Dr. Pamela Kreiser
speaker
938 appearances
3 recordings
1 series
first heard Jul 2026
last heard 11 Aug
Dr. Pamela Kreiser’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 3 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 2.
Appearances
It's not good. Yeah, it's not good, but you can take stock and you can decide what is worth talking about. So one of the great qualities of someone who's avoidant is that they can differentiate the big and the small stuff. That's something good about avoidant people in conflict style. And so what we would say though, is since they can differentiate that,
they actually have the ability to know what's important to talk about and not. So it would be very convenient to just pretend you didn't have that superpower, but they do have that superpower. So if somebody's stonewalling you, they can't have it both ways. I need a break. I can't talk about it. I have to, you know, I'm flooded. Oh, and by the way,
I know this was a big thing, but I'm going to choose to not schedule it. You can't have both. So how I think about it is if you get the break, you have to schedule. I give you the break, you have to schedule. That's the condition. So you don't get the break if you're not willing to schedule. But doesn't the stonewaller force a break no matter what? Yes.
Good job, Mary. I wasn't looking for kudos. How are you doing? Well, Taylor is the founder of the Rumination Club. Oh, so bad. We've all got problems on here. I'm going to force the Stonewaller to talk. Taylor's going to go hold a big rumination session.
And you're going to call yourself bad for flooding. So I would say we've got to get rid of all those things. So we're just going to start completely over. But here's what John Gottman would say in terms of strategic concern here.
Most people don't know about what this even is. They just go, I don't know what happens. We just kind of get to the stopping point and I don't know how to function or we don't know how to talk about this. So one thing you might be thinking about listening is what if you're in a relationship with someone who is someone who gets emotionally flooded? What you should do is send them this episode and make them listen to it. No, no.
And if they don't plan to talk to you again, tell them to listen to it a second time. No, we don't want to do that. But here's what you could do. There's a couple of things. Of course, you can share the episode and we would love for you to do that if that's something that was helpful. But one thing that is useful about new information is you could say, I heard this podcast and I haven't heard about Stonewalling before. Do you want to listen to it together? And they might say, no, but you could send it to me. But either way, that information comes because I think...
There's a lack of information, especially for men out there in that 85%. I don't think they know about what's actually going on here. And they think there's something weird or she freaks me out or whatever. I can't handle these conversations with my dad or whatever it is. And that stonewalling cycle or pattern needs to be called out because I think once it's called out, I think there's some relief to say this is normal. This happens to other people.
and you're more intimate and close with the people in your life that you want to be. So let's talk about how we would manage this in a relationship that we want to keep, like a marriage or a close dating relationship. You have your partner. There are a couple of very kind things you can do on either side of this. So I can, as the person who doesn't get flooded...
I can make a conscious decision to not set my partner up for flooding. I can decide, you know what? I noticed that he just said he had a bad day at work. And this last time we talked about this flooded him. I'm going to do it a different time.
I see how this is going. It just doesn't seem like it's ideal for this other person. Now, that means, though, that I have to be tender and kind in that moment because I wanted to talk about it. Dare I say selfless.
Meaning, I know I brought that up. But I mean, it does demand that. But then you're thinking, wait, this is a relationship I really care about. Do I want to? I mean, you could do it on the other side of that same coin and say, it's a little mean to set up somebody who already maybe is fragile for a flooding when you knew you could have scheduled it or had brought it up at a different time. So that's the tenderness on the person who's not flooded. On the person who is flooded...
You might want to communicate when you're also in a fragile position. You might want to say, I had a very challenging day and I cannot do challenging topics tonight. Just send out, it doesn't mean you're never talking about challenging topics, but there might be things going on. I know when I've been in periods of grief, I have said to my partner, I'm only holding it together 20% right now. So I just need you to know that.
I'm hearing from the person that's having the flooding experience a lot of direct and clear communication. Yeah. And I think the flooded person has to say, I need space right now. I think that just the going blank and just staring and not saying anything and just staying in the conversation isn't what we're after. You don't have to respond. You don't have to get to the whole conversation. But you might say, I need a break.
I did it recently. And he was like, really? That's all you got? He stopped saying what he was saying, but it was so dumb. Because I was like, why am I not more sophisticated than that? I've done that. I've done that. I like how you have a word and a gesture. I've just got the shoe, the tennis shoe.
Yeah, but we're talking about tenderness, not avoidance. So when you see something going on that's starting to go a bad direction, could you use a code word that says, we're going to have to actually figure this out at a different time? Yeah, I think it works. I've had it work a few times for me. This is something I'm going to have to work on. I have to work on my code words. I started watching Ted Lasso. Do you watch that? Yes, yes. Okay, so I started watching it. And do you remember they had the code word Alabama? Yes, yes.
Oh, yeah. I've got to go back and watch. That was when Ted, before he divorced his wife, sorry if you're just starting the episodes, but I broke that up for you. But he and his former spouse would say Alabama, meaning give it to me as a totally honest answer. So that's an example of a code word. But not really suitable for this particular topic, really. All right.
And, and I would also say, do they still need to be brought up? Cause I think sometimes we live our lives or things work out, or maybe we earn enough of a place where that isn't a thing anymore. And so we would want to take a stock and say, what are the topics that we haven't had the conversations we need to have? And what are some of the topics? Maybe it's time to let go of those. That's good. Yeah.
I mean, you all watch Frozen, what, a hundred times a day? The music. Burned. My boys won't watch it because of the scary snowman. Oh, yeah. Okay. Well, maybe he'll get less scary. Maybe he'll let it go. There it is. So I think in summary, you know, when you're thinking about the check engine lights, what Gottman would say, don't ignore it.
This is not a thing that is unique to you. You're not wrong. You're not bad. Do understand and say, this actually needs some attention. It doesn't mean it's only for me or from you. It just needs, there's something going on here and you can't drive down the highway with all the lights flashing and pretend it's going to not end. It's going to end.
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