Attachment Styles

Should You Tell Your Kids About the Affair?

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Key Takeaways

Should You Tell Your Kids About the Affair?

  • Telling children about infidelity is never a one-size-fits-all decision — the right answer depends on the age of the children, the severity of the situation, and how much the family dynamic has visibly shifted.
  • Children’s brains are wired to sense emotional tension even when they can’t name it. Leaving them without a logical explanation can create more anxiety, not less.
  • Older children and adult children often fare better when they know enough of the truth to make sense of what’s happening — handled with care, honesty can actually bring families closer.
  • Working with a specialist during this process is not optional — it’s the difference between handling this in a way that heals versus one that does lasting damage.

There it is. The question that stops most couples cold the moment infidelity comes out into the open.

Do we tell the kids?

The gut reaction for most parents is an immediate no. Protect them. Keep them out of it. And in some situations, that instinct is right. But in others — especially when the affair has been long, when separation is happening, when the household tension is impossible to miss — silence can actually do more harm than a careful, age-appropriate version of the truth.

After 30-plus years working with couples through the aftermath of infidelity, what I’ve seen is this: telling children about infidelity isn’t really a yes/no question. It’s a “that depends” question. And what it depends on matters enormously.

The Spectrum: From One-Night Stand to Long-Term Affair

Not all affairs carry the same weight inside a household, and that reality has to drive this decision.

Take one end of the spectrum: a brief affair, genuine remorse, immediate commitment to couples therapy, no separation, and — critically — no significant emotional fallout that the children felt. The kids may have sensed a little tension, but nothing that disrupted the rhythm of family life in any visible way.

In that scenario? You may not need to tell them. If the children ask questions, a simple, honest response — “Mom and dad are working through some things and we’re seeing a marriage counselor to help us” — is usually enough. That gives them a framework without loading them with information they don’t need and can’t process.

Now flip to the other end. The affair was long. The emotional temperature in the house has been off for months. The parents are separating. The kids are 15 and 17. They’ve watched everything unfold even if they don’t know the name of what they’re watching.

That situation calls for a very different approach.

What Children’s Brains Already Know (The Part Most Parents Miss)

Here’s the piece that changes the conversation for a lot of parents I work with, and it starts with a quick look at how the brain develops.

The right hemisphere of the brain — the intuitive, emotionally attuned side — develops first. It’s dominant for the first three years of a child’s life. Even very young children are reading the emotional environment around them, sensing whether it’s safe or not safe, long before they have words for any of it.

The logical left brain, the part that builds narratives and makes sense of events, starts to become dominant around age four. But that intuitive right brain never goes away. It keeps running in the background for the rest of our lives.

What that means practically: your children already know something is wrong. They may not have the word “affair.” They may not be able to tell you exactly what they’re feeling. But their right brains have been registering the emotional temperature of your household, and if that temperature has been off — the silences, the slammed doors, the red eyes at breakfast — they’ve felt it.

When parents don’t give those children a coherent explanation, what fills that gap is often worse than the truth. Kids fill silence with their own stories — and those stories are frequently darker, more self-blaming, or more frightening than reality.

This is why telling children about infidelity — in an age-appropriate way — can actually calm them down rather than distress them further. It gives the left brain something real to work with.

Age Matters: How to Calibrate What You Share

The truth doesn’t mean the whole truth. It means enough truth to make the confusion make sense.

Young children (roughly under 12):

For younger kids who are sensing tension or asking about why a parent moved out, simple and loving is the right frame. “Mom and dad are having some grown-up problems and we’re getting help to figure them out.” That’s honest. It acknowledges reality. It doesn’t load a 9-year-old with information they can’t carry.

Teenagers:

A 15 or 17-year-old is a different situation. They’re close enough to adulthood that they can hold more complex emotional information. More than that, they need it. Adolescents who are left in the dark when something major is happening in the family often develop anxiety, act out, or turn that unexplained tension inward in ways that follow them for years.

Telling a teenager “Dad made a mistake that hurt our marriage, and we’re working hard to figure out what comes next” gives them the logical framework their right brain has been missing. It doesn’t mean telling them every detail. It means telling them enough.

What I’ve seen over and over in my practice: adolescents who are brought into the raw reality of a family challenge — with care and appropriate boundaries — often come out of it with a deeper understanding of adult relationships, conflict, and what it looks like to repair something broken. That’s not nothing.

Adult children:

Generally, I lean toward telling adult children — particularly when there’s a visible change in the couple’s situation or behavior. Adult children can handle the truth, and they’re often aware that something significant has shifted. I’ve watched families grow meaningfully closer through this kind of honest conversation. Sometimes adult children are navigating similar relationship pressures themselves, and watching their parents deal with infidelity openly — and survive it — gives them a model they’ll carry forward.

There’s even evidence to suggest that the honest, non-secretive handling of infidelity within a family can reduce the likelihood of it repeating in the next generation. Patterns that stay hidden tend to repeat.

The Middle-Ground Situations: Tune In, Then Decide

Most families don’t fall neatly at either extreme. They’re somewhere in the middle: the kids are teenagers, the couple is still living together, there’s tension but no separation, and both partners are trying to work through it.

In those situations, the most important thing parents can do is tune in. Listen to what the children are actually asking. Pay attention to behavioral changes — withdrawal, mood shifts, drops in school performance. Those are the children’s right brains sending signals that they’re carrying something they don’t have words for.

There is no universal rule for the middle-ground cases. Sometimes protecting younger children from the full reality is the right call. Other times, the silence itself becomes the problem. The key is staying open-minded rather than defaulting to whichever feels easier in the moment.

The easy answer is not always the right answer. I’ve said that in a lot of different ways over the years because it keeps being true.

What to Do Right Now: A Practical Starting Point

Before you make any decision about telling children about infidelity, work through these questions:

  • How much has the children’s daily life already been disrupted? The greater the disruption, the stronger the case for an honest, calibrated conversation.
  • How old are the children? A 7-year-old and a 17-year-old need very different levels of information.
  • Are the children showing behavioral signs that they’re carrying something? Withdrawal, anxiety, acting out, or academic shifts are all signals.
  • What is the minimum amount of honest information that would help the children make sense of what they’re already sensing? Start there.
  • Are you working with a specialist? This decision is too important and too nuanced to navigate alone. A therapist who specializes in infidelity recovery can help you figure out what to say, how to say it, and when.

That last point isn’t just a recommendation. If you’re in the middle of infidelity recovery, please don’t rely only on yourself to navigate these decisions. Get a specialist involved. The stakes for your children are real.

Infidelity puts couples through one of the most disorienting experiences a marriage can survive. Adding children to that equation makes it more complicated, not less. But the families I’ve seen come out the other side intact — sometimes even closer — are the ones who were willing to deal with the truth honestly, with appropriate care for everyone in the room. Including the kids.

If you’re carrying this question right now, reach out. This is exactly the kind of complex decision that a specialist can help you work through — so you can move forward in a way that protects your children and your relationship.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Should I tell my kids about the affair?

It depends on your children’s ages, how much family life has been disrupted, and whether your children are already sensing that something is wrong. For brief affairs with minimal fallout, silence with a simple explanation may be enough. For long-term affairs with visible household tension or separation, an honest, age-appropriate conversation is usually healthier than leaving children without answers.

At what age should you tell children about infidelity?

Younger children (under 12) generally need only a brief, loving acknowledgment that parents are working through some problems with professional help. Teenagers, especially those 14 and older, often benefit from knowing more of the truth — not every detail, but enough to explain what they’ve already been sensing emotionally. Adult children can typically handle and often need the full picture, especially when a parent’s living situation or behavior has clearly shifted.

What do children understand about affairs, even if they’re not told?

More than most parents realize. The intuitive right hemisphere of the brain develops early and keeps running throughout life. Children read emotional environments, they sense tension, fear, sadness, and disconnection in their households even when they have no name for what’s happening. When they’re given no explanation, they often fill that gap with their own stories — which are frequently more frightening or self-blaming than the truth.

How do I tell my teenager about the affair without damaging them?

Lead with enough truth to make the situation make sense, without sharing details that are beyond what they need to carry. Something like: “One of us made a serious mistake that hurt our relationship, and we are working hard with a professional to figure out what comes next.” Focus on reassuring them that they are loved, that this is not their fault, and that the adults are getting help. Working with a therapist before this conversation is strongly recommended.

Can telling children about infidelity actually help the family heal?

Yes — particularly with older children and adult children. When the truth is handled with care and appropriate boundaries, it can reduce anxiety, bring family members closer, and give younger generations a real-world model for navigating conflict, accountability, and repair. Families that deal with infidelity openly rather than secretly tend to be more resilient, and research on family patterns suggests that honesty can reduce the likelihood of the behavior repeating in the next generation.

Ready to Navigate This Together?

Making decisions about your children during infidelity recovery is one of the hardest parts of the process. You don’t have to figure it out alone. Working with a specialist who has guided hundreds of couples through exactly this situation can help you protect your children and your relationship at the same time.

»  Contact Todd Creager to schedule a consultation  «

Why High-Achieving Men Struggle With Vulnerability

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Key Takeaways

Why High-Achieving Men Struggle With Vulnerability

  • High-achieving men struggle with vulnerability because the protective parts that built their careers are the same parts that block emotional connection at home.
  • In Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, these protectors are called manager parts. They formed to guard a younger, wounded part that learned early that showing need was unsafe.
  • Forcing yourself to open up rarely works. Real change comes when that younger part feels safe with your calm, compassionate Self, so the managers can finally stand down.
  • When that happens, partners who have felt alone for years start to say, “I don’t feel so alone anymore.”

You built a career on being strong, reliable and composed. You trained yourself to push through discomfort, compartmentalize, and stay steady when everyone around you was falling apart. It worked. You got here.

So why does your partner keep telling you they feel alone?

A lot of men say that to me in my office. They work hard, they think of the family first, and they wish they got more appreciation for it. Their partners, meanwhile, describe a marriage that feels lonely. Both are telling the truth.

In more than 35 years of working with couples, I have found that men struggle with vulnerability for a very specific reason, and it has nothing to do with not caring. Below I’ll show you where the pattern comes from, what is happening inside you when your partner asks how you feel, and how the shift toward real connection begins.

