[00:00:00] Do you want to feel closer in your relationship, but you’re hesitating because you’re worried you’ll say the wrong thing, make something awkward or turn a feeling. You can’t quite name into a conversation that spirals or ends as a fight. A lot of people want more connection, but they talk themselves out of bringing it up because they’re scared of sounding too needy or dramatic, or like they’re making a fuss out of nothing.

And this matters. It matters because relationships rarely fall apart in the obvious ways. What I see. Far more often as a couple’s therapist is people who care deeply about each other, who genuinely trying, but who slowly drift apart and drift away from each other. Because these conversations that we need to keep relationships healthy and happy and intentional, get avoided.

People tell themselves I’ll talk about it later when they have more energy or the right words and later never comes around. Welcome to this complex life. In this episode, I’m going to talk about the messy, awkward conversations that you need to have with your [00:01:00] partner. I’m going to share with you why relationships drift apart even when both people are trying, and what actually gets in the way of checking in.

And why a yearly relationship reset can make such a difference before resentment takes over your relationship. I’m going to share three questions that I often give couples questions that sound simple. They’re not big therapy questions. They are questions you could ask tonight. Most people never think to ask in this way.

So today, let’s get into the messy, complicated side of communication in relationships. I want to start off by talking about. What, what I mean by drift, what this drifting looks like and it looks slightly different for different people. It, on the surface, things might be fine. You might go out to a family event, hold hands, you know, each other’s day-to-day stuff.

Maybe you’re even communicating really well when it comes to who has to walk the dog, what the kids need done, chores, work schedules, that kind of stuff. On the surface, things are functioning well. The effort is still there. You’re going through the [00:02:00] motions. You’re buying each other Christmas presents or birthday presents.

Maybe you celebrate your anniversary. Inside the relationship, it can feel really lonely. Emotional connection slowly drops. There’s more focused on tasks and to-do lists and coordinating of activities. Planning the next holiday, the next weekend away, who’s going to run errands or pick up the groceries.

Cook dinner and conversations are practical. They become less. Curious, maybe even what should be curious feels like it turns into a fight where you really want to talk about something that’s bothering you and on your mind, and your partner just tries to fix it or tells you don’t worry about it. And when that happens enough and it’s over a period of time, you start to share a little bit less.

And when you share a little bit less and your partner’s a little less curious, it can start to feel. Really lonely. And so that’s that drift where there are fewer moments of checking in and genuinely checking in. And this is more than just how was work, how was your day? This is knowing your partner on a deeper level of [00:03:00] saying, how did that presentation go that you were so worried about?

How are you feeling about the test results that you got from your doctor? What’s been on your mind recently about. The health concerns that your parents have. It’s those deeper questions. It’s knowing them, knowing what’s on their mind, and being genuinely curious. It’s very different to How was your day?

How was work? And we do it. I do it too. They’re such boring questions and I still get caught out saying them sometimes. But that drift apart happens gradually, happens slowly over months, maybe even years, and it’s easy to miss when life is full. When life is busy and chaotic and there’s a lot going on, it might even feel.

Selfish to try and spend time focusing on the relationship. I mean, that’s just one more thing you have to tend to. Once people sense the distance, then the next step is, what do I even do from here? And if you’re listening and you’re thinking, yeah, I’m a little lonely in my relationship, a little disconnected, but it’s fine.

Everything’s good. He’s great. She’s great. Yeah, that’s probably true. They are great. You fell in love with them for a reason. You [00:04:00] built a life together for a reason. But somewhere. But somewhere along the way, we just. Stopped watering that particular garden. And our relationships take maintenance. They take work.

And I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently as I’m writing or updating the curriculum for my relationship New Year Reset. And I’m so excited about this because as I’m creating it, I’m revamping last year’s one, and this is so much better, so much more detailed. I’ve broken everything down into seven topics, seven conversations that will transform your relationship.

And it reminds me that. I sometimes don’t ask these questions, and I spend a lot of time with my partner. We spend a lot of time doing things together, and sometimes it can be hard because there’s all these things happening and it’s like, well, if I ask this now, is he gonna think it’s in a therapy session?

Or I’m interrogating him and so I get it, how tricky this can be. But if that drift comes in, if that loneliness starts to take over. It can affect and impact every single part of our life. Our mental health relies on good, strong, connected relationships. Our ability to [00:05:00] take risks is greatly improved when we have a stable base to fall back on our relationships.

