What Therapy Actually Gave Us with Colette and Steve Fehr

Yeah, no, thanks for coming on. I, ⁓ I don't know how much you know about marriage therapy radio, but we have been around for like eight years. ⁓ for the first seven or so, I had a cohost, her name was Laura and she left the show at the end of last year. She just kind of felt like she wanted to be a mom. in the year since I've just been interviewing couples, just trying to figure out like, man, how do couples make it work? ⁓

Mm-hmm.

I, maybe you have this opportunity that a lot of people don't have, which is I talk to tons of couples all the time. And so when I talk to them, a lot of the things I get to do is sort of normalize that what they're dealing with is not too far out of the, I mean, it's just like people think, Oh my God, we're broken or we're, and I'm like, actually, no, seen this a million times. Most couples don't have that experience, right? They, they know their parents, they know their friends, they know their neighbors, but they don't actually. So I've just really made it kind of my mission on marriage therapy radio to.

Thanks.

Let people see behind the curtain, you know, just see how other couples are making it work. the easiest thing to do is to get people who are interested in promoting their book or promoting their brand or whatever, because they want to be in the scene. And I'm like, great. I do want to talk about your book, but most say, just want to talk about you guys and why you, how you make it work, you know, what it's like for you. And so if that's, if you're game to play, you know, I'm going to ask a handful of questions you are welcome to pass at any time. We're not. live so if you're like mm okay

Yeah, no, we're pretty open. We're pretty open. I I talk about my life very, I am on two podcasts. I have two podcasts. So I talk about my life very openly. talk about my life in my book. I've dragged Steve through all kinds of guinea pigging as being married to a couple of service. And it's just kind of my personal style to be like, I sort of let it all hang out.

So.

⁓ But like you, I'm glad to hear your mission because you're so right. People do think their problems are so weird and shameful and embarrassing. And even in this time of oversharing social media, people tend to protect a lot of what's going on in their marriage. And I hear it as a couples therapist, but we don't normalize these struggles. So I think it's really important for people to get to know we're all having the same problems. Even I, as a couples therapist, deeply trained, I've been doing this work a long time. We have all kinds of relationship problems that we deal with because we're human.

Right on. Yeah, people tell me when they hear I'm a couples therapist, they say, you must have a perfect marriage. go, no, I don't have a perfect marriage, but I also don't have any excuses. So when you sit and you sit in our chair, as long as you do, and you're like, you should try this and how about that? And I've ever heard of this piece of research and what about this strategy? And then you go home and you don't use it. It's sort of like, Anyway, ⁓ Steve, what's your jam? Like, what do you, what is your, what do you fit in the, in the

Yes.

personal, social, professional world of yourself. Like, who are you?

Well, you know, therapy is a long stretch from where I came from. It's like I am a CPA by trade, you know, been in finance for 30 plus years. So, ⁓ you know, really a financial black and white thinker for the most part. So therapy definitely stretches me at times.

Do you guys do therapy? Do you do couples therapy for yourselves?

Well, we're not right now.

We have done it. We've done it a few times, kind just as preventative, I guess, is just to keep things fresh. A couple times when we struggled with integrating families and things like that, or career issues. So I think we're very honest about looking at ⁓ things we need to work on.

We've done tons, let me just clarify, we have done tons of couples therapy. I would say maybe six years of couples therapy, if not more. We've done multiple couples therapy intensives. We've done therapy in multiple models. I mean, I'm not disagreeing with what you're saying. I'm just adding to it that we've done a lot. And I think it's been a combination of I like to sit in the client seat and experience what I'm doing. It helps me as a therapist.

Okay.

And it's been at times like Steve said, you know, just to enrich our relationship, but it's also been at times when we've hit really rough patches and just been stuck over and over and over again and like unable to get out of the stuck place that we've had to do therapy and like even struggled through it.

Hmm, I want to ask a lot about that, I think it would be, ⁓ I think first I need some context. So how long have you guys been together? What's your demo? What's your story?

Steve, do you wanna go first?

You to go? Sure, sure. ⁓ We met back in 2013, ⁓ actually, you know, just about 12 years ago. So we've been really dating since that point early on. We ⁓ became married in June of 16, so we've been married almost nine years. ⁓ So, I know you probably have a lot.

Is that a first marriage for you both? Second marriage? ⁓ Did you guys come together later in life? How did you find each other?

I like Kaleid going to that. She's much better at that part of it.

