Highly Sensitive, Happily Married

096  In the world of relationship improvement, “needs” gets used a whole lot! If you are using it in your own mind or saying it to your partner a lot, it makes sense...you were taught to. But often when we say needs what we are really talking about is a want. We get these two terms mixed up–and it’s not good for our own emotional well-being, or our marriage, leading to all sorts of power struggles...

095   It’s a rare Highly Sensitive Person that enjoys conflict – most of us are pretty averse to it!  Because it’s uncomfortable! Lots of big feelings can come up. It can bring old stuff up from the past…and you can go into fight or flight or freeze mode. When it's happening, it can even feel like things are going to fall apart between you and your husband. So I get it if you tend to want to...

094   As highly sensitive women, we tend to be pretty conscientious and pretty great at caring about others. But sometimes we care about and do so much for others that we overlook caring for ourselves. I call this Overcare– when you meet others' needs at your own expense– and I see it all the time in marriages… While it’s well-intentioned, overcare is detrimental to not just you, but to your...

093  Conflict is part of marriage. But how much or how little it's a part of yours, and how hurtful or helpful it is to your marriage depends on how conflict-proof your marriage is. It will come up LESS often, and it will even be GOOD for your marriage, instead of pulling you into a downward spiral, when your marriage is very conflict-proof.  But what does that even mean? And how do you confl...

Today I am doing something different: giving you a DIRECTORY of episodes to help you understand and work with the most influential thing in your marriage: your own brain and nervous system. Because I want you to have the best kind of love in your marriage–and I want it to last.  The best news is that being able to have that is in large part about what goes on in you .  Most marriage-unhappiness ac...

 092   You want to get through to your husband about things that matter to you in your relationship. You want his understanding, empathy, support– and more connection. But maybe you’re frustrated, because it doesn't always go over so well when you try to communicate about it. Maybe he gets defensive, or argumentative, or shut down. This is because you both have patterning that isn’t supportiv...

Today we have another special guest –my client Kathryn! In this episode she shares a bit of the story of her journey from feeling really stuck in her marriage and unhappy with herself –what we playfully called, “I suck syndrome”--to feeling much happier with herself and her marriage.   Her story is a great example of how a highly sensitive woman– with classic HSP challenges in relationship–can rea...

090  Once we get married, most of us stop having any goals in our marriages. This is one reason marriages often slowly get worse over time, instead of better.  Setting marriage goals, and working towards them is a key to actually making your marriage what you want and having the experiences of love, connection, intimacy and fun you most long for. And can be done in a fun and self-honoring way. But...

UPDATED APRIL 2024!  If you are at all curious about or interested in what coaching can do for you and your relationship, or even what it IS, this bonus episode will help clarify that, and what my specific version of it, for highly sensitive people,  is all about. Since I have changed a few things over the years in what and how I offer marriage coaching, I wanted to update you about those changes...

089  As you may have heard, self-love is key to having deep lasting love and harmony between you and your spouse–in SO many ways.  I know you may get that– in theory! But too many highly sensitive people leave it at that--just theory. Understanding this intellectually does not give you what you need to actually FEEL and LIVE FROM that self-love– nor benefit from all it makes possible for you in yo...

088  We’ve all heard how Self-Love is important, but actually loving ourselves often remains very mysterious and elusive. So we are embarking today on a series all about self-love––because it is such an essential part of having a great marriage, especially as a highly sensitive person…and I want YOU to reap the huge rewards of having lots of it!  My clients actually develop real self-love. And a f...

087  For most of us highly sensitive women, the ultimate marriage would be one that feels truly, lovingly, interdependent. Where you and your significant other are mutually supportive, you face the daily challenges of living together with a sense of ally-ship, where you lean on each other, and love helping each other grow and evolve and overcome hard moments and old wounds, where you naturally lif...