Why High-Achieving Men Struggle With Vulnerability at Home

High-achieving men struggle with vulnerability because the protective parts that made them successful at work are the same parts that block emotional connection with a partner at home.

That is the uncomfortable piece most men have never been told. Your composure was never a flaw. It is a strength that got promoted into a job it was never built for.

At work, staying calm under pressure gets rewarded. Solving the problem fast gets rewarded. Never letting anyone see you sweat gets rewarded. Over years, maybe decades, those habits become who you think you are.

Then you come home, and your partner doesn’t want a solution. They want you. They want to know what is going on inside, and the same system that serves you so well in a boardroom quietly closes the door.

I hear some version of this all the time from successful men. They are doing all of it for their partner and their kids, and they can’t understand why it isn’t enough. Their partners, in the same breath, say they have never felt more alone.

Neither of them is wrong. He is showing love the way his protective system knows how, through effort and reliability. His partner is asking for emotional access, the very thing that system was designed to keep locked away.

If this sounds like your marriage, I want you to hear something clearly. You are not broken, and your partner is not asking for too much. Two people who love each other are running into a protective pattern that formed long before either of you met. Once you can see that pattern, you can start working with it instead of against each other.

Manager Parts: The Protective Team Behind Your Composure

In Internal Family Systems, the model of the mind developed by Dr. Richard Schwartz, we understand that each of us is made up of different parts. Some of those parts take on the job of keeping us safe and in control. We call them manager parts.

High-achieving men tend to have an entire team of them. There’s the problem-solver. There’s the one who stays calm in a crisis. There’s the one who makes sure nobody ever sees you rattled.

Here is what I want men to understand about these managers. They aren’t random personality traits, and they aren’t the “real” you. They are protectors, and every protector is protecting something.

You can watch them work in real time. Your partner asks, “How are you feeling about all this?” and the managers scramble.

  1. One deflects with humor.
  2. One offers a solution instead of an emotion.
  3. One goes quiet.
  4. One waits for the moment to pass.

From the outside, your partner experiences all of that as distance. From the inside, it often doesn’t feel like anything at all. You may honestly believe you answered the question.

These parts are not trying to hurt your partner. In IFS we say there are no bad parts. Each one is working overtime for a reason, and in the case of high-achieving men, the reason is almost always the same. They are keeping a younger, more tender part of you from being exposed.

That is why telling a man to “just open up” so rarely works. You are asking him to override a security system that has been running, successfully, for most of his life. The managers will win that fight every time. What changes things is understanding what they are guarding.

The Exile: Where “Vulnerability Is Dangerous” First Took Hold

Behind the managers there is usually a young part we call an exile. It gets that name because it has been pushed out of awareness. It carries an old hurt, and it learned early that vulnerability gets punished, gets ignored, or doesn’t work.

Every man’s story is a little different, and the pattern underneath is remarkably consistent. Maybe your father called you weak for crying, or told you, “Come on, tough it out. Don’t make a big deal out of it.” Maybe emotions in your home meant chaos between your parents, and you decided somebody had to be the steady one. Maybe showing need meant being shamed, ignored, or told to toughen up.

Whatever the specifics, that young part absorbed one message: being vulnerable is dangerous. From that moment on, the managers have been running interference.

I want to be careful here, because this can sound like blaming parents. That is not the point. Most of our parents were doing the best they could with their own limited options, often carrying exiles of their own. The point is that a boy made a reasonable decision to survive his environment, and that decision is still running the show decades later.

When your partner gets close and something in you shuts down, that part isn’t weak. It’s scared. Somewhere behind all that composure is a young part who once decided it wasn’t safe to need anyone anymore.

This is one of the most important things I help men see, and I see it so often. Recognizing that shutdown as fear instead of failure changes how you relate to yourself. And when you stop treating that part as a problem to overpower, it slowly becomes something you can care for.

How Real Vulnerability Becomes Possible: Leading From Self

In IFS, beneath all the parts, every person has what we call Self, with a capital S. Self is the part of you that can be compassionate, connected, curious and courageous. IFS describes several of these “C” qualities, and you already have access to them. Most high-achieving men use them every day with employees, clients or friends. They have never turned them inward.

Here is the shift that matters. Vulnerability does not come from forcing yourself to be more open. It comes from your Self getting to know the young exile, witnessing what it went through, and letting it feel safe with you.

Until that exile feels safe, the managers will keep doing what they have always done. They will keep you achieving, and they will keep you alone, in the same breath.

When the exile does feel safe, something remarkable happens. The protective parts don’t have to work so hard. They can relax. And for the first time, you may find yourself able to share what is going on inside without bracing for a blow, and able to listen to your partner without rushing to fix.

This is what I mean by healing from the inside out. I’m not handing you a communication script or a list of feelings words. You are building a relationship with the parts of you that have been left behind, so your connection with your partner stops being blocked by them.

Men who do this work don’t become different people. They become more fully themselves. And their partners, often after years of feeling shut out, start saying the words they have been waiting to say: “I don’t feel so alone anymore.”

What To Do Next

You don’t need to figure out your entire inner world this week. Start small and start with curiosity.

  1. Notice the scramble. The next time your partner asks how you feel, pay attention to which manager shows up first. Humor? A solution? Silence? Name it to yourself without judging it.
  2. Get curious about what it protects. Instead of fighting that part, ask it quietly, “What are you afraid would happen if you stepped back?” Listen for the answer.
  3. Look for the young one. Think back to how emotions were handled in your home growing up. What happened when you cried, or needed something? That memory often points straight at the exile.
  4. Practice Playing Catch. When your partner shares something, receive it before you respond. Drop the agenda, hold off on the solution, and reflect back what you heard. Then offer one honest sentence about what is happening inside you.

If you only do one thing, do the first. Noticing alone starts to loosen the grip of the managers.

If you find you need support doing this work, this is exactly what I help individuals and couples with every week, using IFS and EMDR together.

Your strength got you here, and you don’t have to give it up. When the young part of you that learned to hide finally feels safe, your composure stops being a wall and becomes something your partner can lean on. That’s when a marriage stops feeling lonely. If you recognize yourself in this, or your partner, call my office and set up a 20-minute phone consultation. This is the work of making the world safe for love, and it starts inside you.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Why do successful men have trouble being vulnerable with their partners?
A: The traits that drive professional success are protective habits: staying composed, solving problems fast and never showing strain. In Internal Family Systems therapy these are called manager parts, and they often formed in childhood to guard a younger part that learned showing emotion was unsafe. At home, those same protectors block the emotional access a partner is asking for.

Q: What are manager parts in Internal Family Systems?
A: Manager parts are protective parts of the mind that try to keep you safe and in control by preventing painful feelings from surfacing. They can show up as perfectionism, problem-solving, staying busy, humor or emotional distance. In IFS they are not seen as bad, because each one is trying to protect a more vulnerable part.

Q: What is an exile in IFS therapy?
A: An exile is a young, wounded part that carries pain from earlier experiences and has been pushed out of conscious awareness. For many men, the exile holds a belief such as “needing people is dangerous” or “crying makes me weak.” Protective parts work hard to keep the exile hidden, which is why emotional closeness can feel threatening.

Q: Can a man learn to be more emotionally open in his marriage?
A: Yes. Change rarely comes from forcing openness, because protective parts resist that pressure. It comes from getting to know those protectors with curiosity and helping the younger part they guard feel safe. As that happens, many men find they can share and listen in ways they never could before.

Q: My partner feels alone even though I work hard for our family. What is going on?
A: Hard work and reliability are real expressions of love, but they don’t give your partner access to your inner world, which is usually what they are asking for. When your partner says they feel alone, they are often responding to the protective distance your manager parts create. Learning to recognize and soften those parts is how that loneliness begins to change.

Recognize yourself, or your partner, in this article? Call my office to set up a 20-minute phone consultation. I’ll talk with you personally about what is going on and whether we’re the right fit to work together.

Why Talk Therapy Doesn’t Work (And What Does)

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Key Takeaways

Why Talk Therapy Doesn’t Work — And What Your Parts Are Actually Waiting For

  • Understanding a pattern and changing a pattern are two different things. Years of therapy can give you the first without ever giving you the second.
  • Your protective parts and your wounded parts don’t live in your story. They live in your body and your nervous system, which is why narrative alone rarely reaches them.
  • Talking about a part isn’t the same as being with a part. Being with it is what allows the burden to lift.
  • Protectors don’t step aside because you analyzed them. They step aside when they trust that the Self can handle what’s underneath.
  • If you’ve done the work and you’re still stuck, the problem wasn’t your effort. Nobody helped you get to the parts.

There’s something I hear in my office almost every week, usually said with a kind of exhausted shrug: “I’ve been in therapy for years.”

And they have. They can name the wound. They can trace it back to the exact year it started. They can explain, in detail, why they react the way they do. Then their partner hits that one nerve, and they flood the same way they flooded at twenty-five. The protector fires. The wounded part still runs the show in the background.

Nothing in the system moved.

I want to walk you through why that happens, what traditional talk therapy tends to miss, and what actually reaches a part that’s been carrying something for thirty years. Because being stuck after all that work does not mean you failed at it.

New to IFS? Start with my complete guide: Internal Family Systems: A Guide for Couples.

Why Talk Therapy Doesn’t Work When You Already Understand Yourself

Understanding yourself is a good thing. It’s just not enough on its own.

Traditional talk therapy tends to stay in the narrative — your story, your history, what happened and why it made sense. That has real value. I taught this material for years as a professor and I’d never tell you that understanding your history is wasted time. But the parts of you that keep the pattern alive were never living in that narrative to begin with.

Internal family systems gives us a way to describe what’s really happening in there. We carry wounded, exiled parts. We exile them because to function in life, we have to get them out of the way. And we do that with protective parts. There’s the manager who keeps the wound at a distance while you go be successful. There’s the people-pleaser who works overtime making sure everybody likes you, usually because the exiled part underneath never felt good enough. And there’s the firefighter, who shows up whenever anything gets a little too close to the wound.

