You can listen wherever you get your podcasts, OR— BRAND NEW: we’ve included a fully edited transcript of our interview at the bottom of this post.
In this episode of The Peaceful Parenting Podcast, I have a conversation with Zach Brittle, a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC) and couple’s therapist certified in both Gottman Method Couple’s Therapy and Relational Life Therapy.
We focus on the two big areas that partners struggle with: what do you do when you disagree about parenting, and what do you do when one parent is highly reactive.
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We talk about:
8:00 Sorting through different levels of disagreements between partners
11:00 Start by finding what you agree about/values/parenting goals
18:00 Explaining “Relational Life Therapy”
21:00 How “repair” is the goal in peaceful families
27:00 How to go into triggering conversations with our partners
30:00 Take care of yourself, so you can show up for your partner and kids
31:00 When one parent is more reactive than the other
36:00 What do you do if your partner won’t change?
Resources mentioned in this episode:
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Sarah: Hey y'all. Welcome back to another episode of the Peaceful Parenting Podcast. Today's guest is Zach Brittle, who is a couples therapist. I figured it would be great to have him on, as I hear from so many of you that parenting is the biggest source of conflict in relationships.
I asked him about navigating two main issues that come up over and over again in my coaching and in my community: What do you do when you disagree about parenting, and what do you do when one parent is highly reactive?
At the start of the interview, as we were speaking, Zach said something about how kids need boundaries and consequences. I didn't challenge him on this, although you know I feel strongly about consequences, and that we have a lot of concern that boundaries in parenting are often overused.
However, as the interview progressed, it became clear that he and I weren't as far apart as I originally thought. I didn't challenge him early on because I didn't want to derail the conversation about how to navigate challenges as a couple. I'm so glad I held my tongue—which y'all might guess is hard for me to do.
This conversation ended up being a great example of the kind of conversations we need to be having, both on the micro and the macro level. Conversations where we listen to each other and try to find common ground, whether it's our partner or anyone with whom we have conflict.
If you're curious what I mean about boundaries being overused, you might want to check out the podcast that Corey and I did about limits. We'll link to that in the show notes.
If you find this episode useful, share it with a friend and leave us a rating and review on your podcast player app. We really appreciate your help in spreading the word.
Let's meet Zach.
Sarah: Hey Zach, welcome to the podcast.
Zach: Thank you. Yeah, thanks for having me.
Sarah: I'm so excited to have you, because what we're going to be talking about today is something that comes up so often in my coaching with parents, and also in our membership community and in the different work that I do with parents. And that is the question of our relationships with our partners.
So before we jump into it, can you just tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?
Zach: Yeah, sure. So I'm Zach. I'm a couples therapist in Seattle, Washington, where I live with my wife, Rebecca. A couple of weeks ago we just celebrated our 28th wedding anniversary—I think it was 28. You sort of forget numbers, I guess, when you get this old.
But our thing is that we like to say we've been happily married for 25 out of 28 years—because that's pretty good. We've had three significant challenging periods that we've weathered, including parenting challenges with our two daughters. They are 18 and 22. They both just graduated—one from high school, one from college. So we're in this wild transition phase between being parents and then kind of retiring that role, and trying to figure out what new role we're going to have.
Professionally, I'm a couples therapist. About 95% of my practice is couples. I see very few individuals—I'm just not that good at it. I don't like it, and I tell my clients that. I say, “I'm not your guy for individual therapy.”
But I've been working with couples for maybe 20 years, and I really love it. It's a new mystery every time, and it's like, “How do I solve this mystery?” That's what I do.
And then for fun, I swim. This morning I already swam two miles. A little quirky thing about me is that every year in the summer I try to swim a marathon every month. So that's 26.2 miles in June, July, and August. I did June, I did July, and now I'm halfway through August and I'm just churning out my yards to try and get my third marathon done for the summer.
Sarah: That's a lot of swimming.
Zach: Yeah. I'm like, “Oh man, I gotta…” But I will keep going. I will not give up, because I have to check my box.
Sarah: I love that. Yeah. You and I are in the same space in life with the children growing up and navigating that new phase of the relationship with our partners. My husband and I have found that going to music festivals together has been a thing that we’ve really reconnected over.
Zach: Well, we're looking for ways to kind of do that too. I have couples come into my practice, and when they're empty nesting, they're always like, “Well, what are we gonna do now?” And I'm like, “Okay, fine, that's the right question, but you're asking it in the wrong way. It's more like: ‘Well, what are we gonna do now, now? Or what can we do now?’”