086  Pleasure, feeling good, sex, and enjoying being in our bodies are such wonderful, beneficial, and important parts of marriage…(and, really, being human beings!). I mean, why bother being married if there' s no pleasure to be had in it?  Bringing MORE pleasure into our lives than many of us have currently is revolutionary, not just for our marriages, but for our world. Our pleasure benefi...

085  We have a limited amount of time in our lives. But how we use our time will determine how fulfilling our lives are–and how fulfilling our marriages are. If we have a mindset that time is scarce, or there's too much to do (which can be really common for us as highly sensitive women )we will keep ourselves from prioritizing the things that most matter to us. . . . . . and end up with a lif...

If you sometimes (or often) feel like your marriage is more of a business partnership than a romantic relationship, or you go through long phases when things feel kind of dry and dull and between you and your significant other, this episode is a must-listen. It’s so easy– with all the do-to’s of running a life together with careers, a home to take care of, children, extended family, and pets–to fa...

083   Want to be able to guide yourself and your marriage into a place of more love, more connection, more light-heartedness and mutual supportiveness (or what I call the land of Real-Enchantment–or lasting love)? Today I introduce you to a tool that will help you do just that! Because,  the truth is, after some years of marriage or partnership,  it can take some self-guidance to connect to real l...

As highly sensitive people (HSPs), we are more sensitive to all the things than non-HSPs. Because of this, some popular advice for HSPs can tend toward finding environments and external circumstances that will support our sensitive systems. That's all fine and good when we can control such things. But when it comes to other people–especially our partner–we can't usually make them “suit”...

As a highly sensitive woman, you likely love –and want more—emotional intimacy. So you will want to know what creates it between two people, and what leads you further from it in your marriage.   In this episode, I share the gold on all of it, and let you in on how to create more emotional intimacy with your husband—even without his active participation.  We look together at: What prevents or erod...

If you’ve been listening to this podcast at all, it's because you’re an Highly Sensitive Person who wants to make things better, and stay great, in your relationship or marriage.  If so, it’s important that you understand the two modes we, as HSPs, need to move back and forth between in order to best grow, change, and shift things between us and our significant other (and keep things really h...

079  Most of us limit ourselves (unconsciously, of course!) from feeling as much love as we could in our marriages. We therefore not only miss out on all the love available, but we also miss out on the benefits it brings to our marriages, and to our own selves–of which there are SO many, especially for you as a highly sensitive person.  Now, you may want to feel more love, but you may also feel li...

078  This episode offers you encouragement and an important reminder that I know I used to need often, myself. This could be a great episode to listen to with your partner, if they are willing. Growing up in this world, it is hard to escape taking on certain basic ideas about marriage and love—ones, unfortunately,  that are not only wrong, but also actually prevent us from having the deeply loving...

You want to feel like your partner is your teammate in making this marriage better. But you may sometimes (or often) feel alone in doing that work, or it seems he avoids working on certain aspects of your marriage–even if you’ve asked him to. You're not quite sure what it takes to sway the tides and get him improving your marriage by your side. I have been here, too. But I learned how to chan...

076  Today I’m sharing with you the 3 phases we go through to get to a mature love that lasts in our marriage.  Often we don't understand or recognize the phase we’re in, that it is normal, and what we can do to move our relationship through the harder phase and into the place that is most deeply alive and loving–and so we miss out on ever getting there. Today, that all changes! In this episo...

075  You’ve been listening to this podcast (or other ones on relationships), reading books, learning about how to have the kind of marriage you want. You're trying out new approaches. But you aren't seeing as much change as you wish…and  you feel frustrated, or discouraged, or at the least, not as hopeful about things as you want to feel. Maybe you even feel like you want to quit botheri...

074  We all are born with 2 particular “biases” of our brains that make lasting love difficult…that is, until we understand them and learn to overcome them! These innate biases are simply ways our human brains (highly sensitive or not) naturally function that lead to perceiving the world–and our partner –in certain predictable ways.  If you ever feel resentful, disappointed in, frustrated with, or...