384. Why parenting can shake up your marriage: How to fight better, repair faster, and stay connected with Eli Weinstein

Eli Weinstein (00:00):

This tension that you can really feel that changes the anxious energy that happens when you now have a kid and that repair that you’re trying to do for the stuff that didn’t happen when you were a kid. And that tension of, I don’t want to be like my parents were.

Dr. Sarah Bren (00:27):

Have you ever looked at your partner after having kids and thought, oh, why does this feel so much harder than it used to? Hi. Welcome to Securely Attached. I’m Dr. Sarah Bren, a clinical psychologist and mom of two. In this podcast, I’ve taken all of my clinical experience, current research on brain science and child psychology, and the insights that I’ve gained on my own parenting journey and distilled everything down into easy to understand and actionable parenting insights so that you can tune out the noise and tune into your own authentic parenting voice with confidence and calm. And this week I’m joined by couples therapist and host of The Dude Therapist podcast, Eli Weinstein. Eli is the author of the upcoming book From I Do To We Do: Navigating Marriage in Parenting Years. And in this conversation we talk pretty honestly about what happens to our relationships once kids enter the picture, especially the parts no one really prepares us for together.

(01:29):

Eli and I explore why parenthood doesn’t just add stress, but it often reactivates attachment patterns and old wounds and why couples can find themselves stuck in the same fights over and over again. We also get into how resentment quietly builds through mental load feeling unseen and constant day-to-day logistics. And we talk about what repair actually looks like after things fall apart while trying to go back to how it used to be. Often keeps couples stuck, and how nervous system overload and overstimulation can drive so much of the reactivity that we see at home and what we could do about it.

(02:06):

Hi Eli. I’m so happy to have you back on the show. Thank you so much for coming.

Eli Weinstein (02:17):

We’re here. I’m excited. It’s like doing this media tour, so to speak, of being on shows that I’ve been on before and people are like, oh, last time you were on was 2020. And I go, that’s a long time.

Dr. Sarah Bren (02:30):

Yeah.

Eli Weinstein (02:31):

And you don’t realize how long we’ve had a relationship and how long we’ve been connected or how long we’ve been supporting each other. It’s like, oh, okay, we’re back. Let’s do it.

Dr. Sarah Bren (02:39):

Yeah, let’s go. It’s so nice. I mean, that’s the best part about having a podcast I think is to, you get to have these cool moments with people, but then they’re captured, they’re frozen in time. I can go back to it and then it’s like, oh, and we have a chance to meet again. You can look at the arc of all the things that have evolved since then, and it’s been a few years since you’ve been on the show and in that time you’ve written a really powerful new book. Can you talk a little bit about it?

Eli Weinstein (03:10):

Sure.

Dr. Sarah Bren (03:10):

How has this whole journey been for you?

Eli Weinstein (03:12):

Oh, it is one of the scariest things I’ve ever done in my life and exciting things I hate writing. And the joke that I always say is, I would rather have a very famous, popular podcast speaking to millions of people or a show something that is talking based over writing a blog post or an Instagram caption.

Dr. Sarah Bren (03:34):

Just you do, you did.

Eli Weinstein (03:35):

Which I do, I still do. And it just like…

Dr. Sarah Bren (03:38):

Your amazing podcast.

Eli Weinstein (03:39):

And it’s like, oh, okay. Someone gave me an offer to write a book. And I’m like, okay, I can’t pass up this idea. And it is called From I do to, we do Navigating Marriage and Parenting Years, and it’s really 80% a relationship book with 20% of lens for those who are in the stage of parenting. And as someone who has two kiddos, I’ve been there, done that and kind of understand why and how relationships can totally be shaken up with the chaos of parenting. And it happens to be that over the last, I don’t know, seven years or almost 10 years of working with couples, it is such a narrative that people call in and say, Hey, Ellie, you’re a couple’s therapist. We’re struggling and we don’t know why. And then I point out, oh, by the way, since you’ve had kids, things have started derailing or going down. They’re like, that can’t be it. I’m like, it’s a huge part of it though. And it just shedding light on the real stories. There’s humor, there’s a lot of poop explosion stories, snot wrong color cup tantrums.

Dr. Sarah Bren (04:48):

Oh yeah.

Eli Weinstein (04:49):

All those kinds of things. But it is really how to, which was not allowed to be the cover or title of the book, how to Love Within Chaos or How Not to Kill each other while you’re going through the parenting stage. I said, no killing. I went, no, come on. You’re the worst publisher.

Dr. Sarah Bren (05:07):

I feel like that’s what parents always are screaming, no killing. No killing.

Eli Weinstein (05:10):

Yeah, don’t kill each other. So it’s really from my heart and it’s just so interesting that I’m sure you probably feel this also that you’re doing the work and with the people that you’re also writing about and talking about in general and how it’s so interconnected. And a lot of times over the last, I dunno, year and a half of this idea percolating and writing it, it’s like, oh, you are the reason I’m writing the book. Oh, that’s the reason I’m doing this. So it’s very exciting that it reinvigorated to continue writing when you get into such negative weird headspace. I even started going back to therapy. I was off of therapy for a little bit, went back to therapy during this process. It was just very dark times of like, you suck. You’re not all those kind of negative headspace of that writing process.