Like, “We could do this, we could do that.” You know? That's the way to ask that question. Because we don't know what we're gonna do, but we're going to figure it out. We're gonna figure something out.
Sarah: Totally. Yeah. All right, well, let's back up because most of my listeners are not yet at that phase where you and I are at.
I mentioned to you before that I see two main areas that are hard for parents in partnership together. I'm just gonna say them both right now, and then we'll go back and look at each of them.
One is when you and your partner don't agree about parenting styles. Often I see one parent who wants to do peaceful parenting, and the other one who wants to do conventional, more fear-based parenting.
And the other is: both of you are in theory on board with peaceful parenting, but one partner gets very reactive when the kids are being challenging and can’t stay calm. It seems to be just a pattern that keeps repeating itself, and the other partner just doesn't know what to do about it.
So let's go back to: how do you work with parents who are really having some big disagreements philosophically about parenting?
Zach: Yeah, it's a fine question. I think there's sort of an easy answer that pops into my head almost all the time when people talk to me about their disagreements.
One is that people disagree about a lot of stuff. Like, we might turn on a television and there might be a football game against a team wearing red and a team wearing yellow. You might prefer red, and I might prefer yellow. We disagree about who we want to win this football game, but we don't argue about it.
There's not a conflict, because we're not invested enough in that thing.
And then maybe at the top there's something like a disagreement about monogamy, or whether or not to have a baby. There's so much investment that we can't regulate or stay connected.
I think there's a line between this thing at the top of the range and this thing at the bottom of the range. Somehow you have to figure out: where is the point where you go from, “I don't really care, might as well flip a coin, it's no big deal,” to “I will die for this”?
What's going on in that transition space between “I don't care” and “I do care”? There's something to be learned about that.
So therapeutically, I would spend a lot of time there—just asking, “Okay, well, what do you mean when you say you disagree? What are you on board with and what aren't you on board with? What are we talking about when you say you disagree? Where's that coming from for you?”
So there's a need to get beyond the binary. And it's important to do that in conversation. Sometimes that conversation can be several weeks or months or years long. It doesn’t have to be a conversation we have Thursday night over dinner, or in the one counseling session where it comes up.
But the other piece of that is: who am I having this conversation with? My friend, my lover, my partner? Or my antagonist—the person I must defeat on the battlefield of opinion?
So if you ask me what I do, the first thing I do is try to get really curious about what exactly we're talking about. What do you disagree with? What are you on board with, and why? Because there's gold there.
And there's also gold in this idea of: what is the variable that switches you from “I don't really care” to “I care so much”? There's something in that space that needs your curiosity and your attention.
Sarah: So when parents do have this conversation, how would you suggest—say they're not clients of yours—how would you suggest that they have this conversation?
Zach: Well, if they can't have it by themselves, they should get some help. From you, or from a therapist, or from someone who can navigate this.
If they can have it by themselves, because they feel emotionally intelligent, they feel regulated, and they feel hopeful, then there are maybe a couple things that I would recommend.
The first one would be something like: Why don't you start with what you definitely do have in common? Like, “We want to raise healthy kids” or “We want to raise emotionally intelligent kids.”
My wife and I have been saying for—I don't know, about half a decade, about five or six years—that our parenting goal is to raise kids that we want to hang out with as adults. Like, we want to be friends with our adult children.
And so we don't key on peaceful versus not peaceful, or smart versus not smart, or whatever the layers are. We're like, “Okay, is this gonna help us to stay friendly with our children?” And so then we filter down from there.
So: what do you agree on? If you can start with what you do agree on, then you know—it's almost like having, like, we're really clear about our mission. And then from mission goes tactics, right?
So if I'm just talking to somebody in the wind about how they navigate difference, I think you start with: what is it that you really agree on? And I think you find that it's pretty easy to find things that you agree on if you raise the altitude.
Because we can all agree we want to not kill our kids.
Sarah: Do you know what I mean? Like, yeah—
Zach: It's pretty high altitude. But like even if you need to start there, then what? We don't want them to be unhealthy. We don't want them to be unsafe. I mean, you can come down [00:13:00] until you get to: “Oh, but we're a little confused on how to do that. Now we need to talk tactics, and what is that about?”