Change our lives. So not knowing what to say. This is where a lot of couples get stuck. They want to ask different questions. They want to do things better, but they don’t know what to say. They don’t know what to ask. How do I even ask something deeper than, how was your day? I care. I want them to tell me if something’s on their mind.

They would, they would tell me, right? Or they freeze. They don’t know what to say because they were never role modeled it. They never heard their parents say this. The stuff they watch in movies that doesn’t make sense to them. It’s not what. Represents their lives and those conversations can get delayed because they feel awkward or clunky, or you don’t even know what to do different, even though you might desperately want to.

You want this type of intimacy, you want this connection. We don’t even know how to get it, what to do, what to say. Many people avoid the conversation. Sometimes because they’re hard, sometimes because they’re uncomfortable or awkward, and sometimes they don’t have the language. I’ve yet to meet someone in my therapy room who avoids ’em because they don’t [00:06:00] care.

They often care so much that even when they avoid it, it’s because they don’t wanna lose face. They don’t wanna feel like they’re stupid or inadequate or getting it wrong. They do care deeply. Doesn’t mean that it is a helpful coping strategy. I’m not saying that at all. I think avoidance can be a very dangerous coping strategy and can actually reinforce the very thing that you’re trying to do, and it shows your body that, yeah, that’s something to avoid and to run away from.

So it’s definitely not a helpful strategy, but I understand where it comes from for the partner who might want to have these conversations. It feels like they’re not a priority that. The relationship is on the bottom of the to-do list, and I spoke about some of the ways that people get their needs and some of the ways that people do that add extra pressure here.

So instead of saying, I’d love to spend more time together, they’ll say, you’re always on your phone. Instead of saying, I’d like to go to the movies, it’d be really nice to have a date night. They say, you never organise anything with me anymore. So sometimes what you’re asking and how you’re asking for it can make a big difference.

And if you wanna learn a bit more about that, checkout the last [00:07:00] episode. So how do we make it a priority? Connection sometimes doesn’t feel urgent until it does, until people are sitting there in the therapist’s office saying, we just don’t speak anymore. We’re like housemates. We, we are like ships in the night.

And some people are so busy they can’t even make the time to come to the therapy session. And that’s a worry. It means even when they both want to get the skills they want to. Do this Well, the time is really hard to find, or people think we’ll get back to this another time and busy lives reward productivity.

They reward us being busy and doing things and don’t reward slowing down. Don’t reward intimacy and connection and don’t reward the kinds of conversation that we have that we need to have to keep our relationships fulfilled and satisfied. But the biggest reason I see, and this is, this one was a surprise when I was thinking about.

All the different things that come into my room on my couch is people mistake low conflict for happy. They think just because we’re not fighting that everything is fine. They couldn’t be more wrong. Sometimes no [00:08:00] conflict is not a sign that things are great. Conflict’s not a bad thing. It’s not inherently bad, but assuming that your relationship is amazing and it’s great just because you’re not fighting, I don’t think that’s true.

So low conflict does not mean happy. Low conflict does not mean connected. You might be connected and have low conflict and that’s great, but I’m talking to the people here who don’t have that. So when couples do try and have these conversations and they kind of go through it in a clunky, awkward way, it can be hard to wanna try again.

The kinds of questions people ask make a bigger difference, and you might recognise, so something that’s a yes or no answer shuts down the conversation. So saying something like, did you get to work on time? Yes or no? Okay. That doesn’t open up a dialogue. What have you been working on that’s really challenged you?

What did you learn from that workshop that you went to? What was your favorite part of that conference? They, they’re conversations that open dialogue rather than, did you have a good time? It’s a yes or no question. So if you want to start somewhere, start with. Open-ended questions. So if the [00:09:00] response is a simple yes or no, it’s not an open-ended question.

They’re not bad questions to ask. But if you’re trying to improve connection and intimacy and not feel as lonely in your relationship and you’re genuinely curious, you want to ask open-ended questions. The other kinds of questions that tend to shut people down is ones that. Our tone implies a certain response.

So if we say something like, did you have fun at that event? That tone is a bit snarky, right? Even maybe passive aggressive. If we are trying to, if we’re saying something like, oh, you had fun at the movies with your friends, again, snarky or passive aggressive, our tone can change the intent of the question.

