All the episodes I've devoted to understanding marriage, friendship and relationships—along with my favorite books on the topic.
Jul 10, 2026
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5 min read
Understanding Emotional Inheritance (Galit Atlas, PhD)
Listen now (59 min) | "When we talk about the ghost of the unsaid, we're talking about the inherited feelings of our parents, unprocessed trauma, where the Phantoms that..."
Pulling the Thread by Elise Loehnen • Elise Loehnen
Reckoning with the End of a Relationship (Belle Burden)
Listen now (60 mins) | "And I thought, how am I going to stop what is now really a pattern? Three generations, this is a pattern. And how do I stop this for my kids?"
When We Hold Ourselves Apart (Chloé Cooper Jones)
Listen now (54 mins) | “That's just like the human struggle, is how is it that our interiority and the way that we're perceived externally, how do we live with that? How does it act?"
What's Behind Lasting Attraction? (Paul Eastwick, PhD)
Listen now (64 mins) | "Off the rails is a good description of the thing because if you look at the history of work in evolutionary psychology, there is precision about where..."
Should Romantic Love Be at the Center of Our Lives (Melissa Febos)
Listen now (59 mins) | "But I didn't want to just stop forever being erotically and romantically and intimately connected to other people. I wanted to find out how to do that in a way that didn't..."
Designing Your Own Ritual (Bruce Feiler)
Listen now (60 mins) | "I ran the numbers on this. You ran up births and deaths and marriages. The average person in 1800 had 80% more ritual occasions than we have today. So it took..."
Really Hearing Our Own Voices (Carol Gilligan, PhD)
Listen now (55 mins) | "What I became aware of when I started writing about resistance and I thought the healthy body resists infection. We have an immune system and the healthy psyche resists..."
The Reprioritization of Relationship (Lori Gottlieb)
Listen now (50 min) | “I think what COVID did was it really made people realize that the state of their emotions, the state of their relationships, all of those things..."
What Makes Love Last (John & Julie Gottman, PhDs)
Listen now (56 min) | “I’ve never really figured out how come we stop asking each other questions. You know, we always do that in the beginning of a relationship..."
Are You Mad at Me? (Meg Josephson, LCSW)
Listen now (59 mins) | "That’s true for all of, I think, the fawn response, which is it keeps people at a distance. If we’re only showing people the most perfect curated version of ourselves..."
When Love Feels Unbearable (Anne Lamott)
Listen now (45 mins) | “You want to find yourself? Give. We're not hungry for what we're not getting. We're hungry for what we're not giving. And then at the same time, you watch this old pattern..."
What Our Anger Teaches Us (Harriet Lerner, PhD)
Listen now (58 min) | “I think it's very important to mention also, Elise, that even if a woman feels permission to be angry, that anger..."
Understanding—and Even Changing—Your Attachment Style (Amir Levine M.D.)
Listen now (56 mins) | So I think the research overwhelmingly shows that people who are secure, the benefits are really far and wide, not just in relationships, also for us ourselves, for how..."
On Maintaining Desire (Emily Nagoski, PhD)
Listen now (59 mins) | "The deal is your bodies are going to change over time and people can stay attracted to somebody's body over time, even though it is unrecognizable from what it was like..."
The Life-Saving Power of Friendship (Mark Nepo)
Listen now (46 mins) | “The real meaning of ‘remember’ is to put the members back together, to make whole. So a lot of times we go back in time to a special time or a special moment and nostalgia..."
Conflict as a Tool for Growth (Esther Perel)
Listen now (59 mins) | You cannot differentiate when you never fight. Fighting is also a tool for differentiation, for having two people be able to breed and grow inside a relationship..."
Breaking Family Patterns (Vienna Pharaon)
Listen now (54 mins) | “Part of middle life is that hopefully there's a little bit of wisdom there. And I think that is part of what we gain as we go through this journey of life is that there..."
On Self-Regulation (Aliza Pressman, PhD)
Listen now (61 mins) | “I think that with regulation, the funny thing is that it's either I want to control the weather around my children, or I want to control my children, but regulation..."
Navigating Conflict (Amanda Ripley)
Listen now (55 min) | “Usually in high conflict, the conflict becomes the whole point. So you make a lot of mistakes and you can miss opportunities..."
The Friendships We Need (Will Schwalbe)
Listen now (58 min) | "A conversation that I hope this book sparks, because it's such a fun conversation, is the conversation about gay men being friends with straight men, but also straight..."
Recovering Every Part of Ourselves (Richard Schwartz, PhD)
Listen now (58 mins) | “I’m trying to map the territory in the center world, just the way I did with families and the distinction that immediately leaped out was between parts..."
Reconceiving Our Lives (Maggie Smith)
Listen now (58 mins) | “For people who have been in a long relationship and then it goes off the rails and ends, it’s a different kind of grief from say widower grief, right? Where maybe..."
Grappling with Part X (Phil Stutz)
Listen now (43 mins) | “If there is this part of you that you think is inferior, the weak spot, something you're ashamed of, etc., it's one of these things where if you believe it's true, there's..."
What Makes Marriages Work (Stan Tatkin)
Listen now (61 mins) | “One thing my work has taught me is how human interaction is a comedy of errors. People are making so many errors without knowing it. I think I'm making sense to you, but..."
The Table Stakes of Good Relationships (Stan Tatkin)
Listen now (49 mins) | “Our anger is ‘I'm angry because something happened that I feel was unjust or unfair’ And if it continues, then I want my justice and you know, our injustices from childhood..."
Navigating Heartbreak (Florence Williams)
Listen now (59 mins) | "It's okay to not be perfect. I don't wanna be judging myself for my imperfections. I actually wanna be accepting myself for my imperfections. And that was really liberating..."
Getting Out of the Unconscious Loyalty Trap (Mark Wolynn)
Listen now (64 mins) | "Well, the first thing that's going on is we're creating new neural pathways in our brain of a new experience and really a new way our brain is performing."
The Best Books About Relationships
Finding our way to interdependence—or healthy and functioning relationships—is inarguably one of the most difficult things to do.