E.238 Part 2 How Shift Work, Hypervigilance, And Silence Erode Love—and What We Can Do About It

In part 2 with Alexa Silva, we discuss how love doesn’t clock out when the tones drop. We sat down to unpack what really happens when a first responder’s world of shift work, hypervigilance, and on-call stress collides with the everyday demands of family life—and why even strong couples can drift into silence, scorekeeping, and resentment without clear structure and care.

Across a candid, fast-moving conversation, we dig into how intimacy has to evolve over time, especially when schedules are brutal and sleep is scarce. We talk about the danger of tallying sex and affection, the quiet slide into emotional affairs powered by loneliness and praise, and the small, steady actions that rebuild safety: consistent compliments, micro-moments of touch, and explicit “ask for what you need” scripts. You’ll hear practical frameworks for decompression after shifts, deciding whether you want listening or solutions, and using shared calendars to lower friction when overtime or call-outs derail plans.

We also get honest about money, overtime, and the resentment loop that forms when one partner feels like both parents while the other chases a bigger paycheck. There’s a path out: monthly “state of us” check-ins, clear rules for spending, and tradeoffs made in daylight instead of assumptions made in anger. We cover role clarity—your spouse can be your partner, not your therapist—plus the kind of self-care that actually restores a nervous system hammered by trauma exposure. Whether you’re a cop, firefighter, medic, dispatcher, or the person holding down the fort at home, these tools meet the reality of your life.

If you’re ready to replace mind reading with honest asks and turn resentment into repair, hit play. Then tell us what changed after you tried one tool. Subscribe, share with your crew, and leave a review to help more first responder families find the support they deserve.

To reach Alexa, here is the link: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/alexa-silva-chelmsford-ma/1140390

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Chapters

• 0:01 Welcome And Sponsor Offer
• 1:55 Why Couples Work With First Responders Is Different
• 4:00 Shift Work, Reintegration, And Home Stress
• 7:50 Intimacy Changes And The Danger Of Scorekeeping
• 12:05 Cheating, Judgment, And Protecting Your Space
• 16:30 Emotional Numbing, Command Mode, And Hypervigilance
• 20:45 Money Stress, Overtime, And Resentment
• 24:20 Communication Rules And Decompression Windows
• 28:10 Solution vs Listening And Regular Check‑Ins
• 31:30 Self-Care, Roles, And Boundaries At Home

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:01

Welcome to Resilience Development in Action with Steve Bisson. This is the podcast dedicated to first responder mental health, helping police, fire, EMS, dispatchers, and paramedics create better growth environments for themselves and their teams. Let's get started.ai.

SPEAKER_02: 0:37

You heard me talk about it. I'm gonna keep on talking about it because I love it. I've had about a year and a half, 18 months of practice with it, and I still enjoy it. And it saves me time and it saves me energy. Free.ai takes your note, makes a transcript of what you're talking about a client, just press record. And it does either transcript, it does a subjective, and an objective with a letter, if needed, for your client and for whoever might know it. So for$99 a month, it saves me so much time that it's worthwhile. And if you do it for a whole year, guess what? You get 10% off. More importantly, this is what you got for, because you are my audience that listens to Resilience Development in Action. If you do listen to this and you want to use free.ai, uh put in the code Steve50 in the promo code area, Steve50, and you will get$50 off in addition to everything we just talked about. Get free from writing your notes. Get free from even writing your uh transcripts. Uh use that to your advantage. Uh free.ai, a great service. Go to get free.ai and you will get one of the best services that will save you time and money. And I highly encourage you to do so. Well, I want to continue on that idea that you just mentioned because I think that makes perfect sense. I think I think that what we forget is the impact of substance use on the families, and particularly, I know you work with couples. Uh I give you a lot of credit. Uh I find couples counseling so difficult because, again, correct me if I'm wrong. I would say that 90% of the people who came to see me were way too down the line to get the support they actually needed. Uh and so they wanted me to fix everything within a session or two so that, you know, uh she can get more of a partner that supports her and he can get more sex out of her.

SPEAKER_01: 2:30

And I'm sorry for vulgarity, but hey, no, that's that's a very common thing, absolutely, that we see.