Dr. Sarah Bren (06:03):

Vulnerable. And so when you’re in vulnerable state, vulner, all the stuff comes out.

Eli Weinstein (06:08):

Yeah, it’s very vulnerable. It’s very like you had to be very regimented and you’re like, okay, I’m going to sit and write for five hours, but I also have a family and I also have a practice and I also have a, you’re just doing a lot and you’re like, what the hell is happening? So we’re here. The book is done, it’s coming out in March and I cannot believe it.

Dr. Sarah Bren (06:30):

Believe it, believe it. I think it’s funny. You’re just saying in writing a book about something that you do in your practice, in your clinical practice, but that you also live in parallel to that in your own life. I relate to that very much being a parenting specialist because before I started doing work with parents, my background was in working with adults with chronic childhood trauma and in a hospital setting. And obviously there were things that we could relate to with one another, but the work wasn’t about, I’ve been there too. The work was let me understand and let me help you heal. But the idea of the parallel experience wasn’t part of it. And then in moving into the parenting work as a parent, it very much was, and it really shifted the way, even my use of self-disclosure in therapy or in sessions changed. And I was thoughtful about it, intentional about it, but it just, the relatedness and the stuff I had have to like, okay, what do we talk about together that I’m experiencing too? And how does that actually help you feel more seen? And when is it, oh, I’m actually getting kicked up for me. I have to take this out of this and go process it with my own therapist and do my work because parenting kicks up my own stuff too. I feel like when you do couple’s work, it’s very similar.

Eli Weinstein (08:07):

Yeah, yeah. You’re speaking very to the heart of what the weird balance is of it all.

Dr. Sarah Bren (08:13):

Yeah.

Eli Weinstein (08:14):

But, when you’re in grad school and everyone’s like, do not disclose and you need to be a statue and all that kind of stuff, and you’re sitting here doing parenting work and couples work, I’m telling a story and someone looks at you and says, oh, so I’m not alone. I’m like, exactly.

(08:33):

The purpose of the story is not for me to feel seen of like, oh yeah, I was in my kid’s room four times last night and I also have to do this and I’m tired and we got into a tiz or a fight with my wife just so that you know that I’m normal. No, it’s your normal. We’re all doing this. We’re all in it. When you have that in that, and it just also, I don’t know about you, but sometimes when I’m done with a session, I go to my wife and I’m like, oh, thank you for being you. Because we talk out some things with a client and they’re struggling with this and they’re having a hard time, and we’ve done that. We’ve been through it and we’ve done the work to not have to get into those things again. But it is something that just really opens your eyes to the fact that every parent has similar struggles, and just because you’re a therapist doesn’t mean you have it any better or any worse. It just very important for people to know, oh, this guy yells at his kids, which I do. Me too. Not my greatest moments, but I get overstimulated and lose my, and it’s just like I’m a human

(09:42):

And I don’t want to, but it happens. Or I yell at my wife when she’s the mother of my children. I wrote a line in the book, I said, it’s very weird that the love of my life gave birth to things that I love so much. I love my kids. I would kill other human beings for my children and for my wife. But the fact that I had that for my wife and now she gave birth and is raising things that I also had, that feeling is such an, oh, how could I ever hate this person? How could I ever be resented? But it’s just you can, and it’s very difficult to fight with that, those things. So this book is really just raw and real. It’s honest. It’s like me. It’s very no bs. I tried very hard, tried very hard. I was very worried that it would be too clinical and the publishers would edit it to a point where it’d be not me. And I tried very hard to still have my sassiness in it.

Dr. Sarah Bren (10:40):

I love your sassiness.

Eli Weinstein (10:41):

With just better grammar and writing because that is not my strong suit or spell it.

Dr. Sarah Bren (10:47):

Well, yeah, I think, I don’t know. I feel like if you had an editor that edited out your view…

Eli Weinstein (10:55):

They tried.

Dr. Sarah Bren (10:55):

There would be a two page book because how it not be.

Eli Weinstein (10:59):

They tried and I went, Nope. That’s saying in. They went, okay, I don’t think it needs to be in there. I’m like, I know it doesn’t need to be like I really want it to be.

Dr. Sarah Bren (11:10):

When you were writing the book, did you have a person or a couple or an amalgamation of people you’ve worked with in mind? Who are you writing it for?

Eli Weinstein (11:21):

Oh, so the book really, I had an amalgamation of a lot of different clients depending on the topic. So of course names aren’t the same. I was going to use Disney names for everything. And the publishing company is like, that’s too difficult legally, please don’t do that. And I went, okay, fine, be that way. We had Eric and Ariel fine, but it’s really over the last 10 years of multiple couples in one, and it’s different couples for different topics. So how to have the hard conversations about different values is three couples in one.

