Episode 65: How to Build Connection in Tough Moments with Your Partner

In this episode of the Love After Kids series, I dive into the importance of connection during tough times. I expand on the previous episode, episode 64, with Dr. Brittany McGeehan to discuss how couples can build deeper bonds even when life feels chaotic. I talk about holding space for each other, sitting with uncomfortable emotions, and how to stay connected during life's challenges.

Listen to this episode if you want to:

• Understand how to support your partner without fixing everything.
• Learn how to be present and emotionally available in tough moments.
• Find practical tips for reconnecting with your partner during stressful times.

🎧 Listen now, and if this resonates, send it to a friend who needs it! 

Thank you so much for joining me this week on today's episode. Be sure to follow me on IG @therapy.with.kayla

I love hearing about your insights and aha! moments from the show. 

About the Podcast Host
Kayla Nettleton is a licensed TX-based therapist, business owner, mom of 3, and marketing coach for therapists.

In her private practice, Kayla helps women break free from cycles of anxiety, perfectionism, and people-pleasing. Her holistic approach guides clients toward authentic, fulfilling lives by reconnecting with their intuition, setting boundaries, and building confidence.

Kayla also works with couples, especially parents balancing marriage and family. She offers both traditional couples therapy and focused intensives (6 to 18 hours) to help partners address key issues like communication, trust, and intimacy.

Through empathy and effective therapeutic tools, Kayla helps couples reconnect, thrive, and create healthier, more supportive relationships—benefiting the entire family. Her practice transforms self-doubt and disconnection into growth, healing, and lasting change.

Find Kayla on IG
@therapy.with.kayla

Email: kayla@kaylanettleton.com

Free Consultation: Schedule a Free 20 minute therapy consultation here.

