Why Couples Resist Change, and What It Costs to Stay Stuck w/Iona Monk & Pam Stewart

Hi, Iona and Pam. Hi, welcome to Marriage Therapy Radio. How you doing?

Hi, Zach. Thank you for having us.

Yeah, this is an unusual format. We don't really do this a lot. Marriage Therapy Radio usually just interview couples and talk about how relationships work, but I want to hear a little bit about the two of you, your, uh, your podcast Relationship Dish. Thank you for having me on. Uh, we got to talk about, uh, a movie called The Invite. So if you are listening to this episode and you want to hear more about that, you can slide over and listen to that episode. But for now, tell me about The Relationship Dish, tell me about Pam and Iona, and yeah, we'll go from there.

Relationship Dish, I guess we've been doing it for about 9 years, 8, 9 years.

Yeah, minus COVID.

Yeah, minus COVID, we're doing it for about 8, 9 years. And I think that—

Most people started their podcast during COVID and you guys took a break.

Well, the venue that we used to record in like shut down. So—

Of course.

We couldn't record there anymore. So it was sort of like a forced hiatus, but that's true. Yeah, a lot of people did start podcasts then. That's interesting.

My daughter started one and that, I just am remembering this now. She started a podcast 'cause Dad had one and she was like, I'll try that. And it was her goal to interview other teenagers from around the world. But the clever part was she called it A Podcast Ellipse.

That's hysterical.

Yeah.

That's so cute.

So I think she should wake it back up, but whatever. All right, so Relationship Dish.

That's adorable.

So I would like to say something because I remember—

Good luck.

We were talking before when we talked with Zach, that we were talking about kind of seminal moments that mark time where you can remember all the details.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I can remember, we're in Vancouver, we're on Commercial Drive. Iona and I had gone to grad school together, but we worked—

We met in grad school.

We worked in different venues and just stayed friends. And we're on Commercial Drive having breakfast at what is now Apollo's. And we're sitting at a table for 2. And Iona says, you know, I just have this idea. I wanna start a podcast. And I'm listening, you know, like I'm a good friend. I listen to—

My cockamamie ideas.

Yeah.

And she goes, I need somebody to do it with though. Do you wanna do it with me?

Yeah.

And I said—

If only there was somebody in my life that I could do a podcast with that I knew that was also a therapist that I liked hanging out with, like, um, that's eating an egg right now.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I don't think that that was how, I don't think you had me in mind necessarily, did you?

I kind of a little bit had you in mind. Zach, I told you not to say that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, okay, let's make one thing like really, really clear. You two are partners in your podcast. You're both therapists. You're not partners together. You each have your own relationships that you do. Yeah, so again, sometimes that can be confusing for folks, but—

Oh yeah. Sorry, yeah. No, we are not together. We tried. We were not a good fit for one another.

Terrible, terrible. She's a pursuer, I'm a withdrawer.

Yeah. Oy.

Lots of retraumatizing. But the reason we started the podcast, or what was for me why I wanted to, was I wanted to reduce the stigma about needing couples therapy. Because like we talked about on our podcast earlier, couples show up to couples therapy 7 years too late, 6, 7 years too late. That's what the research tells us. And by the time they show up, there's so much damage that's already been done that it's really hard for couples there. It's like a dentist. If you haven't gone to the dentist in 6 years and they show up and you're like, save my tooth, it's really hard to do. And so we wanted— and I don't know about you, Zach, or even you, Pam, but a lot of the couples I work with, they're like, oh, you know, we didn't think we needed counseling, or, you know, we were afraid it meant we were really screwed, or we're worried somebody's gonna be blamed. And this is what delayed them going to therapy.

Yeah.

And so we wanted to destigmatize needing couples therapy, going to couples therapy. Like if a couple of therapists need couples therapy and talk about their marital issues for everybody else to hear, perhaps it would destigmatize it and people would go sooner and families could be saved, really, just to kind of be dramatic. But that's kind of what it means, right? If a couple gets saved, a marriage gets saved, right?

