Finding Our Way Back (E.280)

“Wherever you go, there you are.” – Dr. Maggie Augustyn
Relationships don’t fall apart overnight. They unravel slowly through unspoken needs, unmet expectations, and the quiet distance that builds when life gets too full.

In this powerful episode, Dr. Maggie Augustyn and Regan Robertson sit down with renowned couples therapist Dr. Cher Geiger to talk about how high-achieving professionals can find their way back to one another after growing apart.

What they cover:

• Why so many long-term relationships drift into “glorified roommate” territory
• How to identify the needs you’re not expressing (and why that matters more than you think)
• What really keeps couples disconnected and how to change it
• How admiration and emotional safety rebuild intimacy
• The “four fatal flaws” that most commonly end relationships
• Why therapy doesn’t have to mean you’re failing, it might be your most courageous move

Dr. Geiger’s approach is rooted in 30 years of experience and Gottman-based research. Whether you’re in a marriage, a business partnership, or any long-standing relationship, this episode will challenge and encourage you to reconnect with honesty, compassion, and courage.

Key reflection questions for listeners:

• Am I avoiding the hard conversations because I’m afraid they’ll hurt?
• Do I truly understand what my partner needs from me and have I shared what I need?
• Am I stuck in a cycle of resentment, defensiveness, or stonewalling?
• What would it look like to admire my partner again?

You are not alone. Healing is possible. And sometimes, the first step is simply sitting on the same couch and choosing to talk.

Listen now and begin finding your way back to one another.

Transcript:

00:00:00] Regan Robertson: Big question for everyone today. How do we find our way back to one another after we’ve grown apart? If you’ve been married for more than a few years, you might understand what we’re about to tackle. If you’ve been in a dental partnership for any length of time, uh, from early negotiations to longstanding partnerships, you might understand what we’re about to talk about today. Uh, and that is all around the topic of finding our ways back to each other after the world has gotten in between us and life’s problems have been thrown, uh, chaotically or not so chaotically in front of us, we have a very, very special guest today that we’re delighted to bring you. Her name is Dr. Cher Geiger, and uh, I am joined by the way, by Dr. Maggie Augustin. Who is gonna be co-hosting with me and she is the one that has brought us Dr. Cher. So Maggie, before we bring  uh, Cher in, I’d love to hand this over to you so you can give our listeners a little bit of context on why we’re talking about this today.

[00:01:08] Maggie Augustine: Thank you Regan and Chad Johnson, who is not joining us today. We miss you very much. He’s out there practicing dentistry in the trenches. I think he’s somewhere in North Dakota these days but having Dr. Cher Geiger, um, is really a dream realized for me on this particular podcast because, um, though Dr. Geiger is not going to disclose any personal relationship about my husband and I, she has been incredibly instrumental in my relationship with my husband, Scott, and I have been married for 23 years. We’ve been together for 27 years, and as you can imagine, for those of you that have been married that long or have been witness to, you know, having your parents be married that long, there’s a lot of ups and downs and there’s a lot of changes in the way that we grow together and apart and we found ourselves at a, at a point where we were glorified roommates and we just did not know what to do next and we found Dr. Cher and we spent a fair amount of time with Dr. Cher and she has helped us found, find our way back to one another. Dr. Cher and her core values as a therapist will not allow her to discuss what happened between Scott and I, but she is here to share her wisdom as a therapist of these challenging times that we share in our marriage. So it is my great honor to introduce Dr. She Geiger as a marriage counselor and a counselor in general as a PhD, um, in psychology and Dr. She thank you so much for making the time for this. Thank you for everything that you have offered in my life. Um, and, and give us a, a little bit about who you are, where you started, just, just a few minutes of an introduction about how you become a therapist, a psychologist, and what you do.

[00:03:13] Cher Geiger: Thank you. Uh, it is wonderful to be here and I love the energy that both, uh, Regan and uh, Maggie have for this topic. So it’s fun to be here for me too. I, um, started doing couples work. I. 30 years ago at the very beginning of my practice as a therapist, um, I, my first couple was in 1995, so I’m right at that 30 year mark and I love working with couples and sometimes people say, “Oh, isn’t that like scary or exhausting?” And it’s so energizing for me to work with couples. So I’ve been doing it for 30 years, um, just because I so believe in, uh, I like to call myself a preservationist Therapist, which means that unless there are something, and we may get into this about fatal flaws in a relationship that most re most marriages, most relationships, you should work really hard to try to save them. Um, and so I, I have worked with, uh, you know, couples for 30 years, but about 10 years ago I studied the Gottman approach and a lot of people are very familiar with that and, um, I love it. I still use some of the ideas from my, uh, you know, previous approaches, but the Gottman therapy approach is based on lots of research, really sound principles and so I, uh, that’s the, the primary focus of my couple’s work.

[00:04:54] Maggie Augustine: And Gottman theories apply specifically to marriages.

[00:04:59] Cher Geiger: Um, well they apply to couples and I would say that, um, everything that you learn, Maggie, in the work, um, applies to a relationship except perhaps maybe for the physically intimate components, but everything else, everything else would be applicable to the way you should treat a business partner or a marriage partner.