Okay, so first of all, we've been married almost 10 years, Mr. Numbers guy. But, but yes, we are a second marriage for both very different first marriage experiences. We're 10 years apart. Steve's 62, I'm 52. We met right as we were turning 40 and 50 respectively. We had very different. We were very different. We have very different personalities where that classic opposites attract. I'm talkative, extroverted, emotional. Steve is numbers, introverted, quiet. He's from Kentucky. I'm from New York. Like we are just apples and oranges. And yet we had a really strong initial connection. met and we ended up, we met out in a restaurant randomly and we ended up talking.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

for hours, like staying. We went to IHOP and talked until, like we left where we were when it closed and we went to IHOP and we talked for five more hours at IHOP. So we like, we had this just initial connection that I wouldn't say was such a fiery, like intense sexual chemistry kind of thing as much as it was just this like deep kind of sense of knowing and. clicking on some level that almost doesn't make sense on the surface because we're so different. But we also have very different divorce experiences in that I had been divorced for almost a decade, I think, when I met Steve, maybe eight years, and dated a ton and been in multiple relationships. And Steve had been divorced for something like five years and really hadn't dated at all. We both had two daughters.

Hmm.

So it was a lot of moving parts when we came together.

Right on. ⁓ So you, ⁓ you had very different divorce experiences. How would you say that shaped the way that you came into your relationship with one another? Like not necessarily all the dating perhaps that you did before Colleen, but like how do, when you found one another, how did you know or decide that this is different? This is, this is worth chasing down further.

I think for me, I was looking for certain qualities in someone like character, integrity, groundedness, shared values that perhaps I thought I'd found at other times, but really hadn't. And I remember not long before I met Steve sitting on my back porch with a girlfriend and saying somewhere out there, because I was so frustrated with dating and online dating and just all the Bullshit, sorry am I allowed to curse or do I need to be okay? Okay, and I'm not gonna like intentionally curse I just don't want to damage your show with my irreverence

Sure. Yeah. No, no, I'm a, so I'm, I like to bring this up from time to time. I'm ⁓ in recovery. So I sometimes I'll go to this one AA meeting. It's like the only one I go to it's in South Africa. And they always lead with this in the front, in the prologue of the meeting. They always have this one sentence is, remember that the absence of profanity will offend no one. And I'm like, that's a nice way to say that. Like the absence of profanity will offend no one. And I was like, okay, I got you. Got you. But no, we're fine.

Okay, okay, I love that though. That's beautiful. So yeah, so I remember sitting there saying to a friend, know, somewhere out there, there's a guy who isn't, you know, on all these dating apps. He cares about his kids, he works his job, he goes home and like spends quality time with his kids and he'd love to meet someone but he isn't out there like a player or whatever. I'm like, I don't know how to find the guy and I used to joke like, maybe I need to start a happy hour at

We live in the real world. Yeah.

Baldwin Fairchild funeral home so I could get like a good guy who wanted to be married and sadly his wife died because it just got so discouraging and then I met Steve and he just was like such a solid decent human and I really I was at a point in my life where that was the most attractive thing possible to me

Mm-hmm. What's your onboarding story, Steve?

⁓ Yeah, very different from Colette's. It's like I ⁓ just happened to be out that evening because I didn't even go out that much after getting divorced. ⁓ And I was with a group of guys that were married and you even before I met Collette that evening, you know, everybody was talking about like how much game they have. And it's like, these are married guys. I said, I'm not married and I have no game. I never have. So I was kind of very honest about that as well. ⁓ So, you know, to me, it was just different for even being out. And, you know, when I met Collette and we started talking, it's like, yeah, I realized we were very, very different for age from upbringing all that. But like she said that evening, as it went on, it's like, wow, she was so honest and that is something that was so important to me. And you know, even I think both of us were a little bit honest, maybe too honest right down the gate where she thought I needed therapy. Like, and that's why I was talking to her. But...

Mm-hmm.

but just did really kind of click with her and I can't believe we were there. Like she said, I hop and all that all night. And I just kind of found her fascinating to listen to and ⁓ it was just very different from my background. ⁓

Right, and then where do you live now?

We live in a little community called Baldwin Park. It's a suburb of Orlando, Florida.

you're in Florida. Okay. ⁓ okay. So if I'm doing the math correctly, you guys have been together about 10 years, a little longer if you include dating. ⁓ I collect, you said maybe you've done something like six years worth of therapy.

2013, yeah. So it's almost 13 years. Yeah, if you put it all together, I mean, we've done a lot of therapy on and off. did, I'm certified in a kind of therapy that's called emotionally focused couples therapy. So as I was getting certified, we went to an EFT, as we call it therapist for a couple of years. We've done some therapy in a model called IFIO that's related to internal family systems. We've done some therapy with Haiti Schleifer, who's kind of an Imago based.