The firefighter acts out. Spends. Eats carbohydrates. Has an affair. Escapes into whatever device it has available. It’s not there to hurt you. It’s there to put out a fire.

Here’s what most people miss after years of good therapy: none of those parts are impressed by your understanding of them. You can describe your firefighter with real accuracy and it will still light up the next time your partner’s tone changes. Description isn’t contact. And contact is what these parts have been waiting for.

Talking About a Part Isn’t the Same as Being With a Part

This is the whole thing right here. Talking about a part isn’t the same as being with a part.

When I taught my students, we spent a lot of time on attunement — tuning in to a child as a parent or caregiver. Not explaining the child. Not analyzing the child’s behavior in the other room. Being with them, present, actually there. We have to do the same thing internally. Some of those parts of you are very young. Some have been on the job a long time and are tired.

The exile carrying “I’m not safe” from when you were five doesn’t respond to you understanding the story of why you feel that way. It responds to being found. Found by Self, with a capital S — that part of every one of us with the capacity to be loving, present, calm, curious, connecting and compassionate.

The five-year-old wants to be witnessed. It wants the burden it has been hauling around finally acknowledged. And as it gets acknowledged, it can lift.

Something I’d add from watching this happen in the room, over and over, with a lot of couples: the moment is usually quiet. People expect a big cathartic scene, and sometimes there is one. More often there’s a pause, and a softening, and the person says something like “huh.” Then two weeks later their partner mentions that they didn’t react the way they always react. That’s the shift. It rarely announces itself.

Why Your Protectors Won’t Stand Down for an Argument

Protectors don’t step aside because you analyzed them. They step aside because they trust that Self can handle what’s underneath.

Think about what you’re really asking. That defensive part, the one that shuts down or numbs out or goes straight to fight or flight, has been holding a line for decades. It has one job: make sure nobody, including you, gets near the wound. Now you show up with a well-reasoned explanation of why it isn’t necessary anymore. Of course it doesn’t stand down. You’ve given it an argument, not a reason to trust you.

Trust is built the way trust is always built — by showing up and not flinching. When a protector sees that Self can be present with the exile’s pain without collapsing, without rushing it, without trying to talk it out of anything, it starts to loosen its grip. Slowly. On its own timeline.

That’s what IFS does differently. It doesn’t stop at helping you understand your parts. It helps you be with them, in relationship, from Self.

And when an exile that’s been holding a wound for thirty years finally feels seen by the one person who was never able to see it — you — something releases that no amount of talking about it could touch.

Two honest notes. First, this isn’t a replacement for good clinical judgment. Some parts are protecting real trauma, and the pacing matters enormously. Second, this work rarely runs in a straight line. Protectors come back. A part you thought was settled shows up again during a stressful season, and that’s not failure, that’s a part checking whether you’re still trustworthy.

What To Do Next

If you recognize yourself in this, here’s where I’d start:

  • Notice the fire, not the story. Next time you flood, skip the analysis. Where is it in your body? What’s the temperature, the tightness, the age of it?
  • Ask what the protector is afraid would happen if it stopped doing its job. Ask it directly, and then be quiet long enough to get an answer.
  • Get curious instead of critical about the parts you like least. The one you’re most ashamed of is usually the firefighter, and it’s working harder than any other part you’ve got.
  • Stop measuring progress by understanding. The question isn’t “do I get why I do this.” It’s “did anything soften.”
  • Work with someone trained in parts work if you keep hitting the same wall alone. That’s not a weakness. Most people can’t reach an exile without help.

The first step you can take today is smaller than you think. Pick one reaction you’ve already explained to yourself a hundred times. Instead of explaining it again, sit with it for two minutes and let it be a part of you that has a reason.

You spent years getting to know yourself. That wasn’t wasted — it was the map. What’s been missing is the visit.

If you’ve done all that work and you’re still stuck in the same patterns, the problem wasn’t your effort. Nobody helped you get to the parts. That’s the work I do, and I’ve watched it reach places that decades of talking never did.

If any of this landed, leave a comment or reach out. There is hope here, and IFS is a wonderful vehicle to carry that hope all the way to fruition.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Why doesn’t talk therapy work for everyone? A: Talk therapy tends to stay in the narrative — your history, your patterns, why you are the way you are. That understanding is genuinely useful, but your wounded and protective parts live in your body and nervous system, not in your story. Understanding a part and being in relationship with a part are two different experiences, and only the second one tends to shift the pattern.

Q: I’ve been in therapy for years and nothing has changed. Did I do it wrong? A: No. Being stuck after years of work almost never comes down to effort or willingness. It usually means nobody helped you make contact with the parts underneath the pattern. Those parts respond to being found and witnessed, not to being analyzed.

Q: What is internal family systems therapy? A: IFS is an approach that recognizes we all carry parts — exiled parts holding old wounds, and protective parts like managers, people-pleasers, and firefighters that keep those wounds at a distance. The work involves being with those parts from Self, the calm, curious, compassionate core in each of us, so the burdens they carry can lift.

Q: What’s the difference between a manager and a firefighter in IFS? A: A manager keeps the wound away in advance, usually through control, achievement, or making sure everyone approves of you. A firefighter reacts after the fact, once something gets too close to the wound, through acting out, spending, eating, affairs, or escaping into a device. Same goal, different timing.

Q: Can IFS help couples after infidelity? A: Yes, and it often reaches something couples work alone can’t. After a betrayal, both partners are usually flooded by parts that are much older than the relationship. When each person can be with their own parts instead of being run by them, they can finally stay present for each other’s pain rather than escaping it.

Internal Family Systems in Marriage: 42 Years In

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Key Takeaways

Internal Family Systems in Marriage: What My 42nd Anniversary Taught Me About My Own Parts

  • The person who snaps at your spouse is usually a protective part of you, not the whole of you. Internal family systems in marriage begins the moment you can tell the difference.
  • Protective parts come in two flavors: managers that keep everything smooth and controlled, and firefighters that put out the pain fast through yelling, drinking, gambling, scrolling, or shutting down.
  • The people pleaser part is expensive. Setting your needs aside by choice is normal. Setting them aside because conflict feels dangerous slowly costs you the marriage you wanted.
  • Being misunderstood is not an emergency. When you can let your partner be wrong about you for sixty seconds, she stops feeling dismissed and you stop reacting like a five-year-old.
  • Protective parts relax when the wounded part underneath gets healed. That’s why methods like IFS and EMDR do more than communication tips ever will.

Forty-two years married this August, and I still catch a part of me trying to run the show.

There’s a sensation that shows up first. Tension in my chest and jaw. And then I’ve already said something before I knew I was going to say it, and it’s usually defensive, and it’s usually some version of turning it around so it’s about her instead of me.

I’m a couples therapist. I’ve spent decades helping people through infidelity, betrayal, disconnection, the whole range of it. And none of that makes me immune. We therapists aren’t immune to anything our clients deal with. What has actually made a difference in my own marriage is learning to recognize which part of me is talking.

Below is what I’ve learned about my own patterns, the two protective parts that cause me the most trouble at home, and what changes when I catch them in time.

New to IFS? Start with my complete guide: Internal Family Systems: A Guide for Couples.

Your Protective Parts Show Up Before You Do

In the internal family systems model, the reaction you have with your partner is almost never coming from the whole of you. It’s coming from a part. And that part is fast, faster than thought, because its whole job is to get between you and a wound before you feel the wound.

We all have wounded parts and we all have protective parts. We also have a Self with a capital S, the part with the capacity for calmness, curiosity, compassion, courage, clarity. Self is the part of you that can notice all the other parts without being taken over by them.

The protectors sort roughly into two kinds. Managers work ahead of time. If someone carries a feeling of not being good enough, the manager keeps it together, keeps it presentable, keeps the insecure part hidden. Firefighters show up after the pain has already started, and they put the fire out by leaving. Yelling is leaving. Getting defensive is leaving. Gambling, drinking, scrolling your phone while your wife is talking to you, going completely silent, all leaving.

I’m more of a fighter than a flight-er. I get short. I can raise my voice. Not that one is better than the other, I just tend to bark back.

Here’s what most people get wrong about all of this. They decide their reactive part is the problem and go to war with it. That doesn’t work. That part is loyal. It has been protecting you since you were small and it isn’t going to stand down because you’ve decided it’s inconvenient. The other thing people miss is that the quiet ones are protectors too. The partner who never raises his voice and just goes flat isn’t calm. That’s a firefighter doing the same job with better manners.

The People Pleaser Part Costs More Than the Conflict Would Have

My other protector doesn’t yell at all. It manages. It tries to calm me down by calming everybody else down, and it does it at my expense.

I don’t want conflict. I don’t want to disappoint people. I want people to like me. Don’t we all? There’s a big expense to living that way, though, and it took me a long time to see it.

There’s a real difference between choosing to put my needs aside for a moment because somebody else’s needs matter more right now, which is a normal part of any marriage, and putting my needs aside because a part of me is scared of what happens if I don’t. First one is generosity. Second one is protection wearing generosity’s clothes.

So I ask myself a question now. Is that people pleaser lurking around somewhere? And if the answer is yes, I ask the follow-up: what do I actually want here, and what do I need to say that might rock the boat but at least means I showed up?

I’ve become what I call healthily selfish with my wife. I say what I’m feeling even when she might not like hearing it. I’m not trying to be mean. I’m trying to be me.

Here’s the part I didn’t see coming. I like her more. Not because she changed. She’s the same lovely lady I’ve been married to for forty-two years. I like her more because I’m no longer editing myself around her, which means I’m no longer quietly building a case against her for things she never asked me to give up. The people pleaser doesn’t just cost you your voice. It slowly makes your partner into the reason you don’t have one.

Being Misunderstood Is Not an Emergency

The perfectionist part of me believes that if I’m not right, I’ll be seen as inadequate or as a disappointment. So when my wife says something about me that I know isn’t accurate, that part moves fast to correct the record.

What I used to do was interrupt her. “No, you’re wrong about that, this is what’s going on, blah, blah, blah.” And here’s what happens next, every single time: it doesn’t matter whether she was accurate or not. She feels dismissed. Nobody who feels dismissed has ever gone on to have a good conversation.

