Wellness Matters Webinar - How to embrace change and transition to help your relationship grow

This webinar will be best experienced with your partner at your side. It will seek to stir and inspire the curious portion of our brain when it comes to exploring how our lived experiences have shaped us into who we are and how those experiences have influenced our closest relationships as well. Whether involved in a newly formed relationship, have yet to experience those milestones that define a marriage, such as having children or tying the knot officially, or if you are seasoned veterans in a positive and long-lasting relationship, this webinar can help learn more about yourself and your partner, and help forge stronger bonds to help you weather current or future challenges.

Learn more about:

What We Missed: drawing on past experiences that altered our worldview, we forgot to explore thoroughly and still may not fully understand

What Curiosity Sounds and Feels Like: how to engage in positive conversation about changes

What To Do With New Knowledge: how to apply changes in myself and new understandings of my partner positively into our marriage

facilitated by: Jean-Luc Roy

Webinar FAQs

• How can embracing change and transition help my relationship grow?

  Embracing change and transition in a relationship means intentionally reflecting on how life events—like becoming parents, moving, changing jobs, or retiring—have shaped you and your partner. By talking about what changed, how it felt, and what it means for each of you, couples can better understand one another, reduce misunderstandings, and feel more connected. Instead of trying to “fix” the relationship, these conversations aim to strengthen it and build resilience for future changes.

• How do we start difficult conversations about past hurts, losses, or life transitions as a couple?

  Start broad and gentle: choose a major transition (like becoming parents, moving, or a job change) and ask curious, open-ended questions such as “What was that time like for you?” or “What changed for you when that happened?” Go slowly, respect each other’s limits, and pause if emotions run high. The goal is not to win an argument or be “right,” but to understand each other’s experience so you can communicate better and feel less alone in the relationship.

• How do I know if my partner and I are ready to explore our relationship history, or if we need counselling support?

  You may be ready if there is some emotional bandwidth, basic safety, and willingness to be curious about each other’s experiences—even if it feels a bit vulnerable or uncomfortable. If conversations quickly turn into anger, shutdowns, feelings of being attacked or manipulated, or if there are major stressors like addiction, health crises, or intense burnout, brief professional support can help create a safer foundation. A couples or individual therapist can guide you in exploring change and transition at a pace that fits your current life circumstances.

Transcript

Hello, good evening, and welcome to our Wellness Matters talk this evening with Jean-Luc Roy on how to embrace change and transition to help your relationship grow. My name is Nicole Imgrund, and I’m the owner and director of Rivers Edge Counselling Centre. I don’t want to take up too much of your time before our presentation starts, but if you’ll bear with me, I want to share a little bit about the upcoming talks and programs we have through Rivers Edge. Tonight’s talk is the first in our Wellness Matters series for the fall season. We have a few more already scheduled and coming up. We have the next one later in October on understanding burnout and compassion fatigue. We’ve got one in November called In Touch With Myself, about understanding core emotional needs. We also have one about exploring well-being and positive psychology. We already have our winter and spring season lined up as well. They’re not quite on the website yet, but we’ve got another seven or eight coming in the winter and spring as well. You’re always welcome to join us. There are about 120 recorded sessions on the website as well, so if you look under the blog section, you’ll be able to find lots of other great information and talks that you can watch. We have some programs and groups that are just about to launch here in the fall. I want to share a few of them with you.

We have a talk about embodying awareness of personal boundaries. This is a one-evening workshop with Robin, a psychologist on our team, and you’re able to choose from two different dates, so we’ve got that coming up. We also have one that Sheila is doing—another psychologist on our team—called The Compassionate Road to Building Self-Esteem. People have really loved this group. She ran it a couple of times last year, and I think she’s got two spaces open in that group.

We’ve got two workshops that might interest you. The first workshop is on two different evenings: Getting Through the Tough Stuff. This workshop is with Britney, and it’s about supporting kids and teens through self-harm, suicidal thoughts, and other disclosures—those tougher moments parents, guardians, teachers, and other caregivers experience. Britney has a wonderful way of sharing information and helping you think about how you can stay engaged with your teen and be helpful at what can be a really difficult time.

And I’ll share one more with you. It’s a new one we’re really excited about with Candice: strengthening skills, strategies, and supports for parents of children on the autism spectrum. Candice did an amazing webinar in the spring that was really well received, and so she’s coming back to share a little bit more with us in this workshop format. Those last two I shared with you are only $20 each session. All of the workshops, we try really hard to keep the cost down as much as possible to make them accessible. So if you think you might be interested, check them out on our website.