Sometimes when you start with, “We're pretty sure we don't want to kill our kids,” and then you go to, “We're sure we want our kids to feel safe,” it's not that far to go: “Oh, peace is a value that we hold. How do we keep peace?”
Now we're having a different conversation about what we do and don't agree on.
Sarah: Yeah, that makes sense. What if you get to—you know, you get to that point and, or I guess you maybe haven't gotten to that point if this is still an issue—but one thing I hear a lot is, parents will have a disagreement about just philosophical things that it's hard to agree on.
Like they both think that this is the best case scenario for the kids. Like, say you agree that you want to be friends with your kids. And then you have one parent who's like, “Well, I had a great relationship with my parent, and I still was afraid of him growing up. And I think it's fine for kids to be afraid of their parents.”
And the other parent strongly believes, “Well, I don't think it's okay for kids to be afraid of their parents, even if you have a good relationship with your dad now.”
Is there a way that you see couples able to progress, while still having two fundamentally different beliefs like that?
Zach: Well, I mean, again, I would just sort of wonder: maybe they're not saying something different. I mean, there is something called healthy fear.
You should be afraid of certain things. You should be afraid of heights, I guess, if you're walking on a ledge. You should be afraid of wild animals on a safari if you're not protected.
I don't think that should be your parents, but there is a thing called healthy fear that you learn about boundaries, and you learn about what's there.
If “you should be afraid of your parents” includes something like “violence is okay,” then I would go, “What? What are you talking about?”
If “you should be afraid of your parents” includes “they should have boundaries and consequences,” I'm like, “Yeah, they should have boundaries and consequences.”
And I think you can honor the desire to have, let's say, healthy fear—and also peaceful parenting—in that space. As long as maybe that's your target, and that's your target—great. Now we've figured out: how do we execute on that target?
But I think when you talk about philosophy—“I think kids should do this” or “kids should do that”—the philosopher in me wants to actually have that conversation.
“Well, why should they do that?”
And I also think “should” is made up. Like, where does “should” come from? Who says you should? Your parents? John Gottman? The Bible? Something you saw on TV one time? Where does “should” come from? Because that also needs evaluation.
Ultimately, “should” comes from us. And we are two people trying to—mostly, in general—raise this nuclear family anyway.
I don't know if I answered your question, but that's where my brain goes.
Sarah: Well, yeah, no—you kind of brought up further questions. Say I had someone bringing me that challenge of, “My partner thinks that it's okay for kids to be a little bit afraid of him. And we're not talking about physical violence—”
Zach: Yeah.
Sarah: “—but just, you know, we don't want to cross Dad because he can get really harsh or whatever.”
And I would say, “Well, you know, they'll have a different kind of relationship with that partner than they will with you. And as long as nobody's being harmed, then it's something you can agree to disagree on, and each have your own type of relationship with a parent.”
Do you think that's sustainable?
Zach: I mean, I think everything is sustainable if you've got two functional adults at the table.
If you've got two people who are fundamentally different, and those differences aren't diametrically opposed to one another, then I think, you know, each of my kids has a different relationship with each of their parents. So there's almost four dynamics in play. There's not one dynamic between parents and children.
And we talk about lanes a lot. We also carry different responsibility for each kid, based on how well we know them or how well we understand the topic area.
So I think this idea of fear—again, there's something about healthy fear.
I work in a methodology called Relational Life Therapy, which was written by a guy named Terry Real. And Terry says—and you just used this word, and I think this is where the meat of it is—“There is nothing that harshness can do that loving kindness can't do better.”
Sarah: I've heard him say that. I love that.
Zach: So harsh fear is reasonable—because boundaries are real, and you need to learn that if you touch an oven it's gonna burn your finger. Like, you should be afraid [00:18:00] of a hot oven.
But harshness is a totally different thing. And I think you can instill healthy fear—I don't even know if I like the word, but let's use it.
Sarah: What Terry says. Yeah. What if your partner does not believe that “there's nothing harshness can do that—”
Zach: “—loving kindness can't do better.”
Sarah: Right. What if your partner disagrees with that?
Zach: I would ask them exactly what they disagree with. Like, “What do you disagree with about that? What story do you have about how harshness was more effective than loving kindness? And where does that come from for you? And is that really a healthy story for you? Do you really cherish that story, or is it just one that you absorbed and took into yourself because it was all you knew?”
In a lot of cases, it is all people know.
In particular, I think it's less so now than it was when I started my career 20 years ago. But I’m 52—I was raised by a generation of people who did not concentrate on relationality. There was no therapy as normal, or easy access to community groups focused on peaceful parenting. None of that.