[00:05:25] Maggie Augustine: Okay. Well, thank you. Thank you for that and we’re just going to jump right in without wasting wasting any time. So one of the things that Scott and I were facing when we saw you is we had 27 years together, and we are very different people and one of the things that we’re going to do at some point here is we’re going to release a podcast of what our marriage was like and what we, what brought us to this breaking point and because we’re very different human beings and we have every right to make very different human beings. Um, Regan mentioned this, oil and water. Um, I am very driven. I am very growth oriented and Scott is very laid back and to a certain extent that makes us extremely balanced, right? Because I go, go, go, go, and he is there to support me.

[00:06:17] Maggie Augustine: On the other hand, I am the breadwinner and I provide for the family and Scott doesn’t have to worry too much about that, but it brought us to a point where we grew, um, at different rates and we became two very different people. We were not the same two people that fell in love. We were not the same two people that got married. We weren’t even the same two people that welcomed our child into the world and so, quite honestly, and I think Scott still takes offense when I say this. If we met today, we would not be compatible. I don’t know that we would even begin dating and so we found ourselves in this, in this place where we were glorified roommates. Um, we were two, you know, ships passing each other in the night. We loved each other deeply and dearly, but you know, the passion and this Barb was certainly gone and, and, um, and we wanted to stay married or we think we wanted to stay married and I know that we were not, we are not unique in what we were facing and um, and Scott came to me and he said, “Look, I, and we can’t keep living like this. Um, we need help,” and so one of the things that, um, that we talked about when we came to see you was, I, I was really reluctant to doing therapy because to me, therapy meant this was gonna hurt. I don’t know if you remember that. Could we talk for a minute about the reluctance that two people have as they’re growing apart into coming into therapy because they’re afraid of what it’s going to feel like? Mm-hmm to sit on that couch and even, I remember when we sat on that couch, and there might be moments where I’ll get emotional because clearly that this is, I’m kind of, this was a difficult process. We sat on opposite ends of the couch, even though at home we never do. Mm-hmm. I, um, talk us through that.

[00:08:38] Cher Geiger: Okay. I think that, um, I understand that people are afraid, but I, so part of my job is to provide a really safe environment and I say over and over, I’m not going to judge you for where you’ve been. I want to inspire you to go forward and that takes courage and I am an Adlerian trained psychologist, and when I interviewed at Adler, they said, “Just talk about courage. Talk about courage,” and 30 years later, that’s what therapy is about, is having courage to do two things advocate for your own needs. Be willing to think about the concept that this, this is about us. It’s not about Maggie, it’s not about Scott, it’s about us, and it’s our marriage. So I have to speak up and advocate for what I need, which takes courage and my, I have to be willing to let my partners speak about the differing needs that my partner may have, and I have to grow enough to say, oh yes, I have to consider that and sometimes we get so myopic about our own growth and our own interests. We forget that there’s another person that we committed to saying, we meet your needs in this relationship too. So that it, I think it’s the therapist’s job to make you feel safe enough that it is gonna hurt a little bit, but. We are going to hold you carefully and allow you to face those things you might be ashamed of or the mistakes you’ve made and say, let’s go forward.

[00:10:36] Maggie Augustine: That that was always your superpower to make. Thank you. Thank you. Feel safe, um, in that space and the lack of judgment and there’s, there’s ugly that comes out. Um, and there is shame that comes out and I remember one of the things that you, that you told me, um, that made me commit to the process even more, for those of you that are listening that are afraid of the hurt [00:11:00] that will come out because it hurts to do this, I remember saying, I don’t wanna do therapy because I don’t wanna hurt my husband because there’s gonna be things that are gonna come out. Like, I mean, there’s a reason why we’re in therapy. There’s a reason why we’re trying to fix or change this marriage. I don’t wanna hurt him, but really part, so, so the thing that you said to me. Was, but Maggie, you’re hurting him by living like this. Right, and I, part of it was, like I was saying, I don’t wanna hurt him, but the truth was that I was afraid of being hurt too. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm and, and the answer to that was, well, I was hurting anyway. Right, so going through this process was not going to be any easier or any harder than the way that we were living already and I think if there’s anything for the listeners to be encouraged in finding their way back to one another is, yeah. It really, it’s difficult the way that you’re living, but going through therapy is not any easier or any harder than what you’re already already doing.

[00:12:07] Cher Geiger: The only good thing about that for my clients and not for me, is that it’s terminal. You know, if you en, if you engage in that hurt and you go through the process of improving therapy, and if you don’t go through that process, it goes, that misery goes on forever. So that is, um, it’s going to hurt either way, but I think it hurts less if you have the courage to go to therapy and do some really hard work and as it relates to a professional relationship, I love the idea that, you know, one of the things, I call it therapy one oh one, what are your needs? You, we haven’t really been trained to advocate for our own needs and if you can say, these are the things that I need. Have you heard me and then sit back and listen, “What do you need, partner, and how can we work together with some compromise?” Or sometimes just saying, “You know what? You can have that. I will let you have that because I want this partnership to work on it on a larger level.”

[00:13:25] Maggie Augustine: If I had to get up and stand on my soapbox once again and encourage people to go into therapy, I would, I would remember one more thing that you told me. Thank you. That, and that is that if we don’t address the issues that we have in our marriage now, even if we decide to end it, what happens in the next relationship? Mm-hmm. Mm, what did you tell us?

