Episode 140 – This Is Why Your Relationship Feels Unsafe

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Note: This blog post serves as an accompaniment to the corresponding podcast episode of A Changed Mind, where we’ll distill down the core ideas of this week’s theme, along with additional distinctions and insights. If you haven’t listened to the episode yet, you can go here to do so.  Enjoy.

Why is it that something meant to feel so good—love—is often the very thing that hurts us most? Maybe you’re in a relationship that feels like it’s constantly on edge. Maybe you’re still carrying the weight of a toxic relationship from your past. Or maybe you’ve been wondering why, no matter how much you try, you keep repeating the same painful patterns. You’re not alone. What most of us don’t realize is that beneath the arguments, the distance, and the tension, we are not just fighting with our partner—we are wrestling with ancient wounds that have been passed down for generations.

I want to show you how to see through the confusion and uncover what’s really happening beneath the surface of your relationship. Because when you begin to understand the codes men and women carry—the inherited fears, betrayals, and misunderstandings—you discover that your relationship is not the problem. Your relationship is the portal to your healing.

Why Love Feels So Hard

I love my wife, Carol, deeply. We’ve been together for more than thirteen years, and we’ve built a beautiful family together. But if I’m honest, the early years of our relationship were filled with arguments that seemed to come out of nowhere. We’d argue about dishes, about who was helping more around the house, about the way I did things versus the way she wanted them done. The friction felt constant, and I often wondered: how can two people who love each other so much fight this often?

It’s not just me. The statistics are sobering. Half of first marriages in the U.S. end in divorce. Second marriages fare even worse—60% end in divorce. By the third marriage, that number climbs to 70%. And what’s even more telling: nearly 70% of divorces are filed by women. Clearly, something deeper is happening here than just incompatibility. We’re reenacting patterns that go back generations.

The Soul Contract of Relationships

I believe that when you’re in a relationship with shared values and a shared vision for life, the relationship can work—no matter how messy it feels. Why? Because that relationship is what I call a soul contract. Long before you met your partner, life was preparing you. The very wounds you carry—the betrayals, the scarcity, the feelings of not being enough—are not accidents. They are the seeds of your greatness. And when you enter into love, those seeds get activated.

It may not sound romantic, but it’s true: you are attracted to the very person who will trigger the parts of you that most need healing. And the passion, the love, the commitment you feel? That’s the container that gives you the motivation to stay, to work through the friction, and to grow.

So instead of seeing your partner as the problem, you can begin to see them as your mirror. The friction isn’t there to destroy you—it’s there to transform you.

Ancient Wounds Carried by Women

To understand the patterns that show up in love, you first need to see the deeper history men and women are carrying. For women, the core wound is rooted in betrayal, abandonment, and silencing. For thousands of years, women have endured abuse, suppression, and control. One out of three women today report experiencing some form of physical, sexual, or emotional abuse. That trauma didn’t just vanish. It lives on, imprinted in the nervous system, passed down from mothers to daughters.

So when a woman enters into a relationship today, she carries this deep, often unconscious, fear: I’m not safe. I can’t fully trust. I might be abandoned. As a result, many women feel they have to do everything themselves. “I’ll do it on my own,” becomes the mantra. That self-protection leads to control—trying to manage the environment to feel safe. And when control enters a relationship, friction naturally follows.

I’ve seen this in my own marriage, and I’ve seen it in countless couples we’ve worked with. A woman feels she can’t rely on her partner, so she takes on more and more. Then she feels resentful and unseen. That resentment comes out as criticism. The man withdraws, which only confirms her fear that she’s alone. And the cycle continues.

Ancient Wounds Carried by Men

For men, the core wound is different but just as deep. Across generations, men have been told in a thousand ways: you are not enough. Boys grow up hearing the message that they’re falling short—whether it’s from a critical father, an absent father, or a culture that measures worth by performance. By the time they’re grown, many men are living with an inner hum of inadequacy: I’m not doing enough. I’ll never measure up. I’m failing the people I love.

