I recently did something that felt vulnerable in a way I didn’t quite expect. I brought a recording of a couples session to my case consultation group. I had transcribed it carefully, read it over more than once, thought about it endlessly, and came in ready to dissect what I had done wrong. As I presented the case to my colleagues I let them know I felt embarrassed by what I was going to share.
In the clip you could hear me explaining, reframing, persuading, pushing gently but persistently. One of the first things you learn as a graduate student in counseling is not to take up too much “airspace,” and yet there I was, filling up the room. What my colleagues helped me to see was that this wasn’t really about airtime at all.
In the session, the husband, let’s call him Andy, had pushed back against me. He questioned my direction. He subtly challenged my authority in the room, and I felt the shift immediately in my body. Without consciously deciding to, I leaned in and worked hard to assert my authority.
Meanwhile, his wife, let’s call her Talia, grew quieter. She didn’t leave the room physically, but I could feel her move away. At one point, after my exchange with Andy had gone on for at least 10 minutes, she said in a small voice, “I think I have something to say.” It felt like a gut punch. We had been talking about her the whole time, and yet she had been pushed to the margins of her own story.
When I brought the clip to consultation, I expected to be told what I should have done instead. I thought we would refine my intervention. Instead, my supervisor, Lori Marchak, said something that stopped me cold: “What if he just didn’t trust you? And what if he was right not to?”
I began to see the situation very differently. From Andy’s perspective, I was another authority figure trying to control him. I was another woman criticizing him. Telling him he was missing something, failing somehow, and not measuring up. If you’re a man reading this, I’m sure you’ve had this experience.
Andy’s resistance was protection. And then I realized that I was protecting, too. I was protecting against losing control of the session and against the possibility that I might not be trusted…and, more to the point, that I shouldn’t be trusted.
I was working hard to earn his trust and my own sense of safety. If you’re a woman in a relationship, you might know this experience too. Many of us have been culturally trained to carry the emotional labor of connection – to notice what’s off, to course-correct, to repair the rupture, to maintain the connection. When that doesn’t work, the reflex is always to work harder. Explain better. Get it right this time.
During the consultation, Lori gently pointed out something I hadn’t noticed. She said that she’s noticed that I’m the only one in the group who sends a written summary before presenting a case. The only one who transcribes every word of a clip. The only one who reads a book beforehand and quotes from it in the session itself (shout out to Social-Emotional Relationship Therapy: Bridging Emotion, Societal Context, and Couple Interaction by Carmen Knudson-Martin, et al.).
She looked at me – both in the therapy clip and in our consultation group – and said simply, “You’re working so hard.”
I let her words land. Within moments, tears rose up quickly and unexpectedly. As they streamed down my face, I said, “I don’t know how not to.”
That realization reverberates far beyond that one therapy session into my personal life. In so many heterosexual relationships, I see a familiar dance unfold. She works hard to improve the relationship. He feels criticized or inadequate and defends, explains, fixes, or withdraws. She works harder because she feels anxious and alone in her effort, and he moves farther away because he feels under threat.
Neither of them is doing anything wrong. Both of them are protecting something vulnerable. He may be protecting a part that fears never getting it right. She may be protecting a part that believes she has to carry this massive burden alone. Underneath the sharp edges of the conflict are two nervous systems trying to feel safe in a culture that hasn’t taught us how to soften together.
Lori offered a powerful reframe: distrust is wise.
If someone has spent much of their life feeling corrected or told they’re getting it wrong – often men – it makes sense that they would react quickly and defensively. And if someone has learned that love and security come from working hard and getting it right – often women – it makes sense that they would work harder, even when that effort isn’t actually helping. These responses aren’t character flaws. They’re adaptations shaped by experience and culture.
The shift, for me, is not “talk less” or “do it better.” It’s allowing the possibility that I don’t have to convince anyone to trust me. I don’t have to overcome resistance to create movement. And perhaps, in my professional and personal relationships, I don’t have to work myself into exhaustion to prove I care or that I’m worthy of care.
For men, this might mean noticing when defensiveness is actually fear about feeling somehow defective and unworthy. For women, it might mean noticing when over-functioning is actually anxiety about feeling alone and uncared for. For both, it means pausing long enough to ask a different question.
Instead of asking, “How do we fix this?” try asking, “What parts are we protecting right now?”
That question changes everything. When we begin to see protection instead of pathology, the urgency softens. When urgency softens, bodies settle. And when bodies settle, connection has a chance to re-emerge – not because someone won the argument, but because both people feel seen in their vulnerability.
I’m still learning how to do things differently. I suspect that learning (or unlearning!) will take a long time, and maybe a few more vulnerable consultations. But I’m convinced of this: trust doesn’t deepen because one person tries harder. It deepens when both people feel safe enough to put their armor down at the same time.
If you recognize this dance in your own relationship – the overfunctioning, the defending, the loneliness on both sides – you’re living inside powerful currents of culture and history. Those currents can be named. They can be understood. They can be shifted.
In the Couples Counseling Intensive, we slow everything down. We make space for what each partner is protecting. We untangle the old stories that keep the cycle alive. And we help you experience something different – not just insight, but safety.
If you’re ready to stop working so hard and start feeling more connected, I’d be honored to walk that path with you.
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