(11:55):

The fighting or how to have, how you word things making the difference is like seven couples in one. And of course I changed the issue was either the woman, now it’s the man. And I also have couples that I’ve worked with from all different walks of life, all different religions, all different sexual orientation. So it’s really for, you can find yourself in any of the, I guess vignettes that you would call it, or the cases of the back and forth and things that go through with whether it’s just the dads or just moms, but it’s really for anyone that you can find yourself in any of the couples.

Dr. Sarah Bren (12:38):

That’s awesome. And obviously this podcast called Securely Attached, I have a lot of bias towards thinking about things through a lens of attachment, and I know you do too inside of your work. How would you, let’s talk a little bit about the way that attachment roles show up and play out, not just in the couple relationship, but especially once you hit that threshold of parenthood, like it’s a metamorphosis within that relationship. It goes through a transition.

Eli Weinstein (13:11):

Yeah. I really think that the attachment style that I think I’m speaking to the most in the book is really the anxious attachment because I think it gets this fight or flight fear, all that stuff kind of pops up of worthiness and not enough and feeling like the comparison and the tit for tat stuff, all that stuff is, no, I’m not bad. I’m good. I promise lemme prove it to you kind of energy and I need more, but I don’t know what I’m doing. And it’s really just this tension that you can really feel that changes. And I think also a lot of it, and I don’t know the research behind this, and I’m sure you do more than I do, of the anxious energy that happens when you now have a kid and that repair that you’re trying to do for the stuff that didn’t happen when you were a kid.

(14:15):

And that tension of I don’t want to be like my parents were, or the tension of I want to make sure this happens because my parents did that and I like that. And then dealing with someone else and their tensions of how that works, but also it bring out a lot of anxiety of like, am I doing it right? Am I enough? Is this the right way to do it? And then other people’s opinions and oh my goodness, and all those energies playing at once, I think is a lot of the undertone of what the book speaks to. And then all of a sudden you have another person and another adult that they’re going through their stuff and it’s like, oh, hey, we got to worry about you.

Dr. Sarah Bren (14:54):

I don’t have enough.

Eli Weinstein (14:55):

Who the hell has time for that?

Dr. Sarah Bren (14:57):

Right. Well, it’s interesting. You even have a chapter I think it’s called that speaks to this. Two is a company, three is a circus, but when you’re in a couple, we know that a lot of attachment relationships are kind of like the blueprints that we built when we were growing up get kind of played out inside that romantic relationship. We bring our old stuff to that relationship, but that’s just one relationship. It’s a single relationship. It’s a lot easier to focus on that and kind of work through the stuff that gets kicked up from that when it’s just one relationship to focus on. But then there’s this complex mathematic equation that seems to happen when you have a baby. It’s not just adding one. It’s like, okay, so there’s the relationship between the parents, there’s the relationship that one parent has with the baby, there’s relationship the other parent has with the baby. There’s the relationship one parent has about towards the relationship of the baby and the parent, the other parent. It’s a weird exponential explosion of relationships.

Eli Weinstein (16:09):

I know there’s so much writing on attachment style when it comes to the couple. Is there a research or writing or even books, maybe this is your book, but of the attachment that gets created or renewed or comes out specifically with that child to parent? Because you look at Stan Tatkin, right? And you look at why is my brain not working about the other people who’ve written books on whatever, all the 80 books on attached, attached, whatever, all the different ways of saying attachment, it’s really just about because of your childhood or the relationships you had. This is how now you relate to your relationships with your partner.

Dr. Sarah Bren (16:53):

Yeah.

Eli Weinstein (16:53):

Is there work?

Dr. Sarah Bren (16:54):

Tons. I mean, actually the romantic relationship research was born out of parent child attachment research.

Eli Weinstein (17:04):

I didn’t know that.

Dr. Sarah Bren (17:05):

That’s the core basis. So this all goes back to Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth and the studies.

Eli Weinstein (17:11):

Well, of course, yeah.

Dr. Sarah Bren (17:13):

How we understand what is a secure or insecure attachment, relationships is based on…

Eli Weinstein (17:18):

But why is all the books on the relationships of romantic and not stuck, where is all the stuff, the big books on the beginning stage of like, Hey, you’re a parent, here’s your child. It’s bring this up for you there.

Dr. Sarah Bren (17:34):

There’s a Dan Siegel wrote a bunch and…

Eli Weinstein (17:36):

Oh yes, yes, there’s called that. It’s more of like…

Dr. Sarah Bren (17:40):

It’s not the title of the book, is it that.

Eli Weinstein (17:42):

It’s not branded as an attachment? Oh, you’re right, it is.

Dr. Sarah Bren (17:44):

But if you think about…

Eli Weinstein (17:47):

Inside Out, inside Out From Inside Out is not the movie, I think it’s called From Inside Out.