Yeah. And I always tell you, I think people ought to have a couples therapist in the same way that they— I think couples ought to have a couples therapist in the same way they have a financial advisor or a mechanic or a dentist. You know, so it's just like you have them sort of on speed dial, not on call, but like you have them in your portfolio of supportive people that are there. But Pam, you're not a couples therapist, you're a family therapist. How would you define the difference? Like, how do you describe the difference between— well, what's similar, what's different?

Yeah, well. I just— I worked a lot with families with kids who had behavioral and emotional difficulties. So I did a lot of what I would say is attachment work, helping them work on their relationship and also just really doing a lot of coaching with parents and also looking at their own issues. You know, it's the same as in a couple, right? When you're a parent of a child with difficulties, it's like if that child would just change, everything would be fine. So I would often work with them on their own triggers and their own traumas and things like that. But I, you know, the whole concept of attachment theory, we know just continues on. And so when you have a couple, a grown couple, their attachment relationships that they had within their own families are often kind of reawakened, right? That prototype, that early prototype. So, which is why we do like the emotionally focused couples therapy paradigm, because that's very much attachment-based. Mm-hmm.

What do you see as the difference between, like, couples therapy and family therapy?

I, I think there's huge differences because you don't have two— and Zach had mentioned this before— you need two kind of willing adults, and you don't have that in the parent-child relationship. So that's, that's a different dynamic.

Okay, but I want to ask this question, which is, you— a lot of people think that, uh, with regard to the system, if the kid would stop acting out or the kid would stop behaving, then the relationship would be fine.

What?

That's not the answer. So what is the answer to the relationship being fine? Like, how do you— how does the relationship get better in terms of your work with families when there is a troubling element? Which I think is, you know, metaphor or reality, anytime any of us are acting like children, it's a problem. But like, what is the— what do you think is the path for couples when they have a legitimate challenge with regard to this or that part of the system?

I think that the ideal is a wraparound service because you can have the child in therapy or in some kind of behavioral program. And often that's what happens, right, is that the child is referred to a team and the team sees the child. You know, the role of the parent is to kind of follow along with that trajectory of therapy. Whereas what, what we tried to do in my particular case was that the child had a therapist and the, and the parent had a therapist, and then the 2 therapists would work together. In our case, we also had psychiatry involved because meds were involved, etc. So it really was very much a team approach where everybody was communicating.

It sounds like, and I said this before, like couples therapy or family therapy is systems work. And you're talking about like putting— reinforcing the system or supporting the system even with a system, you know? Like there's, uh—

That's, that's true. And also what we know about systems that are already in place, they don't like to change. So, um, so that ended up being the work. And I think it's the same in couples therapy where the work is that sure that the child is being supported in regulating their feelings or whatever, but the parent also has to be supported in looking at, you know, what their hopes and dreams were, what their triggers are with this particular child, what's being brought up, what they feel capable of or not capable of. And almost— and this was something that, that you said when we talked earlier was about you are creating a new relationship. That's what you're doing.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I remember trying to—

I was doing a parent group. And, you know, like a 12-week, 8-week parent group or whatever. And I had this one dad, and he was just so, so resistant, like, why am I here? Why am I doing the work? Why am I doing the work? And at the end of the 8 weeks, he said, I get it. I get why I'm doing the work. I need to change. So yeah, that was— and it's so interesting, right? Because then that, of course, that changed the dynamic between the two of them as well.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And not that the child didn't have work to do with the support of his therapist, but the, the whole stew, the whole system changes when one person changes.

Do you have— did the two of you have formed theories about this idea that you snuck in there, which is that systems are resistant to change?

Both of us, you mean?

Yeah, I mean, like, is that real? Do you push up against it? Like, is that a thing that we ought to, like, explore and think about and grapple with, that systems, as they create themselves, or as they create themselves via, let's call it inertia, they resist change itself. How do you experience that? How do you intervene in that?

Are you asking me or Pam?

Both.