[00:13:51] Cher Geiger: Yes. Well, you know, there are lots of different little snippets. People say, wherever I go, there I am. Remember that idea? So even if you go into a new relationship and there’s love and excitement and you know, glory for two years or five years, then there I am five years later meeting those same issues that I didn’t address in my previous relationship but what really matters to me is that you already have so much data about the relationship that you’re in. So if you, you know, there are often financial reasons, children, beautiful homes you may have together all kinds of reasons for holding that relationship together and learning those things you need to learn anyway. So in a way, a lot of the work is already done, but if you start a new [00:15:00] relationship, you just delay it by another five years and then you have to get to work with half your money and half your, so did that answer your question?

[00:15:13] Maggie Augustine: Oh, no. A a, absolutely. So really, I, I mean, even if you are going to walk away from the person that you’re with right now, try to at least go back and find. The root of the issue, or at least address some of the imbalances or disharmonies within your relationship so that you don’t carry that baggage into the following relationship because wherever you go, there you are, you’re go that, that right,

[00:15:41] Cher Geiger: that’s going to follow. And one more thing that I also ask my clients to do, even if they are convinced I’m out of this marriage, I’m out of this partnership. To think about, you know, engaging in an exercise, delay your decision for a little while [00:16:00] and put those issues on the table and sometimes you find that, wow, now that the problems are solved, maybe I really want to stay. So I recommend that to people who are saying, I’m going to leave my work, you know, leave my job. I say, “Well, why don’t we try then to solve those problems. You might end up wanting to stay.”

[00:16:26] Maggie Augustine: So that’s really great advice.

[00:16:28] Regan Robertson: I, I have never heard it broken down into such simple and easy to understand terms coming from the angle of needs. I think there’s, I think just stating needs is a very big topic in and of itself because for me personally, I haven’t always felt, um, like I could state my needs in, in any, in, in professional or personal relationships. Definitely, you know, in my marriage and, and you can see the pattern, right? Like you said, it, it’s not necessarily just one little isolated part of your life. [00:17:00] So I carried a lot of stuff with me that said for so whatever reason, back in my mind, my needs don’t matter. It doesn’t, that’s not it. It’s more for the survival of X, Y, or Z. So I continuously put my needs on the back burner. It took a long time to state that, that actually those, those matter, that those are worthy and it’s okay to have those needs. To think the way that you presented it though, so simply you have needs, I have needs. Let’s just write those down and then work through those together. Do you find Dr. Cher that people does, do some people get to a point and, and have self-realization like, maybe I need to, I need to work on myself, I need to work on myself. Yes before I address what’s going on in this dynamic.

[00:17:47] Cher Geiger: And, and I was thinking about that in relation to what you were saying. I often will say, uh uh, I call it therapy one oh one, to learn to put on the table what you need and some people, as you mentioned, have no skill at doing that because they think, I wanna be kind, I wanna be loving, I wanna go the extra mile. I wanna give and give, and someone else is gonna read my mind and know what I need. So I always say, therapy 1 0 1 is learning what your needs are and being able to identify them and a good way to do that is in therapy, individual therapy, where you can speak freely without, you know, as Maggie mentioned, without the idea of hurting your partner and then you can discover, might I get those needs met in an appropriate way in this relationship where I have so much invested.

[00:18:45] Maggie Augustine: One of the crazy things that I remember that happened is Scott and I had this big blowout, and I mention it in the podcast that’s going to come out and I came from having spoken and I come into the house and I, and I just blow up at Scott and I’m like, “You are not there for me. You, why can’t you celebrate me the way that other people are celebrating me on stage? Why are you not with me?” And he advocated for himself. He is speaking his needs, the way that we were taught in therapy and he said, you left me first. You’re, you walked away from me when you stepped on that stage. You left me and our daughter, and you picked them and that was such an eye-opening moment for me. Um, because, and it hurt. Holy cow. Did that hurt to hear that It destroyed me. Um. It took so much courage for him to say that and to communicate his needs like that, the courage. Um, and, but we can only have those courageous conversations if the other person, one is willing to listen. Right but we have to be able to be willing to communicate, like Regan said, our needs and so often we were, we were never on to say that sometimes in a marriage, is that your finding also?

[00:20:18] Cher Geiger: Well, and that’s why I call it therapy one oh one, like the very, the very first thing and, and I have people, I mean hundreds of people through 30 years who have said, I, I don’t like to ask for what I need and I used to say so long ago when my favorite thing were those beautiful peach roses. I would say If what you want for your birthday are those beautiful peach roses, tell your partner he doesn’t know. He may buy you the most beautiful lilies and you’re like, I don’t like lilies. So you, you must learn to advocate for your needs and I call that self-love. I say therapy is about self-love. Loving yourself enough to say it’s okay to say, honey, you know what I love next year for my birthday, bring me those peach roses and but the other side of that, and I think this is a wonderful Gottman finding in his research that what heals, and I thought of this Maggie, with what you were saying, what heals our wounded partner is compassion. So for you to have compassion for Scott to say that I hear you. I left you as you said, “I left you, I left our daughter,” but for Scott to understand, “I’m proud of you, Maggie. You know, I’m glad you were on stage, but also the other side of these needs is what I needed and that’s the goal is to get both of the needs on the table.”