Dr. Sarah Bren (17:51):

No, it’s called Parenting from the Inside Out.

Eli Weinstein (17:54):

Parenting from Inside Out. Yes, that, oh yeah, you’re right.

Dr. Sarah Bren (17:56):

That’s a lot about that.

Eli Weinstein (17:57):

Sorry, Dan,

Dr. Sarah Bren (17:58):

But no, but honestly, just look at the episode list. We’ve interviewed so many of people, but like…

Eli Weinstein (18:03):

I’m going to do that. No, I’m really going to do that. I’m going to go over the list because I find that amazing.

Dr. Sarah Bren (18:07):

It’s so interesting though, but for people who…

Eli Weinstein (18:11):

Are there differences?

Dr. Sarah Bren (18:12):

Yeah. Well, it depends.

Eli Weinstein (18:14):

No, I mean, are there differences? Would you be anxious with your partner and avoidant it with your kid?

Dr. Sarah Bren (18:20):

It depends. It depends on, so…

Eli Weinstein (18:22):

Ooh, this is so exciting.

Dr. Sarah Bren (18:23):

Basically, if you think about it like this, when you’re born, these initial attachment relationships create a blueprint, and that blueprint helps us anticipate how future people, how we can expect future people to treat us. So if my blueprint includes information from experiences of being seen and soothed and feeling safe with my primary attachment figure, that goes into the blueprint. And then when I meet a new person, I’m going to reference that blueprint unconsciously, and I’m going to assume that I’m going to get that same response. And now importantly, if I don’t, or if I had a really insecure attachment with a parent and I get a different response, a more safe response, I can edit the blueprint. And so significant kind of sensitive periods, let’s say, of interpersonal relationships like going to kindergarten, your first teachers, peer relationships in the seven, eight, 9-year-old range, peer relationships in early adolescence, initial romantic relationships. These are all sort of these sensitive developmental points where our blueprint kind of opens back up to be more available for editing, which is both good and bad because unfortunately in adolescents, our blueprint’s wide open for editing, and we’re probably engaging with a lot of kids who probably don’t have the greatest social skills at that point.

(20:01):

There’s a lot of room for insecure experiences to get put on the blueprint. This, you’ll see this a lot with, you see, someone who genuinely had a truly secure attachment relationship with their parents, had a really solid foundation in the beginning, but went through maybe a pretty significant bullying experience where they felt truly traumatized by that social safety, the absence of social safety there. And that really changed the blueprint and set in motion a much less secure attachment style or pattern going forward. Even though they had that secure foundation. Our attachment systems are not set in stone. They’re not permanently in there. They’re movable and changeable sometimes for the worst, but definitely also for the better. If I had an insecure attachment growing up and I have a blueprint that makes me anticipate insecure and not so safe relationships, but then I have, you hear this a lot, I’m sure in working with couples where they’re like, I found that person that made me feel so safe, and with that person, I feel securely attached and that helps edit.

Eli Weinstein (21:18):

But with kids, you don’t get that. That’s what I’m saying with kids, you don’t get that feedback with babies, right?

Dr. Sarah Bren (21:30):

So the idea is..

Eli Weinstein (21:31):

What you get is you get like, oh, the only danger is how many poops do you have? Or what spit up are you going to have on me? Versus you’re a blob.

Dr. Sarah Bren (21:42):

Definitely a more of a…

Eli Weinstein (21:45):

Progression.

Dr. Sarah Bren (21:45):

I wouldn’t say one directional, but it’s not bi-directional either. It’s an uneven relationship.

Eli Weinstein (21:54):

I think. Oh, that’s why I think toddlerhood is so triggering for people because until that point, they’ve just been this cute little blob and they’re just starting to do and learn and grow, and you’re like, oh my gosh. It’s very one-directional. And then when it starts getting bi-directional, you’re like, oh, now there’s feedback. You are a, but now you’re, you’re pushing.

Dr. Sarah Bren (22:18):

And that’s bidirectional from a very impulsive…

Eli Weinstein (22:20):

Immature, impulsive little thing.

Dr. Sarah Bren (22:22):

They tell you this stuff. You really don’t want.

Eli Weinstein (22:24):

Yeah, a gremlin. Like you are the worst dad because you smell. It’s like, oh, I didn’t. Oh gosh. But it’s like, oh, that’s okay. I like that. Sorry, I know we went a weird direction on that one.

Dr. Sarah Bren (22:34):

No, but I think this is super interesting because…

Eli Weinstein (22:36):

Oh, I love this stuff.

Dr. Sarah Bren (22:38):

But importantly, there is a lot of research that says if you have a certain attachment pattern going into parenthood that is predictive of your child’s attachment style at one year and 18 months by 70%, it’s 70% predictive. Which is important because it means that yes, we are very vulnerable and or lucky to be able to trust in our ability to pass our attachment strategies and styles down to our kids, but it also means that it doesn’t happen a hundred percent of the time.

