Episodes

Friday May 20, 2022
You’re Violating My Boundaries!
Friday May 20, 2022
Friday May 20, 2022
What does it mean to respect someone’s boundaries in a relationship? How is that concept useful, and how is it sometimes limiting or even damaging? In this episode, we handle a listener question that illustrates both the importance of respect and the ways people can get sidetracked by therapeutic jargon.
Dr. Chalmer's book Reigniting the Spark: Why Stable Relationships Lose Intimacy, and How to Get It Back is available here, or wherever you get your books.
Like this podcast? Review us, like us, follow us, and do all those other kinds of wonderful things to us! It helps people find the show.
Music: Besamim (Spices) by Bruce Chalmer, performed by Fyre and Lightning Consort

Saturday May 14, 2022
Saturday May 14, 2022
For this special episode, we turn the tables and become the interviewees! Genesis Amaris Kemp, host of the GEMS podcast, interviews us about the seven-word formula, stability, intimacy, how we met, and a bunch of other fun topics.
Dr. Chalmer's book Reigniting the Spark: Why Stable Relationships Lose Intimacy, and How to Get It Back is available here, or wherever you get your books.
Like this podcast? Review us, like us, follow us, and do all those other kinds of wonderful things to us! It helps people find the show.
Music: Besamim (Spices) by Bruce Chalmer, performed by Fyre and Lightning Consort

Friday May 06, 2022
Oh No! Now I Know What He Really Thinks!
Friday May 06, 2022
Friday May 06, 2022
What happens when someone you think you know—someone you love, and feel a deep connection to—says or does something you never imagined they would say or do? Is all lost? In this episode of our “Couples Therapy in Seven Words” podcast, we talk about ways we’re all bundles of contradictions, with mixed feelings and opinions that can emerge at different times. Along the way, we discuss the work of Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, whose experience of a stroke taught her (and all of us, through her work) how to get to know the four different characters in our brains.
Dr. Chalmer's book Reigniting the Spark: Why Stable Relationships Lose Intimacy, and How to Get It Back is available here, or wherever you get your books.
Like this podcast? Review us, like us, follow us, and do all those other kinds of wonderful things to us! It helps people find the show.
Music: Besamim (Spices) by Bruce Chalmer, performed by Fyre and Lightning Consort

Friday Apr 29, 2022
How to End ”I Get It; I Lost It” - An Interview with Lisa Carrillo
Friday Apr 29, 2022
Friday Apr 29, 2022
Lisa Carrillo works with couples to help them find and foster the experience of flow, that state of being open-hearted and open-minded, attuned to whatever is present. We talk about her work, and ways her understandings overlap with the seven words that are the basis of our podcast.
Dr. Chalmer's book Reigniting the Spark: Why Stable Relationships Lose Intimacy, and How to Get It Back is available here, or wherever you get your books.
Like this podcast? Review us, like us, follow us, and do all those other kinds of wonderful things to us! It helps people find the show.
Music: Besamim (Spices) by Bruce Chalmer, performed by Fyre and Lightning Consort

Friday Apr 08, 2022
Why is Dating So Horrible These Days?
Friday Apr 08, 2022
Friday Apr 08, 2022
Young people are having less sex, and over half of single adults in the United States have given up on dating. Why? What’s going on? A chance conversation with a young woman, some research we’ve read about, and lots of conversations in the office led us to this topic. Along the way we touch on the topic of a celebrity whose involvement with gerbils was said to be…well, let’s say intensely personal. (We thought of calling this the gerbil episode, but thought better of it.)
What are your experiences? Write to us: judy@ctin7.com or bruce@ctin7.com.
Here’s a link to the article by Christine Emba we mention: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/07/opinion/sex-consent-dating-boundaries.html
Dr. Chalmer's book Reigniting the Spark: Why Stable Relationships Lose Intimacy, and How to Get It Back is available here, or wherever you get your books.
Like this podcast? Review us, like us, follow us, and do all those other kinds of wonderful things to us! It helps people find the show.
Music: Besamim (Spices) by Bruce Chalmer, performed by Fyre and Lightning Consort

Sunday Apr 03, 2022
When is Enough Enough?
Sunday Apr 03, 2022
Sunday Apr 03, 2022
When is it time to pull the plug on a relationship? In this episode, a listener brings us his dilemma: How can he talk to his partner about their relationship, when she freaks out if he raises the topic? And how can he decide what he wants himself?
We also give a tribute to our dear friend Bev Bettman. And we invite listeners to weigh in on one of the central concepts Bruce is working on for his next book: what happens when ideas harden into ideologies?
Here’s the link to the Seven Days article profiling us.
Send in your questions: email us at bruce@CTin7.com, judy@CTin7.com, or just visit CTin7.com. We'd love to hear from you!
And let us know if you'd like to be interviewed on the show! Visit CTin7.com for more information.
Dr. Chalmer's book Reigniting the Spark: Why Stable Relationships Lose Intimacy, and How to Get It Back is available here, or wherever you get your books.
Like this podcast? Review us, like us, follow us, and do all those other kinds of wonderful things to us! It helps people find the show.
Music: Besamim (Spices) by Bruce Chalmer, performed by Fyre and Lightning Consort

Sunday Mar 20, 2022
Wait…Who Are You? You’ve Gone All Religious On Me!
Sunday Mar 20, 2022
Sunday Mar 20, 2022
What do you do when your previously non-religious partner gets religious--and you have no desire to go along on the journey? Can a marriage survive this kind of change? We talk about how couples handle this in practice, and answer a listener question about it.
Here’s the link to the Seven Days article profiling us.
Send in your questions: email us at bruce@CTin7.com, judy@CTin7.com, or just visit CTin7.com. We'd love to hear from you!
And let us know if you'd like to be interviewed on the show! Visit CTin7.com for more information.
Dr. Chalmer's book Reigniting the Spark: Why Stable Relationships Lose Intimacy, and How to Get It Back is available here, or wherever you get your books.
Like this podcast? Review us, like us, follow us, and do all those other kinds of wonderful things to us! It helps people find the show.
Music: Besamim (Spices) by Bruce Chalmer, performed by Fyre and Lightning Consort

Friday Mar 04, 2022
A Great Marriage, But…No Sex! What Can We Do?
Friday Mar 04, 2022
Friday Mar 04, 2022
Kate has a lovely marriage—they’re kind, considerate, and deeply bonded to each other. But Kate’s already low libido pretty much tanked after menopause. What can they do? In this episode we talk about some of the options, with particular reference to Dr. Bat Sheva Marcus’s book Sex Points.
Here’s the link to the Seven Days article profiling us.
Send in your questions: email us at bruce@CTin7.com, judy@CTin7.com, or just visit CTin7.com. We'd love to hear from you!
And let us know if you'd like to be interviewed on the show! Visit CTin7.com for more information.
Dr. Chalmer's book Reigniting the Spark: Why Stable Relationships Lose Intimacy, and How to Get It Back is available here, or wherever you get your books.
Like this podcast? Review us, like us, follow us, and do all those other kinds of wonderful things to us! It helps people find the show.
Music: Besamim (Spices) by Bruce Chalmer, performed by Fyre and Lightning Consort

Couples Therapy in Seven Words
Be kind, don't panic, and have faith. Everything and anything about relationships.