, okay, well, the way to be successful in therapy is to do it like Vanessa and Xander do and talk about it a lot afterwards. So I think if you are in therapy and you are finding that, you know, maybe your partner is, like, wanting to talk about a lot of stuff after the session and you're not feeling open to it, that would be a great thing to bring up in your next session and be like, hey, let's make a plan for how we handle this. Because, like, you know, I'm feeling a little more vulnerable and raw after the sessions. It feels like my partner is, like, really amped up and, like, ready to conquer all of our issues. So this can. This can happen. However. Feels good. Good for you. Okay. How do you integrate the insights gained from couples therapy into everyday life? This is the million dollar question, I think.

Yeah, I think so many people are afraid that therapy is just this, like, conceptual thing that isn't beneficial. It doesn't have any, like, practical use to it. But this is the whole point. Like, you're supposed to take those insights. We don't just stop at the insight. Like, we need to incorporate it into everyday life. So. So of course, there are some therapists who are more focused purely on just gaining that insight. But for me personally, I'm like, my therapeutic perspective is that we need to take action, not just have insight. And we looked for a therapist who was gonna be action oriented as well. So we come out of therapy sessions with assignments to do with things to try out. But I also think it just gives us a shared language for talking about things outside of sessions. So, you know, if we've talked about some sort of communication technique, I can try it out in the moment and say, like, okay, I want to do that thing that we talked about in therapy. Like, here's me trying this new thing so it makes it easier to try things out in real life, too.

Yeah. And I mean, and if you have worries about this, if you are concerned that, okay, yeah, like, we're going to talk about a lot of stuff in theory, but, like, I don't trust that, like, we're going to be able to do it in practice. I think that's. This is a really good question to ask a therapist before you start going to a session with them. Kind of when you're doing that initial interview with them is ask them. Like, you could literally ask them this question, like, how do you. How do you look at, like, helping your clients integrate the. The insights that they gain in therapy into their everyday life and see how your therapist responds. If they're like. If they're like, oh, yeah, no, like, I love, you know, I love coming up with some actionable tools to give you or, like, exercises to give you, then great, you know, that's. That's exactly what you want. If you hear them, you know, kind of like, not really mention anything about, like, giving you kind of practical things to do, then you could maybe drill down and be like, hey, like, you do you like to give, like, practical exercises or whatever to your clients? And, you know, and if that's something that they are not expressing, like an immediate like, oh, yeah, like that's a part of. That's a part of what I do, then maybe that's not the right therapist for you because there are plenty of people that do kind of like, really want to go to therapy more for, like, the sort of the intellectual stimulation of it. So it's like, there's no shame if that's what you want too. But if you wanted that, you wouldn't want someone that is super practical because you'd be like, hey, like, we're spending half. Half the session talking about all this practical stuff. And I want to really get deeper into, like, the. The intell side of this.

The other thing I'll say is that for me, knowing that we're in therapy makes me a little better behaved.

And I like that. I love.

Totally honest.

You've been. You've been really well behaved since we've been doing this. I don't want to stop.

So it's just like, you know, I know that we're going to check in and like, Xander's gonna report back. Not like, I don't. Well, sounding so weird.

Okay, first of, little girl in Vanessa just likes to see what she can get away with. That's kind of cute.

I need to, like, walk this back a little bit because I don't want people. This is not about, like, sure, good thing, we're going to be well behaved. And this is not about, like, Xander has to approve of my behavior. I want to be super careful in the languaging here. But, like, because we go to therapy, I think about, okay, I'm going to have to describe to my therapist how the conversation went. Or Xander's going to share his experience of how the conversation went. And I think so. It's just like, you have this accountability. He's like an Accountability buddy there, where I'm like, frick. And, yes, I do for sure have a little, like, teacher's pet in me who, like, wants to be good. And I've worked on that separately in therapy, but, like, I want to now. It's like, a healthier kind of that. It's not a, like, oh, my God, oh, my God, I have to be so good. I have to be perfect for my therapist. It's not like that at all, but it is this sense of accountability of, like. Like, hey, I'm showing up. I'm doing the work. My therapist sees this, supports it, wants me to continue doing it. And so I want to show up and, like, be able to share, you know, hey, I'm working on this. Hey, I think I improved this a little bit. So, again, to be super clear, this is not about being perfect. You do not have to, like, give your therapist, like, a good little report card, or they don't have to give you a good report card. And. And it's just as valuable to bring the times where you're like, hey, I was an asshole this week, or, I really sucked at communication. I did not handle this well. There's the space for all of that. But just to say, having that accountability makes me more motivated to keep trying and keep working.