Without further ado, I’m going to introduce our facilitator for this evening. Jean-Luc is a provisional psychologist on the Rivers Edge team, and he tends to the mental health needs of couples. He chose the topic tonight because he’s really passionate about working with couples, and I know that passion will come through. He also really enjoys his work with teens and adults coming with a variety of different challenges in their lives as well.

Jean-Luc draws on a number of different modalities, including cognitive behavioral therapy, Gottman, and psychodynamic principles, to explore and understand his clients’ needs and experiences that have facilitated and contributed to their adversities. His life experiences have assisted in shaping the demeanor, the knowledge, and the curiosity that he has to best assist a diverse range of people and their equally diverse challenges—from being a university athlete, to serving Alberta’s industrial pursuits as a journeyman millwright. Being faced with, as well as overcoming, complex interpersonal challenges has been a mainstay throughout his own life.

I can really attest to Jean-Luc being an incredibly compassionate and skilled therapist, and we’re really fortunate to have him on our team, and really fortunate to hear tonight what he has to share with us about couples.

With that, I’m going to take my own video off. I want you to know that I’m watching the chat if you need anything technology-wise, or what have you. The talk should be under an hour, so we should have a few minutes at the end for comments and questions, and we’ll check back with you about anything you have to say at that time.

Okay, thank you so much, Nicole. I’m just going to pray the technology works here.

So, those of you who are attending in the absence of your partner: I want you to know I’ve made this as easy to understand as possible. I want you to sound like yourselves when you communicate this to others. Maybe your partner wants to hear it from you.

If you are with your partner, we’re recording this, so I encourage you to interrupt yourselves for the sake of discussion.

So tonight, we’re going to work on embracing change and transition. How can we do this? I’ve found a good way to do so is to explore the context of the past. Doing so allows us to learn a lot about ourselves and our partners. These conversations may be difficult. This is to strengthen us, not to fix or save a relationship. These conversations may also signal a need for other conversations.

We’re going to explore these words on the screen a little bit more, so we know exactly what we’re talking about—or at least I thought we were.

Embracing the past, and those changes and transitions—we may not want to embrace. Our partner may not, which we are going to explore soon too. Let’s say we do want to embrace: what is it like, and what does it involve?

It involves reflection. We want to think about the past. We want to recognize that the past has influenced our path up until now. We want to recognize and reflect that we can learn from our mistakes.

Consideration: I want you all to consider that you’ve been through a lot, but you can handle some more for the sake of your family and for your relationship. Consider that you and your partner are capable of change. You are both capable of growing.

Part of embracing will also involve acceptance. We’re not looking for flat or blind acceptance—of what changed, that she changed, that I changed. She used to be into horror films, and now she’s into kayaking. I used to be into things other than growing a beard and renting a backhoe to see what it can do.

What is important about acceptance is understanding the meaning of the change: what it means to you, what it means to me, and what that change and acceptance means to us. I can embrace when I can understand and accept who you are and who I am.

Change: it’s inevitable. It’s constant. Usually unwanted, but it can be needed. Most often, it is unexplored—usually due to numerous fears. It can be hard to talk about how others have changed as well, because they may not understand their own changes. Change was, and is, sometimes needed just for us—which is okay. Sometimes change was, and is, needed just for them; that’s okay too. Other times, it was just for us as a couple. Often, it is for all of us as a family to experience.

Often we need help to identify the changes that we’ve gone through in our lives. I use the example of driving through a snowstorm to describe change. We’re not sure how long we’re going to be in the storm, but we know a lot is changing quickly: the road conditions, the wind, the snow, the visibility. Do we slow down? Do we stop and wait? Is that our style? Are we looking for lights ahead of us to follow and give us direction? Maybe someone is a bit behind us and they’re looking for our lights as a reference point. Do we floor it—yeehaw? Maybe that sounds like you and yours.

The interpretations and expectations for that storm—for that change—will be different based on our personal experiences. Change is experienced subjectively. A good place to start these conversations is to simply ask: how do you handle storm driving? It can tell a lot about somebody.

For our talk tonight, when I say “periods of transition,” we’re referring to common—but not definite—experiences within a culture or a region. We’re talking about adult patterns of likely experiences as we develop: we move in together, we become parents, we get married, we retire. Those are transition periods.