Well, like in a family or in a couple, let's say.

Either way. I'm interested to know if either or both of you have your own perspective on this idea. And I don't know, it might not be real. It struck a chord in me because I was like, oh yeah, systems are resistant to change. Why is that? What is that? Where does that come from? Do you observe it in your work with couples or with families?

Yeah, I was just, can I say something? Yeah, of course. I was just gonna say, I think this speaks to homeostasis, which is we're used, we keep going back to what we, you know, even like weight set points, right? People lose weight and people kind of keep, end up back at homeostasis, back to what they're used to. So I think there is resistance with any system or, you know, style of being with one another. I think if it's gone on for a long time, or even if it hasn't, I just think homeostasis always prevails. You know what I mean? It'll keep dragging itself back to what people are used to, to what the brain is used to, right? I think that this tends to be like neurological, where when we're used to something, the brain wants to keep going back to it.

I think I have this phrase in my head, revert to the mean, like we revert to the mathematical mean.

Stats.

Yeah, something like that.

Oh, what a nightmare.

No, thank you.

I think it's a physics principle, actually. And not that I understand physics at all, but I actually do believe it's a physics principle. And if you look at— I mean—

Well, that's what he's saying, inertia.

Yeah, exactly. So when I think of it, I think of it, it's like it's easier to— and this is another phrase that you used— the misery stabilizer.

Misery stabilizer. Yeah.

The misery stabilizer than it is to make these efforts to change that particular system. So it goes kind of— you revert back to the easiest. I mean, I don't know. But then the thing that's so crazy is, of course, that once you do change, you realize that how much energy went into that misery stabilization. So it's not like it took more energy to change, but—

That's actually pretty fascinating.

It seems like it does.

Yeah.

Right. And, and don't forget, you know, change is difficult. People don't like change. Um, and the other thing with change that I want to say is sometimes couples, I find in my experience, resist doing what they need to do to make the relationship better because there's this unconscious fear that God forbid, if we make all these changes and it's still not better and we're still not happy, then we're really screwed. So for some people, they would rather stay in the misery and know they could do much better whenever they decide to, if they decide to, right?

Yeah.

It's like an illusion of control. But really testing that and finding out, God forbid, we're not right for each other, or we can't make each other happy, or whatever it is, that's too scary. So sometimes that might be another reason why a system stays.

Well, the devil you know better than the devil you don't know.

I actually don't— yeah, but I actually don't think people don't like change. I think people are actually quite fine with change. They change their clothes every single day. What people don't like is loss. And so when change costs them something, yes, then they resist it. Um, and I always talk— I tell clients all the time that people do not change unless the cost of staying the same is greater than the cost of changing.

Right.

And so that, that in therapy, at least in the way that I think about it, is you have to find the point of leverage for people to help them understand that the cost of staying the same is actually bad for them. Um, it actually is heavier than the cost of making the shift or the move that you need to make in order to achieve something like, uh, satisfaction or health or happiness. I know, um, that's not, those aren't always the goal, but that's, that actually begs a separate question for me, which is what is in fact the goal?

You know?

So, but I, I'll say, you know, if you're driving down the highway, if you're driving down the highway at 65 miles an hour, or what was it? What's the equivalent kilometers an hour? What are you supposed to, what is your—

100.

100 kilometers an hour. You're driving down the freeway at 100 kilometers an hour and there's nobody else on the road and you're just sitting in the right lane, most people don't change lanes. They just stay, they stay the same until there's traffic or until they got to go to the bathroom or the cost of staying the same, staying in that lane is higher than the cost of actually moving over. And so, you know, if people are in their marriage or in their family or in their system and it doesn't cost them anything to stay where they are, if it's working for them, they're not going to make any changes. And that, I think, is actually the grand mystery is, you know, how do you help people grapple with the cost of both change or more importantly, the cost of staying the same?

