The Reconnect Marriage Podcast

Send us a textWe often try to avoid conflict because it usually doesn't go well. So, what's the point of working through conflict? To create understanding and connection.Listen in As Dr. Steve Call and Lisa Call offer insight through a practical example into engaging conflict that leads us toward the desired outcome.

There are 3 common and core issues couples experience sometime in their marriage:1) feeling stuck2) loneliness3) contemptListen in as Dr. Steve Call and his wife, Lisa Call, engage in a conversation that helps listeners become more aware of the three common and core issues for couples and how to engage these issues well.  

There is often some resistance, perhaps caution, to remembering our past. Naturally, remembering the past, particularly experiences in our family of origin, is painful. Yet, many of our everyday moments in marriage reflect the past and can be difficult to navigate well if we choose not to remember the past.Listen in as Dr. Steve Call and his wife, Lisa Call, engage in a conversation that helps listeners connect to the importance of linking the past to the present and the potential meaningful connection that can occur.

Envy is a common feeling and experience in marriage! Yet, for many of us, envy can imply there is something wrong or that we ought not to feel it. In marriage, envy shows up often, and it can create disruption and disconnection, and we aren't aware of the source.Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer insight into navigating envy and helpful ways to communicate when it is present. 

Lingering in the discomfort can feel uncomfortable. We often rush or hurry to solve or fix what our spouse may be feeling or experiencing. Yet, we often need our spouse to linger - to stay present and be with us. Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer insight into how lingering in the discomfort fosters and develops a sense of resilience and reminds our spouse of the soothing comfort of presence. 

A common fear we each have is the fear of abandonment. It's the core fear from the moment we are born. It's common for us to experience this fear when we experienced an emotionally unavailable parent. Sometimes, this fear can become activated in our marriage when our spouse is emotionally unavailable. Listen in as Dr. Steve Call and Lisa Call have a conversation about the fear of abandonment and helpful ways we can navigate the fear. 

Containment is the relational engagement with our partner or spouse, particularly in times of distress or need.  Containment is a movement toward and the capacity to hold what the other might be feeling or thinking. Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call have a conversation on the need for containment and how couples can pursue containment with one another. 

The struggles and tensions in marriage are often connected to differences. We can have different thoughts, beliefs, ideas, needs, and these differences can lead to a sense of disconnection rather than connection. Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer an engaging conversation about how differences in our marriage can create a level of intimacy in marriage.

Often in a marriage relationship, we have reactions to one another when our spouse's thought, idea, feeling, or belief is different or unexpected.  We simply have reactions rather than reflections. Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer helpful insight into the value of reflections with our spouse rather than reactions. 

Attunement is vital and essential in a marriage relationship. Attunement can be defined as "bringing into harmony." But for many of us, attunement wasn't a consistent experience in our family of origin. As a result, the lack of attunement can be a significant source of conflict and tension in marriage.Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer insight into the importance of attunement and how attunement can be cultivated and developed in your marriage relationship. 

When we don't have access to our spouse's attention or focus, we can sometimes feel distress in our bodies. And, of course. It's such a natural and common relational experience in marriage. Yet, it can be a difficult tension in a marriage. Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer listeners insight into how couples can navigate the lack of access well without perpetuating a sense of disconnection. 

Each of us develops particular loyalties that protect us. Loyalties are often a strategy to relationally cope both in our early story and in our marriage. Yet our loyalties can inhibit connection and/or perpetuate disconnection.  Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer listeners an opportunity to become aware of how loyalty to our early experiences in our family of origin limits our core desire, which is to be seen and known by our spouse. 

One of our four primary emotions is sadness. Sadness, unfortunately, is often met with judgment, whether from ourselves or our spouse/partner. And sometimes, when sadness is felt, it is met by an attempt to talk the other out of what they feel. Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer a vulnerable reflection of common dynamics when sadness is experienced and what we need from the other when we feel sad.

Contempt can be a disruptive and divisive force in marriage. It often reveals itself in the form of judgment and usually implies that one's thoughts, ideas, beliefs, and feelings are minimized. Contempt can become an embedded pattern for many couples experiencing a sense of disconnect and lack of emotional intimacy.Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer insight into how contempt reveals itself and helpful responses to our contempt that invite connection rather than perpetuate disconnection.