Transition periods will be similar across generational cohorts. Adapting to technology might be different for your parents than it is for you, and than it is for me. It’s always changing so rapidly, and we’ve all had to adapt to that transition. It’s similar across genders: boys become men, and then husbands and fathers; girls become women, and then wives and mothers.

We could say: before parenthood, we partied. We partied so much. I loved it—and then we stopped partying. How is that transition for you? We don’t do that social stuff anymore. Transition signals development, and that we are moving forward regardless of our preparedness. We do have the ability to regret and reflect on that progression as well.

We did not go through those transition periods alone. We went through it as a society. We went through it with our friends—we can talk to them about it. We went through it with our partner, and we went through it as a family as well.

If we go back to the driving example: a transition would be a change in season. We’re in a different season now—summer. There’s less change occurring, and there are fewer factors to affect the change.

Context is one of my favorite words. It provides depth and meaning to those changes and transitions. It helps us understand our experience and how others think and feel about the same experience. We can say that my partner and I went through becoming parents, but it’ll be subjective as to how we understood it—and we need the context to understand those differences. More is learned about me, and more is learned about you, when we explore the context.

Context separates the idea of “I like guitars” from “I like guitars because they help me feel better about my bad day.” Now we have some context. The opposite is content, which only answers the “what” of an experience.

When I was in kindergarten, I came home and I was wearing completely different clothes than I went to school with, and my parents kind of freaked out. Our brains will fill in the gaps with fear thoughts or comforting thoughts to help us make sense of the situation. One parent went to: something bad happened; at some point, my kindergartner was naked at school today—that’s not very good. The other parent went to: they got muddy, or it was paint day, or something; don’t worry about it—they gave him new clothes, and we’ll get brand new washed clothes tomorrow. I don’t know if Northern Getaway was out here, but it was a very nice kids’ clothing store.

What my parents really needed to know, and what we need to know about our partners, is the context—the “why” behind the experience. They could freak out about the complete change—top to bottom, shoes, pants, t-shirt, sweater—everything was different. The reason was: I liked dinosaurs, and the other kid liked bears, and my shirt had bears and his had dinosaurs—so we switched. But we didn’t stop there. We switched everything. We were like, why stop at just the bears and the dinosaurs?

So now the context is: your kindergartner can be a bit of a ding-dong, and that’s also part of life. Answering “why” will help us develop a stronger connection. It will prevent us from using fear and comfort-seeking behaviors to fill in the gaps in communication. Without context, we are just stating what happened without actually understanding its effects on you, on me, and on our partnership.

Oh—whoa—and that concludes our presentation for today.

Okay, guys. We do have enough on our plates, and we’re all quick to add things to the to-do list. I don’t want to add pressure to what can be a positive experience for you and your partner, so these are not “have to” or “shoulds.” This is just one way to consider approaching strengthening your relationship.

Let’s consider: if any of these considerations are difficult—because communication riffs, you experience strong emotions, or you’re experiencing reluctance (or your partner is)—you might be motivated to seek brief professional help or other resources to iron out these considerations.

First, we want to consider: are we curious? Do we want to learn? Do they want to learn? There may be good reasons why we, or they, are not able to be curious right now. There could be reasons why they can’t embrace or reflect on their change and transition periods of the past.

Why is this need-to-know important? How will context help our relationship? Knowing “why” can be motivating for us and our partner. We might want to let them know that talking about these things will benefit them too. We can argue less; we can enjoy our time together more. Overall, these talks are for our partnership—to better embrace change and transition.

Let’s consider where we have been: together, as individuals, and as a family. This will help answer where to look and how to best grow together, where the curiosity should lie. It answers what we need to embrace to strengthen us.

I also want to provide a brief roadmap as to what this can look, feel, and sound like, so that we know we’re on the right path.

We must contemplate if we can handle this by considering where we are now. We may not be ready as a couple yet. Maybe there are other factors affecting our ability to talk now. I would still encourage you to take in this information for yourself, for your own personal growth. Understanding your own context is not a bad thing. This can be an individual activity as well.

So let’s have some fun as we consider what these things can do for ourselves and our partnership.

First we ask: are we curious? We will need to be curious about our contextual past. If we are not curious, we could be avoiding something. We can ask our partner if they are avoiding, and we can tell them if we feel we are avoiding. We don’t want to push; we want to ask them and offer them help. We want to ask them for help if we need it, and offer help if they need it.