Right. I mean, I think there's grief in either, do you know what I mean? So I think maybe you'd have like when you speak about loss makes me think about grief. And I think that perhaps there would be grief to the fact that we can't keep doing what we used to do, or I can't just keep being a kid or I can't stay in parent, let's say, whatever it is that's not working in the system. I think like you're saying, with any loss, because something about that obviously works for you, be it functional or dysfunctional, there's gonna be grief. So maybe it's about letting couples know this is gonna be painful. There is a piece of grief here. Do you know what I mean? And so if they anticipate that, maybe they won't run from it.

Yeah.

That's my thought.

Intriguing.

Okay.

So—

Intriguing.

No, I don't know. I mean—

Can you tell my husband I'm intriguing?

You should tell your husband that you're intriguing.

He knows.

He knows.

I'm sure he does.

He knows I'm intriguing, or at least he says, yes, you are. Yes, yes, dear. Yes, you are.

So you do this podcast together. Do you work together professionally, or you each have your own zone of influence? And I know you've got a book coming out. I wanna hear about that. I wanna hear about the process of writing that book, what that was like for you. And then, Pam, what are you working on? Do you have a side hustle that you lean into?

I totally have a side hustle, Zach, and it has nothing to do with being a therapist.

Oh, yeah?

Because I'm retired.

Okay.

And some therapists do retire. And I do interior design.

Yeah, I love that.

Quite honestly, oh my God, there's a little bit of couples counseling in there.

Okay.

There's certainly—

Yeah.

Oh, I bet there is. Yeah. Tell me about that.

It can be really— I'm being funny, but—

I don't doubt it.

This is not— People don't like change.

Yeah.

So we— I had this—

That's what we just said.

Some people don't like change. So we had this one, um, we were staging, um, because they were going to sell their house. So this requires a lot of getting rid of stuff, moving stuff around, bringing in kind of the pretty layers of stuff. We were working pretty exclusively with the wife, although she'd be on the phone with her husband sometimes, and when we came to do the staging, he had to leave because he was so stressed about changes being made in this home.

Wow.

Plus, there's also the grief, right, that they're going to sell and they're going to go somewhere else and stuff like that. The great, you know, the great news was that we did a really great job. And without knowing it, we did— we hung 2 pieces of art onto walls that were close to each other. And one was like a piece of art that his dad had done, and one was a piece of art that his uncle had done. So somehow we just accidentally found this thing that made him so happy that whatever other changes we made— like, men do not— well, many people, but men do not like you moving their easy chair in a different angle from the TV.

Mm-hmm.

So you have to be really careful about stuff.

You know, I believe you. I think there's probably, I bet your work as a therapist does wonders for your clients as an interior designer. It's a trope, right? It's a joke that couples should, as they're getting to know each other, try to remodel a bathroom or at least just try to go to Home Depot together, see if they can come out without arguing. Like those are, that's a very real thing.

I think a test, I think any marital test has to include IKEA and Home Depot. IKEA assembly of a complex piece that has drawers and stuff like that in it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, great litmus test.

Yeah, I always— people come into my office, and I'm sure you hear this too, Iona. People come in and they say, we're just looking for tools. We're looking for tools to help our relationship. And I go, that's great. You're in the right place because I'm Home Depot. And, you know, I got all the tools. I got access to every single tool. I've trained in this methodology.

I'm trained in that methodology.

I've done this work in my own marriage. I've done, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. I've seen thousands of couples. But if you go into Home Depot and you say, hey man, can I get some tools? The, the, the guy at Home Depot is going to say, what are you, what are you working on? What are you trying to accomplish? What's the end result? What's the, what tools do you already have?

What? And he'll be like, oh, just everything.

Yeah.

Give me all the tools. You know, that it kind of, the other part about that is if you try to sell, let's say a power saw to an 11-year-old, to this idea of like children, right? Or if you try to sell a power saw to somebody who's drunk, that's irresponsible. That's actually really dangerous. And so—

I love that.

To put tools in people's hands, you need to make sure that they are equipped and able to responsibly use them. And so I, I would imagine you see a fair bit of that in your couples work. And, and I'd love to know if there are specific stories that, that jump out to you.