[00:21:58] Maggie Augustine: This really takes me back because, um, when we, when we talk about what we need, the, these roses, right? This takes me back to when you taught us in therapy, and this was my favorite part of therapy. I’m, I know it’s, it’s hard to say that there was a a, a good part of therapy, but there really is, this is what did it for us is when you talked about admiration.

[00:22:27] Cher Geiger: Yes.

[00:22:28] Maggie Augustine: Mm-hmm and this was, I think, the biggest part of, um, finding our way back to one another and I’d really like to spend a meaty part of this podcast. So talking about that. So now we have talked about, about our needs, and we have talked about communicating to our partner. I don’t like lilies. I’m not trying to offend you, I’m not trying to offend you. I really am grateful that you’ve bought me lilies for the last 22 years, but this year I just have always pictured these, each, um, roses on our kitchen counter. Could I, could I ask you to buy me those for our anniversary? And I think that’s a really great segue into talking about admiration. Um, and I think admiration is what saved our marriage. Can you under, can you talk about,

[00:23:31] Cher Geiger: Well, and as, as we discussed, I, you know, I’m not going into specifics about you and Scott other than that I so admire genuinely Maggie, the amazing work that you have done, you know, your professional work but Scott is an amazing person. He is. He’s funny and he’s smart and he, he used to make jokes. We used to make jokes about who is the smartest, and, and he is, he has a higher IQ than me.

[00:24:04] Maggie Augustine: So, and he’ll say that on the pod and he says that on the podcast too.

[00:24:08] Cher Geiger: So that is, is just a funny part, but I want to give credit to Gottman Gottman’s research one. Uh. Pillar of the Gottman therapy is fondness and admiration. Like think about it, he did 35 years of research and only put a few pillars in this model of his therapy and fondness and admiration are a main pillar, so that’s amazing. So one of the things I like to ask my clients to do at the beginning of their work with me is I want you to try to transform your mind into noticing the good things your partner does. You know, notice that you, he has great hair. Notice the way he [00:25:00] brings you coffee in the morning. Notice the way if you’ve got a tech problem. You’re calling, come and help me. You know, and, and he needs to do the same for you. That is, that fondness and admiration that is, and that Gottman discovered is absolutely essential because one little word of, “Hey sweetie, you did a great job.” It can make your day and, um, it, and it can cover all kinds of things, like, thank you for paying the bills, thank you for getting the cars washed, whatever it may be. Thank you for taking care of the Christmas shopping or so admiration and appreciation for what your partner does.

[00:25:46] Regan Robertson: The brain feels simple sometimes to me.

[00:25:48] Regan Robertson: Almost like you get what you focus on and I like that. Almost a forcing yourself to give acts of admiration and doing it consistently doesn’t it help those pathways strengthen like little highways in there and mm-hmm and it, it keeps you off the, I guess, I, I call them negative roads, but keeps you out of that spiral of negativity. I have a, a, a, like, a bridging question for you. So, especially for relationships that have been standing the test of time and Maggie, you had mentioned growth and growing, um, together and what, what it means when you grow over time together and growing at different rates as people. So say that you do admire one another and you have been brave enough to state your needs and they, they aren’t aligning still, but you do have deep, deep love and appreciation for each other, or maybe the home or maybe the kids, whatever it is that you have built around you and you wanna save it. It has still, there’s still that, that riff. Um, how do you help people navigate that canyon that can still exist? Um, did you wanna comment on that, Maggie before?

[00:26:59] Maggie Augustine: I, I think it’s, we have got a psychologist, PhD doctor with us. Her advice is going to far supersede mine in 30 years, who has probably seen everything at this point.

[00:27:12] Cher Geiger: So the first thing I would say, I’d like to validate your idea. There is research that says if we do what’s called metacognition, think about what I’m thinking and choose habitually to choose positive thoughts, that we actually transform our thinking into something more positive. So it’s not constant effort, it’s just focused effort for a while, and you become a very, a very positive person. Um, another thing I’d like to say is that while I do believe that some people grow apart so significantly that, um, and, and Gottman does say, um that, uh, there are some people for whom the relationship cannot be saved when there is really major dysfunction or maybe major pathology but for the most part, when you have those investments, the idea of broadening yourself. So maybe you say, oh no, my husband wants to go fishing in Canada for, you know, and you’re like, I’ve never done that. I would encourage you to think, can I stretch myself to learn to do that or can I at least facilitate and make, broaden our relationship to allow for the needs of my partner, you know, and supporting those but I also, um, in terms of growth, ’cause that was the, the topic. Um. I really believe we have to convince our partner that growth is worth it and sometimes people come in, I don’t read books, I don’t watch podcasts, and I try to just give them a little snippet. Just watch this 10 minute one, because everybody has unlimited growth potential if they choose to grow and there is just so much wonderful information that we can learn to be, uh, a better partner, contribute more to the relationship, invite our partner into a new world of music or travel that they’ve never experienced before. So, and then a final point on this growth is that one of Gottman’s theories is that, you know, our lives are short and if we have all this initial investment in one relationship. Can’t we learn to continue to expand ourselves, to grow, to change a little bit to, so that we bring more to the marriage rather than less or to the relationship rather than going out and starting all over again. Which I know I’ve said that, but I will say it again.

