03/08/2026
Once, during a therapy session, a wife shared that as she was vacuuming, her husband came in and threw down his work bag a few feet from her. She described how angry she got telling me he “never notices what’s going on around him.” The husband confused about the situation and hurt asked her why she always assumed the worst about him. “I feel like she thinks I’m a bad husband.”
They both looked to me as their therapist, desperate for me to decided who was right and who was wrong. What they didn’t understand is: both of them were right. It wasn’t about a vacuum. It was a wife who had spent her whole childhood performing to be seen. Who’d did all she could to be perfect, and quiet, and good. And then her husband comes in as she’s once again, doing it all— and doesn’t notice. She felt every past moment someone didn’t notice her. Her inner child was running the show, and was rightfully angry.
Her husband, who had a critical father, saw her look of disgust and the anger in his wife’s voice. To him, it was just a bag and it’s where he always placed it. He didn’t think it would disrupt her ability to vacuum. He became that 6 year old boy who felt small, and not good enough. Her tone brought him back to all of the moments he was scolded and told to be quiet. To all of the moments his father would look at him with contempt instead of love. To all of the moments where he once again, wasn’t good enough for someone.
After seeing this over and over again, I realized I was giving the tools for better communication and regulation. I was trying to help them with the present moment, but they didn’t just need help in the present. They needed to reparent themselves and each other. They needed to see the 6 year old in the person they loved, and they needed to see that 6 year old was terrified. Terrified of not being good enough. Of being left. And of not being seen.
Until there’s Reparenting, it’s two children in adult bodies fighting over wounds they didn’t create.
I’ve written the book I wish I could have given every once of my clients. It’s going to help so many of you. It comes out March 24th. Comment “BOOK” then check your DM to pre-order. Or click the link in my bio.