We could be avoiding old pain—pain of unmet needs, regret, or guilt for our actions or thoughts about ourselves, our family, or our partner. Maybe we’re grieving someone or something from the past and it’s too much. We could be avoiding the reality of a bad memory.

I could be afraid to be inaccurate—maybe that will cause more issues. If we are concerned about poor memory, we can build the picture together: how do you think I was at that time? How do you think you were? That’s okay, as long as you’re on the same page. That’s the point.

We could be avoiding because we sense futility: our partner may not be interested; they may not express curiosity, so now I feel stuck. Still, I encourage you to be curious about yourself. Maybe you can model the confidence of learning, and maybe they will follow. Maybe more help is needed.

Maybe we’re fearing change. Fearing change can prevent curiosity. It’s okay to ask if change is difficult for them, and we need to consider if change is going to be difficult for us—change to come, or reflecting on change of the past. Maybe we don’t handle change well, so we resist any kind of change. Maybe our partner does this too.

Maybe we’re stable now, so we don’t want to rock the boat—fingers crossed, good enough for now. The sheer number of unknowns can be very overwhelming too. Maybe we’re anticipating only negative change. If so, explore: what has change meant to you in the past? What makes it difficult now? Why is it that all change is going to be negative?

If we are curious, we could say we are seeking something new, and perhaps we wish to grow along the way. Maybe we want to feel something new—different, positive. Maybe we want to learn and grow with our partner. Maybe we want to develop “couply” skills: closeness, intimacy, being a better role model for our kids. Maybe we have space for more because the kids are gone, or they’re in school, or we have less responsibility for whatever reason. Maybe we retired. Maybe we’re seeking new due to change and transition.

It might be a good conversation to start with: why are we curious now? That’s a good place to start. Maybe we can form a goal about being curious together.

Curiosity about our past and the context of the past can help us plan for the future: my goals, your goals, our goals. Maybe we need help planning. My goals affect me, they affect you, they affect us, and they affect our family. So I want to know your goals, and I want you to know mine. I want to plan for the changes and transitions of the future. I want to know how change and transition in the past affected you, me, and us.

Like we said, change and transition are inevitable. Maybe we can be more graceful the next time we go through change and transition. Maybe we can aim for fewer challenges. I know how you are during change, you know how I am; maybe I can help—or maybe it’s just helpful to be aware of how we are during those periods.

Plan for conflict: it is also inevitable. We want to understand our factors in conflict so we can avoid the landmines. I want to know why you yell. I want you to know why I leave. I want to know why we both shut down. I want to be curious, not accusatory, as I understand these landmines too. We should seek a better way to fight. As humans, we tend to fight to be right instead of fighting to be understood and heard. Fighting to be right can be toxic.

We want to adjust our values. Are they the same? Are they good enough for now? Are they good for us now? Are we demonstrating our values well as a family? What are the kids seeing, and how are they behaving? If we’re not living up to our values as individuals, as a family, or as a partnership, we can experience a lot of inner conflict—and that affects us too.

Before I say anything more about communication: it’s a huge subject. It’s the most common thing brought up in couple’s therapy—communication. There are so many resources: professionals, books, podcasts, you name it.

These factors can help adjust our communication. It often needs adjustment. We want to reflect on past communication issues—big and small. Maybe we want to be spoken to differently now than we did 10 years ago. We want our partner to know that. Communication can often be based on assumptions about how others thought and felt in the past, so we want to understand so we can adjust communication for now and for the future.

We want to adjust our trajectory. Maybe we’re sensing a buildup of contempt, or distance growing between us. Maybe something’s brewing elsewhere: the kids’ behavior, grades slumping, or a coming storm in external family issues. Like planning, adjusting offers a proactive stance versus reactive, and it can help repel unwanted and unhelpful change. I want to know so we can grow toward each other and not apart. I want to nurture our closeness and trust. I want to feel a partnership and not so alone. I want to feel like we can lean on each other for anything. I want to feel committed, and I want to feel your commitment too.

We can reinforce what makes us “us.” I want to reinforce what I like—or liked—about you, and I want your help reinforcing what you like—or liked—about me. I want to reinforce what brought us together in the first place, and we may just need a reminder of why we fell in love and decided to share this lifetime together.