(23:14):

It can be changed. And what is one of the mediating variables that predicts, let’s say if you have an insecure attachment style and you are worried it’s going to go to your kid, the thing that predicts that not happening is something called reflective functioning. Our ability to notice and be curious about our internal experience and the experience of the other. And so the more we can be aware of, oh wait, my child’s crying is really overwhelming me right now, and it makes me want to scream, or it makes me want to shut off, I can notice that and then I could say, I can try to soothe that experience for myself and then meet my child’s need.

Eli Weinstein (24:01):

Yeah, I have a client like that that I’m working with and have worked with for a little bit, that it’s really like every time his kid is a kid and is not throwing the worst tantrum, it’s not in public, it’s in their house, whatever it is, he’s like, oh, she’s a bad kid. And that is the mindset. And he gets so overwhelmed, overstimulated where I have to work with him and go, Hey, she’s not bad. She’s having a reaction and she’s expressing it.

Dr. Sarah Bren (24:44):

As we’re talking about how parenthood can strain even really strong relationships and bring up old attachment wounds. I want to pause for a moment to share a little about the work that we do at our group practice, Upshur Bren Psychology Group. So many parents come to us feeling disconnected from their partner, from themselves or from the version of their relationship that used to feel easier. And while these struggles are incredibly common in the parenting years, they can feel isolating and hard to navigate without support. At Upshur Bren Psychology Group, we work with individuals, couples, parents and families, helping people understand their attachment patterns, repair ruptures and relationships, and build stronger, more emotionally safe connections that might look like couples therapy to improve communication and rebuild trust or individual therapy to work through your own attachment history and triggers or parenting support to help reduce stress and reactivity at home.

(25:40):

So one of the things that makes our practice super unique is that all of these services live under one roof. Our multidisciplinary team collaborates closely, so care doesn’t happen in silos. Instead, we’re able to support the whole family system thoughtfully, cohesively, and with everyone’s needs in mind. With both virtual and in-person services. We offer flexible options designed to fit into busy family lives so you can get the support you need in a way that actually works for you. You can find a link to Upshur Bren Psychology Group in the episode description, wherever you’re listening, or visit upshurbren.com to learn more. That’s U-P-S-H-U-R-B-R-E-N.com. Okay, now back to the episode.

Eli Weinstein (26:27):

I talk about this in the book with the holy trinity, which is not a religious topic. I don’t know what I know. I just thought of it a long time ago. The interplay of actually during COVID, the interplay of how we expect things to happen, how we perceive them, because that expectation and then how we deal with the reality very CBT based triangle. There’s a triangle actually in the book of this little thing just to explain where the things can happen. And the example I give and the example that the story that I said was during COVID when I was still working from home, my wife started going back to work at a hospital. She’s a dietician, and I was on either paternity leave or whatever, and I was dealing with my wonderful little baby, and I was so excited and in love and figuring myself out and had to deal with being a new dad. The house was a mess as it should be, newborn life’s crazy and hectic. And she came home and gave me this look of what have you been doing all day? Look at this house, and I’m sure I’ve given her that look a million times as well. And I was like, oh my gosh, it broke me. And we were talking about it, arguing about it, probably this was five years ago, so who the hell remembers? And it was more of I thought that because you’re home X, Y, Z would’ve been taken care of expectation. Well, now I come in, the perception is, oh, you’re a lazy piece of garbage. You’ve done absolutely nothing because when I was taking care of the baby, I could take care of the baby and do it. What are you doing?

(28:03):

Now the piece that’s missing is the reality. You weren’t there. You don’t know how many poops there were. You don’t know how I was feeling. You know how tired I am. You don’t know how difficult it was. Also, I didn’t know what you expected. If I would’ve known that in your mindset, I would’ve been able to do that. And the same thing I think happens. We play that game with our kids. I’m expecting a child to behave better at a certain age, and sometimes we need to be smacked out of that mindset to be like, my son is almost four. It’s like he’s four. What do you expect? He can’t tie his shoes. He can’t get dressed by himself. He’s having a hard time. He had an accident. He’s having a tantrum because he didn’t get a nap in, or he’s tired or not feeling well, why are you expecting so much? Because maybe that when you were younger or you, it was expected of you to behave and be perfect and to not, and I work with this client specifically because he grew up in that environment where kids don’t yell, kids don’t scream. It’s not chaos. It’s perfect. It’s like army. It’s like very to the point, and it’s very hard for him. And then he lashes out and goes insane in his behavior, and he starts having a tantrum and matches the kid. So it’s a lot of work on that mirroring and at play to go, what are you expecting here? She’s three. She had a long day. She hasn’t had dinner yet, and she’s tired perspective.

