Marriage Therapy Radio

Zach sits down with Arlina and Bob Allen, a couple who met in a recovery community over 30 years ago and have been building their marriage with the same tools ever since. What starts as a surprisingly revealing Game of Thrones conversation (they watch it on repeat as a bedtime ritual, and yes, they have strong opinions about House of the Dragon) turns into a grounded, real-world look at how recove...

Zach is traveling this week, so this episode features his guest appearance on the Sexology Podcast with Dr. Nazanin Moali. Zach joins Dr. Nazanin Moali on the Sexology Podcast for a conversation about how the emotional climate of a relationship directly shapes what happens (or doesn't happen) in the bedroom. The focus is Negative Sentiment Override, a concept from John Gottman's research that desc...

Zach sits down with Ron and Catrina, a married couple behind the YouTube music show Covers on the Spot , to find out what happens when you treat a relationship like a live recording session. Ron is the creative director and host of the show, where bands are given a song they have never heard and tasked with covering it in a single day. Catrina is a graphic designer on the same media team at Musora...

Zach sits down with Natalie and Dan Slagle , a married couple and co-founders of Fyooz Financial Planning, to explore why money is one of the most charged—and revealing—topics in relationships. Despite being financial professionals, Natalie and Dan found themselves running into the same conflicts as the couples they serve. The issue wasn’t knowledge. It was meaning. They describe how two people ca...

Zach sits down with Hazel Grace and Nico for a wide-ranging conversation about polyamory, relational integrity, and what it actually takes to repair after conflict. Hazel Grace, a relationship coach and educator with a PhD in human sexuality, and Nico, a lumberjack and self-described relationship nerd, share how they’ve built a deeply intentional partnership within a polyamorous relationship struc...

Zach sits down with Pete and Tasha , a couple whose relationship was forged in the middle of some of life’s hardest realities: addiction, cancer, caregiving, recovery, and the challenge of staying connected when survival itself becomes the focus. Pete and Tasha met in Boulder after years of each pursuing health and healing in different ways. Tasha had already devoted much of her life to recovery f...

One year ago, Robin and Hector came on the show after their first year together. Now they’re back for a relationship “State of the Union.” Using a framework from the Gottman Method, Zach walks them through four powerful questions designed to help couples stay connected, prevent resentment, and strengthen emotional safety: What did we get right? How can I specifically appreciate you? Is there anyth...

In this final session of the three-part series, Brian and Kristen reflect on what has shifted—and what still feels tender. They don’t have “big crimes” in their marriage. No betrayal. No catastrophe. What they have are patterns. And the courage to look at them. This episode centers on their struggle around the language of “over-functioner” and “under-functioner.” What started as a helpful framewor...

Brian and Kristen return after completing their homework: mapping their recurring conflict pattern step-by-step. And something shifts. Instead of focusing on who’s right, they begin identifying when the pattern starts, how it escalates, and where they might choose something different. They talk about having a “good week,” more laughter, and fewer misunderstandings—but Zach presses deeper: Was it l...

Zach begins a three-part series with Brian and Kristen , longtime MTR listeners who volunteered to work through their marriage challenges in real time. Brian and Kristen have been together for more than two decades and credit Marriage Therapy Radio as a resource that helped them find language for patterns they felt—but couldn’t name. They describe how listening separately (not together) gave them...

Zach sits down with Casey and Meygan Caston , founders of Marriage365 , to talk about how a marriage that nearly collapsed in year three became the foundation for a global relationship resource. Both Casey and Meygan grew up surrounded by divorce, affairs, and unresolved conflict. Determined not to repeat their parents’ patterns, they entered marriage with optimism—but no tools. By year three, res...

Zach sits down with David and Lisa, long-time partners and leaders in the escape room world, to explore what thousands of hours of collaborative problem-solving have taught them about communication, conflict, and teamwork. They talk about why escape rooms reward kindness over brilliance, why “being right” is a losing strategy, and how the habits that help teams escape under pressure are the same o...

Zach sits down with Courtney and Nathan Boyer , a couple married for over twenty years, parenting three kids, and living overseas on a U.S. military base in Germany. Courtney and Nathan share the story of a major turning point in their marriage—when Courtney asked to open the relationship after years of suppressing her needs, identity, and desire. Raised in a strict religious culture, Courtney exp...