I want to grow toward understanding one another: your wants, your needs, your challenges—and I want you to understand mine. I want to apply this understanding to our interactions so we can make them better and stronger. I don’t want to guess that you understand, based on my perceptions of the past.

So we’re curious, and we know why we’re curious, but what are we going to be curious about? Too much curiosity in too many directions can be overwhelming. We want to be accurate, but also broad to begin—just to test the waters.

We want to look to periods of change and transition, but which ones? There are a lot. On the next page, we’ll start with the larger headings, and that’s how I want you to approach it too: start with the larger headings to probe for curiosity, and then focus on the subheadings to test the waters for the more “involved” subjects. Remember, it can be painful looking backward for some of us, so we don’t want to push outside limits. We want to see what can be handled and where curiosity may lie within ourselves and within our partners.

It will be wise to look back and embrace change and transition around our losses. What have we grieved, and who have we maybe lost? Parents, family, friends, pets. We have shared losses between us, and we have individual losses that could have occurred before we were together.

I want to understand you, and I want to understand my missed opportunities—opportunities to live and be somewhere else, to do something different, to follow a different professional path, academic path, whatever it is. Maybe we missed out on experiences—concerts we didn’t see, trips we never went on. They can be tough to grieve.

We grieve lost time. We grieve wasted time. We grieve time spent earning money that was then wasted. We grieve time spent in bad friendships, and certainly bad relationships. We can grieve time spent in bad jobs where we were mistreated. We can grieve time wasted on bad goals that weren’t for us—maybe they were someone else’s goals. Maybe we were in a bad headspace for a period of time and it prevented growth, so we grieve that time.

We also want to explore what was gained between us. We’ve added to the family with in-laws—maybe not a gain for everyone. We combined friend groups. We gained pets. We became mother and father, and we gain noise with that too—noise, noise.

We gained responsibility. I want to know what it was like for you to take on new responsibilities at work and as a parent. I want you to know what it was like for me, and what it’s like to handle those responsibilities.

We gained status: higher income, a bigger home or a different home, promotions. There’s lots of context to explore in status changes, because it can be fun. They’re often positive. Parenthood can be a status. Moving into a new neighborhood can be a change in status.

We gained stuff. Looking at our garage: are we artists, adrenaline junkies, or gardeners? We all collect a lot of things. Who still has their sourdough starter? Our assets affect our shared space, so maybe we need fewer assets. Or maybe it’s a little empty, and we could afford more assets—more stuff we can do—maybe not just things that end up in the garage.

We purchased vehicles together or individually. We made investments. We bought a house. We want to consider things like: did we pay too much? Do you think we paid too much? You got that funny-colored car in the 90s, and I never understood why you got that color. I’m curious now, because I feel like your car is running low, and you’re going to need a new one—and I don’t want that color associated with me or the house anymore.

The most important thing I want to know is: is her midlife crisis going to involve a two-seater? Because I do look fantastic in Ferrari red. I want to anticipate that transition and change so I can be a part of that change to the Ferrari. Okay, okay, okay.

A big one: we need to consider changes to our differences. Maybe this is going to be our first time exploring our differences constructively. I want you to know that I can accept our differences—politically, socially, economically. I want to know how your perspectives have changed, and what the agent of change was, so that we can plan, adjust, grow closer, and develop our understanding. Because we are different, and we have different needs as well.

I want to revisit your needs. Our needs may change at a different rate and to a different degree as we develop. I don’t want to waste energy—you don’t want to waste energy—on old needs, old assumptions about our needs. Are you aware of my new needs? Am I aware of yours? Our needs often pertain to our goals, and both change.

What was it like to hit your goals? What was it like for you to see me hit mine? Did you see me struggle? Because I saw a lot of strength in you accomplishing your goals. Was that accurate—that I saw strength at that time? We chase goals differently. How do you chase yours?

Again: start broad, then narrow in. Ask about losses, gains, and differences.

So how’s this going to feel? How’s it going to feel for me, and for my partner? How should this feel?

I want to stress: we don’t want to drive to feel certain ways. It can’t be all-or-nothing from the beginning. This is going to take time, practice, and exploration. It will require your patience and your partner’s. Our partners may have different asks and needs from us in order to feel that they can embrace the context of those changes and transitions. We want to be aware of those differences, the asks, and the needs.