This wound drives men to overwork, to seek validation through money or success, or to numb the pain through addiction. And when that inadequacy gets triggered in relationship—when a partner criticizes, or when he feels like he can’t win no matter what he does—many men collapse. They shut down, withdraw, or lash out. And tragically, the statistics show where this path can lead: men make up nearly 70% of all suicides in the U.S. The pain of “not enough” runs that deep.

The Trigger Loop

Now here’s where it gets complicated—and where it makes perfect sense. A woman’s fear of not being safe collides with a man’s fear of not being enough. She criticizes or controls out of fear. He feels inadequate and withdraws. She feels more unsafe, so she escalates. He feels more inadequate, so he shuts down further. Round and round it goes. I call it the hot potato game: each partner hurls their pain back and forth, until neither remembers what the argument was even about. They’re not fighting about dishes or chores. They’re fighting about survival codes embedded in their nervous systems.

And this is why love feels so painful. Because the person you love most is also the person who activates your deepest wounds. But that’s not a flaw in love—it’s the design of love. Love is the arena where your healing takes place.

Shutting the Back Door

One of the most powerful choices you can make in relationship is to close the back door. For many couples, divorce or leaving the relationship hovers in the background as an option. Sometimes it even gets weaponized in arguments: “Maybe I should just leave.” But as long as that back door is open, true transformation is nearly impossible. Why? Because when leaving is an option, the pressure to change becomes unbearable. The man who already feels “I’ll never be enough” now also fears losing everything. The woman who already feels unsafe now fears abandonment again. The cycle intensifies.

But when you shut the back door—when you commit to working through the friction without the threat of leaving—you unlock a new resourcefulness. All your energy goes into plan A: making the relationship work. Couples who remove divorce as an option often discover a level of creativity, patience, and love they never knew they had. Because when escape is no longer on the table, transformation becomes the only way forward.

Taking Radical Responsibility

The key to breaking free from the hot potato loop is radical responsibility. It means turning the finger you’ve been pointing outward and pointing it inward. Every time you catch yourself blaming your partner, you pause and ask: What in me is being triggered? What old wound is this touching? Because the truth is, you’re not really reacting to your partner—you’re reacting to your own unresolved trauma.

This doesn’t mean tolerating abuse or excusing harmful behavior. It means recognizing that the emotions flooding your system are your responsibility to process. And when you take responsibility for your reactions, you stop throwing the hot potato. You set it down. And when one partner sets it down, the cycle begins to shift.

Choosing Presence Over Performance

At its core, real love isn’t about performance. It’s not about doing everything right or proving your worth. Real love is presence. It’s the ability to stand in the fire of your partner’s trigger without throwing it back. It’s learning to breathe, to stay open, to say, “I see your pain, but I will not become it.” That’s strength. That’s leadership. That’s love.

Carol and I still argue. Just this morning we had a small spat over something as trivial as cinnamon in my oatmeal. But here’s the difference: now I know the game. I know when my trigger is up. I know when hers is. And I know that the goal isn’t to win—it’s to set the potato down. That shift has transformed our marriage.

Love as the Portal to Healing

When you stop seeing your partner as the problem and start seeing them as your mirror, everything changes. You realize that the very friction you wanted to escape is the friction shaping you into who you came here to be. You realize that your relationship is not just about companionship—it’s about transformation. It’s about turning generational pain into generational healing. It’s about becoming the kind of man or woman who can hold presence instead of perpetuating pain.

So if you’re in a relationship right now that feels hard, don’t lose heart. Hard doesn’t mean broken. Friction doesn’t mean failure. It may mean you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be. Because love, in all its beauty and mess, is the most powerful force for healing we’ve ever been given. And when you learn to set the hot potato down, when you choose presence over performance, love will stop being the thing that hurts you—and start being the thing that heals you.