[00:30:12] Regan Robertson: You mentioned, uh, I think it was at the beginning seven, was it seven fatal flaws? Did you say that? Or faults? Only four. Four. So there are four faults and is this like the red flags in, in, in your world? Like if you see these, this is a do not pass go, like this is dead in the water.

[00:30:30] Cher Geiger: Yes, they are and, and interestingly, uh, this, um, was published maybe 20 years ago that unless you see one of these four fatal flaws in a marriage or in a relationship that.  There’s a good chance that it could be salvageable and in Gottman’s I, uh, terms not just salvageable, but to go from good to great. So. I’d love that idea. We don’t want just a good enough marriage. We want a great marriage but those fatal flaws are things like, uh, if you, for example, said, “Oh yes, I respect your, uh, your Jewish religion and I will convert.” And then you get into the marriage and you say, “No, I won’t.” That is considered a deal breaker. Another thing that is a deal breaker is if you say, “Yes, I want a homosexual or a heterosexual relationship, but I knew that I, you know, that that wasn’t true for me,” and I say that respectfully, if you, if you entered the relationship, knowing that I’m just giving this a try, a heterosexual relationship when I know that that’s not what I want, it’s like a false,

[00:31:56] Maggie Augustine: So false pretense, uhhuh like offering, uh, it’s almost like a. Ca bait, catch and bait or, um, they ate the switch, the

[00:32:07] Cher Geiger: word, the switch. Mm-hmm. Uhhuh and, and, uh, you know, a couple of other things, like if you said, yes, I wanna have children, of course I wanna have children, and you, um, and, and then you say, “No, I’ve decided I don’t want to.”  So as you can see, those fatal flaws are really big ones. I mean, they are huge. And, but the, the other side of it is that, wow, you mean if it’s not one of those in the big category, we might be able to save this marriage or relationship. So I love that idea.

[00:32:44] Maggie Augustine: So, so are, so were those all one category or were those three separate categories?

[00:32:49] Cher Geiger: No, those were three separate categories.

[00:32:53] Maggie Augustine: And let’s see, um, it’s religion, sexuality, or, or like sexual preference children.

[00:32:59] Cher Geiger: And then, um, also like for, if for example, you had a significant criminal history or an a, you know, a longstanding addiction or something that you didn’t disclose, um, and then weren’t willing to work on it, then, you know, it, it’s, so most of that is about deception entering into the marriage. Um, but not, oh, like I thought you liked to fish and you don’t. We think we can fix that one.

[00:33:34] Regan Robertson: That’s extremely helpful. I think because so much, I, I, I guess I’ll just have to speak personally, I don’t like to speak for others. Uh, so much of, of my, of my life has been around being passionate about human behavior and relationships and the inner dynamics of how people work together and just observing in, um, you know, in educational settings, in professional settings, in personal settings, all of my friends that are around them, you know, looking at marriages and the different things that each marriage has to, to navigate. I’ve always wondered is there, are there, other than my obvious ones, which like domestic violence was one of my obvious ones, you know, children, that’s an obvious one, but, but to hear with such hope in your voice and 30 years of experience behind it, knowing that it works. That other than those four fatal, fatal flaws, if you don’t have those, there is hope. There is hope for mending the, the relationship and, and could you walk us through some of the ways that you help people go from that? Okay. We are courageous and we’re willing to talk to you about this. We don’t have one of the four fatal flaws. Where do we go from here? Where does it even start? What does it look like?

[00:34:44] Cher Geiger: Mm-hmm. Well, it, it starts with, oh, there are so many things that, that I would share with you. One of my favorite ideas is, uh, from Harville Hendricks. I don’t know if you know who he is, but he’s amazing and he is written such beautiful books about couples and, um, but he talks about the idea of doing a vision, you know, writing, taking a week, two weeks writing a vision of your marriage and this is what I think about and, and including small things and large things. Like I envision sitting on the patio with you on Sunday mornings having coffee to, I envision us starting a charity in, you know, in another country where we help children. You know, or you know, so large and small visions that talk about your sexuality.  You know, I envision that we are together on a regular basis or this often and then I love, he says, get your partner to do that. and then you lay these on top of each other. You say, wow. Kind of like, you know, that old song that about, you know, where they both put a one ad in and they realize they were looking for the same things. The vision shows you what you, what is similar, and then when you see, whoa, I never thought of that. I never knew you had an interest in building a charity in another country and so then you tell your partner like, whoa, I’m excited about that or you say, “Oh, I’m gonna have trouble with that one.” Whatever it may be.