Consider that you may want to feel good—physically, emotionally, mentally. Look at good conversations you have with friends and family and consider why it was good. We feel good when we sense curiosity—when we sense curiosity from somebody and for somebody. We want to feel good so we can feel comfortable to sit with the conversation, because it’s got to feel good for us to want to do it again. Maybe we’ll experience discomfort during the exploration, and the good feeling will come afterward. Either way, it allows us to look forward to more.

We strive to feel heard—like they’re interested. If we’re not feeling heard, we can check in. Maybe they’re distracted. Maybe they lack curiosity in the moment, but they want to be curious at another time. We also need to consider: maybe we are the ones who are distracted.

Sorry if this word upsets anybody: I could have said “connected” instead of “sexy,” but we’re animals, and I know you’re going to remember “sexy” better, so I’m sticking with it. Sexiness will feel like closeness. We’ll want to reach out and touch, and embrace—not all the time; we’re not teenagers—but that genuine “I feel closer to you.” Maybe we want to hold hands, put a hand on each other’s lap, sit facing each other, sit closer.

We’ll feel gratitude after, if we feel connected and “sexy.” We might feel like, “thank you for that experience.” Again, these aren’t shoulds. It’s just part of what can happen. You might feel it bubbling up. Maybe I want to hug you afterward: “That felt good. That conversation felt really good.”

We want to feel trust. Trust is sexy. It allows us to feel vulnerable and to explore deeper meaning and depth. With practice, connection and sexiness can feel more natural. We might end up knowing that they’re always listening, even if they don’t look like they are. We can start to do this on the fly—during a task, in the middle of whatever—and have brief check-ins: “Is this like what happened back then?” “Yeah, it is.” “Okay, good.” No eye contact, but that’s a lot of practice.

Consider that we may want to avoid feeling interrogated—or for our partner to feel interrogated. If we feel interrogated, it can feel like they’re racing through questions for an answer. If we feel interrogated, maybe the initiator is frantic, and too much is riding on this conversation, and that needs to be talked about and sorted through.

We do not want to feel manipulated. We do not want to feel like our partner has an unknown goal or intention—like they want to be right about something in the past. That diminishes trust. It’ll be harder to be honest if we feel manipulated. It can feel like there’s a predetermined conclusion they’re trying to get to. If we feel manipulated, our partner may be trying to control their own emotions using us. “Control” and “using” are big words, but let’s lighten the idea—many things can lead to feeling like we’re manipulating or being controlled.

We have to consider: is this feeling us? Is it our thoughts and behaviors making us feel this way, or is it theirs? It can be touchy—go at it gracefully. Maybe get some help.

We certainly do not want to feel attacked, like our partner is unloading their anger and frustrations on us. Maybe that anger is from the relationship, or maybe it’s from external sources—work or who knows what. That’s why we’re talking about it.

We can ask them not to be angry at us. We can consider: are we angry? I’ll remind everybody: anger is a secondary emotion. It often comes from pain or fear—emotional pain, or fear that something bad is going to happen. So when we’re exploring anger, we can also use words like pain and fear. We want to explore where that pain is from, or when that pain is from—again, context.

We want to explore anger together when we are calm. If it’s my anger, I want to take responsibility, and maybe I need to explore it individually if I’m not ready as a couple yet, or if my partner is not ready to hear it.

If we’re struggling to feel good and connected—if we feel frantic, manipulated, attacked, and angry—we may want to work on feeling more relaxed physically and in our environment, and more able to handle difficult conversations. Maybe we need individual counseling and coping strategies so we can feel more relaxed. I may need to understand myself before I can relax, so maybe self-exploration is step one.

Do I feel open to new ideas about myself and my partner? I want to work on openness to allow new perspectives of myself and my relationship. Am I allowing space for their perspective? I want to be aware that exploring context can change my view of the past. I’m not saying it’ll turn good memories bad, but it can change them; you may understand what your partner was thinking and feeling then. That can be rough—but it can also change bad memories, and it can change current issues too.

I cannot embrace change and transition at all if I’m not open to the realities of the past. I can also not be vulnerable if I’m not open. I need to be open and vulnerable to tolerable stress, possible frustrations, and the likelihood we are going to disagree. Something like two-thirds of marital conflicts are never solved; the important thing is to understand your partner as opposed to agree. It’s better to feel heard and understood sometimes.

Maybe being closed off is linked to our personal safety, either with our partner or in general, and we need more help with that.