Yes, that people that want a quick change or they wanna blame it on one person, like, give me the tool to fix something that is not the thing that's broken.

Mm-hmm.

Absolutely.

I had this one couple that's kind of coming up for me where he was— they had been married many, many, many years. They had kids and everything, and they were in their early 50s, let's say. And he had been having what can only be described as an emotional affair with a woman that he worked with. Although, you know, he wasn't gonna call it that. There was no way. And his wife was overreacting and she was crazy. You know, that whole story.

Yeah.

And so they were like, we just, you know, we just need the tools. Just give us the tools. Just give us the tools. Like, don't you think he made a mistake? Like, don't you think he was wrong? And like, anytime I would say to him, listen, you kind of have to own this, she'd be like, Thank you. Thank you. And then she turned to him and said, you see, you see, even Iona thinks this. So what I'm saying is the third danger about giving someone a tool is they're going to hit their partner on the head with the tool.

Well, weaponize it. Yeah.

Exactly. Weaponize it. So it was so difficult because it wasn't about tools. Do you know what I mean? It wasn't about tools. It was about what do you want to do with them? How do you want to use them? And then he would be like, you know, can't you just see my wife is crazy? Like they were, you know, I don't know what tools they were asking me for, but they were asking me for some sort of a quick fix to decide that she's crazy and he's a cheater. And it was like, we gotta start from square one here, you guys. Tools are not gonna help you, like you said, because they were 2 children.

Yeah, they were asking you to take sides and— Exactly.

And use it as leverage against each other.

And I'm, I'm willing to take sides. I'll take sides, uh, but I'll switch sides. I'll switch sides in the middle of a session if I want to. Um, that's—

I'm sorry, I'm laughing because it's like, oh yeah, I'll side with you and then I'll side with you.

But I like that.

I do too.

I do too. I like that because not everything is, okay, so this happened and that happened. I like the fact that— and I'll always preempt it by saying, look, I'm not taking sides. The side I take is the side of health or the side of your marriage. And if you guys wanna keep doing this and make these choices, for me as an advocate of what it is you came in here to do, which is have better communication or whatever it is, that's not gonna work.

Yeah.

So me too, Zach, I'll take sides. And if you have a good enough alliance with the couple, which ideally you should have as a therapist, it doesn't land on them as threatening.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I'll tell people, like, I'll take sides, but I, just like you, I'll take the side of relationality.

Yes.

That's the side that I'm taking is—

That's right.

And so in the span of a single argument, one or both of you can move outside of relationality, and then that now becomes the problem. So it's very rarely that she is the problem or he is the problem or he and she or whatever it is. Like there is, there's some dynamic that the two of them have created together that needs course correcting.

So the dance that they do together, I always say that because he blames her and she blames him if it's, you know, like a heterosexual relationship. And I always try to say it's the cycle that you got. It's a common enemy. You guys have a common enemy and it's the cycle. So I try to sort of externalize the problem sometimes saying, yes, the problem is what you're doing and what you're doing. So, I, you know, as much as I can, unless it's just one person or there's, you know, other big things going on like addiction or abuse or, you know, infidelity, stuff like that, it's both of them are participating and both of them are creating the problem, you know?

Yeah.

And just to use that metaphor, and I'm asking this of the both of you, is you need tools for a project, but you don't know what the project is.

That's right.

Do you know what I mean? Like, it's— the project has to be very specific. And I mean, I'm sure both of you find this where people come in and they just want something. I mean, part of the work is digging down to what is actually—

Well, that's what the guy at Home Depot would say. He would say, okay, what are you working on?

Yeah, everything. The whole house. Right? Good luck. Where are you going with that one?