[00:36:36] Cher Geiger: You may say, “I want to move to Colorado and that’s one of the biggest things in my vision of where we are,” and your partner’s like, “Whoa, we have to really talk about this because I don’t envision moving to Colorado.” So having, and I think this needs to be done at the beginning of your relationship, just kind of, and you can do it without a therapist, you know? Um, so that’s one of my favorite ideas. Um, another thing that I think is a great idea is a summit, which is, uh, instead of doing week after week of therapy, booking a eight hour day with your therapist. And, um, just say, you know, we start out talking about some of the problems. We get really deeply into them. Then we have a break, we have lunch, we come back, and at the end of this long eight hour period, we have established some real goals for what we’re going to work on at home and in weekly therapy. I like your,

[00:37:52] Regan Robertson: I never thought of that before. I ne I mean, it’s, it’s almost like business planning for your marriage and how  brilliant is that? How brilliant is that? I mean, that, that could just lay to rest so many things so quickly. Really, it just takes that step of courage and being okay with that and trusting the process but that would blow my mind. I mean, you’re, you’re making a plan for, for yourself. We, we have, I, Dr. Cher, I take people through something called Hero on a Mission, and it is like a personal business plan for your life. Mm-hmm. And kind of the time you have available but I have never once thought about doing that, like in a marriage.

[00:38:30] Cher Geiger: Oh yeah. It’s fun. It’s really,

[00:38:33] Maggie Augustine: And you cue it off, right? I mean, like, you’re, you’re like, there’s times that you’re like, you’re, you’re talking about something big and all of a sudden it’s like, oh, shoot. You know? Mm-hmm. Our time is up. I’ve got the next client. There’s some, you know, you, you, you gotta keep moving, but then you’ve got this unanswered question, and you can go so much deeper in that kind of a summit.

[00:38:55] Cher Geiger: And I’m glad you mentioned that, Maggie. That’s one of the things that I have done for 30 years is I try my best not to cut my clients off, and I try to schedule them and book them here and there because I know that client takes longer. because when you are in the flow of something so important in a marriage, you need to have the time to stick with it because you may literally never get back there with the, you know, with all three of you on the same page about something critical in that relationship. So Maggie Augustine: I’d like to circle back around to these four.

[00:39:37] Maggie Augustine: You know, flaws that are different, fatal

[00:39:39] Cher Geiger: flaws. Mm-hmm.

[00:39:39] Maggie Augustine: Fatal flaws, right? Mm-hmm because I would’ve thought that, and Regan, you know, I’m just gonna jump in there, right? We’re gonna, we’re gonna make it a little less comfortable, um, for everybody but, but normalize something. I would’ve thought that one of those things that was on there would’ve been, uh, sexual disharmony. So as we age, right, um, the needs of, of both partners can change, uh, with hormones, et cetera. Like when, when we’re in our twenties, we all kind of want the same things, and we’re genetically programmed to be that way for the sake of procreation, and then things kind of drop off and change and so we find ourselves that at a, at a place of, I mean, sometimes even after women give, give birth or, or as, as we age in menopause anomaly talking, because I’m a woman and that’s what I know, but we need different things. So the, the needs of the man or the me needs of the woman are no longer met and you find yourself in this place where we’re both looking at places of not being able to, to need the, to, to meet each other’s needs and there’s a lot of guilt and there’s a lot of shame and there’s a lot of conversations that are just too difficult to have.

[00:40:56] Maggie Augustine: And so basically what you are telling us right now is that sexual disharmony in a marriage is not a deal breaker.

[00:41:09] Cher Geiger: Well, I, I think it is something that you have to spend, uh, several sessions on in marriage because there’s a wonderful book that I read 30 years ago. I still love it. I’m sorry, I can’t think of her name but she says that on things like having children and the sexual relationship, those are one of the few things that you cannot make a unilateral decision about. You know, that it has to be really discussed and compromised. Uh, about, so she says, uh, if your partner does not agree to a nonsexual relationship. Then you have to negotiate for what kind of sexual relationship will we have and to see. So it takes a lot of negotiation for is there something between what you want, which is nothing and what I want. Um, so that’s how I work with couples on that but I also think that, um, I know that. I’m just going on what you said, Maggie, about, you know, women give, you know, have their children and they’re thinking about other things and maybe in a different step with their partner. I tr I believe, and I was trained, that human beings are sexual beings and both men and women, but that women have a very different approach to sexuality and that if, if that approach is honored and they are allowed to move in that direction, then they can tune into their own sexual needs and yes, I understand that there are. Uh, physical things that are happening, hormonal issues and those kinds of things but I would want to explore with the individual, what is this about for you? Is it about trauma? Is it about hormones? Is it about the Gulf between you and your partner and if that Gulf War resolved in marriage, my, and so here’s the way I look at it. When you first meet, holding pinkies with your new partner is so exciting. You think about it for days and holding hands, and there’s this beautiful buildup, but the, and the sexuality comes pretty naturally along with, in line with that, when you’ve been together for a long time because of the psychological intimacy or lack thereof, it’s, it’s just an impossible jump to get to the sexual intimacy.  So I believe you explore. Um, what are the divisions in the relationship that keep you from enjoying, holding kinky again, from holding hands again, from hugging again, and to see if you can dissolve that gulf, because if you’re both feeling admiration and safe and cared for, then we are sexual beings and we might, in fact, get back in touch with our sexuality if the relationship was in a good place.

[00:44:41] Maggie Augustine: Wow. So, so we are back to the admiration piece of this.

[00:44:45] Cher Geiger: Good. Uh, back to and, and admiration at Maggie, but being admired both. It’s got, and I know you know that, but I’m just emphasizing that it has to go both ways. [00:45:00]

[00:45:00] Regan Robertson: You said safety too. I heard that. So to go from the pinky to this, this basically, a relationship is broken down. So if there is no, you know, if the, the sexual portion of it is, is broken down and not functioning, there needs to be bricks laid for a solid foundation first before you jump right back into that. So it’s, yes, negotiation is a part of that, but you have to fix systemically what sits underneath and what caused that rift in the first place before you negotiate frequency of mm-hmm sexual activity. That’s, that makes a lot of sense.