SPEAKER_02: 2:36

So I think that what I would say is that not only does it like substance affect that that's family, but let's talk a little bit about couples counseling and family counseling in general. I know that you do a lot more than I do with that. You know, I I think that probably hits home a little bit for you because you know, you are married to the job, and I think that that plays a factor too. But want to hear more about your experience talking with first responders, couples, and all that fun stuff.

SPEAKER_01: 3:00

Yeah. So one of the big reasons why I went into it is because I was living it even more at home. And I kind of thought, oh, you know, there's things that I'm doing right and there's things that I'm doing wrong, but it all kind of, you know, came together. And I don't even remember how I've got my first couple first responder couple, but the more that I started to put it out there, I think the more that people wanted to come because again, it is a very specialized field. I I don't even know how many first responder clinicians advertise that they do that for couples counseling. But again, I think having cultural competency, because you you hit the nail on the head when you said some people want to come in and fix everything in one to two sessions. And that's why I my vetting has become a lot more thorough, too, I think, in in the last year, because people will come in and again when we're at the point of, I mean, take away being a first responder to marriage or family, but just it's challenging alone, right? Like sharing a space with someone raising kids, you have all the stressors at home, but then put on being with the first responders and people not being home, right? And for example, I'll give a hypothetical. My husband could walk through the door in in a 48-hour shift and not have any sleep. And to me, I'm looking at it through the lens of, well, I had to do everything at home with two young kids, right? I I don't have the bandwidth now to be able to ask you how you're doing. When you come through that door, I expect and I need or I want to be able to have you take the kids so I can have a break, right? Or I need to be able to maybe go to work and it's just kind of like doing the divorce drop-off in a parking lot, right? I've done that multiple times, but not because I'm divorced, but because, you know, one person's coming off shift and I have to go to work and you're switching cars and daycare. But I can't at that point, I can't look through the through the lens of how was your night? How, because maybe I didn't have a good night, right? Because the kids were up all night. And no matter what you went through, what I'm going through, I need you to understand. But he or she that's walking through the door, right? I mean, they may not have a moment to have that what I call the right the reintegration period of coming off a shift to coming home or to bring down your cortisol levels because and then what do they do, right? They shut down after work, they may engage in alcohol, or they might just completely they're desensitized. And we, and the more that you do this, we don't know how to then connect with the people at home, right? And intimacy is a big thing emotionally and physically. It's just, I just had all these interesting, or maybe it was a quiet night, but my sleep is never the same because I'm hearing the tones, whatever that comes with it. I had some really fucked up calls, and then you want me to come home and act like everything's fine. And that's why body language is really important. I always bring that up in couples counseling because one person's body language may be different than another, right? And what someone needs. Sometimes people need physical touch, sometimes their partner doesn't. Sometimes they need to sit down, have that emotional balance of having a conversation. But how can you do that when one partner is their job is completely to put up that wall, right? And be able to do their job in high risk situations. And the other person may be also working or they're staying at home with the kids, and that's really hard. And constantly you're what's going through your mind is that you're responsible for someone else, right? And when do you have a moment for yourself? And if you don't have that balance or moment for yourself, how can you then be a good foundation for your partner? Right. And in when we first get into a relationship or marriage, we're it's we don't think about, oh, how do we want to do all these things, right? We're just in the thick of it. It's exciting, right? You get married, you have a family, you have a job, and then retirement. We kind of look at it from like the chronic timeline, but there are so many things that you have to change and adapt within those years, right? I went back to that five, I'll say five, seven years when we look at a family. Things pivot, right? Even when kids become teenagers or once someone is on the job for five years versus 20, right? Or you wake up and when was the last time you actually went on a date with your partner? Did you want to go on a date with your partner? Right. Right. And then we even throw in the other thing, right? The alcohol use that affects relationships, any kind of addiction. And then also cheating. It's really hard. People, one one of the things that I always want to point out, right, when we're talking about other people or just human behavior in general is we judge so often, especially in the first responder world, right? But until it happens to you, I think it's very different, right? Like we always say, oh, that person cheated, right? Or that person has an uncle. But until it happens to you, I don't know if you would walk out of that situation, right? You don't know what's going to happen. So I think that's another added layer in couples counseling when I'm working with people is really making sure that we're protecting our space. And it's not right, we're not talking about it at work. We're not talking about it, talking about it at our family. Because being a first responder couple, sometimes it can become already very public, right? Because of our jobs and like other people. We have other support systems. For example, a mom might have a sister or their mom that's helping co-parent with them while their partner's off doing what 72-hour shifts all the time. Right? All these different things. But I really try to bring it back to don't compare other people. People in the first responder field that we're always comparing, especially our relationships to other people. Well, that person at work, right? They have, they go and do that, they spend that amount of money, right? They can, they go out on dates or, you know, their kids do this and that. And I'm just, we have to start from the ground up. And sometimes it's restarting everything because you are not who you were when you first became in a relationship, sometimes, right? And the job can change you, but even parenting can change you, right? Just aging together. And I mean, that's that's basic fundamentals of couples counseling, but it's adding the first responder, it's very different. I mean, because again, the intimacy, physical and emotional is key. And that's where it's really hard because imagine intimacy, right? If you're one partner and you want physical intimacy, right? But your partner's not even there. Or you don't know how you don't know how to ask for it, right? It can become very awkward. And then we do this thing, which is the mind reading, right? Well, my partner came home and he or she seems really mad at me, so they must be mad at me, versus no, they're exhausted, right? And then my partner at home, like I they're not talking to me. They must be really mad or or they don't care about me. So I'm just gonna shut off. Like that's I'm mad at them now, right? When we do the mind reading and we don't know how to support this different shift of schedules and changes and parenting, it becomes really volatile.