Everybody was making it up, and they were making it up by what they learned from their parents, who were making it up from what they learned from their parents. There was no extra context.
So I think people who are convinced “this is the way” because they inherited it from their parents—I’m like, “Why is it the way? Isn’t there another way? Do you really believe in harshness as a strategy?”
I don't think most people do. And that comes down to: while they may celebrate, “I'm fine—my parents were harsh and I'm fine”—it's really hard to build a compelling argument for harshness.
But you have to do that in the larger context. And that's why I said earlier, I think if you're going to be in a parenting conversation, it's probably a 20-year conversation. It is not a single conversation that we have in the kitchen after a single incident.
It is an exploratory, expansive thing. Because you and I both know, the second you crack the code on parenting, the game changes.
And so that's why you have to start with values at the top.
Sarah: So what do we both want for our kids? What do we want for our relationship?
Zach: Yeah. I mean, I like hanging out with my parents. They're fine. They're actually in town right now. But we're not friends. We're not tight. We enjoy each other, but I want to have an intimate relationship with my kids.
Which means: what do I have to do that my parents didn’t do? Give me language, give me freedom, give me the opportunity to fail.
I've told my kids many times that I think they need to apologize. Here's a good one around fear. I've said, “Yeah, I think you need to apologize—because you need the experience of being forgiven. You need the experience of having repair. You need the experience of seeing that you can screw up and also make it right again.”
Because if you never learn that, then you're just not going to risk. You're not going to be egalitarian with anyone, because you're just going to be trying to make sure you maintain the upper hand.
So it's a balance, for sure.
Sarah: Well, I imagine your kids saw you doing repair and apologizing, whereas you probably didn’t see your parents doing that.
Zach: I mean, yeah. And even people who are like, “My parents never fought, there was no conflict in my house,” I go, “Oh, so there was no repair in your house?”
So even peace isn't necessarily the goal. I think repair is the goal, because that's how you build trust.
You build trust by having—again, this is Terry’s language—harmony, disharmony, repair. You have harmony, you can have peace. Then there is going to be disharmony. Kids are going to screw up, somebody’s going to get diagnosed with cancer, the weather is going to—COVID is going to happen and lock your whole house down for three years. Disharmony is going to happen.
So now: are we about repair? Are we about consequences? Or are we about accountability?
If your goal is accountability, all right, we can play that game. But it seems pretty hard to figure out what accountability means, to whom, and how—whether or not you satisfy it.
But repair is pretty simple. Are we okay? We're okay. You okay? We're okay. We're going to be okay, right? We're going to be okay. All right, well, let's do the next thing.
Sarah: One thing I talk with parents a lot about is, when they are in conflict over parenting approaches, often one person who wants the other to change comes at them with, “You’re doing it wrong,” and “That’s not right,” and “That’s not the way you’re supposed to do it.” Which puts the other person on the defensive. They either have to be, you know, if they don’t have a good understanding of “you can be worthy and lovable and still make mistakes,” it either puts them on the defensive with something like, “I’m not doing anything wrong; my approach is perfect.” Or they feel like they’re a bad person if they take to heart what their partner has said.
So I talk a lot about, when you want to talk about something that you’re hoping your partner could do differently as parents, to lead with their point of view and empathy, and acknowledging, like, “Gee, must have been so hard for you when our child called you the meanest parent in the world, and you got really upset. Of course that hurts your feelings.”
And, you know, it's a lot of all of the same tools that I teach parents to use with their children because peaceful parenting is really just a relationship, relationship approach. And is that something that you find a lot in your work—that sort of attack and defense? And do you have any other strategies for helping people get out of that mode?
Zach: Well, what—I mean, it's sort of two different questions, right? If we just extend the last thing we were talking about, I think what kids need is to see how repair works. I just think repair is the goal of being in a healthy relationship because there is going to be disrepair. So repair is the goal.
And I think if you ask anyone in my family, any one of the four of us, “What is our family good at?” we’re good at repair—including the two of us, the parents—because my wife and I disagree about a lot. We have very different personalities. We were raised in very different environments. And we’re way more similar now than we used to be, because we’ve got almost 30 years in this role versus the “we were children raised by our own parents” role.