[00:45:37] Cher Geiger: And if I may jump in and say, remember the, uh, Venus and Mars books that were written a long time ago? I, some of those, I mean, I, you know, they were well received in some arenas and not so in others, I actually think that John Gray, is it John Gray?  I think it was smart in his understanding one of the beautiful things he says is that if women knew that the best way that men express their love is through their sexuality, that women would appreciate that they might see it as admiration and, uh, I, I think that’s a really beautiful thing and in 30 years of, uh, working with couples, I know that women come at it typically from a psychological intimacy perspective, that if I feel we are aligned on our goals and our who pays the bills and who empties the dishwasher and who cares for our daughter, and the words that you use with me and that, then sexuality is not this gulf that I have to jump to. That’s one thing but on the other side, what I’ve, I have seen over and over in my practice is for men that to be sexual. Uh, allows them to jump into that psychological intimacy. So we’re being very straightforward. I often, uh, I say, you have to talk to her if you want her to be sexual, and you have to have sex with him if you want him to talk to you, and forgive me if that sounds inappropriate or so base but it is really one of the things about men and women that, um, women need to talk to, feel connected, to feel safe, and men tend to move in that direction more when they have had their physical needs met. So, I know that’s very controversial and I’ve had clients get angry with me for saying that, but, um, I, I, I can leave it at that.[00:48:00]

[00:48:01] Regan Robertson: I, I feel like the, under the undertone to that too, even take sexuality out of it entirely. I think it’s really fascinating. I’m thinking of dental partnerships or business partnerships as well. The, the initial complaint, the initial, um, chasm that may exist might not be what we’re actually discussing and so what it, it could very well be is something that sits under the surface at a deeper level, which is why having even a, a mediator or a therapist or someone that you can feel safe with to discuss those and have somebody to help you walk through with exercises because I, I’m, I’m guessing it’s a, it’s a series of self steps of self-awareness to get to that point and then be able to work on the solution.

[00:48:48] Cher Geiger: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I, um, I have, um, a, a handout that I use about, um, compromise that is, that is kind of it, you know, it isn’t about, uh. It can be about any kind of relationship where you put your core need there and then you look for your partner’s core need, and then you talk about all those other issues on the periphery that you might be willing to compromise about. So whether it might be sexuality, you know, or you know, what are we gonna do with this partnership? Or you know, what clients are we going to target or.

[00:49:30] Regan Robertson: This is fascinating to me. This is really blowing my mind. I mean, I, I’m, I’m not over exaggerating. It’s, we are talking about some of the most personal and most sensitive subjects, and it, it, to me, it takes courage and puts it on an entirely different level. It also gives me appreciation and understanding, or maybe compassion is the world to understand why we, uh, why we, we, we can fall easily into unhealthy coping mechanisms because we don’t wanna face and, and like you were saying, the stagnation that the cycle can repeat over years of time, if not addressed. You just keep sitting in that discomfort and that misery of sorts. Mm-hmm. I think I’m finally understanding why. Why people will say it’s easier to sit in misery than to face the, the truth and Yeah. Have that bravery to walk through the unknown to get to the other side. And, and I think that ’cause avoidance is comfortable, right?

[00:50:25] Cher Geiger: It’s safe, right. Avoidance, but you know, right. When you get to the other side of confronting something is, it’s wonderful.

[00:50:37] Maggie Augustine: Is there, when, when people sit on your couch, it, what are so clearly, Scott and I, we found our way back to one another and I’m not saying there’s hiccups, right? Like we’re, we’re in another one of these things where I made promises to, to be home and to be more present and, you know, I, I didn’t keep them as best as I could. All right and I, I gotta, I gotta get myself back to center. Um, what is it like, what is it like when people sit down on the couch in front of you and. You kind of, it it, are there, are there signs that you know that this isn’t gonna work?

[00:51:18] Cher Geiger: Um, well, yes, and, and interestingly, one of the main things, and I’m saying this kind of, you know, jokingly about when you said Scott has a higher iq, um, but one of them, and Gottman’s research showed, and you may remember, he was on the Today Show 20 years ago or so, saying that in one hour he could see marriages that we’re going to fail and the component was contempt. You know, and contempt is moral or intellectual superiority over the other person and so sometimes, you know, I’ll see a kind, I’ll say, “Oh, she wants to talk all the time,” or, “She thinks we should have a date all,” you know, and I don’t have time for dating, or she wants me to put the kids to bed once a week. I’m not doing that. You know, then you know that there is as like, somehow I’m superior to you. I don’t have to spend time with you. I don’t have to put the kids to bed, I don’t have to empty the dishwasher. Uh, and often it’s. Pardon me.

[00:52:35] Maggie Augustine: It’s not resentment. It’s like an air of superiority.

[00:52:38] Cher Geiger: Yeah, superiority. Absolutely. Where, and so it is considered a hallmark of unsalvageable relationships when one person just thinks I’m bigger than you. I’m better than you. I’m smarter than you. I’m not even gonna talk to you about that because you won’t get it or you’re not capable of changing, you’re not, you know, but I don’t see a lot of that.