Mm-hmm.

therapist who's really big in Florida and nationally, I think. We've done a number of different workshops. So we're definitely no strangers to therapy. And we've also both done our own individual therapy, lots of our own individual therapy.

Well, you I don't quite want to have like an advertisement for couples therapy, but this thing is called marriage therapy radio. And I'm interested to know, like, if you look back on any or all of those experiences, like, what do you, what do you attribute or what do you take away or how do mean, how do you make sense of, you know, I guess it's coming a little bit from this question of I used to tell people, or rather I used to have this bias in my life that people who went to therapy were crazy, like, man, you're going to therapy. What's wrong with you? And now I feel like.

Me too.

Well, now I feel like you're not going to therapy. What's wrong with you? You know, like what, what's true. So in terms of just like demystifying it or explaining it, I would love to hear you guys just riff for a second on what therapy experiences have been like for you. What have you, what have you gleaned or what have you taken, particularly knowing what it's like to have marriages end, you know? ⁓ so I don't know if that's a too broad of a, of a canvas, but I'd love to hear what you, what your experiences had been like, particularly if you.

Me too. Me too.

have different ones to compare and contrast. And particularly, Steve, from a guy who isn't, that's not really your bag, you know? Like, two plus two equals four, so.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'll tell you a little bit about mine. I went with my first wife several times. We didn't really keep it up, but I think both of us, at least I was, I was looking for a referee. It's like I wanted somebody there to tell me he's right. And that's what I...

Hmm.

Unfortunately, thought therapy was it's like, you know, I'm trying to basically say, yeah, I need somebody to justify my actions and the way I feel and all that. And while I look back now, it's like, can't believe I went into it like that, but that's how I did it. And, you know, I think we tried a few different times and neither of us were that focused on really continuing it. But it was, you know, I don't think there's any other therapist issues. I think it was really both of us didn't really know what to do and really didn't do a lot of homework after we left the office. Thank So, you know, that, you know, ultimately our marriage ended and I went to individual therapy after, ⁓ you know, getting divorced and did that for a number of years, ⁓ trying to figure out what our was and what was going on. ⁓

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a common theme. I think for a lot of people is this idea of like we had homework, but we didn't do it. ⁓ and I was telling people, ⁓ I don't really think couples therapy works. think people work couples work or they don't work. You know, I think you can probably get as much benefit from listening to a podcast every week, as long as you then go talk about it and compare notes and say, Hey, why don't we try that thing that we learned from the, that couple that we just heard or, know, So ⁓ it makes sense then that you would have experienced that with therapy and also no follow-up or no follow-through that it wouldn't necessarily be effective. But that's not necessarily how you guys have used it in your current marriage.

Yeah, and Steve, before I give my insight, I'm kind of curious what you, as a non-therapist and somebody who didn't maybe have the best experience on the first round in couples therapy, like, what do you feel like you've gotten out of our stints, if anything?

Well, I think the biggest thing I find out is, and this has been my kind of pattern for probably most of my life, I don't say a whole lot and things keep building up and I'll have like the storage in my brain and it's like, okay, put all these things together and all of sudden I'll connect these eight things together and here's the real facts of what's going on in my life. And then it blasts out in a probably not a very good manner. and piling a lot of different things on and storing them up. It just doesn't work. And I've been guilty of that a lot in my marriage.

Call that, you, as you hear him say that, do you go, yep, I agree, that is something that I've seen that you do and that you have been able to work on.

Yeah, in my book, The Cost of Quiet, I call it victim volcano syndrome that thinks is so common, right? Things build and build and build when we don't address them or we don't know how to address them well, we avoid. And then they come out kind of sideways. It's a big mess. It's like kitchen sinking. Suddenly there's 10,000 grievances.

So.

they're set in anger and on the other side of it you just feel like, whoa, whoa, whoa, I didn't even know anything was wrong and now you're kind of firing bullets at me. So I think it's super common. I definitely think that can be one of Steve's default ways of like coping and that he's worked really hard at trying to be more communicative about the small things. I think that's something that is more. communicating has been more natural for me just even as a person. I was kind of like the little therapist in my family even as a kid. So, you know, things that I'm now dedicated to and work, I think are a struggle for a lot of people. What I had to identify in myself, because there's always a takes two to tango, you know, it's really not ever one person's fault. That's not to say that sometimes one person isn't contributing more to what the issue is, but I had to also in therapy, of course, be willing to look at myself and it's so easy to sit there and go, well, you fix you and then we'll be good. And we all have to look at ourselves. We're all human. have default ways of coping with distress. We all tend, in my opinion, to be conflict avoidant. And I even define that as when you're arguing, bickering, criticizing, because you're not really expressing your true feelings and needs vulnerably. So what I realized is that I get caught and I get very frustrated when I'm misunderstood, especially if I think I'm communicating really clearly, if it doesn't land, and then I'm very expressive. So my face will telegraph everything I think, sometimes more than I realize. It's like really a billboard.

