Every strong couple has them. Those tiny, invisible battles that shape connection, safety, and trust. In this episode we break down the unspoken power dynamics that show up in even the healthiest relationships: the triggers, shutdowns, leadership clashes, and moments where love meets old wounds.

This conversation is honest, grounded, and real. You’ll hear how two strong partners navigate emotional intensity, masculine/feminine energy, nervous system activation, and that push-pull dance between independence and intimacy.

In this episode, we're getting into:

• The micro power struggles couples overlook and why they matter
• The strong independent woman dynamics and how they impact emotional safety
• What men truly want from a woman in partnership and how you can both tap into each others' unique strengths
• Having difficult conversations about relational agreements and asking for what you want
• The idea of "feminine expression" and what Instagram influencers get wrong about it...especially when it comes to real-life relationships
• Why couples get stuck in the same reactive loop of spiraling or shutdown
• How nervous systems collide and what creates instant safety
• Shared leadership and taking fully ownership and responsibility, even when it means pushing through fears

You’ll walk away with:

A clearer understanding of your relational patterns and the dynamics that might be playing out in your own relationship, along with some of the major shifts strong couples must master to grow together.

Connect with Us

Work with Emily and Kelly for Couples Coaching

Connect with Emily on IG @emilygoughcoach

Connect with Kelly on IG @iamkellygardner

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If this conversation resonated, please share it with someone you love and leave a review wherever you listen. It helps this podcast reach more people who are ready to practice love...and that's what the world needs most right now.

We're taking you back in time! This episode originally aired in December 2023 on Emily's podcast, Room to Grow as we unpacked two of the patterns of over-functioning that can show up in relationship and keep us from true intimacy. We kept some of the original show notes below:

It’s tempting to want to play the role of “superhero” in a relationship – the guardian, the savior, the teacher, or the protector. But over-prioritizing their needs over your own often has a villainous effect on a healthy relationship. Because if all of your focus is on their safety, wellbeing and nurturing, you then neglect what’s more important – your own.

We've identified two (comically labeled) archetypes of the kinds of superheroes we often see in relationships:

Captain Save-A-Hoe: the man here to “save” and “heal” a broken partner.

Queen Change-A-Dick: the woman on a mission to help the lost boy grow into a great man.

Today we’ll explain why you need to stop prioritizing your partner’s needs over your own, and how the foundation of a healthy relationship is really built on focusing on yourself, first.

In this episode, we're talking about:

• Why men often want to feel like a “savior” in a relationship
• Power dynamics in relationships
• Why women often put aside their own needs in a relationship
• How to balance giving and receiving in a relationship
• Expanding your sense of self in a relationship
• Waiting to be chosen by someone
• How prioritizing yourself first contributes to a better relationship
• Managing sexual energy inside and outside your relationship
• Including your partner in your life
• How to make your partner feel chosen

Stay tuned for more episodes weekly, including some upcoming episodes that truly help you get to the root cause behind so many relational patterns to help you heal and open to real love.

Connect with Us

Work with Emily and Kelly for Couples Coaching

Connect with Emily on IG @emilygoughcoach

Connect with Kelly on IG @iamkellygardner

Leave a Review

If this conversation resonated, please share it with someone you love and leave a review wherever you listen. It helps this podcast reach more people who are ready to practice love...and that's what the world needs most right now.

In this episode of Love in Practice, we dive into the hidden emotional patterns that quietly shape our relationships, often without us realizing it. From the subtle ways shame shows up, to the moments we flip into grandiosity, to the instinct to protect our inner child at all costs, we explore how these unconscious dynamics create the same painful cycles with the people we love most.

We’re unpacking how conflict becomes a doorway into deeper intimacy when both partners can stay in their “adult self” long enough to witness what’s really happening beneath the surface. We break down the difference between walls and boundaries, how containment actually works in real time, and why couples can have wildly different experiences inside the same moment.