Dr. Sarah Bren (29:38):

I have a theory on that. I see that a ton. And I think a lot of times parents will reflect on that and their own lost at moments and be like, oh man, I didn’t want to, like you said, I had that expectation and it wasn’t met and I lost it. And when they’re not in it, they can look at that and it’s like it’s organized. It makes sense. They’re not in it. And so they can be more logical about it and reflect on and reconsider what their expectation was and was it reasonable? And maybe it wasn’t, but in the moment, I really think, especially in this example where it’s like this is a parent who when they were a kid, that was the message, if you are loud, you are bad. If you are not holding it together all the time, you are bad or something bad is going to happen. Something scary is going to happen to you. And then I think in those moments when now you’re a grownup and your child is losing it, and it’s like that three-year-old inner child actually comes out and it’s like, it’s not a punitive parent. Actually, I think that’s doing the stop it. It’s the inner that’s like, wait, I remember this. This is super dangerous.

Eli Weinstein (31:04):

This is not allowed. Protect yourself.

Dr. Sarah Bren (31:06):

This is not allowed. You have shut this down and it’s a three-year-old. And how do three-year-old shut things down? They freak out. And so it’s like his inner three-year-old is actually trying to protect everyone in that situation, but doing it with three-year-old skills in a dysregulated body, and it’s like it falls apart really fast. But if he could connect with the compassion as his adult self for that inner three-year-old and try to help that inner three-year-old see that it’s safe, even when my toddler is losing it, actually, I’m a grownup now, and nothing bad is going to happen to any of us.

Eli Weinstein (31:41):

Well, he struggles with that in general anyway, so that’s also a big picture thing of just that compassionate adult. But I know for me, when I freak out or get upset, it’s more of my ADHD kicking in of the overstimulating noise.

Dr. Sarah Bren (31:54):

Hi, ADHD mom here.

Eli Weinstein (31:56):

It’s overstimulation

Dr. Sarah Bren (31:57):

Always.

Eli Weinstein (31:58):

It’s never, I wouldn’t say never, but usually nine out of 10 times, it’s really not about my perception or my judgment or you need to do better. I can’t handle this noise because I’ve had such a long day. My brain is just done, and you just crying right now is like, there’s no space for this, so stop it because I can’t be around this. It’s never like, you suck. You’re the worst child. I can’t stand you. I hate you. Why do we even have kids? It’s never that route of thinking or my inner child of, I wasn’t told. It’s more of like, oh God, brain overload. I’m going to freak out now.

Dr. Sarah Bren (32:40):

Totally. I mean, yeah, I think there’s different triggers and there’s different things, but yeah, I relate to that very much. I mean, I think also you and I have a little bit of an ace in the hole because we’ve studied this. We know what’s developmentally appropriate so we can titrate our expectations a little bit more effectively because we just have that background knowledge. If I went to culinary school and I walked into a kitchen, I’d have a better chance at making the dinner work. So I think for me, I also agree I my weak spot, my areas of growth edge in parenthood where I lose it the most are less about me having inaccurate expectations of my kids. Although when I’m in a state of dysregulate, when I’m really urgent or anxious or frustrated about something else, I get more rigid about my expectations.

Eli Weinstein (33:36):

Yup.

Dr. Sarah Bren (33:36):

That even that will happen. But my biggest Achilles heel with losing it as a parent is overstimulation. My kids knew what the word overstimulated meant when they were very little. I would just be screaming, I’m overstimulated.

Eli Weinstein (33:54):

Very. Yes, yes, a hundred percent. Yes,

Dr. Sarah Bren (33:56):

Yes. So I think we all have our stuff, but that’s the thing. It’s like when we figure out what our stuff is, then we can do something about it. There’s the reflective functioning, the capacity to own it and do something with it. Being aware of it. Yeah. Every parent’s going to have a different thing that makes it hard for them to parent or be in relationship with their partner in the muck of parenthood. But if we figure out what our thing is or what our things are, probably more than one.

Eli Weinstein (34:28):

Right things. Yeah.

Dr. Sarah Bren (34:29):

Oh, we could do so much more with it.

Eli Weinstein (34:31):

Yeah, for sure.

Dr. Sarah Bren (34:34):

What was your favorite chapter to write in this book?

Eli Weinstein (34:37):

Oh, I hate that question, but I love it at the same time. So from an emotional standpoint, it’s the conclusion. It was really like this finality of like, oh my gosh, I’m writing this book. But also the story was about my third grade teacher who I grew up living behind her in where I grew up in Long Island, and she had us do this thing where she made us write all the different, I can’t on piece of paper and put them in a shoebox. And we buried them in the backyard of the school. And she said, from now on, you will try, you will do. You will get help. You will figure it out. These words are not allowed in my classroom ever again. And she was like this, she’s still alive. She’s like four nine. And I remember she’s this tiny little Jewish woman, Mrs. Sitz, her name is, she’s a sweetheart. Every time she sees me, I’m six two. So she goes, oh my gosh, you grew up. So she’s such a sweetheart. I love her to pieces. And I called her to let her know, and we were both on the phone crying, and I said, I wrote, I remember writing. I can’t write, but I just wrote a damn book. So it was a very full circle moment that I love, and I tie it into stop thinking that you can’t in your marriage, in your relationship, or with your kids, you just got to find something that helps. And it might not be this, it might not be that, whatever it might be, but don’t say that word. Stop saying those things to yourself because limiting you and stopping. So that’s my favorite from a clinical perspective. From a therapeutic perspective, I love the gray area chapter. It is really something I see often that I know a lot of people struggle with myself, including depending on the day of the black and white, how life is gray. And parenting and relationships are so nuanced. It’s not an all or nothing game. It never is. It never will be. It never can be. That’s not health. So it’s really something that I just am very passionate about. And the stories and the things that I put in there were this idea of nuanced.

