Do you feel more like your partner’s parent than their partner?

Maybe you’re constantly reminding, organising, planning, problem-solving and carrying the emotional load — while your partner avoids, shuts down or waits for you to take care of things.

Over time, this dynamic can leave you exhausted and resentful — and it can seriously affect respect, attraction and intimacy.

In this episode of the Empowered Marriage Podcast, I unpack three important areas:

1. Emotional Immaturity
How defensiveness, avoidance, blaming, entitlement and shutting down can keep a partner stuck in a childlike position — regardless of their age or how successful they are in other areas of life.

2. Unequal Responsibility
What happens when one person starts carrying the relationship — becoming the organiser, reminder and problem-solver — while the other increasingly under-functions. And why this dynamic can slowly destroy attraction and connection.

3. How to Stop the Parent-Child Dynamic
How the partner in the one-up position can come down, while the partner in the one-down position steps up — creating a healthier adult-to-adult relationship built on shared responsibility, respect and equality.

This isn’t about blaming men or deciding who is right or wrong. It’s about recognising the pattern you’ve both become caught in — and learning how to change it.

🎧 Listen now and stay with me to the end. If you recognise this dynamic in your relationship, I’ll help you understand what’s really happening between you and where you can begin making changes to move from parent and child back to equal partners.

If this episode resonates, subscribe to the Empowered Marriage Podcast and share it with someone who needs to hear it.

Helen Harrison
Relationship & Personal Growth Specialist
Power of Change Counselling & Coaching
Helping relationships thrive — one couple at a time.

Thank you for listening to the Empowered Marriage Podcast.

If today's episode resonated with you, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who could benefit. Every share helps us reach more individuals and couples who are committed to creating healthier, stronger relationships.

Remember, every relationship is a reflection of the relationship you have with yourself.

Creating deeper connection through self-awareness, belonging and intentional relationships.

Because the power of change is within you.

Connect with Helen Harrison
🌐 www.powerofchange.com.au
📧 helen@powerofchange.com.au
📱 Facebook: Helen Harrison – Relationship & Personal Growth Specialist
💼 LinkedIn: Helen Harrison
▶️ YouTube: Empowered Marriage Podcast

To learn more about counselling, coaching, workshops and relationship programs, or to book a Relationship Reset Assessment or Personal Clarity & Reset Assessment, visit www.powerofchange.com.au.

Why do you chase harder when your partner pulls away?

You tell yourself you just want to sort things out. You want to talk. You want to know that you're okay.

But what if the chasing isn't really about them?

In this episode of the Empowered Marriage Podcast, I share my own experience of being the chaser — the people pleasing, insecurity, weak boundaries and need for reassurance that sat underneath it.

We explore why your partner pulling away can trigger such a strong reaction, how childhood patterns can follow us into our adult relationships, and why you can end up abandoning yourself just to stop someone else from abandoning you.

I also talk about moving out of the Adaptive Child and into your Wise Adult — learning to stay grounded in yourself even when someone you love is unhappy with you or needs space.

The question I want to leave you with is:

When they pull away, what are you actually chasing — them, or the feeling that you're okay?

🎙️ Empowered Marriage Podcast with Helen Harrison
Relationship & Personal Growth Specialist
Power of Change Counselling

Helping relationships thrive — one couple at a time.

Thank you for listening to the Empowered Marriage Podcast.

If today's episode resonated with you, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who could benefit. Every share helps us reach more individuals and couples who are committed to creating healthier, stronger relationships.

Remember, every relationship is a reflection of the relationship you have with yourself.

Creating deeper connection through self-awareness, belonging and intentional relationships.

Because the power of change is within you.

Connect with Helen Harrison
🌐 www.powerofchange.com.au
📧 helen@powerofchange.com.au
📱 Facebook: Helen Harrison – Relationship & Personal Growth Specialist
💼 LinkedIn: Helen Harrison
▶️ YouTube: Empowered Marriage Podcast

To learn more about counselling, coaching, workshops and relationship programs, or to book a Relationship Reset Assessment or Personal Clarity & Reset Assessment, visit www.powerofchange.com.au.

Relationships rarely fall apart because of one dramatic moment. More often, emotional distance grows through the small, everyday habits couples barely notice.

In Episode 133 of the Empowered Marriage Podcast, Helen Harrison explores eight hidden habits that can slowly damage a relationship, including taking your partner for granted, turning away from bids for connection, criticism, defensiveness, contempt, withdrawal, too much screen time and losing curiosity about each other.

It can happen through the ordinary moments—the unanswered question, the phone you don’t put down, the kiss you stop giving, the thank you you no longer say, the eye roll or the conversation you continue to avoid.

Helen also shares practical ways to change these patterns through appreciation, curiosity, vulnerability, communication, repair, fun and intimacy.

If you recognise some of these habits in your relationship, don’t use them to blame yourself or your partner. Use them as an opportunity to become aware of the patterns creating distance and begin doing something differently.

If your relationship feels disconnected and you need support rebuilding connection, closeness and trust, visit Power of Change Counselling & Coaching.

Thank you for listening to the Empowered Marriage Podcast.

If today's episode resonated with you, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who could benefit. Every share helps us reach more individuals and couples who are committed to creating healthier, stronger relationships.

Remember, every relationship is a reflection of the relationship you have with yourself.

Creating deeper connection through self-awareness, belonging and intentional relationships.

Because the power of change is within you.

Connect with Helen Harrison
🌐 www.powerofchange.com.au
📧 helen@powerofchange.com.au
📱 Facebook: Helen Harrison – Relationship & Personal Growth Specialist
💼 LinkedIn: Helen Harrison
▶️ YouTube: Empowered Marriage Podcast

To learn more about counselling, coaching, workshops and relationship programs, or to book a Relationship Reset Assessment or Personal Clarity & Reset Assessment, visit www.powerofchange.com.au.