huh.

so I can be guilty of like rolling my eyes, which is contemptuous, even though I don't mean it that way or even realize I'm rolling my eyes half the time. And of course that sends a bad signal. And then I also learned that I tend to explain and over explain and over explain and over explain. And if you didn't get it, let me explain it one more time. And maybe I can just explain it this way and then you'll get it. Right, so like I will over communicate and like bang my head against the wall trying to be understood.

huh.

And while I think we all want to be heard and understood, it becomes a reactive dance when it's coming from that place of desperation to be understood. So some of my own work that I've taken from therapy is being able to tolerate that, you know, I'm a mature adult, I can take care of me. And if I'm not understood, that maybe it's frustrating, but that I can tolerate that and that I have to be able to tolerate that because this is. real life, right, where our partner isn't always receptive and waiting with open arms or agreeing with us. So I think for me, therapy has been so valuable as a woman, as a partner, and as a therapist, looking at and working on my own stuff.

Yeah, I think that's the secret. As I get more and more into this work and as I get older, you know, I've been at this long enough to have like real history as a therapist and I can look back and go, I was a bad therapist when I was new and young and now I'm like, ⁓ I actually learned some things. But the thing I think I've learned more than anything is that it requires that each person do their work. Like you got to know your stuff. And I end up saying, early on this frustrates, it doesn't frustrate couples, but I ended up saying couples early on, hey man, like if this whole relationship gets better because you change one thing about you, if the whole thing changes because you change one thing about you, what is that? You know, and it sounds like each of you has kind of gotten a little bit of an idea about that. And I guess Steve, I missed the opportunity to say, is Collette's self-assessment correct? Did you, is that, do you drive with what you've heard?

Exactly.

yeah, mean, she's incredibly expressive with her voice and her face. And so when I see eyes rolling or something, it's like, okay, here we go again. You're basically discounting what I'm saying. You've got that. Even if she didn't say much before she even starts speaking, I see that.

Yeah. Okay, so what do do with that? What do do next after here we go again, right? This is the thing that this is the thing that people are ultimately trying to come back. Here we go again, same old, same old. Like, then what do you do?

I think the biggest thing I've learned from Colette is pausing because it used to be it just starts rolling and you know I not backing down I want to finish this and whatever and it never went well and it just was like there's too much emotion and all that it's like walk away in the other room take a deep breath realize like Collette said, she's not the enemy. I maybe I'm already got a story in my head that I need to unwind that those kind of things. So, and that definitely helps. Sometimes the pause may be a little bit longer than Collette wants it to be. But, you know, we both process at different speeds on that.

Do you feel like at 62 you're better at that than you were maybe five years ago or 10 years ago?

I think I'm better. I've still got a lot of work to do. I realize it's just a struggle for me. ⁓

Well, the reason I ask that question is because again, a lot of people, want to say, go to therapy and get some tools and then come home and then be like, look at me. And now I'm master of this tool. But even if it was a, a jigsaw, know, you wouldn't come home and immediately know how to be really good at using a jigsaw and carving out the corners of this table that you really want to, like, you have to practice, you have to grow and develop this thing. And, you know, if you can acknowledge the good news is I'm better at this than I was five years ago. The good news is that you probably be better at it five years from now. And if that, and if we can kind of buy into that context, I always think context is important for couples to appreciate. Like, what context are we in? Are we in today? Fix this right now? Or are we in, we're on the journey. We're going to figure this out. We're going to keep going. So.

I think, you know, even my boss at my previous company, she loved to, we had orientation, she always wanted me to tell what my wife did for a living during orientation, and she always said, Steve gets his dose of therapy every night, and she just loved that whole thing, which is truth, if I do, so.

Ahem. It's fine. Yeah. Oh, my wife doesn't. She's like, don't be, I don't need a therapist. I need a husband. I'm like, you got it babe. Like whatever you need. You want me to hang the Christmas lights? I'm on it. I'll think, you know.

