How to Repair After a Fight (with Jayson Gaddis)
In this episode I'm joined by Jayson Gaddis, author of Getting to Zero, to talk about how to repair after a fight with your wife or partner.
Marriage & Long-Term
Relationships are where the work gets tested. You can be calm on a meditation cushion and completely gone the second your partner tells you how something landed. That moment, the one where you start quietly building your defense while she is still talking, is the actual skill, and no communication script covers for a body that has already braced. Jason Lange and Violet Lange facilitate Evolutionary Couples together and talk about their own marriage on the show without sanding the edges off it. What they teach is the capacity to stay in your body and stay in contact when the charge comes up, because that is the moment a long relationship either deepens or starts quietly closing.
If you landed here, something is probably flat or tense at home and you cannot tell whether it is a problem or a season. "What Season is Your Relationship In?" is a good place to start. "The Five Scariest Moments in Our Relationship" has Jason and Violet naming their own, out loud. "Be a Lover Not a Lawyer" goes straight at the defense reflex, and "Be a Man She Can Push Into, Not a Man She Can Pushover" covers what happens when you shut your own drive down to keep the peace. The archive is below.
Every Marriage & Long-Term episode
Offensive Love (with Luke Adler)
In this episode I'm joined by Dr. Luke Adler to talk about offensive love, a phrase that came out of our shadow work group a year ago.
Shadow Work to Save Your Relationship (with Luke Adler)
Going along to get along keeps the peace and hollows out your marriage. The implicit agreements quietly running your relationship, and what it takes to break one out loud.
Why Would She WANT to Have Sex With You?
You have asked why she does not want sex. You have probably never asked why she would. Responsive desire, her warm up sequence, and the one word that kills wanting.
How to Find the Right Couples Therapist (with Ryan Ginn)
If your therapist watches the two of you vent for fifty minutes and says little, that is not therapy. Ryan Ginn on the leadership to expect, and how to shop for it.
What Season is Your Relationship In?
Your sex life can be in spring while your emotional connection sits in winter. Violet Lange and I walk the four seasons so you stop reading a hard stretch as a verdict.
The Five Scariest Moments in Our Relationship (with Violet Lange)
Every long relationship has moments where both people quietly wonder if this is the end. Violet Lange and I name our five, what was underneath each one, and what got us through.
Navigating High-Conflict Divorce for Men (with Karen McMahon)
Staying for the kids can cost the kids more than leaving would. Karen McMahon on high conflict divorce, the guilt that freezes good men, and how to move without losing yourself.
Can Sex Keep Getting Better in Long-term Relationship?
You were told the sex fades after the wedding, and most couples around you confirm it. Violet Lange and I on what has kept ours getting better nine years in.
Our Three Biggest Fights as a Couple
Violet and I call our pattern the wall and the grenade. Three fights that nearly ended us, what was underneath each one, and how the repair actually happened.
Evolutionary Couples & 12 Epic Dates
Two hours a week is what most couples actually have for the relationship. Violet Lange and I on how to spend them so it grows instead of just gets maintained.
Shadows, Sex, and Showing Up
Dr. Luke Adler and I drop the myth of the facilitator who has it all handled. Where we still lose sexual vitality, and where shame shows up at home.
Why Men Fear Being Vulnerable in Relationship (with Luke Adler)
You were told to open up, you did it, and her reaction was not what you expected. Dr. Luke Adler and I on what happens when a man brings feeling into the room.
Leadership & Creating Shared Reality
Most conflict starts because two people are running different versions of the same situation. Making the implicit explicit is leadership, and it is also how safety gets built.
The Moment that Kills Many Intimate Relationships
Every couple crosses a threshold where polarity and intimacy swap places, and plenty of relationships end right there. What goes wrong at that moment, and what holds it together.
Shadow Work & Intimate Relationships (with Luke Adler)
The pain you have not owned gets handed to your partner in small daily installments. Dr. Luke Adler and I on what shadow work has done inside our own marriages.
Be a Lover Not a Lawyer
She tells you how something landed and you start quietly building your defense. What it takes to stay a lover in that moment instead of reaching for the case file.
Leading with Vulnerability
Vulnerability is authenticity plus risk, and without the risk it is just a weather report. What your partner is actually asking for, and how to bring it as leadership.
Co-Ed Work Matters Too (with Violet Lange)
Working on yourself with men will only take you so far, because the reps you need are with women in the room. Violet Lange on what co-ed practice builds.
Holding the Moment
Holding space gets said a lot and explained almost never. What it means to hold a moment instead of fixing it, and what that does inside an intimate relationship.
Be a Man She Can Push Into, Not a Man She Can Pushover
Nice guys shut their drive down and become something a partner can lean on the wrong way. How to be a man she can push into and meet something solid.
She Wants to Trust You, Not Just Feel Safe With You
Nice guys work hard at making a woman feel safe and then wonder why nothing else happens. Safety and trust are different things, and she is waiting on the second.
What the Feminine Wants More of From You Is What the World Wants More of From You
Whatever she keeps asking you for more of is the same thing your work is asking for. How to read the complaint at home as instruction for your purpose.
She Doesn’t Want to Be Your Mother-Lover
When your sense of being okay depends on her approval, she is carrying a job she never signed up for. What it takes to fill your own bucket.
“I would never hit you. I would never hit our kids.”
I said that sentence to my wife and knew it was a lie as it left my mouth. What I found when I stopped pretending the impulse was not mine.
WHEN LISTENING ISN’T ENOUGH
The work behind the podcast
Most of what Jason talks about here gets practiced somewhere else, with other men, over months. That’s what the programs are for.