SPEAKER_02: 9:26

I and think that you said so many things here that are sorry.

SPEAKER_01: 9:29

I just went on a nice tangent. I just I get very, very passionate about it because Alexa, we we don't apologize on this podcast.

SPEAKER_02: 9:36

We're just ourselves. We don't worry about that shit. If I wanted to interrupt you, I could don't worry about that shit. Because I I want to say that you said a lot of good things because I want to like even go down a few of these what I would call rabbit holes because they're very important. You talk about intimacy. What I I find with intimacy, the other part that's always lost on most couples, but I find that particularly in the first responder world, uh intimacy changes in time. Uh and you know, like when you have no kids and you can have intimacy, like sex regularly, because there's nothing in the job, is only 24 on, 24 off. You just have your job and maybe an apartment. There's a lot of like stuff that we can do physically. Uh but as you grow, you know, you've had a couple of kids, or you have a better job, or there's other stressors around the house, the intimacy has to change, it has to be like vulnerability, it has to be with asking how people are doing. And I think that a lot of people don't see that change in intimacy grow and they expect the same thing. And brings me to another thing that happens a lot. And I don't know if that happens in your couple's counseling. Well, you know, I was affectionate because I sat on the couch with her or him for a couple of hours. They owe me sex now, or they it's only been we're only having sex once a month, or sorry, I'm very if this offends anyone, I don't care, but you can change a channel. But to me, that's all important shit that we we don't talk about. And it's not like you know, if you start going, well, you know, we only had sex twice this month, so I don't owe you or whatever. I it it gets really fucking dangerous when the scorekeeping takes place. And I see that with the evolution of intimacy and people staying at the old ways versus looking at it as it just changes with them.

SPEAKER_01: 11:19

No, you have to talk about these things, and again, right? Intimacy and sex, it's one of the most awkward conversations, but we have to talk about that because again, right, we look at the cheating part, right? Sometimes I'll ask, well, why did that happen? And I didn't even initiate it, right? Someone came up to me and maybe said something that made me feel good, right? Or gave me a compliment. And that's the key thing, right? That even the emotional connection there. Somebody came up and gave me a compliment, right? Or told me that maybe I looked nice, right? Or I did a good job at something. That's that's the basic, right? Because then we shut down. And the common relationship patterns that I see with first responder couples, you know, is emotional numbing, right? It's the difficulty of sharing feelings, it's role confusion, right? One partner is on command mode at work and the other and brings that home. And it spills over, right? Like, oh, you're always a detective while they're actual detective at work, right? Hypervigilance, right? The difficulty relaxing. And when the other partner wants you to come home and like expects potentially like a nice, calm, warming physical environment, right? Perhaps the person's coming home from the first responder role, they can't do that. And then communication breakdown, right? You start to avoid eye contact, right? We do the mind reading and you you can't show or express your emotions. The shift work strain. I mean, that's a given, right? You miss the holidays, you 72-hour shifts, right? Or how many days on and off, and kids and one person becomes both parents. And then the family load in balance, right? At the partner at home is carrying most of the childhood household duties or whatever that looks like. And it's the impact on partners, right? So feeling like they're competing with the job, right? Carrying that emotional load for the family, and then feeling unseen, disconnected, or lonely. And then the other thing, too, is you worry about the safety, right, of your partner on shift. That's another thing. And then, so what happens, right? Stir all that bad shit into a pot, resentment. You get resentment, right? And then repair becomes limited. And that's why you brought up that point. People come in and they want everything fixed in a few sessions. But for me, my job is really to look at that toolbox. Sometimes there is no toolbox. So, how do we get the tools to build the toolbox to then put the tools in the toolbox?