Dr. Sarah Bren (36:51):

Yeah, this is what I was saying earlier about this complex, weird non-linear equation that happens when you have a baby. It’s not just two plus one equals three. It’s like two plus one equals an explosion of all these complexities, and it wakes up stuff that we didn’t realize we still were working through.

Eli Weinstein (37:15):

And that’s how I started the book with that argument. I write a really raw moment in my marriage that was like, it started off, I will say, because now I’m interviewing and talking about the book. When I wrote the book and I put it in print, I did not remember why we were arguing, but now that I’ve thought about it and was like, oh, and I was talking to my wife about it, she’s like, oh, it was about, we were fighting about who to go to for the holidays, and it was an anniversary during the first year of my daughter’s life, her name’s Ricky Ricky’s life, and it was the spark, I guess, or that little, I don’t even know a good word for it, but the spark to open our brains and heart and mind to unload all the things that we didn’t talk about till then. We were not arguing about where we’re going for the holidays. That was just the start, and then it just unraveled. But it gave us the opportunity to put it all out there in one of the worst arguments we ever had till today. I have 11 years being together till today, one of the worst arguments we’ve ever had. I was going to think about getting another hotel room in the hotel kind of argument. I cannot be around you and stand you right now.

Dr. Sarah Bren (38:30):

Did that it so bad it got so hot. And then in the heat, painful things were done or said and or was it because we had to lay out things we really didn’t want to have to lay out and now we have to look at it?

Eli Weinstein (38:47):

Both. It was the fact that we just wet all out, like war, and then it was, oh crap, we got to do something about this too. And it wasn’t anything so severe. It was just the small things that built up that we just never let someone else in. It was the, I don’t feel seen as a parent. It was the, I don’t feel respected. It was the, I don’t feel enough as your partner. And it was the, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. It was the, I’m really overwhelmed and I feel like whatever, all the feelings that we were just like, Hey, we communicate. I had a client of mine, and I quote in the book that said that relationships with parenting is just downloading information. A lot of it’s just like, Hey, who’s doing this? Who’s doing what? Okay, good. 1, 2, 3, break. Right? There’s no depth. So we didn’t have a lot of depth at the time, and it was just this, we need to rip this bandaid off and vomit all this stuff out to make space for the depth because we’ve been shoving in logistics and downloading information. We need to reset the ram, so to speak.

(39:56):

So it was really a very eyeopening experience, and it really did prepare us because our first kid, she was amazing. She slept well, she ate well, she just didn’t nap. And then my second kid, my son Max scared the crowd. He ruined us. He didn’t sleep for the first year or so. He slept one to two hours at a time at night. But because we did the work and had that aha moment of pain of letting it all out during Ricky’s beginning that we were like, oh, now we know what to work on. That stuff is not going to get to us as much anymore, even if it is hard. So we were able to look at Max and go, this is really hard, but we are better and we know how to handle this and we can do this together.

Dr. Sarah Bren (40:42):

Yeah.

Eli Weinstein (40:43):

That sucks versus everything’s great, everything’s wonderful, and we couldn’t figure it out between the two of us.

Dr. Sarah Bren (40:49):

Yeah. I wonder too, in your work with couples, how many times you are seeing couples have these break everything, open fights, but then after that happens, we don’t really want to sift through it and put it in order and come back to it and repair those. Not just repair from the fight, but repair the bigger wounds that have been accumulating or even just solve the problems. And how many times it’s like, let’s just, okay, we had the fight, we repaired because we said I’m sorry about fighting, but we didn’t repair all the stuff that would accumulate to cause the ultimate eruption. And how do you help parents do that work?

Eli Weinstein (41:32):

Yeah, so I think every couple does that. I think every couple does one or the other. Every couple has kids. The hard part is a few things with my A DH, ADHD brain went like eight directions. The first thing I would say is when you are repairing, you letting go of the list, like burn the damn list, you had the things on the list, you’ve been holding onto it, you let it out. Okay, now that you want or are trying to actually do the work, first of all, don’t do it alone. Call a therapist please, because you’re still in it. You’re still in your feels, you’re still in your emotions, your ego, all the stuff is playing into it. You need a third party to go, Hey, I’m noticing A and B. When you say that and you’re not actually listening to what is actually being said from this perspective and kind of being able to put the puzzle pieces back together versus you’re holding your pieces and you don’t want to give the piece to the person, other person to fit, right? You’re like, no, these are mine.