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Transcript

kayla_1_03-06-2025_084941: 1:02

Hello everyone. And welcome back to another episode of the Modern Moms Roadmap to Balance podcast in our special series, Love After Kids. I'm your host, Kayla Nettleton. And I wanted to hop on today and chat a little bit. About what we just talked about in the previous episode with Brittany McGeehan. If you haven't already listened to that episode, go on. You don't have to pause now. don't worry about it right now. you can completely continue to listen to this episode. But I would highly recommend that you go and listen to it because it was such a great episode. And we really talked about some things that it's not often talked about. And one of those things is Being able to connect with your partner, even when life is super stressful. Like, whenever people are talking about connecting with their partner, no one's really talking about it in the sense of like, when you're, struggling with finances, or when you're in a really tough Time and maybe going through something together or maybe just your partner's going through something We don't really talk about those things. Most people are talking about connecting with their partner in a place that everyone is great and you're going on vacation and you're connecting with them, but honestly the most impactful times to connect and gain closeness with your partner is when you are going through some struggles together and you're leaning on each other for that. So maybe you're not going through that same struggle together, but you're maybe going through a tough time and both of y'all don't have to be going through a tough time, but if one. If y'all is going through a tough time and you're able to lean on the other and you're feeling understood through all of this, like, that's when you're going to gain that closeness, but it requires something in order to be able to build connection during those times, and Like we talked about in the previous episode with Brittany, that thing is being able to sit with feelings that are really uncomfortable. Because what usually happens when we start to feel something that's really uncomfortable or we're noticing that our partner is feeling something really uncomfortable, and we do this with friends too, we want to fix it. We want them to, I mean, there's no better word, but we want them to get over it because sometimes we're like, Oh, I don't want my partner bringing me down. Or sometimes we think Oh, well, if my partner's feeling bad, then it's must not be okay that I'm feeling good when it's totally okay. if your partner is going through a hard time, that doesn't mean you have to dim your own light and match their level your partner. And so I wanted to talk a little bit about how do we just be, how do we be with our partner and not try and fix things as women? We're usually not the fixer in the sense of I want to help you solve this problem. Cause that's usually kind of how men will, approach things. It's like, Okay, well tell me everything and we're going to fix this. We'll fix this together. But women, we usually want to fix their feelings. Like we don't want them to feel a certain way. So we're trying to fix things in a different way. Maybe we're not trying to fix the problem, but we're trying to fix how they feel. And that's not helpful either. And I struggle with this too because sometimes when my partner is in a bad mood or feelings. Snappy, I will snap back. And this is something that I continue to work on because I don't need to be snapping back. But it's those types of things. Like I don't need to fix my husband's Snappiness or frustration, that's not my job to do, but what our job as partners to do is be able to give them the space to open up about those things. And so, in order for us to be in a place to give them that space, and for them to give us our own space to do it when it's our turn, we have to be able to notice. what comes up for us in any different kinds of moments. But what that means is practicing some stillness so we can become more aware of what is going on for us. And the reason why that's important is because many of us, have learned to push things away or to ignore things, ignore maybe different emotions, ignore differences, sensations within our body. And when I'm talking about sensations, I'm talking about like the tenseness that you might feel in your neck when you're really stressed or. The twisting in your stomach when you might be feeling a little bit nervous We have learned to just ignore them because. For a lot of us, we've been taught to just like push through, you need to just push through, you need to just get over it, when that's not really what we need to do, we need the space to process, because when we can process, we can help ourselves, A simple way, I'm not going to say easy, but a simple way to start doing this is by giving yourself just some time to focus on what is going on for you within yourself mentally and also within your body physically I know like as moms we don't have a ton of time to spend alone but this is something that you can do Like, if you're not someone who gets to work right on time, like, maybe you get to work a little bit early to beat the traffic. you can do this, right before you get into the office or right when you get into the office or you can do it before you get home. Like, instead of, rushing off to go get everybody. give yourself five minutes just to do this exercise. Or even like when you pull into the driveway you can do this or you can do it on your lunch break. And I don't recommend you're doing this as you're going to bed. This is something that I would want you to do, I mean, if that's the only option, okay, of course, like, do it when you can, but I would recommend that you do it, in the morning or in the afternoon and not, at the very end of the day, because I don't want this to make you more anxious and you can't go to sleep, that's the only reason I wouldn't want you to do this, like, when you're going to bed. And so what I will have you do is set a timer for three minutes. That's it. Three minutes. Set a timer for three minutes. Put your phone on the side. And what I want you to do is just close your eyes and just notice. What is coming up for me? What am I feeling in my body? And even if it's this voice that's like, this is so stupid, why are you doing this? That's something to notice too. That is valid, okay? We're not here to judge ourselves. We're not here to, do this perfectly. We're just being curious with ourself and wondering, what, what's there for me? Am I worried about something? Is there something that's bothering me that I've been pushing away? Is there something that I've been needing to do for myself that I've been putting off for a long time? Am I frustrated with my kids? Am I frustrated with my husband? What's coming up for you? And do that for just three minutes. And if you notice the shopping list is coming up for you, the birthday present that you have to get before this weekend. Just notice it and tell yourself, we'll get to that later. I'm focused on myself right now. And yes, of course, this is easier said than done, but this is something if you practice, it will get easier to notice what is coming up for you because when we can notice what is coming up for us, we can then learn how to sit with some of these tougher emotions. We can learn to be in that feeling and to be able to sit with someone who is also feeling maybe some pain or frustration or embarrassment with themselves. And they don't want to talk about it in the moment, but they also probably don't want to be alone. When we can notice what's happening within ourself, it'll make it so much easier to be with someone else. Who is feeling some frustration too, but if you have a hard time giving yourself some compassion, giving yourself some curiosity, it might be really difficult to give that to someone else. so practice that and. I want to know what comes up for y'all, send me a message or put it in the comments. Let me know what this experience was like for you. It is not uncommon to not be able to make it the full three minutes. I've worked with some people who struggled to even do it for a minute or they So I'm going to the exercise in general, they found themselves avoiding practicing this and sometimes people have told me, like, well, I already notice what's coming up for me, like, I do spend a lot of time kind of self reflecting or thinking about things yet. They won't do this 3 minutes, so that really tells me that they're struggling with being in that stillness because when we're in the stillness, we're just noticing we're not doing anything about it. And that's the key, sitting with something and not doing anything about it, which is really hard for us, especially us who've been trained to do something about it or to just push through or to just ignore it, right? Even pushing things down is doing something about it. It's doing something about feelings that are coming up that are uncomfortable. So, what does this look like when we are with our partner, going back to this episode with Dr. Brittany McGeehan, when she's talking about just being and sitting In the pain, it literally means just being there for your partner and letting them know you were there for them. Letting them know that you're there to hear them out no matter what it is that they're feeling and you do just that. Just hear them out. Don't question them. Don't try and get them to see a different perspective or a silver lining. Just hear them out. We do that sometimes, right? We try and get our people to see the silver lining, to see the positive perspective. But most of the time, when things first hit, there's no silver lining that they need to look at. Because that is the definition of pushing things down, pushing things away, just pushing through the pain. And we don't want to keep doing that. We want to just be able to Sit in it and validate for them. Yeah, that does suck. Ugh, your boss is an asshole. I'm so glad you're safe, and you didn't actually get into a car accident. I bet that was really scary. These are things that you can say. You don't have to question. And if there is a question that you have, some saved questions are, tell me more about that. Wow. What was that like for you? Sitting with our feelings first starts with the awareness of them. And I don't want to give you too much because I want this to be something that you can practice. That's just one small exercise that you can do. Set your timer on your phone or on your watch for three minutes and just notice what's coming up for you. And I also wanted to expand a little bit on what we meant in Dr. Brittany McKehan's episode of just Being just sitting in it. That is all that I have today, but I hope that if this was something that you found helpful that you go and share it with a friend who might need to hear this, share it with your spouse who might need to hear this and do this work together. But thank you so much for listening and I can't wait to see you in the next episode.