Ryan & Nicole conclude the story of how they met all the way through their enagement and marriage, and then pivot to the larger discussion of the relational threads that emerged, drawing conclusions about intimacy and longevity, and how the former evolves over the course of the latter. In particular, they discuss the concept of "contracts" between intimate partners which are forged at the beginning, often implicitly or sub/unconsciously, and must be discovered, understood, and renegotiated over time.

Discussed: origin story, how we became a couple, engagement and marriage, Richard Boswell, telling stories differently over time, being seen, vulnerability, honesty, seeing one another's best selves, love as honesty, loving honesty vs. cutting, proverb of Solomon, relationship contracts, renegotiating relational contracts, iterations of relationships, 17 us's ago.

Ryan & Nicole begin the story of how they met, with the details going all the way back to 2007 and eHarmony, the mothership and original progenitor of what has since morphed into the world of apps for dating. Realizing that they hadn't told the story in a good long while and having not talked ahead of the podcast, they decided to wing it -- what emerges is humorous, touching, poignant, and always real. And in their signature style, the telling of the story itself is really only half the point -- the rest is to see what new relational threads they discover along the way. What they discover here in Part 1 of 2 surprises even them.

Discussed: origin story, how we became a couple, eHarmony, Sierra Leone, Virginia, Nashville, MySpace, on-again/off-again, early relationship, making my own mistakes, inner conflict in relationships, surety in relationships, staying in a relationship against the advice of others, and more.

Fresh off the heels of Thanksgiving 2024, Ryan & Nicole invite their children, ages 12 and 15, to join them in a several times yearly family ritual to connect, reflect, and share their hearts around themes of gratitude and change.

Discussed: gratitude, change, growth, family, calm, fascination, balance, alignment

In popular culture which now includes so much psychological lore, conflict and fighting in relationships are often stigmatized as something to be avoided. In this heartfelt episode, Ryan & Nicole consider the ways in which fighting is itself a kind of intimacy, and a necessary one, in that when it is done productively it can produce a fuller and exponentially more pleasing and productive second intimacy which becomes a lifeblood to healthy, growing relationships. To highlight this, Ryan & Nicole received permission from the Brittish Indie Folk Rock Group, Bear's Den, as well as their European Label, Tribe, to play a portion of the Bear's Den song, Bad Blood. The song is used as a springboard to express the difficulty and pain and heartache, and again, the necessity of fighting in their own relationship in carving at forward progress and love.

Discussed: Bear's Den/Tribe/Bad Blood, fighting in relational contexts, perspectives on arguing within family and marriage, learning to fight productively, date nights, connection between scheduled intimacy and the propensity to fight, human hunger for intimacy, psychological distress experienced in the body, healing through holding, unresolvable issues, and more.

Music Credit:

This episode features music by Bear's Den, used with their permission and that of their music label, Tribe, as well as Communion Publishing Ltd/BMI, and Kobalt Music Publishing. All rights to the music are owned by Bear's Den and are included here with the explicit and expressed, written consent of Bear's Den, Tribe, Communion Publishing Ltd/BMI, and Kobalt Music Publishing. Please support the artists by visiting https://www.bearsdenmusic.co.uk/.

In this special mini-bonus episode (under 10 minutes), Nicole recalls a wedding to visit Julie & Tyler, a couple very close to their hearts. Julie & Tyler asked Ryan to riff on love and marriage and life during the ceremony, and Ryan presents those poignant remarks here for the first time publicly. Special thanks to Julie & Tyler for permission to share them and their gift.

Discussed: unresolvable issues in relationships, vulnerability, relationships, compassion, authenticity, empathy, deepening relational dialogue, wisdom, life and marriage, Wendell Berry, Rainer Maria Rilke, Handel's Messiah, individuality and coupling, sameness and difference, distance and closeness, and more.

Post-US-election season and approaching the New Year and NY resolutions, there is natural upward trend in people looking for therapy. Depending on who you ask, which directions your algorithms follow, and what the latest TikTok and IG trends are, potential clients have all kinds of ways of approaching this, many of which lead those of us in the know to exclaim, "OMG, that's not it!" Conventional wisdom surrounding finding therapists, including that which is accidentally or intentionally propagated by the mental health industry and that necessarily has a certain logic, still often fails to consider or reveal what research suggests is the single biggest predictor of therapeutic success. Nicole and Ryan deconstruct the conventional wisdom with incisive mental health veteran insider knowledge, and then turn the tables to pose the questions they ask in searching for a therapist.

Discussed: good therapist vs. therapist fit, on being a therapist, Dr. Jeffrey Kottler, understanding mental health specialization, mental health vs. organic-medical terminology, the role of social media in developing ego props, questions to ask to find a therapist, single-modality therapists, personality fit with therapists, therapeutic bond/alliance/rapport as the single biggest predictor of success in counseling, and more.

In therapy, process talk occurs when the therapist and client stop conversational back and forth, and move into a posture of evaluation -- specifically, they might examine what's happening in that back and forth between them. They notice how things are feeling, what emotions are coming up and when, what reactions they have to the contents of the conversation. In so doing, it is very common that the observations made in process talk end up having a transformative and illuminating power about the contents -- whatever the client came in to talk about, process talk ends up being as important or more important, because it reveals things about the presenting problem that are not obvious by staring at it so directly. Taking a cue from that, Ryan & Nicole engage in process talk of their own about how things are going between them as it relates to the podcast, and also reveal that immediately before doing so, they encountered a fight in their relationship which shaped the conversation.

Discussed: content and process in therapy, process talk, vulnerability, self-criticism, shame, judgment, tension, harshness in communication, process talk as central in understanding broader relationship implications, and more.

"You make me feel so angry!!!!" Ever heard someone say something like this, or one of its ten thousand permutations? Movies, friends, relationship partnerships, colleagues -- most of us seem pretty intent on using this turn of phrase with impunity, thinking that we're justified in saying it, where justified = "this person really did hurt me." Indeed, even when we're hurt, Nicole and Ryan illuminate why a simple pronoun shift can lead to empowerment for the person who was hurt, and a genuine hearing on the part of the person doing the offending, and even, the possibility of compassion, empathy, and a deepening of dialogue. As they try to unpack this concept, however, they run into some of their own differences in orientation to relationships and personality around the degree to which things between them as a couple, and between any two people, are really resolvable, and what the implications are for relationships where reality requires grappling with this.

Discussed: taking ownership and responsibility for feelings through intentional use of language, responding with compassion and empathy, how to deepen of relational dialogue, existential constructs, suffering, issues between couples that aren't resolvable, Richard Boswell, Good Will Hunting, Robin Williams, ledger-keeping, wounds, and more.