Zach sits down with Glenn and Jodie , a married couple whose relationship has been shaped by cancer, caregiving, entrepreneurship, and a shared commitment to facing life side-by-side. Their story includes an early breast cancer diagnosis shortly after getting engaged, multiple recurrences over the years, and a present-day reality of living with cancer as a chronic condition. Through it all, Glenn...

Zach sits down with couples therapist and author Colette Jane Fehr and her husband Steve Fehr for a candid conversation about second marriage, difference, repair, and what therapy really does—and doesn’t—solve. Colette and Steve met later in life after very different first marriages and divorces. She’s an emotionally expressive, extroverted therapist from New York; he’s a reserved, analytical CPA...

Zach looks back on a standout year of conversations by revisiting some of the most meaningful, memorable, and instructive moments from past episodes.  Zach introduces each segment, offering context and reflection on why these moments matter and how they connect to the bigger picture of relational health. Across these clips, you’ll hear stories of intimacy rebuilt, grief held with humor, trust repa...

Zach sits down with Dana and Sean , a couple whose nearly 30-year relationship includes teenage pregnancy, early marriage, deep faith, repeated infidelity, and an extraordinary rebuilding process that reshaped their marriage from the ground up. Dana and Sean met as children at church, reconnected in high school, and married young after an unplanned pregnancy—long before either of them knew who the...

Zach sits down with  Justin and Kylie Coulson , parents of six daughters and co-creators of the  Happy Families  movement. What unfolds is a deeply honest conversation about failure, repair, intention, and the long road toward building a family culture that actually feels good to live in. Justin shares a pivotal early-parenting moment that became the turning point of his life: a loss of control wi...

Zach sits down with Kristan and Brook Seaford , a couple whose marriage was transformed overnight when Kristan contracted a rare and catastrophic infection in 2013. What began as strep throat and the flu quickly escalated into pneumonia, sepsis, organ failure, septic shock, and ultimately the loss of both hands, one foot, and part of the other—a 108-day medical ordeal across six hospitals that cha...

Zach sits down with Karen Whitehouse and Helen McLaughlin , the married duo behind the cult-hit podcast Who Shat on the Floor at My Wedding? https://www.whoshatontheflooratmywedding.com/ What began as a deeply confusing—and slightly sinister—incident on their wedding boat (“the matrimonial turd,” as Karen lovingly calls it) became a three-year dinner-party story that neither of them could stop tel...

In their third session, Zach shifts focus from reparenting the self to rebuilding trust, compassion, and connection in real time. The couple begins by reflecting on the chaos of parenting two neurodivergent children and how exhaustion, overwhelm, and constant caregiving have reshaped their marriage. The wife shares that while parenting has deep purpose and spiritual meaning, it also leaves her fee...

In part two of this couple's therapeutic conversation, they deepen their work from surface struggles into childhood roots, body awareness, and self-recovery. The wife describes crashing after the previous session, discovering that missed medication and hormonal shifts had amplified her anxiety. That moment, she says, forced her to confront how fragile she felt—and how much fear lived beneath her i...

In this experimental therapy-format episode,  Zach meets with a couple, 16 years into marriage, parenting two adopted, neurodivergent kids, and living abroad, to model what real therapeutic work sounds like. The wife names “the mother machine” as the force grinding her down: menopause, recent moves, ongoing renovations, executive-function challenges, and hyper-empathy that makes parenting especial...

Zach sits down with Kimberly Crossman , actor, writer, and mental health advocate, and Tom Walsh , cinematographer and creative producer, for a deeply honest and inspiring conversation about love, loss, and partnership across continents. The couple, who split their time between Los Angeles and New Zealand, share how they’ve learned to stay connected while traveling constantly, navigating pregnancy...

Zach sits down with Mike and Kim Anderson , coaches and founders of Blended Family Breakthrough https://www.blendedfamilybreakthrough.com/ , to talk about one of the hardest relationship challenges couples face, making a blended family work. After marrying in 2001, Mike and Kim found themselves struggling to balance parenting roles, discipline, and loyalty in a home that combined Kim’s daughter fr...