Dr. Sarah Bren (42:32):

I don’t want to let go of these pieces that I’m mad about.

Eli Weinstein (42:33):

I don’t want to let go of these pieces. So you need someone to say, Hey, can you please share? Can we figure this out? A referee, but someone who actually knows what they’re doing, the list. I see a lot happen more with women than men. Let’s list of, but this, this, and this and this. And the guy’s like, we went through this already. I’m sorry. And even if they go through the point is like, but this still exists. So a lot of time it’s throwing the list out or burning it in a way so you can reset even though the pain still exists, but to kind of reset a little bit in a way that has a clean slate or an ability to actually work on it. The other thing I see happen a lot is the work on how, well, if you look at Gottman, they talk about the gridlock arguments. So about 16% of arguments are unsolvable. They’re just repetitive. No one’s moving, no one’s kind of adjusting their way of thinking or lifestyle. So I like to look at it as like the news helicopter that’s looking overhead going, Hey, we see the gridlock, we see where the problems are, go this way. But guess what? You’re in the traffic. How the hell can you figure out? You can’t get out. So you have to be the news helicopter and kind of look at the feelings, the things that are not being met, not the thing itself, because then you get trapped. You get stuck in it. So a lot of times, no, I want to be stuck in here. I need to force figuring this out. But you can’t. So a lot of the holding pattern of the growth is No, no, no. We’re going to talk this through. We’re figuring this out. You can’t do that sometimes. So it’s okay, well, what is actually going on underneath? What are the feelings above the thing itself? So a lot of times it’s the list, it’s the we got to force this or figure it out in gridlock. And a lot of it is just these attachment patterns of I need space. No, I need to be on top of you, or I need to pull away. No, I need more attention. And it’s a lot of these interplay of figuring out those kind of things.

(44:41):

And the last thing I’ll say on this topic is the idea of letting go of the fact that accepting the fact that you are changed and letting go of how you used to do things, but the fact that you are a changed couple, not for bad, but can you look at who you are now and regrow that has died? What used to happen is it’s not going to happen again. You’re not going to be able to have that freedom and all those things. You’re right, it sucks. It’s really, really crappy. I get it. But okay, what can you do now? It’s like that DBT style of this happened, I feel now what? And a lot of people don’t want to do that radical acceptance. They want to keep going, but we used to when we didn’t, oh, but we used to go on so many, oh, it’s a beautiful memory. That still exists. No one’s taking that away from you. But what about right here going forward? So a lot of times all these things.

Dr. Sarah Bren (45:37):

And how do you find what that gave you in other forms now?

Eli Weinstein (45:41):

Exactly. Again it’s that essence. It’s the essence of it, not the thing itself.

Dr. Sarah Bren (45:45):

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think that’s really helpful because I think, right, sometimes we get stuck in this was the thing, and I want to see the thing happen again if we are stuck there, going back to triangle of expectation, perception and reality of it all. If my expectation is it should be coming back, I should be able to have this thing again. And the perception is something is keeping me from having it and I’m resenting that. But the reality is you can have the it if you think about it as the essence or the feeling or the function of it, but it might not look the same anymore and you have a right to want it and you have a right to need it and to seek it. But can you expand your idea of what could do that for you?

Eli Weinstein (46:36):

A hundred.

Dr. Sarah Bren (46:37):

It’s like a new reality.

Eli Weinstein (46:39):

Yeah, a hundred percent.

Dr. Sarah Bren (46:41):

I think that’s great.

Eli Weinstein (46:43):

I hope so.

Dr. Sarah Bren (46:46):

I think it is. I think people listen to your work and go to your therapy for a reason and want this book for a reason. If people want to connect with you, if they want to learn more about your work, check out your podcast, get this book, where can we connect them to?

Eli Weinstein (47:04):

Sure. So Instagram is @EliWeinstein_LCSW. You can DM me, questions, thoughts, comments, whatever it is. Again, it’s not therapy, but even a quick question or some advice, I’m more than happy to share some thoughts. My website, eliweinsteinlcsw.com, you can find my podcast. You can find my book on there and pre-order it. I don’t know when this episode’s coming out, but it’s coming out in March, the book. So you can either get on Amazon, Barnes and Nobles, bookshop books A Million. I didn’t know those other two existed. So anywhere you get books, please, pre-ordering is really important. But also on top of it, I really think this book is important, not because I wrote it, but because I think it can actually help people, and I hope it does. And the podcast is being relaunched in February, the dude therapist with a whole new vibe, a whole new team behind it. The team was just me, and now it’s not. Now it’s more people. Thank goodness. And again, please, please, please just don’t say you can’t. Keep trying. Find a podcast that speaks to you. Find a book that helps find a person in your life. Find a therapist that really pushes you to grow. And I promise you, you got to find the right thing.

Dr. Sarah Bren (48:18):

Yeah, that’s a hopeful way to end. On that note, thank you so much.

(48:21):

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