If I'm at Home Depot and that's the answer I get, I would say, well, we can't do everything at once. So what's your priority? What's the first thing? And I might even say, what's your budget? Because some people want it— what they want is to fix it all, but they don't want it to cost very much. And so what's the thing that they can fix in the meantime that gives them a sense of success and a sense of ownership of the process without having to, you know, take out a second mortgage metaphorically? I like the idea too, Pam, that you're describing in terms of like even the idea of being an interior decorator, because a lot of times what people need to figure out early on in their couples therapy project is, are we redecorating? Are we remodeling? Are we moving? Are we just— do we just need a little bit of paint, or do we need to like come down to the foundation and, you know, you know, raze this thing to the ground and then build it back up? I mean, those are different versions of you know, making things happen in your home. So yeah, and in your relationship. So yeah.

Hey, I wanted to say if I could, just to come back to a question you asked before, just about the book.

Yeah, yeah. Tell me about your book.

If I can. No, because it speaks to what we're talking about here. The book is Happy for the Long Haul, and it's, and it's a practical guide for creating a marriage that goes the distance. So it's 25 years of working as a couples therapist. It's 30 years of working in my own relationship, all compiled into one document that illustrates what I've learned, what I teach, what I practice myself through sort of stories of my clients, through my own marriage, you know, just to make it a little bit more relatable and interesting for people. It's not just like, oh, the academic blah, blah, blah, you know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And what I wanted to say was, so what I do in the book is I look at marital strife through 5 different lenses.

Okay.

So basically, if you went to a couples therapist, you know, someone went to you, they would get the Terry Real system. You know, someone went to a cognitive therapist, they would say, oh, it's your thoughts that are the problem. If someone went to, you know, whatever, you know, whatever it is. So what I do is I pull all those lenses that I've used in my own marriage and that I use with my clients, but really what I've used in my own marriage, to hit the different points of problems between the two of us. So as an example, what I found is what worked in our marriage is communication. So I have a whole chapter on like communication. Like we talked about on our podcast, like what did you see them doing wrong in terms of the way they relate to each other?

Mm-hmm.

Then I have another chapter on like the emotionally focused therapy of it. What's the cycle? What's the dynamic? What's the dance between the two of you? What are your real attachment needs? What are you really longing for from each other? Then I have another chapter that's another lens, which is your relational trauma.

Mm-hmm.

And when I say trauma, I mean small t. I don't mean large T. It doesn't have to be large T to be trauma. If you came out of your family of origin and you felt like nobody was there to support you and your emotional world was neglected, and anytime you talked about feelings, somebody shut you down. You know, you had an angry father who was yelling and screaming all the time, that's gonna impact the way that you communicate with your partner. And so, you know, we look at the relational stuff, the stuff you learned in your family of origin, and also some of the, you know, the relational patterns in terms of the defenses you use to, you know, keep yourself at a distance, having people become aware of all of that through the, you know, through the family of origin. And then finally, we look at the biology, what I called in chapter 6, which is the biological need for speed, which is, and this was in my case, I grew up in a pretty chaotic environment, like emotionally. And like, I've read so much about this and it's absolutely crazy. It's that when you grow up in chaos as a kid, the body's used to the production of adrenaline, cortisol.

Mm-hmm.

These sorts of hormones that course through your body, you know, the stress hormones that course through your body when your parents are fighting all the time, or when you're, you know, getting hit, or whatever's going on in your family of origin. And if you grew up in chaos, the body actually becomes addicted to a lot of those chemicals. And so you're gonna recreate it. You're gonna poke and poke and poke and poke in your adult relationships as a way of recreating, of getting that hit again. It's almost like an addict, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

Getting that hit of adrenaline and cortisol again. And that can really destroy the relationship as well.

Yeah.

So I, I, it's a very comprehensive look at what could be wrong in the relationship through the lens of everything that was wrong in my relationship.

There you go. And that's, I mean, that I always tell people that everything I know about couples therapy I learned on the job. So it sounds like you're doing the same.

Me too.

The same thing.

And I find that people really appreciate, and again, how much to disclose, how much not to disclose, always a question.

Yeah.

But I just disclose in the spirit of sharing something really, really important for them to see or understand or something I have in common with them. And so usually it's very, very helpful for couples to say, hey, I've struggled with this too.