[00:53:07] Cher Geiger: Most human beings are much more gentle and humble than that but on that note, um, when you say, “What do you see,” uh, that’s the big one. When you just see an unwillingness to grow. You know, like, I’m, you know, I already am. I’m fine. I already know what I need to know and, and you know, there’s just, it’s kind of hopeless but as I said, there are a few people who are like that. The other three things that I try to get out of the relationship, very gottman focused our criticism. You turn your criticism into a complaint that is gentle. Instead of saying, you forgot my dry cleaning, you never think about me. You are only thinking about yourself,”That’s an attack on someone’s character and a complaint is, honey, I really needed my dress for tomorrow and you forgot it. Can you please put notes in your phone?” And that, you know, that’s how you get your need met, but you are not, you know, it’s not a, a behavior, Maggie, that is un makes the relationship unsalvageable. Okay, and, and then, you know, the Gottman, those Gottman calls, those the four horsemen, contempt, criticism, defensiveness and stonewalling and, and we can talk about those if you want to hear more, but. We do okay. So the contempt again is just feeling that, you know, superiority to your partner and, and this is what I think is so critical. You need to sit down with your partner and talk about what’s not going well. You know, you really have to listen to them, which I said at the beginning and try and anyone who’s not willing to go through that process may have contempt for you that you just won’t get it. So that’s a big red flag criticism. You address criticism by just, uh, lodging a mild complaint that doesn’t attack the character of the person. Defensiveness, and I love this. We, there’s so much defensiveness and it kind of goes back Maggie and Reagan to what you were saying about having courage. Um, most of the people I work with are beautiful, like Maggie and Scott, brilliant, amazing people and so I try to help them be willing to, rather than defend, to just say, is this behavior that my partner’s complaining about? Is it in me? Okay, I will work on that. If it’s not in you, you advocate for yourself. You say, I didn’t intentionally forget that. I promise you, please believe me, I’m being truthful.

[00:56:18] Cher Geiger: So get rid of defensiveness. Either take it on as, ‘Oh, you’re right. I do that and I’m gonna work on it.” Okay, or advocate for yourself and then that stonewalling thing, this is a really critical one for people who have been wounded and have to kind of, you know, curl up a little bit and protect themselves from, you know, wounds that they may have had preceding the relationship. So stonewalling is where the emotional pain that’s coming at you is just overwhelming and you can’t, you can’t tolerate it. So we teach you to breathe. Take a little break, but take care of yourself. You may need more than a break. You may need to end the session. You may need, you know, you may need a session with your individual therapist to work through that, but eventually you need to be able to come back and say, ‘Okay, I can talk about that.” Now I know how to take care of myself without shutting down and running away. And the idea behind stonewalling is we have an obligation to our partner not to avoid topics. We can take care of ourselves while we learn how to deal with difficult topics, but we can’t say, okay, that makes me too upset. I’m not going to talk about it ever. Okay.

[00:57:53] Maggie Augustine: I’m so extremely helpful and I, and I hope that with talking to Dr. Cher. We have been able to open our listeners eyes to a number of things. One, that, um, therapy is needed and it doesn’t have to be scary and you can come out on the other side better as a person yourself, and you can really save a marriage. You can find a way back to one another, and it’s worth every single penny and even if you don’t save a marriage, you can, you don’t have to carry around this baggage towards your next relationship and even if you do end up going through a divorce, you could probably send it, save a ton of money on attorneys because you’re going to work out some of these problems, um, within therapy itself. Uh, two, I think we’ve given you a lot of real world advice. Uh, on how to manage through some of these difficult issues and I think most importantly, and this is really the point of this podcast, we’ve made you feel not alone because by opening up, you know, this, this door to the fact that we all face these issues and Dr. Cher has kind of, uh, shared with you what she sees in therapy. We all struggle. This is something that every, that probably every marriage faces at some point. This is not all butterflies and rainbows, just because we post those pretty pictures on vacations from vacations on social media, it doesn’t matter that, it doesn’t mean that that is what our marriages feel like every single moment. Um, Dr. Cher, you practice in Illinois. Are you licensed to practice in any other state? I’m not okay. I have not, no. If, if, if patients want to reach out to you, what we’ll do is we’re going to post your bio in the notes and a way to contact you. Um, so that, and again, you come with my highest recommendation, a marriage of 23 years, a relationship of 27 years that was, that was on its way towards the divorce, uh, has found its strength, admiration, and love for one another and that was, that was mostly because of the time that we were able to spend with you. So you come with my highest recommendation.

[01:00:24] Cher Geiger: Hmm. Beautiful. Thank you so much. That’s, it’s such a gift.

[01:00:26] Regan Robertson: Thank you Dr. Cher and thank you listeners for being our faithful listeners. Uh, you know, we all work. Maggie, Chad and I work diligently trying to bring you wonderful guests with real topics, uh, comfortable or uncomfortable. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, uh, we would love a review. You can leave it on any of the sites where our podcast is. You can reach out to us personally, maggie@productivedentist.com or regan@productivedentist.com. Uh, and we look forward to bringing you new episodes in the future. Thank you.