Yeah, I am definitely not trying to be a therapist. mean, I don't know if you can relate to this, Zach, but at the end of the workday, like I am, you know, when people are like, you're a therapist, are you gonna analyze me? I'm like, not if you're not paying me. Like when I am off the clock, the last thing I wanna do is be playing this role. I love my job, it can be super rewarding, but it's tiring.

Yeah, of course. Yeah.

So I think the thing is that it really does come down to being human and that we've got this paradox in relationships and that we have differences and we have to be differentiated and maintain our individuality and conflict is inherently scary to people, right? It feels like a threat to the relationship yet it's the greatest opportunity for connection and growth. So I think when you see a signal from your partner, that feels like a record scratch, of course you're gonna wanna explain yourself or get reactive. It's human nature and why, like you said, we have to be working on this always. These aren't intellectual skills we master. It's an emotional muscle at trying to evolve enough that when we're pissed off or we're hurt or we're disappointed that we can hold on to ourselves and take a pause if we have to and get regulated so that we can say,

Hmm.

You know, I'm really angry and here's why, and I want to tell you more about my inner world. So I always try to be very open with my couples that this is the same stuff I'm working on right beside you. This is not about intelligence or mastery. It's about being human, but also about trying to grow together and be messy and imperfect and authentic. And that when we can do that, but without causing damage, like without coming from that protective place where we treat each other like an enemy in a difficult moment, you have an opportunity for the greatest resource life offers, which is a deeply connected, emotionally mature, truly intimate partnership that is, we know from the research, the number one predictor of a long happy life. But it doesn't look like what people think it looks like, right? It never looks like a Hallmark movie, that's for sure. And I don't even want that.

⁓ What do you do, ⁓ you know, after you've clocked out and you come into the, here we go again moment, like, what is it that you, that you show, how do you show up or how do you pivot from your, say, natural instincts or, know, what is your strategy there?

Yeah. So I've had to learn, you know, now in pop culture, it's so popular to talk about attachment styles. And I think that has its place, but is somewhat misunderstood. It's like a fluid thing. You know, I feel like I'm pretty secure in this relationship, but my default maybe is to be more anxious. And if I were in an unstable relationship now, I would certainly show up as someone who's anxiously attached. So when we hit a rough spot,

Yeah.

my desire, I don't feel good if I don't feel like my relationship is good. And so tolerating that pause or that space and knowing that I can't always repair immediately. This is why I have a tendency to over explain because I'm always trying to just make sure we stay connected. And I've had to learn Steve reacts very differently. A lot of people do. And that giving that space to the relationship.

Mm-hmm. Mmm.

is a good thing, it isn't a bad thing, but I've had to learn how to self-soothe my own inner child because I can feel, you I know up here it's okay, I'm an adult, I'm not gonna die if we have an argument and we need to wait a little while, but a part of me inside can feel really like abandonment, panic in those moments. So I've had to learn to work on myself. to self-soothe and wait until we can come back together and the communication will be constructive. And I think that's still a work in progress for me. I don't like it. If we're in an argument, I want to make up right away. And it's not always possible or even advantageous to try to address it immediately. Sometimes it's better to process and let things cool down and get some perspective.

Who is more likely to apologize first?

I would agree. Yup. Yup. Yup.

I mean, do you? Yeah, yeah.

Colette raises her hand for those of you who don't understand sign language in podcasts.

Yeah, sorry, I mean, I am just a big believer in apologizing. I don't have a lot of ego in things. I don't tend to let pride get in the way. I'm always willing, and not just with Steve in general in life, to say, like, I don't need to assert my intentions. I'm always happy to say, you know what, I could have done this better. I'm so sorry I hurt your feelings. I'm sorry I rolled my eyes. I don't see that as losing or giving away power. I see that as being just like a good human. So I feel like in general in life, I'm quick to apologize, but not that over apologizing people, please, anything. That's not what I'm talking about. I just try to always own my contribution to what went wrong.

And Steve, what do you know about your relationship to apology or to repair? Not that there's any, I'm not being critical at all that you don't go first, but like, what is your own philosophy around that?

No. You know, I think I feel bad, apologetic, whatever I want to do. I just don't initiate the communication. I think a lot of times it's basically more like I'm ashamed of what I said or did or something like that. So I have to let that soak in. I almost embarrassed to go back and start apologizing. It's not that I don't really feel apologetic, but that's kind of been my path with that.

Mm. Yeah. Yeah. And how do you guys navigate that together? Like, do you, do you, do you come back to repair relatively quickly? Do you have enough equity in the bank? Actually, I'm, guess I'm tipping my hand a little bit there, but like, how do you come back into, to one another once you've kind of gone through the, here we go again cycle.