How do I strive to sound in order to model what is needed for my partner and me to begin to feel good and connected—to feel heard, and that we are actively listening—as we attempt to embrace our changes and transitions?

How do I recognize if something is amiss with what I am hearing or saying? Am I conveying my positive intentions so that you can hear them, and are you doing the same for me?

We want to sound curious by asking questions—lots of questions, but what can be handled. We don’t want to overwhelm. If they’re into it, we can ask more; we don’t want to bombard them.

We want to convey a thirst for knowledge and to be excited about what we learn: “Wow, that’s what you experienced? That’s what you went through? I had no idea. That’s totally different than what I thought.”

We want to seek clarity with curiosity: “Help me understand what you’re saying.” A really good thing is the back-and-forth (a Gottman thing), where I express how I was feeling at a certain time, and then I have you repeat it back to me. If you don’t quite get it—your interpretation—I’ll say, “No, that’s not what I said,” and we work on it. We repeat back and forth until we’re on the same page: “Okay, I get how you felt.” It can take coaching. It can be an art. Some people come by it naturally—don’t beat yourselves up if you can’t.

We want patience in our language and nonverbals, especially when we’re listening. Uncross your arms. Stop fidgeting, rolling around in your chair, shifting—stop showing that you’re thinking about your own agenda. We want to show we’re okay with disagreement and differences of opinion. If we’re not clear or not understanding, continue to be curious: “I don’t quite get it, but I want to.”

Maybe we need to approach the curiosity from another angle: “Can you say that again, but differently? I’m almost there.”

When we share, maybe we need to relate some of our experiences to theirs if they don’t get us—which is okay. “I feel similar to you when we were going through this change.” We can have parallels at different times.

We want collaborative language—“we” and “us.” We struggle with this challenge, not just you or me, because change affects you and affects me. Let’s explore it hand in hand. We can make it an “us” thing without either of us trying to fix anything. We don’t need to fix. Maybe this needs to be a “we” thing where one of us just listens.

We do not want to sound demanding—fast and furious. Calmly, slowly, get the message across. We don’t need to force it or talk as though we have to or must. We ask questions and we encourage.

We don’t want to sound rigid: “We’re only going to talk about this,” or “only about that time.” Be open. We can say: “I think it would benefit us best at this time to discuss X. What do you think?” Show that you value their input.

We don’t want to sound manipulative. We don’t want to offer consequences: “If you don’t talk now, then…” Ultimatums are offering two bad choices. That’s rough.

We want to refrain from telling them how they feel or felt. We can help them find the feeling, but we do not prescribe it. We want our curiosity to overlap with their curiosity, and explore emotions together.

We don’t want to sound like everything they say is wrong. We will remember things differently. That’s not the big problem. We’re trying to build understanding. We don’t want to oppose their feelings: “No, you didn’t feel that way.” We want to acknowledge their reality and respect it.

We want to ask about their limits, and communicate our limits. Limits are no-go areas: “I’m willing to talk about this chunk. I’m not willing to talk about that chunk yet.”

We might need to work on awareness of our own shortcomings—factors that make communication difficult for us or for them. I’ve said openly: I’m not the best at listening sometimes. I assume and anticipate; I’ve got to stop doing that. I’m taking ownership of what I’m bringing.

We want to be sure of our feelings when stating them. Use less “maybe” and “perhaps,” especially in a quick back-and-forth. We want to avoid sounding sorry for how we felt in the past. How we felt in the past is being introduced to be embraced. “I was very sad at that time.” “I was very angry with you.”

We want to sound like there’s a purpose to our curiosity. A good initial purpose is to identify a mutual goal: “We are both aware we need to talk about transitioning the den into a storage unit. How do we let this happen?” It’s us, not “you filled the den.” Purpose prevents us from being aimless and frantic. We want to state our cause for curiosity: “I want to understand you so we can enjoy our time together more. I don’t want to fight as much. This can be good for us.” Purpose as a mutual need means we understand our own needs and positive desires for our partnership.

Before you introduce this idea to your relationship, consider where you are currently and if this is for you now—if this is for you as a couple right now—because a lot can come from these conversations. And because this is not a fix or to save, but to strengthen, maybe we’re feeling weaker after a change and transition period, or after lots of change and transition periods that haven’t been embraced yet.

We want to recognize that embracing may not be possible at this time. Maybe it’s necessary at this time, based on where we are now—and embracing the past will help us get unstuck from current issues.