Sometimes the emotional reactivity we have with our spouse is connected to the remembering of trauma which can cause significant distress. And when our body remembers the trauma/loss/heartache of what we have endured, we crave a presence from our spouse that reminds us we are not alone in the remembering. Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer insight into how trauma reveals itself in particular interactions in our marriage and how we might offer helpful responses to one another when trauma that is stored in our body reveals itself.

Trauma is part of each couple's story. Meaning, each individual brings a story of trauma into marriage and for many couples, there is trauma within their marriage. We may not be aware that our emotional responses to our spouse are often connected to the trauma we have endured.  Sometimes the trauma in our body is remembered, felt, and re-experienced and the way in which it reveals itself in marriage can create significant disruption.  Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer insight into how trauma reveals itself in particular interactions in our marriage and how we might offer helpful responses to one another when trauma that is stored in our body reveals itself. 

Sometimes we can't be what our spouse needs. Sometimes we don't know what to say or how to respond to our spouse's needs. And often, we don't know how to react or what to say. And sometimes, in not knowing, we may communicate that what our spouse needs is too much or off limits. Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer a unique perspective on how to respond to our spouse when we are unsure of what they need or what could be helpful.

Conflict can certainly be difficult for most couples. Conflict is common and familiar and can be a stuck point that can perpetuate disconnection. In conflict, many couples are reenacting their family of origin experiences, and avoiding conflict is avoiding intimacy. So what is the goal or hope of conflict?Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer a thoughtful and engaging conversation about how couples can navigate conflict that leads to greater intimacy, awareness, and understanding. 

Internal scripts are part of how we navigate the relational world of marriage. Internal scripts are what we say to ourselves regarding an event and experience and often can create a sense of disconnect relationally. Sometimes, we aren't aware of our internal scripts and the role or impact they can play.   Join  Dr. Steve and Lisa Call in a conversation on becoming aware of internal scripts and how they can impact relational dynamics.

Each of us desires to be known and seen by our spouse.  Sometimes we develop strategies and ways of being known and seen by our spouse and strategies and coping responses when we experience being unseen and unknown.  Often this struggle can be the undercurrent of the tension in marriage.Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call explore in depth how the desire to be seen and known can lead to a hopeful connection in marriage.

Our body remembers events and experiences from the past, especially experiences in our family of origin.  And sometimes our emotional responses to our spouse can be related to something being remembered in our story. Our body gives us clues to what we might be feeling and what we might be remembering from our past, from our story.  Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer some reflections, insight, and ways to engage one another well when our body remembers something that is familiar from the past that is being remembered and reacted to in the present.

How we respond to our spouse's need, desire, request, and hope plays such a significant role in what happens next.   Yet a common experience in marriage is one of dismissal and even judgment. Often, we believe we can respond to our spouse's request with a sense of frustration or even irritation. Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer some helpful insight and reflection into common dynamics that can create a sense of disconnection and what might help us in those moments.

Awareness offers the key to understanding difficult moments in our marriage. Awareness can help us make sense of what's happening in moments of tension, hurt, and disappointment and awareness can lead to repair.Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer a conversation on how awareness can be such a helpful relational tool when couples struggle in a moment of misunderstanding, hurt, disappointment, and/or frustration. 

Intentional curiosity can be such a connective tissue for couples in moments and experiences of disconnection. Often when we feel frustrated or irritated with our spouse's behavior, we turn away or we become more bothered and/or more irritated. Sometimes our spouse's behavior is communicating something and we can't quite make sense of what's happening. Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer some helpful insight into how couples can embrace the connective experience of intentional curiosity. 

Withdrawing from our spouse is common in marriage and sometimes it can be difficult to navigate well.  Sometimes one withdraws as a way to cope with the helplessness one feels when feeling overwhelmed, yet the withdraw can cause significant distress for the other.Join Dr. Steve and Lisa Call for a conversation into understanding the relational dynamics that contribute to the common withdraw pattern that occurs for couples and helpful ways to navigate the withdraw well.

Sadness can often feel off-limits, and we usually try to avoid feeling and expressing sadness.  Sometimes we aren't sure what our spouse needs when sadness is present and we aren't sure how to respond.  What do we need when we feel sad?  Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call have a conversation about helpful ways to navigate and stay present to our spouse's sadness. 