When I’m on my game, it goes differently. I can feel the part that wants to be seen in a good light, especially when I did the right thing and got misunderstood anyway. I can breathe. I can soothe myself in the moment. And then I can say something like, “You didn’t hear me say what I think I said, but you didn’t hear it, so you felt ignored, and that made you really upset.” I can make room for her experience, because my protective part hasn’t hijacked me. Then it becomes my turn to advocate for myself. And if she still doesn’t see it my way, that’s not the end of the world either.

Underneath all of it is a five- or six-year-old. My parents fought, and that little boy decided it wasn’t safe to have any conflict. I know it’s safe now. That part doesn’t know. So I don’t argue with him. I comfort him.

Which brings me to the piece that matters most and gets skipped the most. You can practice this awareness for years and still get hijacked, because a protector will not fully relax while the wound it’s guarding is still raw. That’s why the healing work matters. Internal family systems, EMDR, other methods that get to the core, so the wounded part can finally process what happened and the protector gets to put down a job it’s been doing since kindergarten. I’ve done this as a client, not only as a therapist. I’m getting better at it and I’ve got a long way to go. I think we all do.

How to Start Using Internal Family Systems in Your Marriage This Week

You don’t need a full treatment plan to start. You need to be able to spot the handoff, the moment a part takes the wheel.

Find your tell. Mine is tension in the chest and jaw right before I speak. Yours might be heat in your face, a flat feeling, a sudden urge to check your phone. Name the physical signal and you get a half-second of choice back.

Ask which part is talking. Fighter or pleaser? Manager smoothing things over, or firefighter trying to end the pain right now? Just naming it takes some of its power.

Let one misperception stand for sixty seconds. Next time your partner says something inaccurate about you, don’t correct it immediately. Breathe. Reflect back what she felt. Then take your turn.

Say one true thing you’d normally swallow. Small one. Watch what happens to your resentment level over the next week.

Get the wound looked at, not only the behavior. If the same protector keeps taking over no matter how aware you are, that’s information about what still needs healing.

Start with the first one today. Everything else depends on catching the handoff.

If you’re finding that the same fight keeps happening no matter how much awareness you bring to it, that’s usually the point where working with someone helps. That’s the work I do with couples, and it’s the work I’ve done on myself.

Forty-two years in, and the thing I’d say to anyone in an intimate relationship is this: this is one of the most rewarding and most challenging arenas you’ll ever grow in. The growth is in developing the emotional muscle so your protective parts don’t take over, and in healing the wounded parts so those protectors don’t have to work so hard.

If your reactions with your partner feel bigger than the moment deserves, reach out. That pattern has a history, and history can be healed.

Here’s to another year. This is Todd Creager, making the world safe for love.

What if your next argument could bring you closer instead of driving you apart?


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Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is internal family systems therapy in the context of marriage? A: Internal family systems (IFS) works from the idea that everyone has multiple parts: wounded parts carrying old pain, protective parts that keep those wounds out of reach, and a core Self with the capacity for calmness, curiosity, and compassion. In a marriage, most conflict is protective parts reacting to each other rather than two adults talking. The work is learning to notice which part has taken over so you can respond from Self instead.

Q: How do I know if I’m reacting from a protective part or from my true self? A: Speed and body sensation are the giveaways. A protective part reacts before you’ve thought anything through, usually with a physical signal first, like tension in the chest or jaw. When you’re coming from Self, you can slow down, hold your own position, and still take in your partner’s experience at the same time.

Q: What’s the difference between a manager part and a firefighter part? A: A manager works in advance to keep the pain from ever surfacing, through perfectionism, people pleasing, controlling the mood, or keeping everything together. A firefighter shows up once the pain has already been triggered and puts it out fast through yelling, defensiveness, drinking, gambling, scrolling, or shutting down completely. Both are protecting the same wound with different strategies.

Q: Is people pleasing bad for a marriage? A: Setting your own needs aside sometimes because your partner’s needs matter more is a normal, healthy part of being married. It becomes a problem when it’s driven by a part of you that’s afraid of conflict or disappointment, because then you stop showing up as yourself. Being healthily selfish, saying the honest thing even when it might not land well, tends to make partners like each other more, not less.

Q: Can one partner do this work alone, or do both people need to be in therapy? A: One person changing which part they respond from changes the pattern between them, so meaningful shifts happen even when only one partner is doing the work. That said, when both people can recognize their own protectors, the repair happens faster and holds better. Where old wounds keep hijacking the present, approaches like IFS and EMDR help at the root rather than only at the surface.

Somatic Triggers in Relationships: The Body Knows First

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Key Takeaways

Somatic triggers in relationships show up in your body before your thinking mind catches up.

  • Parts of you speak through physical sensation first: a stomach that drops, a jaw that clenches, tightness across the chest.
  • Most couple fights are protective parts reacting to protective parts, which is why an argument escalates in seconds with neither person choosing it.
  • Pausing for thirty seconds before a hard conversation and naming where you feel something is the difference between a part running the conversation and you being present for it.
  • Seeing a reaction as a younger part rather than a verdict on the relationship stops it from being evidence that something is wrong with you.

Your partner hasn’t finished a sentence yet, and your stomach has already dropped. Or your jaw has clenched. Or there’s a tightness across your chest that wasn’t there ten seconds ago.

That’s not stress. That’s a part of you communicating through your body before your thinking mind ever gets involved.

Somatic triggers in relationships are one of the most missed pieces of couples work I see. Most couples I sit with have no idea it’s happening. They’re reacting to each other’s reactions, and by the time anyone has words for it, the fight is three minutes old.

Here’s what your body is reporting, why couples escalate so fast, and the thirty-second practice that gives you back a choice.

New to IFS? Start with my complete guide: Internal Family Systems: A Guide for Couples.

What Somatic Triggers in Relationships Actually Are

A somatic trigger in a relationship is a physical sensation — tightness, heat, heaviness, numbness — that signals a protective or wounded part of you has been activated by something your partner said or did, before your conscious mind has processed a word of it.

Parts don’t only show up as thoughts or emotions. They show up in the body, and they’re faster than you are.

A protector can tighten your shoulders and cross your arms before you’ve registered what your partner said. A firefighter — the part whose job is to put out the emotional fire right now, by any means available — can flood you with the urge to leave the room or grab your phone before you’ve decided anything. An exile, meaning a wounded younger part of you that got touched, can drop a heaviness into your chest that makes you feel small and helpless in a way that doesn’t match the moment.

That mismatch is the tell. When the size of the sensation doesn’t fit what just happened, you’re not responding to your partner. You’re responding to something older, and your partner happens to be standing in the room.

What most people do instead is argue about the content — who said what, what was meant, what was implied. I’ve watched couples spend a whole session litigating a sentence when the real information showed up in one of their chests before the sentence ended.

Why Couples Escalate in Seconds

Two nervous systems are reacting to each other faster than either person can think, and that’s the whole mechanism.

My protective parts, which are trying to protect my wounded parts, are interacting with your protective parts, which are trying to protect yours. Nobody is choosing any of it. It’s quick, and the whole thing escalates in seconds.

I say this to couples all the time when they come out of one of these fights and ask, “Why are we doing this? What’s wrong with us? Maybe we shouldn’t be together.” That’s not really it. Not every couple is destined to be together, but many break up because they never understood this piece — they have parts getting activated, and they’re reading the activation as evidence about the relationship.

This is also why better communication skills run out so fast. You can hand a couple better sentences, and they help right up until a part gets activated — then the part is driving and the technique is a passenger. If the same fight keeps arriving in the same shape no matter how carefully you word things, that’s a parts problem rather than a communication problem. If your fights are about differing wants, needs and logistics, better conversation skills will help. Two different situations, two different kinds of work.

Once a couple can notice it’s a part of me, not all of me — and can see where that part came from, and take care of it differently, and start to recognize their partner’s parts too — everything shifts.

The Thirty-Second Pause That Gives You Back a Choice

Before your most difficult conversation, pause for thirty seconds and notice where you feel something. Tightness, heat, heaviness, numbness. You don’t have to understand it. Just name it: something clenched in my chest.

That’s you observing a part rather than being it.

The gap between a part activating and you seeing it is small, and it’s the whole thing. When you can feel the part in your body before it takes over your mouth, you have a choice you didn’t have before — and so does your partner.

Naming doesn’t require accuracy, which is what trips people up. Clients want the label right before they’ll say anything, and that’s the thinking mind trying to take the job back. “There’s heat in my face” is enough. You’re not diagnosing. You’re creating half a second of distance from something that’s been running you.

What the practice will not do is stop the sensation from arriving. Parts don’t retire because you noticed them. They show up on schedule, and the change is in what happens next — whether the tightness becomes a raised voice or becomes information.

The couples who get the most from this do it before the hard conversation rather than during it. Once you’re activated, your protectors are much less interested in being observed.

When a Younger Part Hasn’t Updated

Sometimes the part reacting to your relationship is responding to a version of it that no longer exists.

A couple I saw yesterday was leaving on a trip out of the country. They’ve been together three or four years. She travels with a particular friend regularly and it’s never a problem, but this trip was with her partner and a few of his family members, and she was anxious.

We traced it to the year before. They’d gone through real conflict, and right before they could resolve it they got on a plane, and she had a panic attack in the air. She was afraid of it happening again.

What she said to him was, “I’m afraid. I don’t know why. I don’t want to ruin it for you.” He was kind about it. As I sat back and watched, I could see it in her face and her body. Anxiety. A lot of distrust.

What came out was that she’d been abandoned before by people she really counted on. The friend she travels with isn’t that important to her. Her boyfriend is as important as the people who didn’t come through, so a much younger part was getting activated. It hadn’t updated. Their relationship is better than a year ago and she’s safer in it, but the young part hadn’t gotten the news.

The trip made her vulnerable for a practical reason. At home, when she gets upset, she picks up her stuff and goes back to her apartment. On vacation she couldn’t, which made it claustrophobic. What if I have this reaction and I have no escape?