SPEAKER_02: 13:41

Right. I mean, resentment, you hit the nail on the head. I think the resentment occurs. That's why, like, eventually it becomes easier for you know, we see we always say first responders cheat. Well, I've seen spouses of first responders cheat too, and vice versa. And that's not the number one divorce rate, by the way. Everyone knows that it's uh finances, it's actually not cheating, but cheating, it's because of that resentment, and she doesn't understand me, he doesn't understand me. I'll just go find my love somewhere else because you don't have the same obligations, you don't need to go mow the lawn or shovel the walk or clean the house, or you know, so it becomes easy to go cheat. I mean, and because that's a lot easier, there's not the other built-up shit that's there.

SPEAKER_01: 14:25

Yeah, and you just added that other huge thing with the finances, too, right? Sometimes we're working a lot because we need the financial income, you know, or if we have goals or you know, we're living a certain lifestyle, or potentially right, one person stays at home.

unknown: 14:39

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 14:40

Like finances are huge too. And right when we look at like separate accounts versus joint accounts, and if someone's working, for example, a lot of overtime, they may have like that's my money, right? Versus our it's everyone's different with their views of money. But if you're not having conversations at all, how how do we understand what's going on? And that's where the resentment just keeps building. So, how do we change that? What are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_02: 15:04

I think that open conversation is so important. And for me, one of the things that I would say that not being in the first responder world and being divorced myself, one of the things that we started doing is we took each other for granted. And we just like we were passing ships. She owns her own business, I own my own business. And I'm not saying anything bad about her at all. I this is not this is not number one the place, but more importantly, I don't say bad things about my ex because we were both as guilty, in my opinion. She can own up her own stuff if she wants to, but I'm gonna own up to mine. Uh and it was really like taking her for granted and not worrying about it and scorekeeping, and how come she has money for this? And we had a job account, but she had a side, and uh, she she would argue that uh you know, we we would do finances differently. And I think that what I I tell people is that you don't have those often open conversations, uh you're already fucking yourself over. You know, having an important like we talked about it earlier, and I'm I don't want to go we can go continue talking about finances, but even around you know intimacy and sex. Uh and it's not about like scorekeeping, but it's about like you know, it's more important for me on Mondays uh to be with my girlfriend and we have supper. There's we sit on a couch where well the dog keeps us from being like too close, but we just sit there and watch TV together. Uh uh and then I go home because she has to get up early. I gotta get but that those moments are like priceless to me, and we both had to put that as a priority in our lives. Uh but if you don't talk about it, then you don't know and you create the bitterness, the anger. Uh and before I forget, I checked on our resource list that we have for the B BBB program, uh, and there is they haven't put it on yours yet, so we're gonna put it on there. But there's only four clinicians out of fifty that are vetted by first responder clinicians uh that do couples counseling. That's a low ass number, and then only hard. And then there's only two that take insurance. But I just want to mention that. But yeah, I think that when you talk about what you gotta do, you know, and uh being able to take no for an answer. I know that some people say no one says no to me. But being able to say no about do you want to go somewhere? No, don't need an explanation sometimes, they don't feel like it, but also being able to take the no as an as a yeah as an answer sometimes is very hard, particularly for first responders, but in general.

