Top Couples Therapist: How To Stop Settling For Less Than You Deserve (Even When He Thinks Everything's Fine)
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What are the common relationship struggles women face?
If you feel like you're the only one who's working to make your relationship better, you are not alone. It's pretty much the most common problem out there these days. Women who know they deserve more in their relationships, but who don't know how to get their partners to give it to them. Today, I'm sitting down with Zach Brittle, one of the only couples therapists in the entire world, certified in both the Gottman Method and Terry Real's Relational Life Therapy. He's written a ton of books. His work has been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Vanity Fair. And today, we are diving deep into the real reasons men are not doing their part in relationships. and exactly how you can help change that.
Whether you want better sex, or for him to take on more of the mental load, or you wanna know how to know if you're even with the right person, or if the relationship is worth staying in, we're gonna get into that today. We're also gonna talk about what men are secretly thinking and feeling behind the scenes that they're not sharing, and we're gonna solve a ton of the real life relationship struggles that you guys wrote in. I'm obsessed with this conversation. Zach is so pragmatic. He's so smart. And he just has some really interesting advice on some of the trickiest issues out there. Hot tip, if it were me, this is one that I would listen to with my partner.
Who is Zach Brittle and what is his expertise?
I think it'll spark some really interesting, really helpful conversations. Welcome to the Liz Moody Podcast, where we believe that there is always something that you can do to create a life that feels amazing, and we help you figure out how to find the lever to pull at any moment to actually do that. Zach Brittle, welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited to have you here. We're going to dive into so many different parts of like, how do we get our partners to do the work in the relationship? We're going to dive into listener questions, struggles they've been having. But I wanted to ask, something stood out to me about the bio that you sent me. You said that you've been happily married for 25 out of the 28 years you've been married.
Yeah.
What happened in the other three years?
Number one, that's the, that's the line in my bio that's gotten me more business than anything. People love knowing that that is a thing that can be true for a therapist, couples therapists in particular, but we had three pretty rough periods that were just challenging. We had to lean into the work ourselves and like they came at three really different distinct periods in our relationship. There was about three times when she or I both were kind of like, I don't know if I want to do this anymore. And so we ended up doing it and feel stronger and better and healthier as a result. But no, we haven't like sailed through, not by any means.
Can you share the specifics of any of those times?
Sure. The most recent one was really around the time when both of us were getting sober. We had relationally like really challenging period of grappling with what it meant to be people. And we didn't do that very well together. The first one was really specifically around a miscarriage that she had. I never connected with a baby, but she definitely did. So we grieved that really differently. And so her grief went in one direction and mine went in another. And that separated us by quite a bit. And we had to like kind of wake up to the fact that we were really more interested in doing anything other than taking care of each other until we were ready to break. We got into therapy. I was in therapy every week.
She was in therapy every week and we were in therapy every week. So we took out a home equity line to pay for that.
The drinking is interesting. You stopped drinking first and then you wanted her to quit drinking and she took a little bit longer to get to that. Something that I hear from listeners all the time is I'm on this health journey and my partner won't join me on this journey. How would you suggest people approach that given your personal experience and your experience as a therapist?
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What are the common relationship struggles women face?
0:00–1:12
2
Who is Zach Brittle and what is his expertise?
1:12–6:37
3
What challenges did Zach Brittle face in his marriage?
6:37–11:55
4
How can couples effectively communicate their needs?
11:55–55:52
5
Why isn't premarital counseling effective?
55:52–56:14
6
What do men struggle with in relationships?
56:14–57:10
7
How can partners improve their communication?
57:10–58:06
8
What steps can be taken to address resentment in relationships?
58:06–1:49:45
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from The Liz Moody Podcast
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