Steve, do you want to go first?

Is it the Colette apologizes and you guys go, okay great, we're good, or do you have some other way of making that official?

No, mean, think Collette usually opens it up and, you know, even if it's a short apology where we don't have a whole evening to do it, it's, you know, late before we go to bed, she's like, well, let's get together tomorrow and readdress this issue or talk about it. So, you know, it's not like we just like apologize, it's all done and it flares up again. Sometimes it does, but I think the idea is to regroup in a more timely manner and really talk through the issue. And that happens sometimes and it doesn't happen to others when we get busy.

It's a little bit of a sticking point for me, because I feel like I, and this is not uncommon, I don't even think it's being a therapist. I think it's something a lot of women would say that we tend to sometimes carry more emotional labor. I'm not saying for everybody, but in general terms, I certainly feel that way in our relationship. I think Steve's come a long way on a lot of this, but I do feel like if I don't initiate repair, repair doesn't happen.

Copy that.

I can't think of many times that Steve really initiates the repair. I can think of a couple, but I feel like I'm usually the one to come forward and say, hey, we have to talk about this or let's repair. And I think part of it is because, you know, in the type of couples therapy I do, we talk about pursuers and withdrawers. Like I'm always pursuing connection and maintaining connection and I don't feel good till it's reestablished. Steve tends to feel better. taking some space, processing internally. So I think there's some natural wiring and proclivity that makes me want to initiate repair. But we've been talking about it for years, and it's something I've kind of begged for, especially if you're the one who gets reactive or transgresses. Or let's say, for example, we come home, we've had a bad day, I say something, it goes sideways, and Steve is short with me. And that doesn't feel good, but we all do it. Those are the kind of cases where I would love for him to say, and sometimes you do, know, hey, I'm so sorry I was short with you. It's been a long day, I apologize. And then I'm good. Like, I don't need a lot, I'm not a grudge holder, but I feel like when those things don't get acknowledged, resentment can accumulate. So I think it's something I'm still hoping for more of in this next iteration. I'm trying to refrain from over-managing. our dynamic, like I don't want to be a therapist at home. I want it to be a partnership where if I screw up, I'm gonna come apologize. If you screw up, you come apologize. And then we can both look at ourselves. But I still feel like I do most of the repair work and most of the emotional labor.

Yeah. I agree.

Yeah. Um, so if you're in my office as my clients, which you're not, so I'm sensitive to that, but I would say, I would turn to you, Steve and I go, so you agree. So what? So you, you're going to just agree and be like, yep, that's the way it is. Or is there a thing that, that, does to you or that invites in you or that that prompts for you?

No, it does prompt, and I've said this to Collette before, it prompts that I need to work on that. I need to take some chances and be the first one to do that. And I'll say at times, it was just hard for me. And she goes, my God, people can change. I see couples all the time do that. And I'm slower to change on those kind of things. it's a struggle for me. And I feel like there's a lot of other areas I'm pretty good at naturally. Maybe I don't have to work as hard, but this one, yeah, I have to work hard for this.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure. Um, and again, if you, if you were sitting here and I would say this to my kids, I'd say this to anybody, like people go, hard for me. go, and we can do hard things, right? Like we know how to, we have to, everything that you know how to do right now, you, at one point you did not know how to do, um, that includes walking and talking and accountant ting and you learned how to do that stuff. And, um, what I say, what I say about apology in general, and this is like, this was a revelation for me as a person who was kind of more like you, Steve, than I am like Collette, is 100 % of the time there's something you can apologize for. Like you don't even have to apologize for being wrong. You don't have to apologize for being sorry. Like think about things that are sorry, know? Flowers that you haven't watered in a month or something like that. But you can apologize for like, yep, I didn't do that right, or yep, I lost my temper, or yep, I. I set myself up for failure. mean, a hundred percent of the time there's something and you happen to be married to somebody who's like, if I get something, I'm good. You know? So I don't know. That's the seed I would plant for you. If you could, if you could just think like, what is the one thing, not the whole thing, not the, all the thing, because I don't, I don't really believe in 50 50. I don't actually believe in it at all. I think it's more like, well, it's the best piece of advice I've ever seen. This is wrong, but I saw a clever piece of advice that I really like. It's

Ciao!

that really great marriages are not 50-50, they're 60-40, where each person is trying to be the 60.

Yeah, that's great. I like that too.

I like that. I like that a lot.

⁓ What are you good at? What are you guys good at? What do you celebrate? And then people look at you and go, those guys are good at this. Or you, you yourselves, you lay your head down and you go, we're good at this. What is that?