SPEAKER_01: 17:24

And that's that's another thing, right? Is communication style. So, for example, you may have someone that needs to have closure at the end of an argument, right? And say, let's talk about this versus someone else, right? Potentially, I I think it's both sides, first responder and the spouse, but someone may need to leave and decompress, right? And then that other person feels like, oh, look, you're walking away, right? Attachment issues, right? Abandonment. And the other person's like, I just need space. This is how I decompress. So communication styles are huge, but all the things that you said are are key, right? That communication. So one of the things that we always look at, some of the some of the things to add to the toolbox is schedule decompression for each person, right? After shift, whether it's the parenting shift or the first responder. I always say try to have 20 to 45 minutes alone. The saying the no, right? If you say no so many times, then they're gonna stop asking. So it's when what do we put our energy into, right? Do we want to go onto the on this date and get a babysitter on Friday versus I I don't want to do this because I had a really long week and actually listening to your partner.

unknown: 18:30

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 18:30

I don't go ahead about you, but I find that sometimes, you know, like literally, maybe maybe I'm old and my kids are a little older, which helps. But me and my girlfriend basically, like Friday nights, she works a pretty stressful job. She's been on the podcast before. I work a stressful job too, obviously. So Fridays, we may talk on the phone, uh, but otherwise come seven or eight o'clock, we're both in our own houses and we're relaxing, and we don't really want to talk to anyone. And that's not an attack on our relationship, it's not an attack on it's like we have stressful jobs, we're exhausted. And I think that having those conversations and being okay with it, not feeling it's a rejection and talk about attachment issues, like let's let's not even talk about IFS and all that stuff that plays a factor for different couples and families in particular. But I think that that's the stuff that we internal family systems for those of us. I just want to make sure I mention that I hate people who use acronyms but don't explain them. I think that that's what you got to remember is that that communication is key. So, you know, I know my girlfriend's gonna be listening to this and going, oh yeah, what what yeah? I said, well, because it's not self-evident for a whole lot of people to have that conversation and saying, uh, you know, when I get back from work, sometimes I need 40 minutes. Uh and if it was a hard day, maybe it's an hour, maybe it's only 20 minutes. Maybe it's like I had a good day, give me time to change, just relax, and then I'll come back and I'll relieve you from your parenting duties. And then the the one who's parenting. Feels so validated instead of rushed into the next thing. And I think it's important. And you know, sometimes it's hard to talk about stuff that happens at work and sometimes it's not. But I think that there's a lot of those things that happen also.

SPEAKER_01: 20:13

Yeah. And that's why one of the things I always tell people, I my husband, I'm laughing because my husband's probably the one that taught me this. And I'm the talker in the relationship, and he's more quiet than me.

SPEAKER_02: 20:23

You're the talker? That's a shocker, Alexis.

SPEAKER_01: 20:26

I know, I know. But he always says, and I've implemented this into couples counseling is do you want me to listen or do you want me to help you find a solution? Right. Because I think and men and women are very different, right? Sometimes men want to have a solution where women, I think it's easier for us to listen. But I think going in and understanding that and being able to ask can help, right? Or do you want a hug or do you want, do you want me to leave you alone? It's really understanding too the trauma responses versus personality traits. You just said I might want to sit down because I'm tired. It doesn't mean it's the job either, right? So having these conversations and then having regular check-ins, even if it's text messages, because sometimes that's all we get on the job. But I think we just all want to feel like we are seen, respected, and cared about. And again, equalizing like the household load, if possible, right? Or like the whatever the workload is professionally and at home.

SPEAKER_02: 21:22

And it's so hard because you you can make the best plans in the world. It goes well with the first responder world, particularly like with the call-outs. A lot of these places are short staffed nowadays. So sometimes you can go, like you said, from a 24 to 48 to a 72 rather quickly. And I think that that change, like, and then you god forbid, you have your own health issues.

SPEAKER_01: 21:43

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 21:46

You have a parent who lives far away that you need to go check on. I mean, that's why I tell people communication is so important because for me, you know, my partners give them credit where credit is due, my current partner and my ex-wife. Something happens with my family up in Canada. I I can't sit here and say we're going to negotiate if I can go up or not. It's not a question of go negotiation, it's about me going. Yes, I'll set it up so we can be as successful as we possibly can, but it's not a question. But we have to have that hard conversation. I think that that's the stuff that people avoid so much in couples. They don't talk about that shit because they're afraid.