Here’s what shifted in the session. He could see it as a younger part and stop taking it personally, so it stopped meaning anything about whether she wanted to be with him. And she got some control back, because now when she’s about to grab her things and leave, she has somewhere else to take it: what is that part of me?

What To Do Next

Run the thirty-second scan before the conversation you’ve been dreading. Not during. Find where in your body something is happening.

Name it out loud, in plain words. “My chest is tight.” “My stomach dropped.” Skip the interpretation. The naming is the work.

Check the size. If the intensity doesn’t match what happened, ask how old the feeling is. A part that feels five years old got activated by something older than your partner.

Tell your partner what your body did, rather than what they did wrong. “Something clenched in my chest when you said that” gives you both somewhere to go. “You always do this” gives you a fight.

Start with the first one this week. One conversation, thirty seconds beforehand. If the same reactions keep arriving and neither of you can get underneath them, sit down with someone who works this way.

Somatic triggers in relationships aren’t a sign that you’re broken or that your relationship is wrong for you. Your body knows things quicker than your conscious mind does. That is for sure, and that’s human.

The couples who learn to read that signal stop reacting to each other’s reactions and start responding to what’s there. If that’s the work you want, reach out and we’ll talk about what it would look like for you two.

This is Todd Creager, making the world safe for love.

If you want help reading these signals in your own relationship, reach out to schedule a session and we’ll look at what your body has been telling you.

What if your next argument could bring you closer instead of driving you apart?


Learn how in Todd Creager’s Loving & Connecting Masterclass.
Lifetime access. Real results.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Why does my body react before I even know what my partner said? A: Protective parts operate faster than conscious thought. They pick up tone, facial expression and pacing and respond physically — tight shoulders, crossed arms, a dropped stomach — before your thinking mind has processed the content. The sensation isn’t an overreaction. It’s early information.

Q: What’s the difference between a somatic trigger and ordinary stress? A: Ordinary stress fits the situation in size and fades when it resolves. A somatic trigger tends to be out of proportion to what happened, and carries a younger quality with it — feeling small, helpless, a version of yourself that doesn’t match your age.

Q: Does noticing a part make the reaction stop? A: No, and expecting that sets you up to feel like it isn’t working. Parts keep showing up. What changes is the gap between the sensation arriving and you acting on it, which is where your choices live.

Q: Is a reactive fight a sign we shouldn’t be together? A: Usually not. Many couples separate because they never understood that their parts were getting activated and read the reactivity as a verdict on the relationship. Reactive fights signal that wounded parts are in the room, and that is workable.

Why Your Partner Goes Silent During Arguments

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Key Takeaways

  • Stonewalling in marriage is not stubbornness or cruelty — it’s a protective response rooted in old emotional injuries.
  • The spouse who shuts down is usually overwhelmed, not punishing — a part of them learned long ago that speaking up wasn’t safe.
  • When both partners can see the shutdown as a protector rather than an attack, the conversation’s whole direction changes.
  • Genuine repair begins with curiosity: “What does that part of you need so we can come back to each other?”

You’re in the middle of a hard conversation with your spouse. You’re trying to be honest, trying to connect. And then — nothing. Your partner goes silent. Eyes down. A wall goes up. And your brain immediately fills in the story: they don’t care. They’re being cruel. They’re punishing me.

That story is almost always wrong. And I’d say that with confidence after decades of sitting with couples in some of the most painful moments of their relationships.

Stonewalling in marriage gets talked about a lot — John and Julie Gottman put it on the map as one of the four major relationship killers. But here’s what doesn’t get talked about enough: what’s actually driving it. And until you understand that, you can’t fix it.

This isn’t about making excuses for the person who goes silent. It’s about giving both of you a map that actually leads somewhere.

New to IFS? Start with my complete guide: Internal Family Systems: A Guide for Couples.

Stonewalling in Marriage Is Not Stubbornness — It’s a Protector

The shutdown is not stubbornness. It’s not coldness. It’s a part of a person that learned, a long time ago, that staying in the conversation was dangerous.

I had a client who remembered being a child, telling a parent he was upset that his sibling got to go somewhere he didn’t. A small, normal thing. The parent’s response was sharp: “Just be grateful for what you have.” Said with anger. Not once — but as a pattern.

When a child repeatedly discovers that expressing feelings leads to something painful — anger, dismissal, shame — the system learns. Silence becomes the safest option. And over time, that response becomes so automatic the person may not even know what they’re feeling. In an emotional conversation with their spouse, they just… freeze.

What’s worth knowing: you don’t need to have explicit memories of this for it to be true. I worked recently with a client who stonewalls and has no clear memories of being treated harshly. But he also has no memories of a parent being genuinely attuned to him, interested, present. That absence is its own kind of wound. You can pretty safely assume it wasn’t rewarding for him to be vulnerable.

So what’s actually happening when your spouse shuts down? A protective part steps in, locks the gate, and waits for the threat to pass. It isn’t trying to punish you. It’s doing the only thing it knows how to do to stay safe.

Why Your Partner Goes Silent: The Wounded Part Underneath

Internal Family Systems (IFS) offers language that I’ve found genuinely useful in my practice: the stonewalling partner is operating from a “manager” — a protective part that decided long ago silence was safer than speech.

That manager doesn’t yell. It doesn’t argue or leave the room. It just locks the gate and goes still.

And underneath that manager? There’s always what IFS calls an exile — a younger, wounded part that once tried to speak up and got shamed for it. Got dismissed. Got hurt. That exile is still bracing for what happened back then.

This is the part that most couples miss entirely: the stonewalling isn’t actually about the spouse sitting across the table. The feelings underneath may be just too big, and the shutdown is the only way the system knows how to manage them. That young, scared part is reacting to an old threat, not the present one.

When I explain this to couples, something often shifts in the room. The partner who was feeling punished starts to see the silence differently. Not as a weapon. As a wound.

The Question That Changes Everything

Most couples stuck in this cycle are asking the wrong question.

The betrayed partner — the one left reaching across the silence — is usually asking, in one form or another: “Why are you doing this to me?” That question keeps both of you locked in.

The question that opens a door sounds like this: “What does that part of you need so we can come back to each other?”

That’s not a small shift. When the stonewalling partner hears that question, something softens. Because now they’re not being accused — they’re being invited. And when they can turn toward that part of themselves with curiosity rather than shame, and ask it what it needs to feel safe, that’s where real repair begins.

I’ve seen this mind-shift happen dozens of times. And the thing that still moves me is that it doesn’t just repair the current relationship. When couples do this work, they often start healing older memories too — sometimes genuinely traumatic ones. Because the wound being touched was never just about this marriage.

Almost always — and I say “almost” because I’ve learned not to say “always” — what looks like hurtful behavior, whether it’s yelling or shutting down, isn’t about being mean. It’s about fear. When both partners can hold that truth at the same time, everything changes.

What You Can Do Right Now

You don’t have to wait for a therapy session to start shifting this pattern. Here’s where to begin:

  • If you’re the partner who stonewalls: Start noticing when the shutdown begins. Not to stop it immediately, but to get curious. What are you feeling just before the wall goes up? Can you name even one word — scared, overwhelmed, ashamed?
  • If you’re the partner watching the silence: Try replacing “Why won’t you talk to me?” with “I can see you’re struggling. What do you need right now?” It’s a small reframe that signals safety instead of pressure.
  • For both of you: Agree on a pause protocol. When the shutdown happens, it’s not abandonment — it’s a 20-minute break with a genuine return. “I need to step away right now. I’ll be back.”
  • Consider professional support: These patterns are old and deep. A couples therapist who understands trauma and protective responses can help you both get to what’s underneath much faster than going it alone.

The first step is the simplest one: stop reading the silence as an attack. When you do that, you stop fighting the protector — and start reaching the person underneath.

Stonewalling in marriage doesn’t mean your partner stopped loving you. It means part of them is still protecting a younger version of themselves that got hurt for being honest. That part needs compassion, not confrontation.

When couples make this shift — and I’ve watched it happen so many times — something genuinely opens. The silence loses its power to frighten. And real connection, the kind that actually lasts, becomes possible.

If you’re ready to do that work, I’m here.

 

What if your next argument could bring you closer instead of driving you apart?


Learn how in Todd Creager’s Loving & Connecting Masterclass.
Lifetime access. Real results.

Say Yes to a Better Relationship
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Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Is stonewalling emotional abuse?

In most cases, no. Stonewalling is typically a trauma-driven protective response, not a deliberate attempt to harm or control a partner. The person who shuts down is usually overwhelmed, not calculating. That said, if stonewalling is part of a broader pattern of control and intimidation, that’s worth exploring with a professional.

Q: How do I get my spouse to stop stonewalling?

You can’t force someone to stop shutting down — and trying to push through the wall usually makes it worse. What actually moves the needle is creating enough emotional safety that the protective part doesn’t need to lock the gate. Shifting from “Why are you doing this to me?” to “What do you need right now?” is a meaningful place to start.

Q: What causes stonewalling in relationships?

Stonewalling almost always traces back to early experiences where expressing feelings wasn’t safe — where being vulnerable led to being shamed, dismissed, ignored, or punished. Over time, silence becomes automatic. In an emotionally charged conversation, the person doesn’t choose to shut down; that protective response simply fires.

Q: Can a relationship recover from stonewalling?

Yes, and often more fully than couples expect. When both partners understand the protective nature of the shutdown response and approach it with curiosity rather than blame, real repair becomes possible. Many couples who do this work find it strengthens not just their relationship but their individual sense of self.

Q: Should we take a break when stonewalling happens?

Yes — with a clear return agreement. Research on emotional flooding suggests it can take 20 minutes or more for the nervous system to settle enough for genuine conversation. The key is framing the break as a pause, not a withdrawal: “I need time. I’m coming back.” That distinction matters enormously to the partner who was left reaching.

The 3 Parts That Show Up in Every Couple’s Fight

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Key Takeaways

The 3 Parts That Show Up in Every Couple’s Fight

Every fight in your marriage is driven by three internal parts — the Firefighter, the Manager, and the Wounded Part — not by the dishes, the money, or anything else on the surface. Once you can see which part is driving the argument, the fight stops being a battle and starts being information. That shift is where real repair begins.

You’re not fighting with your spouse.