So I think something I feel like we're good at is that we're very real, we're very honest, we don't have any secrets. I think we do feel very secure with each other. You know, have a lot of, take the whole therapy out. I have a lot of friends, they don't tell certain things to their husband. mean, Steve's my best friend. I share everything with him. I feel like I can be my unvarnished, unfiltered real self. Things that I value more than anything really, just like being able to be who you really are and feel accepted. And I don't hold anything back. And I feel like a lot of my previous relationships, there was always like some worry or fear of judgment or fear of pushing someone away by being too much or too this or too that. You know, I'm dramatic, I'm eccentric. Like I let those things, and part of this is probably my own maturation process, but I feel like we're also very good at accepting each other as we are, kind of joking around about it, but that there's a real friendship, rapport, and sense of value and acceptance.

I would agree. mean, I think, you know, like when we travel, we travel just the two of us. We don't go with other couples. I think, you know, we do enjoy each other's time. I think we, you know, go out to dinner and do things like that, but we're not like in a big group looking to, ⁓ you know. meld in with everybody else or whatever. It's like I ⁓ truly do think we value each other that are, ⁓ you know, from the very beginning. I like integrity and honesty. I know it's kind of cliche, but that is incredibly important to me. And, you know, I always feel like I have that with Collette. And, you know, I couldn't live with somebody I don't feel really good about that with.

Dear four girls, do they like you guys?

Like, do my girls like him and vice versa? ⁓ yes. Yes, yes, yeah. Yeah.

Do they like you together? Does your family like being, yeah, they're like, this works out, glad for these guys and I like the unit that we've created.

We had a lot of friction early on because our kids were in high school and my kids, we moved into Steve's house and my kids were used to many years. I have two daughters that have, they're amazing. They have very strong personalities like I do. And it was a big adjustment for them to move into, and they have a very involved dad that they're close to, but to move into with me. another man's house and like a lot of rules changed. You know, was three girls for a long time and I think my kids probably had a little too much, we almost maybe had too much of a three sisters dynamic in a way. So I think there was some friction early on where my kids were like, ⁓ the son, you're all rigid and you have all these rules and you're letting some dude boss you around and you know, and it wasn't that but. I think they didn't love that at first, but no, they love Steve now. They're like, Steve's good for you. You know, he grounds you. We're getting ready. My youngest daughter just moved to Maui for a job. She just graduated from college and we're getting ready to go. Steve's daughters aren't coming with us, but it'll be me, my older daughter, Steve, and we're gonna go visit my younger daughter for Christmas. And we're actually staying at my ex-husband's parents' house. and having Christmas with his sister and her husband.

Right on. Well that's lovely that you guys have at least found a way to survive the blended family drama and trauma. That's always really hard for a couple, so I was interested to know.

Yeah, and we did have a hard time with it. So I do want to acknowledge that because it was not easy at first. I mean, we had times when I wondered if we were going to make it. I mean, I want to be very clear about that because I do think it's so hard and so many people struggle. I knew it was going to be hard as a therapist and having four adolescent daughters. And it was still 10 times harder than I thought it was going to be. But I think that's where therapy helped a lot.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.

And we stuck it out. We worked through the peaks and valleys. But it's definitely challenging. I think now that all the kids are grown up, they're happy in their own lives. We just went to Steve's mom's 90th birthday with his daughters. Our kids don't get together a lot because they all live in different parts of the world. But I think everyone's happy to see us in a good relationship. And a lot of the stuff that was so stressful has just kind of passed because we're in a different stage of life. But it was tough.

What?

Really tough.

Alright cool, I got two more questions for you. Your episode is going to come out after Christmas, so I hope you had a wonderful trip to Maui because I know that's next. But then after that, what's next? What's next for you two? What's on the horizon? Is there a couple?

Well, yeah, I mean, right now, I think it is a little bit of a strain or maybe a big strain on our relationship that I'm going through this book launching process. It's kind of dominated my life and been way more intense than I thought, because I'm also maintaining a full therapy practice. And Steve's got a new job that he's really into. So I think we both appear almost like workaholic right now. And our relationship probably needs some time and energy and reinvestment in just the two of us. You know, to your point you said earlier, Zach, about like having enough deposits in the bank account, you know, like that Gottman analogy that's so true, that if you have a lot saved up of goodwill, you can take some deposits and your relationship's still good, but I feel like we need to get back to a place where we can focus on us. We have more.

to

alone time, we have more down time, and more work life balance. That's what I'm hoping in this next chapter after the holidays, after my book comes out in February.