SPEAKER_01: 22:21

And I always say with couples counseling, again, for vetting, is I want you to have your own individual therapist because couples counseling can often leak into that, right? And I that's not my role, is to be both individual people's counselors, right? The other thing I know people hate this word because sometimes they don't even know how to define this word. And I had someone ask me, Well, what is that? I don't understand. I've never heard that. I don't know how to how to do that. Self-care. I always say, make sure that you have your own self-care first, though, right? Because we talk about being in a relationship, right? 50-50. It's not 50-50. I really want to view it as 200%, meaning one partner is 100 and the other person is 100 and you have 200%. But you and it's not selfish, but you also need to be confident in your own ability to take care of yourself first, because otherwise you can't take care of that relationship. Or, or also with parenting, right? Then we're in survival mode or caregiving for a family member, a sister, right, a brother, a parent, whatever. Everyone has different pieces of caregiving throughout their relationship and their lives where they're at. But take care of yourself first. And that is the hardest thing, right? Because we see it as selfish. Or people are like, I don't know what that looks like, or you know, I'll go out and have a drink that's taking care of myself. And then we, and then we drink too much, right? It's all these things. It's learning what is that self-care outside of the job. And sometimes people can't even define that, but it's also what is self-care for your partner outside of that relationship and all the other things that come with it.

SPEAKER_02: 23:48

And one of the things I talk about with self-care too is getting your haircut is not self-care for some people. It's just maintenance for some women who need to have a certain way to look, so they have to get their nails done and stuff like that. That's not self-care. That's just something that they need to do for me getting my nails done and be self-care, not that I care much, as you can see if you go on YouTube.

SPEAKER_01: 24:10

But everyone's self-care is different, right? And I think that's the other thing. There's a stigma even around that.

SPEAKER_02: 24:15

I mean, for me, self-care sometimes is having, you know, the I I have I'm waiting for Alexa to schedule our coffee time online. She's the one who's slow. Yes, I'm putting her on the spot. I know that. But for me, self-care sometimes is shooting the shit with someone I care about. You know, as well, I don't talk to my friends in Montreal all that often, but when we do, it's like two hours straight. And it's not like I'm counting the hours, but that's so much fun. And I feel so more, much more energized when I talk, you know, to Josh and Frank and Beatrice and Helen and Dave, and those are all my friends up there. And then I like we don't talk for three months sometimes or six months, but it doesn't matter. It just gives me that energy, makes me feel good. But self-care is so personal. And you brought in another word that I really wanted to address is selfish. I think that we need to stop thinking that selfish is a bad thing. I think that it can be a bad thing, just like selfless can be a bad thing. But for the most part, being selfish is important, you know, for me, and and again, I joked around, but uh having even text conversation with you, Alexa, is important to me. We have a good connection and I really like you, so you know that's important to me. And it's okay for me to be selfish in those moments of doing that. And we gotta stop thinking that selfish is a bad thing. It's not, it's it's important. We need that because, you know, especially first responders, I feel therapists fall in that realm. We do a lot of work for other people. So if we don't learn how to be selfish, we're gonna be so bitter towards the world, it's not even funny.

SPEAKER_01: 25:40

Yeah, and that's why, right, this coalition that we've created, this group is huge, right? Because sometimes if I have an issue, right, I can reach out to someone in the group, right? For I'll give an example, right? Whether it's you or Erin or someone else that really gets it. So then I'm not putting it onto my husband, right? Because then my husband is like, I can't play your therapist, I can't play parent, I I can't, right? I I need to play husband, right? And what does that look like? So I think also knowing where your roles are, that's another thing, is um the role clarity in in a relationship. But sometimes even just like taking a nap, right? Or also if someone work, right? If work comes up, don't take it in that window when you're with your partner, right? Know those boundaries too, right? That's communication self. It's all these things. And don't I know, right? Because I'm guilty of this, I know you are too, but don't overschedule yourself. Don't one of the other things, right, with our hypervigilance is we don't know how to sit the fuck down and just be quiet and in our space. And this is another whole thing, right? I know I'm just going down this um rabbit hole today, but that's why we also look at like the holistic stuff, right? Like yoga practice, right? Meditation, grounding. I'm gonna the crunchy stuff, right? But even it's because we're lowering, yeah, we're we're lowering the vagus nerve, right? Your your microbiome is also your second nervous system, right? That's another whole is all these things we have like light exercise, right? Taking a nap, getting enough sleep. It it sounds like so much, right? But the more that you do it, the more it does show up in other ways, right? Whether, and and people often will say, you know, I noticed that my partner stopped doing this and now they're more present, right? Especially, or or I the job, right, in that bullshit or whatever at work doesn't affect me as much. I it's easier for me to leave it at home. I mean, leave it at work, excuse me, and be more present at home.