I know that sounds like it can’t possibly be true — especially if you’ve spent the last hour going back and forth over something that started as a comment about the dishes. But after working with couples for decades, I can tell you with confidence: what you think is happening in a fight is almost never what’s actually happening.

The real action is underneath. There are internal parts showing up on both sides of every argument — scared, protective, wounded parts that have nothing to do with your partner and everything to do with what each of you has been carrying for a very long time.

Once you can see those parts, you’ll never look at a fight the same way again.

Why Couples Fight: The Hidden Parts Driving Every Argument

There’s never just two adults in the room during a fight. That’s the thing most couples miss completely.

There’s the Firefighter — the part that goes on the attack. It raises its voice. It lists every grievance from the last six months. It looks strong and aggressive from the outside, but it is actually scared. It’s fighting because something underneath feels threatened. When you see two people bickering back and forth endlessly, never really getting anywhere? That’s two Firefighters running from the deeper wound. They’re keeping the fight loud and busy so neither person has to feel what’s really going on.

Then there’s the Manager — the part that shuts down. This is the partner who gets quiet, walks away, tries to smooth things over before they escalate. It learned a long time ago that engaging makes things worse, so it goes into survival mode. It looks calm on the outside. Inside, it’s just trying to get through the moment.

One partner raises their voice. The other goes silent. Both are doing exactly what their protective parts learned to do — and neither one is actually reaching the other.

Both parts, as different as they look, are doing the same job: protecting something much more tender underneath.

The Wounded Part: What Every Fight Is Actually About

Here’s the part most couples never get to — the Wounded Part, sometimes called the exiled part.

This is the younger one. The part that feels unloved, unseen, unsafe, not good enough, or terrified of being abandoned. We exile it. We push it to a corner of ourselves we’d rather never visit. But it doesn’t go away. It gets triggered, and when it does, the Firefighter or the Manager rushes in to protect it.

The fight isn’t really about whatever you’re fighting about. It’s about this wounded part — and all the protective mechanisms that surround it.

I’m working with a couple right now where this plays out almost textbook. He grew up in a home where he was told he wasn’t good enough, that he shouldn’t even have been born. He learned to go invisible. His invisibility became a protective part that kept him from feeling the full weight of that wound — I don’t belong here. I’m worthless.

She grew up in a loud, chaotic home where nobody really listened. As the oldest child, she was the one who regulated everyone else. She never got to feel truly seen. Her protective part, her Firefighter, speaks loudly — not because she’s aggressive by nature, but because she learned that being loud was the only chance of being heard.

Now here they are as a married couple. She brings up something that’s bothering her — maybe with a bit more intensity than she realizes. He experiences that intensity as a threat. His invisible part kicks in. He goes quiet, withdraws.

And what does she feel? You don’t care about me. I don’t matter.

Which is exactly what she felt as a child.

His withdrawal confirms her deepest wound. Her intensity confirms his. They’re not fighting each other. They’re both fighting the ghosts of what happened long before they ever met.

When You See the Parts, Everything Changes

This is where something real becomes possible.

The fights this couple was having — her yelling, him pulling back, her escalating, him disappearing further — weren’t signs of incompatibility. They were signs of two people whose protective parts were dysregulating each other without either of them understanding why.

What we work on is getting each person in tune with their own protective parts, and more importantly, what those protective parts are protecting. His Wounded Part says I don’t belong. I’m not worthy. Her Wounded Part says I’m not important. I don’t matter. Neither of those truths has anything to do with the other person — and yet they’re running the show in every fight.

When you stop judging the parts — when you get curious about them instead — something shifts. There are no bad parts. The Firefighter isn’t villainous. The Manager isn’t weak. They’re both just trying to protect something that got hurt a long time ago.

The couples I see who make real progress are the ones who stop seeing each other as enemies and start seeing each other as allies — two people with wounds, doing their imperfect best to protect themselves, slowly learning they’re actually safe with each other.

That is when the fighting starts to feel different. Not just quieter — different. Like information instead of warfare.

What You Can Do Starting Now

If any of this landed for you, here’s where to begin:

  • Notice the part that shows up in you during conflict. Are you the one who goes loud and lists every grievance? Or the one who shuts down and goes quiet? Neither is wrong. Both are protective.
  • Get curious about what that part is protecting. Underneath the Firefighter or the Manager, there’s a younger wound. What does that part believe? What is it afraid of?
  • Look at your partner’s part with the same lens. When they attack or withdraw, ask yourself: what wound might that part be protecting?
  • Name it in the moment when you can. “I notice my protective part is showing up right now” is one of the most disarming things you can say in the middle of a fight.
  • Slow down the fight enough to ask the real question. Not “why are you doing this to me?” but “what’s happening inside me right now?”

The goal isn’t to never have conflict. It’s to stop fighting each other and start working together on what’s actually driving it.

Every fight you’ve ever had with your spouse has been a message from a younger, scared part of you — not a verdict on whether your relationship can survive. That reframe alone can change everything.

When you’re ready to go deeper — to really understand the parts driving your relationship and learn how to have genuine, nurturing conversations no matter what’s on the table — that’s exactly the work I do with couples. Reach out and let’s talk.

Making the World Safe for Love.

New to IFS? Start with my complete guide: Internal Family Systems: A Guide for Couples.

What if your next argument could bring you closer instead of driving you apart?


Learn how in Todd Creager’s Loving & Connecting Masterclass.
Lifetime access. Real results.

Say Yes to a Better Relationship
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Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What are the 3 parts that show up in every couple fight?
A: According to couples therapist Todd Creager, every marital fight involves the Firefighter (the attacking, loud, defensive part), the Manager (the part that shuts down or withdraws), and the Wounded Part (the deeper, younger emotional wound both protective parts are trying to guard). Recognizing which part is active changes everything about how you respond to conflict.

Q: Why do couples keep having the same fight over and over?
A: Recurring fights happen because the surface argument — money, chores, parenting — is never really the issue. The same fight repeats because the same wounded parts keep getting triggered. Until couples identify and address those underlying wounds, the protective parts will keep cycling through the same conflict loop.

Q: What is the Firefighter part in couples therapy?
A: The Firefighter is an internal protective part that goes on the attack during conflict — raising its voice, cataloging old grievances, and presenting as strong or aggressive. Underneath that aggression, the Firefighter is actually scared and reacting to a perceived threat to a much deeper wound.

Q: Is it possible for couples to stop fighting if both partners had difficult childhoods?
A: Yes — and often those couples are the ones who make the deepest progress once they do the work. Understanding that each partner’s protective parts were shaped by childhood experiences (not by their current relationship) allows both people to shift from seeing each other as adversaries to seeing each other as allies with wounds that need tending.

Q: When should couples seek professional help for recurring conflict?
A: If the same fights keep repeating without resolution, if one or both partners regularly shut down or escalate beyond what the situation seems to warrant, or if you sense there’s something deeper driving the arguments but can’t reach it on your own — that’s a clear signal that working with a therapist can help you access the wounded parts that are running the show.

Why You Keep Running from Your Wounded Self (IFS Explained)

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Key Takeaways

IFS Exile Explained: The Wounded Part You Keep Running From

  • In Internal Family Systems (IFS), the exile is the wounded part of you — often formed in childhood — that carries deep feelings of shame, loneliness, fear of abandonment, and “not enoughness” that your system learned to lock away.
  • Your protectors (the parts that pick fights, go numb, achieve relentlessly, or act out) exist for one reason: to keep you from ever feeling what the exile feels — and every adult relationship struggle you have traces back to those protectors still doing their job.
  • The IFS exile explained simply: it’s not a part you need to get rid of — it’s a part that has been waiting to be seen, and when your calm, compassionate self finally turns toward it, those protectors can rest and your relationships get to meet the real you.
  • Healing doesn’t come from running harder or managing better — it comes from the moment you stop, turn toward that younger wounded part, and let it know: I see you. You’re not alone anymore.

You’ve got a part of you that got hurt a long time ago. And everything — the way you withdraw, the way you fight, the way you work yourself to exhaustion — has been one long, elaborate attempt to make sure you never have to feel it again.

That’s not weakness. That’s actually your system doing exactly what it was designed to do.

In Internal Family Systems therapy, we call that hurt, hidden part the exile. And the reason so many people stay stuck — in their own heads and in their relationships — is that they’ve spent decades running from something that isn’t going to destroy them. It’s been waiting for them.

Here’s what the IFS exile actually is, why your system works so hard to keep you away from it, and what happens when you finally stop running.

What the IFS Exile Is — and Why You Have One

The exile is a part of you, usually formed early in life, that got hurt and was never fully allowed to heal. It carries the feelings your younger self couldn’t process alone — the shame of being told you were bad, the ache of not being enough, the terror of being left.

Those feelings were too much for a child to hold. So your internal system did something remarkably protective: it locked that part away. Exiled it. And then it built walls around it so you’d never have to feel those things again.

This is where the name comes from. You didn’t consciously choose to exile that part — your system chose it for you, out of something close to love. The most accurate way to understand it isn’t that you’re broken or damaged. It’s that your internal world is organized — organized entirely around protecting you from a pain it decided was unbearable.

What most people miss about the IFS exile is this: that wounded part never stopped existing. It didn’t fade. It didn’t grow up. It’s still in there, at whatever age the wound happened, still carrying exactly what it was carrying then. And here’s the part that changes everything — it wants to be seen. It has always wanted to be seen.

How Your Protectors Keep You Away From the Exile

Underneath every difficult pattern in your relationship, there’s a protector doing its job.

The partner who pulls away when things get close? Protector. The one who starts fights right when intimacy builds? Protector. The high-achiever who is never satisfied, never still, always onto the next thing? That’s a protector too — what IFS calls a manager. Managers keep the exile contained through control, achievement, and constant forward motion. They keep you focused on your partner’s flaws instead of your own ache.

Then there are the firefighters — the impulsive parts that go off the moment the exile starts to surface. A drink. A fight. A scroll through the phone for an hour. An affair. A shutdown so complete you can’t feel anything at all. Firefighters don’t plan. They react. And they’re fast. Any spark of that old feeling, and they’re already moving to put it out.