Yeah, right on. When does your book come out?

Next week on the 22nd. I'm not sure when this is gonna air, but September 22nd it comes out and you can buy it on Amazon.

Safe to say that it will be out by the time this comes out, but I love it. I'm excited for you. And I think part of what you are describing about this, especially this last chapter, is that we become addicted, we become addicts. And I have a very strong energy about and around what I sometimes call relational recovery, which is some of us are lucky we have addictions to alcohol or porn or shoplifting or whatever it is, but all of us are addicted to the systems that we use to protect ourselves that we learned growing up. And in order to become an adult, in order to really thrive in relationships as adults, we have to learn how to recover from that stuff. And it sounds like you're setting the table for that conversation in a really intriguing way. And yeah, I'll look forward to putting my hands on it.

Oh, that's so nice. I will send you one.

Thanks.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I will send you one. Yeah, but it's really moving from survive, the tools you've used as a kid to survive, which were smart. Tools like, let's say, rationalizing or attacking others. Oh, it was me. I started it. I'm the problem. I'm too sensitive. I'm this, I'm that. Those tools that kids use to survive chaotic environments are the same tools they then take into relationships and—

And they don't work.

Sink them. Of course not. Sinks them to the bottom. So you can either survive or you can thrive, but you can't do both.

Right on.

Tell me the name again.

Happy for the Long Haul.

Happy for the Long Haul. It's available now at Amazon. And if people are interested in listening to more of the two of you discuss relationship issues, How do they find you on the internet or in the universe?

Relationship Dish on Spotify or on Apple.

I think it's available wherever podcasts are sold. Exactly.

Wherever podcasts are sold or given away. Yeah, you can find us every 2 weeks. We drop an episode. And like I said, we really do try to be transparent and bring as much of our personal stories into it. So people can see, like, we're not, you know, we're not saying this is the way you do relationships. We're like, how the hell do you do relationships? This is hard shit, you know?

Right.

And that's, you know, I mean, Zach was just saying everything he knows as a therapist, he learned on the job. And then Iona's comment about, you know, being discerning about how much self-disclosure. This is a bit of a luxury that we have on the podcast with both of us is that we, we are discerning about disclosure, but we disclose a lot.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We disclose a lot. One of my daughters listens to it, but somebody in my condo building was saying something, and I said I had a podcast. He goes, "Oh, what's a podcast?" I'm like, "No, not telling you." No, no, no, thank you.

Yeah, totally. None of my friends listen to marriage therapy radio, and my kids definitely don't listen to marriage therapy radio. So it's it's a it's a it's a great place.

Okay.

Still nobody listens. In fact, my daughter, I don't know if. I don't want even your kids to hear this, but my daughter coined the term the rapist for me.

Oh my geez.

Don't tell your daughters that.

I will not.

'Cause they will use it against you. But my daughter does not listen to my podcast and calls me the rapist. So there you go.

I will not. And they won't listen. They won't hear you say it on the podcast. So that works for everybody. If I live in Vancouver and I want a couples therapist, I should check you out, Iona. Or if I want an interior designer, I should check you out, Pam. How do I do that? Yeah.

Yeah, so you can go to my website, ionamonkcouplestherapy.com. Okay, if they want to find me, and if they want to find Pam, not plugging my interior design. No, she's not plugging her interior design, but she does.

You're gonna have to do the work. You got to find her. You have to find. It's the best kept secret in Vancouver.

So, but she does do family therapy still. I've referred you to a number of people with kids. She does. She does a very, very good job with family therapy, working with children and, you know, young children.

I think what my thing really is working with parents about being really realistic about being a parent.

Well, thank you so much for coming on to Marriage Therapy Radio. I appreciate you both. And I will look forward to hearing— sending people to hear about how we discussed The Invite, and then also supporting your book here. And then again, it's available now.

Thank you so much, Zach. And good luck with your book too. And congratulations.

Yeah, excited.