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Welcome to the Thrive Marriage Lab with Restory Counseling, where we help you explore the why behind the what. Because guess what? We believe that your marriage is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be explored and enjoyed. We believe that the more you explore and know your story, the deeper your marriage connection will be. This podcast is now the audio version of our new YouTube channel, Thrive Marriage Lab.

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where each week you can expect us to help you cultivate connection and belonging without the fixing and tips and common things you often hear in the marriage space. So find us on YouTube or listen in.

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So have you ever experienced a moment with your spouse where you're trying to say something, you're trying to share something, maybe there's something that's going on, you're feeling something, and you're looking across the table, the room, whatever it is to your spouse, and you're like, hello, are you even there? Kind of wake up a little bit, kind of tune in to me. The experience of the sharer, the one who's sharing, is like that other person is emotionally

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unavailable. They are not there. They're not present. They're not engaged. And it is driving me crazy. Welcome to the Thrive Marriage Lab. My name is Chris Bruno and I'm a licensed professional counselor and together with my wife Beth and our colleague Tracy Johnson, we post videos to help you understand the why behind the what. Because we believe that when you explore and know your story, the deeper your connection will be. So

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Maybe that's your experience. Maybe you've had a moment with your spouse where you're like, hello, are you even there? And you recognize that that person is not present. Emotional unavailability is something that comes up a lot in marriage counseling. And so I wanted to take some time to kind of break that down and share with you both what it is, why it is, and what we can do about it. So the first thing I wanna say is this, emotional unavailability.

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is that experience where someone has kind of like turned off. Now think about it this way, that maybe you're two radios, two walkie talkies, and one of you is broadcasting and the other one is tuning into the channel. And actually when you do tune in, when you're emotionally available, is you kind of connect. You know, one person's on channel two, the other person tunes into channel two, and now you're able to kind of connect. Well, emotional unavailability

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is not just that one of you is on channel two and the other one is on channel three, that's kind of missing each other, but emotional unavailability is when one of you is broadcasting on channel two and the other one's radio is like off. It's not even turned on. And that can be an overwhelming experience of like, are you even, do you even care about me? Do you even love me? Do you even know that I'm here? What is going on that you are so like shut down and off? So.

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Emotional unavailability is when someone's experience of presence, someone's capacity to be able to emote, to have that kind of tuned in connection with another person is shut down or shut off for some reason. Now, of course, in every marriage, there's going to be moments where, where I need to kind of just tune out and play game on my phone or watch it, watch TV or something, but that's not actually what I'm talking about.

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It might be a momentary kind of unavailability, but just this general sense of emotional unavailability is can kind of plague a marriage over the course of time. And so that feeling of being shut off, actually for one person, is the feeling of being shut out by the other person. It's where I don't ever, ever, even in the moments where we are on dates or we're going out, I don't ever have the space or ability to kind of connect to you. We can never...

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tune into each other because your radio is off. If that is your experience in the next video, I kind of want to unpack a little bit about where that comes from, why that exists in a person's life, what are some of the maybe the stories that are going on in the why behind the what, what is happening in the background of that person's story. But I also want you to, if that's you as the one who's kind of shut down, keep listening, but also if that's you that's like trying, my spouse is emotionally unavailable.

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I want to invite you to a posture of curiosity with regard to the why, because what you're experiencing is infuriating. It is so hard for you to keep trying to connect with them. And, uh, but the more you try to connect, uh, to them, it's not that that's going to actually end up working. It actually requires you to kind of draw into some other spaces to have some curiosity, not about the emotional unavailability, but why and how it got there in the first place. So, um, hang tight.

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watch the next video and we'll kind of unpack where the emotional unavailability comes from. And then in future videos, we'll talk about how to like bring availability about. Thanks so much.

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If you like this, there's more where that came from. Go to Thrive Marriage Lab on YouTube to check out all of the marriage resources we have for you. We are so committed to helping you develop a deeper and more connected relationship.

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that we have created 12 free curated date guides to walk you through one year of good dates that we believe take you beyond your average date night to the kind of connection you really want. So head over to restory.life/thrive-dates or just look in the show notes to subscribe to get those for free in your inbox for one year. And if you're curious about us, you can find us over at restory.life

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to hearing about how your marriage continues to grow. See you same time, same place next week.