It can imply a hidden meaning or a hidden agenda. Or that were uncomfortable with the truth. So if someone’s that presentation went really well, yeah, didn’t, maybe they think they’re being optimistic, but what they’re saying is, I want it to be a yes because I can’t handle it being a no. And sometimes questions that are too broad, like what happened today, too broad a question.

It doesn’t really show that you’re up to date [00:10:00] with what’s happening in that person’s life and you’re interested. So that can also backfire. The other times that it can backfire is when the timing is wrong. So if I’ve come home from work and there’s been traffic and I’ve had a full day of seeing clients, or maybe a full day at home recording podcasts, and I’m asked a series of questions before I’ve even had a chance to change into my.

Comfy workout gear or even have a glass of water, I’m going to be caught off guard and feel kind of snappy, so timing can matter as I get it. If you are the, the one who’s been home and you’re waiting for your partner to come home to chat, or you’ve got something really exciting and you’re busting to share it.

That you really wanna get stuck into it. But if the other person hasn’t had a chance to decompress, it’s gonna blow up. They’re either not gonna give you their best answer. They might get short or cranky, or they might just say something to just move the conversation along. And so this, and so now I wanna give you.

A small taste of the kinds of questions that I use in my work. So three questions that you can ask your [00:11:00] partner tonight, and these are general ones about the relationship and why these are different is because they focus on experience rather than blame. They invite reflection instead of defensiveness.

They slow the conversation down and they create space for honesty without pressure. And these questions will help change the tone of the conversation. And if you haven’t done something like this before, let your partner know. Just say, I hurt. Say something like, I was listening to a podcast episode. I watched this video on YouTube and it gave me a couple of questions that we could ask each other.

To get to know each other a little bit better or to kind of do a bit of a check-in, is now a good time. So check that they’re open to it. Make sure you’re coming at it without blame if you come at it when they’re stressed or overwhelmed and saying, so, I’ve got some questions that we can ask each other to really get on top of this relationship stuff.

Here are some questions you can ask me so that you can communicate better. That is not going to work, and if you’ll need more than a few questions, that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with that. I have heaps of different questions that I [00:12:00] ask. I have pages of them in my workbooks that I use with couples. My whole relationship, new year reset lists several questions for each of the seven topics.

Each of the seven bigger conversations that I want you to have here are three that you can try at home. Tonight, how have you been feeling about us lately? Be prepared to hear something uncomfortable. Remember, if you’re asking these questions and you’re being curious, you’ve gotta be open to hearing what your partner has to say.

Question number two, when do you feel most connected to me? And when do you feel a bit distant? This is a really good one to kind of get a vibe from your partner, what they like, what they enjoy, and maybe a bit of a temperature check where things are at now. This is one of my favorites. What would help you feel more loved?

And supported by me right now. So for some couples, even asking these questions can feel awkward and uncomfortable, and it might be a sign that you need a little bit of extra help. Don’t worry, there is help available if you are finding that you’re always getting into fights or you can’t resolve the conflict.

Couples [00:13:00] therapy can be a really helpful tool. I’ve got some other episodes and I’ll pop a link to those that you can check out around couples therapy and some other useful things. If one person shuts down while the other escalates, that’s a sign that you might need some help. Self-soothing because things are getting really heated and you’re flooding.

If the same conversation keeps looping and looping and looping with no resolution, you might need a bit of extra support. And if there’s uncertainty about how to have these conversations safely, and safe means emotional safety, psychological safety, then you might need some extra support there as well.

Learning how to check in is not a failing. It is a skill. We learn skills in so many other ways. If we wanna learn piano, we have to learn to read music. And then we awkwardly try and tap on the keys to try and get a cohesive song together. And then we practice and practice and still can get it wrong. And slowly, slowly we get better.

Communication skills are no different. We learn them, we practice them, we refine them, we adapt them, we modify them, and we keep learning. And [00:14:00] this is exactly why I’m running my yearly. Relationship New Year reset to help you have these conversations. It is going live in January. Join me for this workshop.

You’ll have the time with your partner to have these tough questions, and if you can’t make it live, that’s okay. It’ll be available on demand along with the workbook, but get in now while you can. In the next episode, I’m going to talk a little bit more about. Conflict and how we can get into conflict, why we fight about things all the time, and why my partner just won’t communicate with me.

And if this episode has been resonating with you, don’t forget to check out my new year relationship preset where I teach the full process in a supported way. The details are in the show notes.