You’ll hear:

• Why we project our pain and make our partner “the bad one”
• How shame and defensiveness keep conflict looping
• The avoidant/anxious dance and how to interrupt it
• What it means to love and protect your inner child without abandoning your partner
• The exact moment where real repair becomes possible

This is one of our most honest, grounded conversations about the unseen mechanics of relationship dynamics, and how two people can choose each other again and again while breaking old patterns that no longer serve them.

Whether you’re in a long-term partnership or navigating your own inner world, this episode will help you understand yourself AND your relationship on a much deeper level.

Connect with Us

Work with Emily and Kelly for Couples Coaching

Connect with Emily on IG @emilygoughcoach

Connect with Kelly on IG @iamkellygardner

Leave a Review

If this conversation resonated, please share it with someone you love and leave a review wherever you listen. It helps this podcast reach more people who are ready to practice love...and that's what the world needs most right now.

We're taking you back in time! This episode originally aired in September 2023 on Emily's podcast, Room to Grow. It was the first time we shared about our relationship, and we wanted to let you listen in so you can better understand right alongside us how love grows, shifts and evolves over time. We kept some of the original show notes below:

My guest on this episode is my partner, Kelly Gardner. He and I met when he was a guest on this podcast (Room to Grow Episode #359 “Building A Community Of Better & More Present Fathers” With Kelly Gardner) and at the time, it was just an interview. But, things quickly changed, and I can honestly say this is the best romantic relationship I’ve ever experienced.

I want to share our relationship story – one that involves long distance, children from a previous marriage, mutual past relationship heartbreak and a healthy share of conflict. But moreso, I want to share Kelly’s remarkable approach to communication, personal integrity, conflict resolution, co-parenting and formulating – and reformulating – agreements within a romantic relationship.

In this episode, Kelly and I are talking about:

• How we began dating while living in different countries
• Premonitions, intuition and manifesting
• Setting clear agreements in relationships
• “Touristing” – hooking up with people on dating apps while on vacation
• Masculine vs Feminine integrity
• Conflict resolution in relationships
• Co-parenting and maintaining a relationship with your ex
• Bringing children into a new relationship
• How past relationship pain can lead to greater future relationships

More to come on the next episode of Love in Practice, we'll be diving into the strategies we bring into love, and how to work through conflict as a team.

Connect with Us

Work with Emily and Kelly for Couples Coaching

Connect with Emily on IG @emilygoughcoach

Connect with Kelly on IG @iamkellygardner

Leave a Review

If this conversation resonated, please share it with someone you love and leave a review wherever you listen. It helps this podcast reach more people who are ready to practice love...and that's what the world needs most right now.

You can do all the healing work in the world, and then real love shows up to find out if you really meant it.

This episode dives into the beautiful and brutal reality of what happens when old patterns meet new love, and when the very person you adore also triggers the parts of you you thought were long gone.

We're sharing how we have navigated (and still are, in some cases), enormous transitions that tested our bond, as well as our individual capacity to stay grounded. Between moving countries, blending a family, facing addiction recovery, immigration hurdles and even a natural disaster, it's been a wild time of growth colliding with reality.

Here's what we most want you to know: the power struggle stage isn't a sign that something is wrong. Instead, it's the moment you finally get to see all the underlying stories and patterns that have been running the show all along, to both grow through and heal them together.

On this episode, you’ll hear:

• How the power struggle stage in relationships can actually be the birthplace of real intimacy.
• Why even those who have done a huge amount of healing work still revisit old survival patterns, and how to meet them with awareness.
• The truth about two people having completely different emotional experiences within the same relationship.
• How your nervous system, upbringing, and relational history shape the way you love.
• What it looks like to keep choosing connection, even when it feels messy, confronting, and inconvenient.

Be sure to check out the next episode, Hope After Heartbreak, to hear our early story of how we both risked hope again in the name of love when we found each other. So much more to come!

Connect with Us

Work with Emily and Kelly for Couples Coaching

Connect with Emily on IG @emilygoughcoach

Connect with Kelly on IG @iamkellygardner

Leave a Review

If this conversation resonated, please share it with someone you love and leave a review wherever you listen. It helps this podcast reach more people who are ready to practice love...and that's what the world needs most right now.