Neither managers nor firefighters are your enemy. They genuinely believe that if you let yourself touch that old pain, it will swallow you whole. They’ve spent your entire life operating from that belief. The problem is that as long as they’re running the show, you’re not really in your relationships — your protectors are. Your partner isn’t getting you. They’re getting the wall.

And this is the most accurate lens for looking at what goes wrong between people: not that one person is difficult and one person is easy, but that two sets of protectors keep meeting each other and calling it love.

What Actually Happens When You Meet the Exile

The exile isn’t going to swallow you. That’s the fear — but it’s not the truth.

What actually happens when you stop running and turn toward that wounded part — with the calm, compassionate, grown-up part of yourself, what IFS calls the Self — is something quieter and more profound than most people expect. You sit with that younger part. You let it know: I see you. I hear you. You’re not alone anymore.

That’s it. That’s the whole move.

When the exile finally feels seen by the Self — not fixed, not managed, not reasoned with, just witnessed — the protectors don’t need to work overtime anymore. The manager doesn’t have to keep achieving to prove you’re enough. The firefighter doesn’t have to blow everything up to keep you safe. They can rest. And when they rest, something opens up in your relationship that wasn’t available before.

Your partner gets to meet the real you. Not the one who’s been managing. Not the one who goes numb or picks fights. The actual you — the curious, calm, connected person who has been in there the whole time, underneath all the protection.

This is what changes in a marriage or long-term relationship when both partners do this work. Not that conflict disappears, but that what’s underneath the conflict becomes visible — and workable. Two people who can access their Self, even briefly, can have a completely different conversation than two people whose protectors are running the room.

How to Start Moving Toward Your Exile

You don’t need to go from avoidance to full exposure in one sitting. This is slow, careful work — and the pace matters.

  • Notice your protectors first. Before you can meet the exile, you need to recognize what’s been keeping you away. When you withdraw, pick a fight, numb out, or go into overdrive — that’s a protector. Get curious about it rather than judging it.
  • Thank the protector before asking it to step back. This sounds unusual, but it works. These parts genuinely tried to help you. Acknowledging that shifts the internal dynamic.
  • Access your Self. The calm, compassionate, courageous part of you — the “C words” in IFS: curious, clear, calm, connected, courageous, compassionate, confident, creative. You already have this. It doesn’t need to be built. It needs to be accessed.
  • Turn toward the exile gently. Ask it what it wants you to know. Let it show you what it’s been carrying. Stay with it — don’t try to fix it or rush past the feeling.
  • Let it know it’s not alone. That simple act of witnessing is what begins to change the internal landscape — and by extension, your relationship.

Working with a therapist trained in IFS makes this process significantly safer and more effective, particularly when the wounds are deep or when trauma is part of the picture.

Most people go through their entire lives being run by their protectors and never knowing it. They make decisions from those parts, they choose partners from those parts, they parent from those parts — and then they wonder why nothing changes no matter how hard they try.

The exile isn’t the problem. It’s the answer.

When you finally meet that part of yourself that got hurt a long time ago, you stop being an automaton driven by protection. You start being a person. And the people closest to you — they feel that difference immediately.

If this resonates with you, I’d love to hear from you. Visit toddcreager.com to explore more resources and reach out directly. This is Todd Creager — making the world safe for love.

New to IFS? Start with my complete guide: Internal Family Systems: A Guide for Couples.

What if your next argument could bring you closer instead of driving you apart?


Learn how in Todd Creager’s Loving & Connecting Masterclass.
Lifetime access. Real results.

Say Yes to a Better Relationship
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Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is the IFS exile in simple terms?

A: In Internal Family Systems therapy, the exile is the wounded part of you — usually formed during childhood — that carries painful feelings like shame, loneliness, or the sense of not being enough. Your system learned to lock this part away so you wouldn’t have to feel those emotions, and then built protective parts around it to keep it hidden.

Q: How is the IFS exile different from the inner child?

A: They overlap significantly. The exile in IFS is a specific part that holds unprocessed emotional wounds from earlier in life — similar to what many people call the inner child. The distinction is that IFS gives you a structured way to work with that part through the Self, rather than just acknowledging it exists.

Q: Why is the exile so hard to access in therapy?

A: Because your protectors — both managers and firefighters — have spent years making sure you don’t feel what the exile feels. They genuinely believe that touching that pain would be overwhelming. Until those protectors feel safe enough to step back, direct access to the exile stays blocked. That’s why IFS works with protectors first, not around them.

Q: Can meeting your exile actually improve your relationship?

A: Yes — and it’s one of the most direct paths to real change in a partnership. When your protective parts aren’t running the show, your partner gets to interact with your actual Self rather than your defenses. When both partners do this work, the quality of connection changes in ways that conflict-management techniques alone can’t produce.

Q: Do I need a therapist to work with my IFS exile?

A: For surface-level awareness and self-reflection, you can begin exploring this on your own. For deeper wounds — especially where trauma, shame, or abandonment are involved — working with a therapist trained in IFS is strongly recommended. The exile holds real pain, and having a skilled guide makes the process both safer and more effective.

Ready to stop running and start healing?

Visit toddcreager.com to learn more about working with Todd directly, explore his video library, and take the first step toward a relationship that gets to meet the real you.

Why You Shut Down During Conflict (It’s Not What You Think)

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Key Take Aways:

Why You Shut Down During Conflict — And What to Do About It

  • Shutting down during conflict is not indifference — it’s a protective response rooted in early experiences where conflict felt unsafe.
  • Two specific protective parts drive this pattern: the “manager” (people-pleasing, harmony-seeking) and the “firefighter” (numbing, distracting, dissociating).
  • The path forward starts with curiosity, not criticism — getting to know the part that’s protecting you so you can begin to unblend from it.
  • With awareness and practice, you can show up in conflict as yourself — calm, present, and actually able to stay in the room.

Your partner says something difficult. Maybe their voice goes up. Maybe they bring up something you’d rather not discuss.

And something in you just… leaves. You go blank. You get quiet. You feel like you’ve stepped out of your own body, watching the conversation from a safe distance.

Or maybe you don’t go quiet at all — maybe you get reactive, defensive, suddenly smooth things over as fast as you can.

Either way, the real you has left the building.

Here’s what I want you to know: you’re not broken. You’re not being difficult. And you’re definitely not “not caring.”

Shutting down during conflict is one of the most misunderstood things I see in my work with couples. What looks like withdrawal or defensiveness is almost always something else entirely.

Let me explain what’s actually happening — and why understanding it can change everything.

New to IFS? Start with my complete guide: Internal Family Systems: A Guide for Couples.

Why You Shut Down During Conflict: The Real Reason

Shutting down happens because a part of you that cares deeply is trying to protect you. That’s it. That’s the whole thing.

When conflict shows up in an intimate relationship, it doesn’t just feel like a disagreement — it can feel like a threat.

And some part of you, probably formed long before you ever met your partner, learned that when things got tense, the safest move was to go still, go quiet, go numb.

Maybe voices got loud in your house growing up. That happened in mine. Maybe when you tried to speak up, things got worse instead of better. Maybe what you felt or needed simply wasn’t the priority in your family.

So a part of you figured out the workaround: disappear into yourself, keep the peace, don’t make it worse.

That part is still here. And it still shows up — not because your partner is actually a threat, but because something in the moment feels like the threats it learned to protect you from.

The mistake most people make is taking this personally.

They assume the shutdown means “you don’t care” or “you’re trying to punish me.” It’s not that. It’s a part that cares so much it’s trying to protect you from hurt, loss, criticism, abandonment — whatever the old wound was.

The Two Parts That Shut You Down: Managers and Firefighters

Not all emotional shutdowns look the same, and that’s because different protective parts handle conflict in different ways. In my clinical work, I see two that show up most often.

The Manager

The manager is the part that keeps things smooth. It’s the people-pleaser, the harmony-seeker, the one that agrees too quickly or goes quiet before the conversation even gets started. It’s strategic — it’s been managing the situation since before the conflict really began.

I’m working with a woman right now who has things she genuinely needs to say to her adult daughter. Real things. Important things. But she lost a son when he was young, and her daughter is now her only child. The fear of damaging that relationship — of losing one more person — is enormous. So the manager steps in and she stays silent. She doesn’t share what she really feels. She protects herself from possible loss by disappearing.

What made it harder was that she grew up with two dysregulated parents. What she felt, what she wanted, what she needed — none of it was the priority. She learned young that the way to manage life is to go inside, adapt, and make the best of things. That’s still her default. The manager learned it young and it’s very good at its job.

When I asked her to practice showing up as herself — authentic, present, able to stay in the room — she immediately worried: “What if she says something and I’m not prepared? What if I put my foot in my mouth again?” That’s the manager talking. It’s afraid that if it steps aside, something will go wrong. The answer is to slow down, breathe, and remind that part that you’ve got this.

The Firefighter

The firefighter is different. It doesn’t plan. It reacts. Something in the conversation becomes unbearable and the firefighter moves in fast — not to manage the situation, but to put out the fire before you feel it.

This is the part that reaches for your phone. Or the fridge. Or a drink. Or food. Or anything that pulls you out of the moment before the pain lands. You might not even realize you’ve dissociated until you come back a few minutes later, vaguely aware that something was said but not sure what you felt about it.

Unlike fight-or-flight, the firefighter doesn’t run toward or away — it just numbs. You walk away not feeling anything. And that blankness people sometimes describe during conflict? That’s often the firefighter having done its job a little too well.

Both the manager and the firefighter are protecting the same thing: a younger part of you that once learned conflict meant something bad was about to happen. They’re doing it differently, but the job is identical.

The Shift That Changes Everything: Curiosity Over Criticism

Here’s where most people get stuck. When they notice themselves shutting down, they get frustrated — with themselves, with their partner, with the whole situation. The self-talk turns critical. “Why can’t I just say what I mean? Why do I always do this?”

That criticism makes everything worse. Because the protective part you’re criticizing is the very part you need to work with, not against.

What actually opens things up is curiosity. Getting genuinely interested in that part of you. Asking it — kindly, without judgment — what it’s afraid of. What it’s protecting. When it first learned to show up this way.