Yeah, that's actually my second question, Steve, unless you want to weigh in on that first one ⁓ in terms of your sense of next.

No, do think that's, Colette's got a very good point there. think, you know, really COVID was kind of great for us. We spent time together. It was.

Yeah.

It was a good time to just kind of regroup and put priorities together. I think post COVID, you know, I took a job with private equity, ⁓ very intense turnaround company and spent a lot of time. think Colette was frustrated with the amount of time I had to put into that. midway through that, she jumps into her book and it's like, wow, this is kind of an insane pace at this point. And now I feel like mine calmed down for a little bit where hers has really peaked.

Yes.

and I just started a new job two months ago and mine's gonna start picking up. So we're struggling to find that balance where we wanna be, I know.

Yeah. And how will you do that?

I think going back to some basics, know, like we're saying, we don't have the most exciting life and we're both kind of content that way. No, really, like we enjoy each other's company. And I think Steve's so right during COVID, we just kind of hung out together a lot and we're happy that way, going for long walks, cooking a meal, watching a movie, talking, hanging out at home on the back porch. So I think just having a little more space and it's so hard because when other things are demanding on you, It feels like the relationship is often the one thing you can borrow from, but we all know that that's not a great proposition long term. to me, it's just a matter of saying again, you know what, no matter what other demands are there, we have to carve out time for us and make that a priority. I don't think it's that complex. We're just not doing it. And right now we get home from these 12, 13 hour days. I am so exhausted.

Yeah. Yeah.

I'm going from therapy session to podcast to interview. I've got articles to write. I mean, you know the drill. It's constant, constant, constant go. I'm working on the weekends and I keep telling myself this is a short window of time. I'm in a season of like grind. I've worked really hard on this book and like we're talking about today, the whole point of my book, The Cost of Quiet is to help people learn a process of communicating in a healthy way about their feelings and needs. So it isn't just about, my book, like I really wanna help people, but then I wanna get back to a normal life also and be able to have time together. Like this has become way bigger and more consuming than I thought it was gonna be.

Mm-hmm. Hmm. Right on. Well, that is my second question. Tell us the book is called The Cost of Quiet comes out in February. Is there anything else we need to know or pay attention to?

Yes, so it is really about understanding that we get into these avoidant behaviors that are designed to protect our relationships. have good intentions, but it's so funny. I started writing the book three years ago and now all of a sudden I'm seeing it in the press. I write a lot about quiet quitting your relationship and that often long before people end up in my office, they started foreclosing on the relationship often without realizing it by sweeping small frustrations under the rug. not prioritizing each other like I'm admitting we're doing right now, right? All these little things that are the slow, insidious form of avoidance. So in the book, I teach a form of communication called self-connected communication where you really go inside, figure out what you feel, figure out what you need, and take the risk to be vulnerable, to be assertive, and that your relationship isn't guaranteed to work out, but this gives you the best chance possible of being heard and connected. And my hope is that this really, first and foremost, when I say cost, the greatest cost of not doing this is that you abandon yourself and it's not healthy for you as an individual. So I hope people will check it out and that they'll find it really, really helpful for how they show up in their own lives and relationships.

Yeah, friends, if that's appealing to you, the best way to support our author is to pre-order the book, make sure that the first day is a big day. this episode will come out in January, your book comes out in February. So is it, are we ready to pre-order already?

my gosh, yes, please pre-order. I have the pre-ordering link. I've been joking, tattooed all over my body, because it's so important. This is what my life is devoted to. You can get it anywhere you get books, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, et cetera. But at my website, colettejanefair.com, I give a lot of special bonuses, a toolkit that makes all of this work easy, a free digital course that I normally charge for if you pre-order the book. So please check that out and That would be so, so, so helpful.

Well, I hope that we can do that for you. Steve, do you have any parting words for us?

No, I appreciate this. It's like I'm not a I'm not a podcasting media star So this is very different for me, but no it's it's kind of fun to kind of regroup and talk about some of this stuff anyway

Well, I'm grateful for your transparency and for your just different perspectives on kind of how you're making it work and even the parts that are hard. So ⁓ I do wish you the best on your book. We'll make sure that we publish links in our show notes. And yeah, well, I'll just thank you again for your time this morning. And we'll say, let's keep our fingers crossed for a successful launch.

Yes.

Thank you and thanks so much, Zach. It was really fun and nice to not be in the therapist role and just to talk about us as a couple. So I appreciate it a lot.

Right? Totally, Yeah.

Yes, thanks, Zach.