Sometimes in our marriage relationship, we can feel like we are too much and/or not enough. Often there is a longing for more intimacy, more emotion, or more connection, and in that longing, there can be a sense for the other that they aren't enough.Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call validate the struggle that couples often experience in the not enough/too much interaction and helpful ways to navigate the interaction.

 Validation is an essential relational ingredient.  It's an essential relational ingredient in the midst of a different idea, thought, belief, and/or feeling between spouses. Validation is the intentional reflection that what our spouse is experiencing is valid.  Yet the lack of validation implies to your spouse that what they are thinking or feeling is less than or doesn't matter.  Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer some helpful insight and strategies into how we navigate validation well in moments of difference and conflict. 

Couples often struggle with the experience of repair. It can be a difficult process to navigate for so many reasons. And the inability to repair can perpetuate disconnection. The lack of repair is often connected to the resistance to repair.  Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa have a thoughtful and hopeful conversation that provides insight into how couples can repair well when experiencing hurt, frustration, silence, withdrawal, or some form of disengagement and disconnect.

For many couples, it can be difficult to connect emotionally at times. The expression of emotion and the response to our spouse's emotion can lead to a sense of disconnection rather than connection.  Emotional intimacy can be difficult to cultivate especially if emotion was off-limits in our own family of origin experience. Join Dr. Steve and Lisa Call as they offer an insightful conversation about how couples can make a few subtle shifts in cultivating emotional intimacy in their relationship.

When couples are apart and then return, it's common to experience conflict, hurt, and perhaps disappointment. Most often this is connected to different hopes and expectations in the return. An essential part of how couples return to one another well is connected to how well couples communicate while being apart.    Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer some helpful insight into how couples can navigate being apart and how to navigate the return to one another well. 

The use of why naturally creates a sense of defensiveness, yet it can be a common phrase couples use with one another. Often the use of why occurs when we feel frustrated and when something occurs that we might not have expected.  Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer Insight and awareness into how couples can rephrase the use of why in other ways that can lead to the desired connection we hope for. 

"I'm sorry, but..." is a common phrase in marriage. Often it's a response to the pain and/or hurt we have caused. I'm sorry is an expression of sorrow, yet when we cause pain or hurt, we might quickly offer "I'm sorry, but..." as an attempt to hurry our spouse through the pain. What we crave though is tenderness. How might we navigate sorrow well?  Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer some insight and reflection into how we can navigate sorrow well in moments of pain and hurt.

A common question couples have is this question: "But how do resolve it?" Especially in moments of conflict or tension. When a couple is in the midst of conflict, perhaps we can  imagine something other than resolution to be the goal.  Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer a thoughtful conversation to how couples can move toward understanding in the midst of conflict or difference rather than resolution.

We are very excited to share our conversation with Christa Hardin, MA, the founder of Enneagram + Marriage (@enneagramandmarriage)  who has spent two decades studying, researching, and helping couples through the use of various marriage and family tools, including the Enneagram. Listen in to discover helpful tools and insights that help couples understand the value of the Enneagram in their marriage relationship! You can find more info about Christa on her website: enneagraminyourmarriage.com

Bids for connection are an expression we offer our spouse to simply connect.  Sometimes when we offer bids for connection, our spouse may respond in a way that communicates they would rather not participate in the bid or invite.  What is the goal and/or hope in offering a bid for connection?  It communicates a desire to be with the other.  Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call have a thoughtful conversation about how we can communicate bids for connection well and how we can respond well to our spouse's bids for connection. 

Sometimes spouses feel limited in expressing thoughts, ideas, and even emotions with one another. Part of the difficulty in doing so is the lack of relational safety. There are often embedded relational responses and patterns for many couples that can reinforce a lack of safety.  Join Dr. Steve and Lisa Call in a hopeful conversation in offering couples keys in cultivating relational safety with one another. 

Every couple struggles at times with differences and marriage is a constant tension of navigating differences. We can have different thoughts, ideas, beliefs, and/or behavior. And differences in how couples live life together can create a sense of frustration.   Yet how might we honor and bless difference?  When couples have differences, what's the goal? What's the hope?  Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer helpful ways to engage differences in your marriage that can create and cultivate understanding and connection. 