Once you can see it as a part — not as who you are — something starts to shift. You begin to unblend. There’s a little bit of distance between you and the part that’s been running the show. And in that space, you start to access what I call self-energy: the part of you that has compassion, courage, calmness, the ability to connect and stay present.

That’s what we’re after.

Not the absence of protective parts — they’re not going anywhere, and honestly, they’ve kept you safe in ways that mattered. What we’re after is some separateness. The ability to say: “That part is trying to protect me. It is not me.”

How to Start Working With These Parts Instead of Against Them

This doesn’t require years of therapy before it starts to help (though working with a good therapist certainly accelerates it). You can begin with some simple, intentional steps.

Practical Steps to Start Now

  • Notice when you’ve left the room emotionally. You don’t have to stop it first — just notice it. Name it internally: “A part of me just shut down.” That naming creates the beginning of separation.
  • Get curious, not critical. When you catch the shutdown happening, ask yourself with genuine interest: what is this part afraid of right now? What does it think is about to happen?
  • Slow down and breathe before responding. This is practical, not just a platitude. The manager and the firefighter both move fast. A pause gives your self-energy a chance to catch up.
  • Practice in low-stakes moments. Don’t try to rewire this during the hardest conversations first. Find smaller moments of friction where you can practice staying present, and build from there.
  • Give your partner the context. You don’t have to have it all figured out before you share it. Even saying “I notice I go blank sometimes — I’m working on understanding why” changes the dynamic.

The goal is not to eliminate the protective parts. It’s to build a relationship with them so they trust you enough to step back when you need to actually be present.

Shutting down during conflict isn’t a character flaw. It isn’t weakness. It isn’t not caring. It’s the remnant of something that once kept you safe in a situation where you had fewer options.

You have more options now. And the path to using them starts with something surprisingly gentle: getting to know the part that’s been protecting you, thanking it for its service, and slowly, with practice, learning to show up as yourself — calm, present, and actually in the room.

Watch Todd Explain Why You Shut Down During Conflict

What if your next argument could bring you closer instead of driving you apart?


Learn how in Todd Creager’s Loving & Connecting Masterclass.
Lifetime access. Real results.

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Frequently Asked Questions About Why You Shut Down During Conflict

Q: Why do I shut down during conflict even when I care about the relationship?

Shutting down has nothing to do with how much you care — it’s actually a sign that you care deeply. A protective part of you learned early on that conflict wasn’t safe, and it still steps in to guard you from hurt, loss, or abandonment. The shutdown is protection, not indifference.

Q: What is the difference between a manager and a firefighter in emotional shutdown?

Both are protective parts, but they work differently. The manager is proactive — it keeps the peace, people-pleases, and avoids conflict before it escalates. The firefighter is reactive — it numbs you out, distracts you, or helps you dissociate when something gets too painful to feel. One plans, the other acts fast.

Q: Is shutting down in relationships related to childhood experiences?

Yes, almost always. If you grew up in a home where conflict was loud, chaotic, or where speaking up led to shame or rejection, a part of you learned to go quiet as a survival strategy. That part doesn’t automatically know your adult relationship is different — it still responds to tension the way it learned to.

Q: How do I stop shutting down emotionally during arguments with my partner?

Start with awareness, not willpower. When you notice you’ve gone blank or reactive, name it internally: “a part of me just shut down.” Get curious about that part rather than criticizing it. Slow down, breathe, and practice in lower-stakes moments before trying to stay fully present in your most difficult conversations.

Q: Can couples recover when one or both partners shut down during conflict?

Yes — and understanding the protective parts dynamic is often what makes the difference. When both partners can see shutdown as protection rather than rejection, the whole conversation changes. It becomes possible to approach each other with curiosity instead of defensiveness, which creates the safety that allows the protective parts to step back.

Ready to Stop Shutting Down?

If any of this landed for you — or if you see your partner in these patterns — this work is absolutely possible to do. Todd Creager has spent decades helping couples move through exactly this, from the shutdown to the connection that was always possible.

Schedule a session with Todd →  https://toddcreager.com/contact

Why Attachment Styles Impact Your Sexual Desire

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How Your Attachment Style Affects Sexual Desire: What 30 Years of Therapy Taught Me

Hi everybody, this is Todd Creager, and today I want to share something with you that you probably won’t find in most articles or books about sexual desire.

After three plus decades of working with couples as a therapist, I’ve discovered some fascinating connections between how we attached to our parents as children and our sexual desire as adults.

If you or your partner are struggling with low sexual desire, what I’m about to share might just be the missing piece of the puzzle you’ve been looking for.

The Hidden Connection Between Childhood and Your Sex Life

Here’s what I’ve learned from working with countless couples: when someone has an insecure attachment with their parent, it can absolutely affect their sexuality as an adult.

And the attachment styles I’ve seen are both specific and surprising.

Let me break down what I mean by secure attachment first.

A secure attachment happens when your parent or caregiver truly tunes into you – your wants, your needs – and responds based on what you need, not what they need.

This helps you grow up learning how to soothe yourself while also being able to connect deeply with others. You’re not overly independent or overly dependent.

But when that secure attachment doesn’t happen? That’s where things get complicated in the bedroom.

The Mother-Son Dynamic That Kills Sexual Desire

I see this attachment style especially with men who have low sexual desire. Almost every time, when I dig into their history, I find a specific dynamic with their mother.

Picture this: a mother who was very enmeshed with her son, maybe even treating him like her emotional husband (not sexually, but emotionally).

She might have been overprotective, over-relying on him, perhaps distant from her actual husband. She responded based on her needs, not his.

What happens when that boy grows up and commits to a partner?

His unconscious mind starts projecting: “She’s going to be just like mom – needy, possessive, going to swallow me up with her needs.”

The symbolic act of sex – that intimate union – can unconsciously trigger fears of being consumed, of losing himself completely. So what does his psyche do to protect him? It shuts down his sexual desire entirely.

A Real Story: How Changing Seating Arrangements Changed Everything

Let me tell you about a case that perfectly illustrates this. I worked with a 40-year-old man who couldn’t consummate his marriage with his 26-year-old wife.

Everyone thought it was an erection problem, but it was really a desire issue – he just didn’t want sex.

When I explored his family dynamics, the picture became crystal clear. His whole family walked on eggshells around mom’s needs. Dad was passive.

All four kids focused on not upsetting mom. And as the oldest son, he had a special place – he was supposed to make mom proud.

Here’s the concrete example that changed everything: When they visited his parents, mom had little place cards for seating arrangements.

She always had her oldest son – my client – sitting right next to her, while his wife sat across the table behind a big plant where mom couldn’t even see her.

Talk about symbolism! The message was clear: “You’re mine, not your wife’s.”

So I gave him what might sound like a simple assignment, but it was actually profound: “At your next visit, before you sit down, make sure everyone’s around and say, ‘Excuse me everyone, I want to make a little change. Mom, I’m going to switch places with you. I want to sit next to my wife.'”

Both he and his wife were terrified. “The shit’s going to hit the fan,” they said.

And you know what I told them? “Good! The shit needs to hit the fan. You have every right to sit next to your wife.”

The Breakthrough Moment

He did it. Made the announcement, moved the plant, sat next to his wife. His mother didn’t speak to him for the entire weekend. Two of his siblings came up to him annoyed, asking why he had to rock the boat.

But here’s the beautiful part: Two months later, one of those brothers called him and said, “I know I got upset with you, but I was secretly envious that you stood up to mom. Does your therapist know a good therapist in our area?”

And my client? Within a week or two, he came to me saying, “It’s pretty funny – I’m feeling stuff down there.” As he developed his own sense of self regarding his mother, he no longer needed to protect himself by shutting down his sexual feelings toward his wife.

It’s Not Just Men: How Father-Daughter Relationships Affect Women’s Desire

Women face similar challenges, often stemming from their relationships with their fathers. Maybe she was heavily criticized, or dad favored her brother, or there wasn’t that healthy, secure attachment there.

When a woman doesn’t trust – because trust wasn’t safe in her formative relationships – she may protect herself by shutting down sexually.

After all, if she doesn’t feel sexual desire and doesn’t have sex, she won’t risk being abandoned or rejected.

I once worked with a woman whose mother and maternal grandmother both had husbands who cheated.

The family message was clear: “Men aren’t trustworthy, and sex is bad because it only brings pain.”

We worked together to help her heal from those generational traumas, to develop her own sense of self, and to understand that sex isn’t inherently good or bad – it’s what we make of it.

We also made sure her husband did everything possible to earn and maintain her trust.

The Path Forward: Healing Attachment Wounds

Here’s what gives me hope after all these years of practice: even if your parents have passed away, you can still do this healing work.

I’ve worked with many men and women whose parents were deceased, and we were still able to work through those attachment patterns and develop healthy, secure attachments with their partners.

The key is understanding that these patterns exist, recognizing how they might be playing out in your relationship, and doing the work to heal those old wounds.

Sometimes it’s about setting boundaries with living parents. Sometimes it’s about processing old hurts and developing new ways of relating.

Ready to Improve Your Intimacy?

If you’re struggling with low sexual desire – whether you’re the one experiencing it or you’re the partner of someone who is – it’s worth exploring these attachment patterns.

The pain you’re experiencing is real, but so is the possibility for healing and deeper connection.

Remember, every situation is different.

What I’ve shared here are patterns I’ve observed, but your specific situation deserves individual attention and care.

Professional help can be crucial in navigating these complex emotions and creating lasting change.

Are you ready to explore how your attachment style might be affecting your sexual desire?

Better intimacy – and a more fulfilling relationship – starts with understanding these deep patterns and having the courage to change them.

If you found this helpful, I’d love to hear from you. What resonated most? What questions do you have about attachment styles and sexual desire? Remember, healing is possible, and you deserve a relationship filled with trust, safety, and genuine intimacy.

Watch The Video Here and Discover Why Attachment Styles Impact Your Sexual Desire

What if your next argument could bring you closer instead of driving you apart?


Learn how in Todd Creager’s Loving & Connecting Masterclass.
Lifetime access. Real results.

Say Yes to a Better Relationship