But, I think, you know, when we go into a conversation about a disagreement we have on parenting, number one, we’ve learned to be really careful, full of care, very careful, because we know sometimes it’s a hot button. We know it's hard, and one or both of us is prone to get triggered, or agitated by the other one's point of view. So we are careful about that. We acknowledge that.
And you can't stop being triggered. You're not going to stop the experience of going, “I don’t like this,” and “my body doesn’t feel safe,” and now I want to protect myself—with, you know, classically it's fight, flight, or fix, right? Like, “I want to protect myself.” So I think what we are both hyper-committed to as human beings and individuals is the art of self-regulation.
Like, making sure that we set ourselves up for success. Like, if I have to have a challenging rep conversation with Rebecca about one of our kids, I will say something like, “Hey, I’ve gotta have a challenging conversation with you about one of our kids. Is now a good time? Should we wait till they're gone? What’s going on?” And she’ll say, “No, now’s not a good time, but let’s do it in the morning, because Mary’s about to come home right now and that’ll interrupt us.” So there’s a little bit of ninja-zen-varsity-level pre-work you can do to protect yourself. Mm-hmm.
But in the moment, if one or both of you kind of spins out, this is where it’s really fun to imagine tactics. If you're clear about what your mission is—if you're clear that your mission is, “We don’t want to escalate in front of our kids,” for example—you can imagine lots of tactics.
It could be as simple as Ro Sham Bo. You go, “Alright, fine. Rock, paper, scissors, shoot—somebody wins.” And you go, “Okay, I’m going to the bathroom,” and the other one just takes over.
When we were trying to get our kids to eat food, which was a challenge across the board, one of our kids might say something like, “Do I have to eat the rest of these peas?” We understood that the first person to answer was the primary parent. So, if I said, “No, you don’t have to eat them,” and Rebecca really wanted them to eat the peas, she could either go to war with me and them to try to get them to eat the peas, or she could be like, “Well, I guess we’re not eating the peas tonight.”
Sarah: Guess we’re not eating the peas tonight, I guess.
Zach: Yeah. You know, I love that. Because we were more interested in maintaining peace at the dinner table than advocating for our vegetable philosophy.
Sarah: Right. Again, like, what’s the, what’s the big goal here for us? Yeah—keeping peace, having dinner be like a warm experience, and keeping peace at the dinner table.
Zach: But I’m really clear about whether we’re talking about parenting or anything else—and this is about a year old for me, maybe a little bit longer—but I’m really, really clear that the best thing you can do for your relationship and for your kids is take care of your own stuff. Mm-hmm. Like, take care of your own stuff. Don’t outsource your ability to feel okay to your partner, or to your kids, or to the weather, or to whether or not the Seahawks win this Sunday. Don’t outsource it because if you do, you’re constantly at the mercy of whatever they decide.
And what’s even more problematic is when you outsource your ability to feel okay to your own parents—like, “I’m only okay if I do what they did,” or “if I do the opposite of what they did.” No. Do what’s best for you and for your sense of being a functional adult on the planet. That’s your job, you know?
Sarah: Yeah. That’s fantastic.
Okay, let’s shift gears a little bit: say you both agree in principle about the importance of self-regulation, staying calm with kids. But then one parent gets pretty easily triggered and starts screaming and yelling at the kids.
Sarah: On a fairly regular basis—and then, you know, they feel bad, but it doesn’t seem to—they don’t seem to be able to stop. Mm-hmm. How would you help parents in that sort of situation?
Zach: Do they wanna stop?
Sarah: They wanna stop, but in the moment, they don’t wanna stop. That’s what I see most often. Later they say, “Oh, maybe I shouldn’t have done that.” But when they’re in the moment, yeah. And, you know, I have a lot of clients who say, “We’ve agreed that I will take over when they’re triggered,” but then they won’t leave. Right. Yeah. They’ll stay and they’re like, “No, he’s got a blah, blah, blah.”
And like, so it’s an in-the-moment problem. Yeah. That, that they, yeah. Later, they’re like, “Ugh, I can’t believe I didn’t let you tap me out.” But in that moment, they, and then they feel like if their partner—even if they’ve agreed—if their partner says, “Honey, you’re a little triggered right now, take a break,” “No, I’m not,” and then they get mad at the partner. Even if they’d agreed—that this is such a common thing. I can think of five couples I work with right now who have that issue.
