James Cordova

Like, this is just by way of being affectionate and it's playful and like, you know, she's obviously knows my friends and my family and, and has seen that play out between, between other folks.

And, um, and I mean, she gets it, but it just doesn't work for her.

Right.

So I've tried to like help her, uh, understand it from my perspective.

Um,

which has just gone over like a lead balloon.

So, you know, in this particular couple, the, the, the wife felt like quite deeply that her husband was withholding from her, right.

That she wanted to be able to know what he was feeling, have him, um,

talked to her about his wants and needs and his ups and downs.

And he was just very much a stoic, you know, very, you know, almost monosyllabic, right?

You know, clearly loved her, but his love language was acts of service, not necessarily talking about his feelings.

And, you know, she would try and

And he would feel judged.

And then they would, you know, sort of turn away from each other.

You know, she'd try a few times and then give up in frustration.

And he would feel judged and just sort of wander off.

So one of the patterns that we often see in couples is how they respond when there is conflict between the two of them.

So something comes up that feels tense or hurtful or painful in some way.

And our natural human reaction when something is painful most often is some version of either fight or flight.

And so some of us lean a little bit more in the direction of fight.