Factors now can affect our ability to embrace. We need to consider where we are now as a family, because these conversations will initially take resources from other areas of life, especially if it’s difficult to get going. But after practice, you may find they don’t take as much.

Consider time demands within the family. Are you child-rearing? Are you taking care of family members—out of the home or in the home? Upkeeping the house, working to support the family. We may need to align schedules to make time for us.

Consider where we are emotionally as a family. Do we have high-needs children right now? Developmental needs—a baby needs a lot more attention than a 16-year-old. Our children’s demands are constant. Consider losses as a family: pets, grandparents, social losses, everything going on in the world. Lots of opportunities for young and old to experience loss. Maybe our kids need us.

Have we moved—new neighborhood, new town, new job—and it’s affecting us and the kids? We might need to find our footing before we’re ready to talk about these things. Sometimes, we need to put our masks on first before we can help our family grow and thrive.

We need to consider where we are financially. Maybe we need professional help and can’t afford it right now. Maybe we need to align benefits and resources. Maybe one or both of us need to work more due to financial stress, leaving less time together. We may need affordable help—books, sessions—based on our situation.

There can also be positive financial changes that prompt talks: inheritance allocation, a raise, bringing more fun or excitement into life.

We need to consider where we are individually. Maybe our physical health isn’t good, and we can’t prioritize any of these conversations. If we’re in pain, talking about emotional things can be felt physically. During a cancer scare, a medical scare, a procedure—maybe it’s not the time.

A big one: maybe our partner is in the throes or downs of addiction. Addiction affects the family, and we need to consider that it may need to be addressed first.

Maybe we’re emotionally drained personally—losses, work, societal pressures—from any direction. Maybe we can say: “I would feel this way regardless of being in this relationship; it has nothing to do with you or us.” Or: “You don’t have to carry the weight of my emotional state currently.” Maybe I don’t feel good enough about myself to explore my past mistakes or how you felt about me in the past. I want to be curious, but maybe I need to work on that first.

Maybe we feel great and ready. Consider goals: where are my goals and where are yours? Maybe my personal goals are demanding right now. Maybe they’ll help us later, so we should prioritize them. Maybe I can’t focus on “us” goals right now.

We look at these factors to see whether we have the ability to examine our contextual history as a couple, and to what extent we can be curious and embrace the past. More often than not, exploring the past and embracing change and transition will benefit—but sometimes, things are simply more important than “us.”

We’re getting close to the end. Take a deep breath and consider once more: are we curious? Can we be? Can they be? How curious are we? How curious are they? Can I, or they, be more curious? What is my goal with that curiosity? Do I want to fight? Do I want to be right? Or do I want to be heard? We want positive intention with a shared meaningful goal.

Do we have the ability emotionally? Do we need to work on overall communication first? We want to consider the need to practice—practice with friends, practice with family, someone we trust. I’m pretty certain you’re already doing this with someone in your life—often siblings and close friends. We already explore context more easily with them.

Maybe those people have pointers too: “Oh my god, when you go through change… I don’t know how your partner puts up with you.” Go with people you trust and are comfortable with.

Explore your own context. Practice slowly and patiently with your partner. Practice often, if possible. Try to do it consistently. When you find that special time of the week or day where you can talk, be intentional with it—don’t wait for time to appear.

We can practice by exploring our self-context of the past: “What was it like for me to become a parent?” We can explore that on our own. How did it change me and my perspective? Try out the new job, the move—explore it. Practice until you feel the humility, until you feel some confidence, until you feel you can handle it emotionally.

A good place to start is the Gottman Card Deck. It’s free on Apple and Android. I’m not selling anything—this is free. It’s a good app. The Gottman method is sound and applies well to most issues and concerns, and there’s a lot in the app, but specifically the card deck asks good questions to gauge where you and your partner may be—where curiosity may lie. Really simple, open questions. Ones I like: “Who was your favorite teacher growing up?” And I’m shocked how many couples don’t know this: “Who is your best friend now?” Questions like that—scraping the surface.

Keep in mind: Gottman Card Deck—free, easy, lots in there.

Wow, that was faster than I thought. That’s all I have, Nicole, for embracing change and transition and exploring the context of the past. If you are lost and you’re frustrated as a couple or an individual, reach out for some help. It’s okay. Thank you very much. That was a lot of fun. I don’t know why I was nervous.