Zach: Well, I think the reason I asked “Do they wanna stop?” is: if they wanna stop, they can—it just takes practice. And I literally, that’s literally what I mean. You have to practice, take small steps. If you were practicing guitar, you wouldn’t expect to play “Stairway to Heaven” the day you picked up the guitar or decided that you wanted to. You’d have to learn some chords. And then when you're honest, when you're excruciatingly making your fingers go into these really awkward positions on the fretboard, and then you strum it and it works, you get that sound, and you go, “Ha. Okay. I did it.”
And it's literally not mastering the entire moment—it’s mastering the little triggers. I think the place I practice most often is in the car. When somebody cuts me off, I know that my body goes, “Ah, jerk!” But then I go, “Wait a second. That’s not who I wanna be. Anger isn’t my choice. Maybe that guy has something else going on. Oh, listen to this song that’s on the radio. Maybe if I just put my foot off the gas pedal, I’d realize life isn’t such a hurry.”
I literally practice all the time—in the car—trying not to listen to the first thing that bubbles up inside of me. And so for your clients who want to get better at this, if they’re honest, then you figure out how to invite them to actually practice. Tell their kids, “Dad’s trying to practice this. Mom’s trying to practice this.”
This whole thing about “I can’t believe that I didn’t let you tap me out”—that’s the equivalent of watching game film after the football game. You could look at, “Oh, yep. I forgot to block there. And that’s why that happened.” Everything broke down from that moment—from the moment I forgot to eat a sandwich for lunch, because I was too hungry—or from that moment when I forgot to deal with my unresolved trauma from my dad. Whatever. I mean, there’s something bigger than the moment that needs attention. And you’ve got to practice. And you—you know, maybe you need to drink more water or drink less alcohol, or maybe you need time to practice.
I mean, I think the other thing too—and I don’t know if I made this up or heard you say it, but sometimes it’s like he—him—who loses his cool, while she is directing traffic around the desire to be peaceful. And the thing that happens a lot in most traditional setups is she gets a lot of practice without him around. She’s usually practicing, he’s at work. Then he comes home and all his practice is under her watchful eye. Then “You’re doing it wrong” or “Not like that,” “Hold on a second.” Like maybe he needs some practice without her.
If it's not a heterosexual marriage, fine. If it’s not gender-specific for your relationship, fine.
Sarah: Well, you can just talk about primary parent versus the other parent, whomever, right?
Zach: Maybe you need to tap out for a while and let that other parent practice without you, learn some stuff. Have the actual consequences from the actual kid versus from the parent who’s trying to parent them too now. But if they don’t want to get better at it, then there’s no chance. You can't make somebody believe or do something that they don’t believe in.
Sarah: Well, okay. If they don’t want to get better right now, are there any—do you hate to go at this with the “how do you change their mind?” But honestly, that's what I mean—how do you change their mind? Is that a terrible goal? Because I do think it can be really damaging for children to grow up being screamed at for normal childhood things. And, you know, yeah. Do you leave your partner because they don’t want to get better? Do you try to find some way to convince them?
Zach: Yeah, you're asking a question about leverage. Mm-hmm. Right. If you don’t change the way you parent, then I’m going to divorce you is a pretty, pretty incredible amount of leverage. And yes—it’s real leverage. A lot of people don’t follow through. Sometimes it’s an empty threat or whatever. But if they don’t change and your kids aren’t safe and there's a—and you're going to leave—that's called leverage.
So part of it is: if you don’t want to go that extreme, you can search for other forms of leverage. Like, “I’m not going to leave you alone with the kids. I’m not going to go out in public with you. I’m not going to do your laundry anymore. I’m going to be sad all the time.” Any of those. If that’s what you want—if you're so committed to your way of being on the planet—I need to let you have the natural consequences of that.
And that is anything from “I’m going to be sad and be hypervigilant about protecting our kids” is a consequence. And if it’s not a big enough one, you gotta come up with a bigger one. And by the way, there's also positive leverage. You know, if you practice, then I’ll buy you a Popsicle or I’ll take you out to dinner—that’s positive leverage. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
But if you have no leverage, if you have no leverage, then you have to make other choices about, you know—whether or not you're going to stay in the relationship.
Sarah: Yeah. I mean, part of the problem is often that that wouldn’t—I don’t think a court would see that yelling alone means that that person shouldn’t be alone with the kids. And then, if you do split up, then the yelling parent is alone with the kids, without you being there as a modifying factor.