Often in experiences of frustration, disappointment, irritation, and even conflict we have common and familiar relational responses. One of those internal/external responses is the phrase, "here we go again."Join Dr. Steve and Lisa Call in a candid conversation around how couples can develop an awareness of what perpetuates "here we go again" and how we can move toward a deeper sense of what drives and fuels this familiar relational response and what helps us in those moments. 

There can be a prevalence of loneliness in marriage...even the most content marriages or connected marriages experience loneliness at times. What do we mean by loneliness and how do we navigate loneliness?  Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call have a conversation about loneliness and ways we can honor the loneliness that can be a common experience within our marriage as well as helpful ways we can respond to our spouse's loneliness. 

Feeling frustrated can be a common experience for us in marriage and how  we navigate our frustration plays a key role in our marriage relationship.  Frustration is of course expected at times and yet sometimes we try to hide our frustration rather than reveal it. How  we communicate our frustration is essential to allow us to be seen and understood by our spouse.Jump into this conversation with Dr. Steve and Lisa Call to discover and hear ways we can express and hear frustration that leads us toward  the connection we desire.  

We are hard wired to feel but often we try to talk the other out of what they feel by using statements that begin with "I think..."  At times this can create a sense of disconnection between spouses. Listen in though as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call have a conversation that helps guide couples in expressing emotion that invites a desired response  and how we can stay present to our spouse's emotion without the need to dismiss it or minimize it. 

Each spouse has a story and many of our stories are filled with pain, hurt, disappointment, heartache, and grief. In this podcast,  we focus on how to engage our spouse's story well. Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer  thoughtful guidance and reflection into how we can be curious about our spouse's story in a way that creates the connection we desire. 

Each of us has a story that we bring to our marriage. And those stories create our marriage story. Thus our marriage story is directly impacted by our family of origin stories. Our stories can create context and give insight into what's happening in our marriage dynamic. Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer further exploration into how story helps us make sense of the interactions in our marriage.

A common spoken and unspoken phrase in marriage is "I feel disconnected."  It's an attempt to create connection yet it has the potential to create distance and disconnection. Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer some helpful insight into how this statement can be offered and received in ways that move us toward one another relationally  and create the connection that we long for in marriage.

The holiday season can offer such goodness as well as such disappointment. We often have certain hopes and expectations during this season which can often lead to unmet expectations. Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer some honest reflection in how we can honor both the goodness of this season as well as the disappointment associated with unmet expectations.

Essential to the wellbeing of our marriage are rituals of connection. Rituals of connection communicate that "you matter, I matter and we matter." Rituals of connection help facilitate reconnection in our marriage, especially in times of distress or difficulty. Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call have a conversation around the benefits of rituals of connection that  allow us to thrive in our marriages. 

How we express need with and toward our spouse plays a significant role in our marriage relationship.  It has the potential to create a sense of collaboration or a sense of distance. We are invited to name need as possibility rather than as demand. Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call have a conversation around how we can express need as an invitation to collaborate and hear our spouse's  expression of need as invitation that creates intimacy. 

Assumptions we make can play a significant role in our marriage, particularly in moments and experiences of disconnection. Yet, when we make an assumption about our spouse's behavior, it inhibits or limits the possibility of something different. Listen in as Dr. Steve and Lisa Call offer refections on how assumptions can perpetuate disconnection and helpful ways to navigate the assumptions we make regarding our interactions with our spouse.

Misattunement is a common relational dynamic in marriage and yet it's something that we are often not aware of.  And misattunement can lead to a sense of disconnection over time. Join Dr. Steve and Lisa Call as they have a conversation about misattunement and how it reveals itself in couples that Steve works with therapeutically as well as how Lisa and Steve navigate it in their own marriage.

The holiday season can sometimes be a difficult season for our marriage. Different needs, different desires, different hopes can create tension for us.  Sometimes there can be dread and/or sometimes delight. Yet,  when we develop  some understanding and awareness of how our own story of family gatherings during the holidays impacts the way we experience this holiday season, we can experience a sense of connection.  How then might we navigate this season well? Join Dr. Steve and Lisa Call in this conversation in how we navigate different needs and how might we care  well for one another well during this holiday season.