SPEAKER_02: 27:27

I think that you're absolutely right. The other part, too, that I kind of like it's when particularly with some partners. When they got home, they took 20 minutes to go play blankety blank on their PlayStation or whatever. I'm not making any money from that plug. And people are like, Well, that's that's wrong. And I'm like, no, that's their self-care. That's what they do to like chill. And yeah, it doesn't sound like shooting people is a great idea, but for them, it's a relaxation. For me personally, it's not, but I'd rather play like sports games, but ultimately it's all different for different people.

SPEAKER_01: 27:59

Yeah, and that's why, whether this is like a tool that people already know about or not, but I always recommend it is having, you know, on like, for example, a shared Google Calendar, right? Because sometimes our being a first responder, you know your schedule for like a year out, even depending on the rotating shifts, right? But as someone at home, on the other side, this has happened to me personally. If I want to be booking something right, or I'm in touch with someone out when we're trying to schedule something, I can't bother you at work. And then when you come home, you don't want to talk about all these other things that you have to do because you just want to sit and be present. So even that, that's super easy, right? Because everyone can just look at it.

unknown: 28:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 28:34

Or if you got a charity or you got to go like for the first responder world, oh, we got a golf tournament, we got yeah, whatever. You can they can look at the shared calendar and do that. And that's very important. I I, you know, I'm happy you mentioned that because I do recommend a shared calendar, even for non-first responder couples.

SPEAKER_01: 28:51

Oh, absolutely. But but it's just these things that we don't think about, right? It's because our there's too much up here, right? We're an autopilot of doing all the things at work and at home, and then we just get stuck. And my thing that and you brought this up earlier, it's really hard is where has that line of resentment gotten to when it's too late, right? And sometimes I have to, it's it's hard to look at the assessment, but sometimes it is too late. Not for everyone, but it's that's why just noticing where does that resentment lie, right? And it starts with us take like individually.

SPEAKER_02: 29:21

Yeah, well, I think that that's the biggest problem, too. We, you know, I'm I I want to finish on this and say when we have the resentment, we let it build. And that is the worst thing. That doesn't mean you explode on your partner and anytime you feel a little resentment. It means like, hey, let's have a conversation. Do you have time and having that conversation? So that resentment doesn't build up to the point where both of you are out of the relationship before you're out of the relationship. But I want to finish on that. But more importantly, this will be January 2026. So you're gonna have your brand new website up. And I want people to reach you in any way, shape, or form they can. So can you tell us a little bit about your website?

SPEAKER_01: 29:58

Yes, it is OAE, which stands for oak and ember counseling.com. And I'm also on psychology today under Alexa Silva. So it's oaecounseling.com.

SPEAKER_02: 30:12

Well, I hope that people go see your website, know more about you. And Alexa, we have more to talk about, I think, privately, obviously, but more importantly on the podcast too. I hope you come back. This was went by really fast. I know that you don't you were a little nervous, as you said at the beginning of the show.

SPEAKER_01: 30:31

I hate my public speaking, but we're we're getting over it.

SPEAKER_02: 30:34

Well, I think it's because it you lose like at one point you forgot you had a mic in front of you. You're just talking to me.

SPEAKER_01: 30:40

Yeah. Well, I appreciate you giving me the space and to have for having me as a guest and your podcast, you know, all the guests that you have and all the work that you do. It's amazing. So thank you for that.

SPEAKER_02: 30:50

Well, I hope that you come back soon. And I know me and you are gonna have coffee very, very soon. And I look forward to it. And thank you, Alexa.

SPEAKER_01: 30:58

Thank you, Steve.

SPEAKER_02: 30:59

And for those listening, please join us for the next episode.

SPEAKER_00: 31:04

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