Zach: Totally. And I wonder though, too—like you’ve heard this a million times—where—and again, I don’t mean to like dog on him—but like he says, “Look, when you're not around, we’re fine. When you're not here, we all get along. The kids behave. I don’t lose my temper.” So that may or may not be true. Who knows. But I can see where it could be true, because sometimes the strain comes from between the two parents.
Sarah: A hundred percent. It took me about—and the reality—
Zach: They’re not treating each other like functional adults.
Sarah: Well, it took me about 15 years to realize that actually if I just left my husband alone and let him work out his own solution with the kids, it went much better than if I tried to intervene. And there's the answer to your question—“help.”
Zach: Yeah. And there's the answer to your question.
Sarah: Yeah. Okay. Well, is there anything else you want to add that I haven’t asked about in terms of, you know, helping parents and partners work together in a more harmonious, loving way?
Zach: No, I think, I mean, this has been really fun. Like, it’s actually made me think about how I keep doing this with my own kids and my own partner. Because, you know, again—a great way to not be friends with your adult children is to make them afraid of you. Mm-hmm. That’s a great way.
I mean, again, and I think that’s different than healthy, healthy fear. Like, we have a responsibility to teach our kids about boundaries—otherwise they won’t have any.
And that’s, well, you can teach boundaries without fear, right? Yeah. Like, you can teach them by teaching them instead of making them afraid to cross your—or whatever. And, you know, I think what starts as small kids being afraid is just older kids being distant.
Sarah: Um, mm. Which is, mm-hmm. You know, I’m done with that person. Yeah. They’re not treating me well and I'm not afraid of them anymore, but I don’t really want to be around them. Yeah. So I think that’s one of those answers to, like, how do I raise kids who want to hang out with me when they’re older?
Is honestly through this kind of parenting. Which is what I always tell people. My kids—my sons have moved out who are 21 and 24 and, mm-hmm. Last week all three of my kids went with me to Vermont for a week to visit my family. And I was so, like, yeah, felt so lucky that my 24-year-old and 21-year-old both wanted to take a week out of work to go away with their mom, you know?
Zach: Yeah, yeah. Like, it’s—
Sarah: Pretty special.
Zach: I love that for you. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Cool.
Sarah: Yeah. And I think that, you know, what you're talking about—keeping the goal as raising kids who you want to hang out with and who want to hang out with you is a really good one to keep. Would I want to hang out with someone who treats me like this? Probably not. How can I treat them in a way that makes them want to hang out with me is a great—what’s the word? A great, I’ll just say “ruler.” That’s not the word I mean, but yeah, go on.
Zach: Like “barometer” or something. Barometer.
Sarah: That’s the word I was looking for. Thank you. Yeah. You’re obviously not on perimenopause. Yeah.
Zach: That’s funny.
Sarah: Well, thank you so much. Where’s the best place for people to go and find out more about you and what you do?
Zach: The internet. I mean, my name is Zach Brittle—Z-A-C-H-B-R-I-T-T-L-E. So the internet is me. I have a podcast that comes out every week. It’s called Marriage Therapy Radio, and I interview couples there. So, it’s my goal to let the world have the same advantage I have, which is I talk to a lot of couples all the time about what makes relationships work and not work.
So that’s marriage therapyradio.com, or zachbrittle.com is my private practice. And, you know, that’s the easiest place to find me.
Sarah: Okay, great. And we’ll put those links in the show notes. Do you only see folks in Washington, or do you see anyone outside of Washington? Or are you in person or virtual or what? I know people are listening, thinking “wanna work with this guy.”
Zach: Bit. Yeah, I do a little bit of both. It kind of depends on if we can make it work [00:42:00] with the schedule and the situation. It’s sort of the wild west out there when it comes to being able to help people, as you know. So, yeah. Yeah. The best thing to do is ask. And if I can’t help, then I’ll try and point you in a good direction.
Sarah: Cool. Well, thank you so much. And before I let you go, I almost forgot the question I ask all my guests, which is: if you could go back in time to your younger parent self, what advice would you give yourself?
Zach: I mean, it's kind of a cliché. I think it is—but it’s: relax. Just relax.
It’s the idea that somehow I always put it this way: 100% of my clients have problems with their parents. So the idea that I need to get it exactly right is a myth, and that’s a moving target you can’t hit.
So just relax. Take it easy. Play the long game. Try, you know, to parent so that you can be in a healthy relationship with your adult children. That’s what I’ve come to.
Sarah: Nice. Thank you, Zach.
Zach: Yeah. My pleasure.
Unedited transcript is here