All right, let's put the cherry on top, babe. How do you know when you're done with therapy?

It's a really hard question. You don't like therapy.

You can't ever know.

Therapy doesn't wrap itself up nicely with this beautiful little bow. There's not this obvious point of, like, and we are done. We have resolved this issue, and we're actually in the middle of it ourselves. Like, we're going today. We have some stuff to talk about. I think there's probably, like, one more session for us to have some stuff to talk about, but we're kind of wrapping up.

I mean, unless one of us drops something on the other one.

Oh, I'll be prepared for our session later today. And it is a funny place to navigate because on the one hand, the point of therapy is to stop therapy. You're not supposed to be in therapy for the rest of your life. You're supposed to come, gain some tools and some insight and be able to live a better life from there or.

Just come and go as you need it.

Yeah, well, you're sort of spoiling what I was about to say, because it.

Was sounding like you were like, well, the point of therapy is to, like, not have to go to therapy again.

Yeah, no, no, no. The point of therapy is to stop. It's not to like, be in therapy for the rest of your life. Although if that feels good to you, by all means, go for it. But there's also this. I don't know, for me, like, there's a little bit of a sadness coming up of, man, I've enjoyed this process. I've learned a lot. It's been really valuable. Like, I don't really want it to end, but at the same time, you don't want to have sessions where you're just sitting there like, so let me just tell you about some random stuff that happened to me this week. It's supposed to be valuable. But anyways, my tips are number one, to view therapy as something that you can stop and restart at any point. So that's again why it's so important to find a therapist that you really connect with. So you feel like you have somebody that you can turn on and come back to time and time again whenever stuff comes up. And then two is to talk about it with your therapist. So I think this is probably a conversation we'll initiate soon with our therapist.

And I think this is a conversation that probably a lot of people, at least up front, not being in therapy yet, feel really awkward about. How do you have this conversation?

Tell your therapist, say, like, I think we're getting close to done. What do you think? Or like, I feel like I'm running out of stuff to talk about. Or what do you think our next steps are? This should be a conversation with your therapist and the two of you should figure it out together. And I will say, like, if you've worked with a therapist for a long period of time, like, it's actually a really beautiful process to go through of like, saying goodbye. I don't think that we learn how to say goodbyes very well in this culture at least. And so practicing that with your therapist can be really, really special. So. And what I'll finally say is, do not ghost your therapist. I've been ghosted before as a therapist and it's so sad and I know it's uncomfortable and like nerve wracking to tell your therapist, like, I think we're done. And sometimes people worry, like, I don't want to hurt my therapist's feelings and like, make them feel like they're not doing a good job or I don't need them anymore. And so it just feels like sometimes it feels like the kinder, easier thing to do to just ghost. But don't, don't do that. It hurts our feelings so much. We don't know, like, what happened to you and we're curious about you and. And, yeah, it is a really, really beautiful process to go through of learning how to say a proper and respectful goodbye. All right, well, that wraps up our Ask Us Anything Couples Therapy edition. We hope you have enjoyed this episode. So this is, I think, our fourth or fifth installment of the Ask Us Anything series. So we'd love to know what other edition would you like to see? So come on over to Instagram. We're at Vanessa and Xander. That' Xander with an X. Give us a follow over there and let us know what Ask Us Anything would you like to see next.

And that's it for today's episode of Pillow Talks. Thank you so much for listening. That was a. That was a vulnerable one and a fun one.

All the things.

All the things. It was a series and situation. Join us again next week when we are back with another round of Is this Normal? Sam.