Is My Relationship Normal

Brittany Woolford
  • 5.0 (4)
  • Relationships

Every relationship has moments that make you wonder is a red flag... or just another Tuesday? Each week, Dr. Brittany Woolford and Dr. Mallaree Blake read an anonymous listener story about something happening in their relationship that they want feedback on, but don't want to share with their friends. We then dive into whether or not this is normal relationship behavior or something that needs to be immediately addressed. Sometimes the answer is "yes, everyone does that." Sometimes it's "okay, we need to talk about that." Either way, you'll leave understanding a little more about why people do what they do in relationships. Have a story? Submit it anonymously — link in the show notes and on our instagram bio @ismyrelationshipnormal. Is My Relationship Normal Podcast is for entertainment and education. It is not therapy and does not create a clinician-client relationship.

Episodes

  1. 5d ago

    I Could Get a Doctorate in My Relationship

    I feel like I could get my doctorate in this relationship. This week's story comes from someone who has done all the reading. Attached, twice, highlighted all the way through. Hold Me Tight. The Gottman books. They know their attachment style and their partner's. They rehearse hard conversations in the car, open with appreciation, and wait until she's eaten. And the second she shuts down, something in them snaps. They go below the belt, knowing exactly how it will land, then spend days digging out. Now her family keeps asking about marriage, and they're lonelier living with her than they ever were single. Dr. Brittany Woolford and Dr. Mallaree Blake get into why knowing your attachment style doesn't stop it from running the show, how over-functioning teaches a partner to go quiet, why a problem for you isn't always a relationship problem (and why your partner still isn't off the hook), and the question every anxious partner eventually has to answer: is what they're willing to give enough for you? Plus Brittany's soapbox on the book Attached, and why "protecting my peace" gives her the ick. If you've ever rehearsed a conversation in the car and still watched it go sideways, this one's for you. Have a story you can't tell your friends? Share it anonymously through the form in our Instagram bio (@ismyrelationshipnormal), or right here! We'll clean it up, so you can just get it out. We're licensed psychologists, but this podcast isn't therapy, and we never use real client stories. MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Amir Levine and Rachel Heller, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment (TarcherPerigee, 2010). Dr. Sue Johnson, Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love (Little, Brown, 2008). Dr. John Gottman and Nan Silver, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work (Harmony, revised 2015). Dr. Diane Poole Heller, The Power of Attachment: How to Create Deep and Lasting Intimate Relationships (Sounds True, 2019). The book Mallaree recommends instead. R. Chris Fraley and colleagues, "Are Adult Attachment Styles Categorical or Dimensional?" (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2015). The research behind attachment as dials, not boxes. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000027 Music licensed through Soundstripe. Code: JOOQWZ2UIH5DYEFO, RNW8MJ2HUADXUHW7

  2. Nov 2

    A Glass of Wine Isn't the Prescription for Painful Sex

    She's pretty sure every woman deals with this. She also feels like her body is broken. For a couple of years now, sex has hurt. Deep, sharp, and almost every time. She's gotten very good at hiding it. When she finally told her OB, she left with two suggestions: try a different position, and have a glass of wine first. Her mom says it was never her favorite thing either. Her friends laugh and say "same." And her husband has started keeping count. Dr. Brittany Woolford and Dr. Mallaree Blake, a certified sex therapist, get into why common and normal aren't the same thing, what you can actually do about painful sex (a lot more than wine), the condition that takes about a decade to diagnose, and why so many women hide pain from a partner who may not want sex that hurts them. Plus the exercise Mallaree gives couples when every touch has started to feel like a question. But first, we read the comments on Mallaree's work crush reel. Some of you had thoughts. If you've ever braced your way through something you were told was normal, this one's for you. Have a story you can't tell your friends? Share it anonymously through the form in our Instagram bio (@ismyrelationshipnormal), or right here: Submission Form. We'll clean it up, so you can just get it out. We're licensed psychologists, but this podcast isn't therapy, and we never use real client stories. MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE The Pelvic People, makers of the Ohnut (wearable rings that limit how deep penetration goes) and the Kiwi, a massager for pelvic pain. https://thepelvicpeople.com World Health Organization, Endometriosis fact sheet. Roughly 1 in 10 women and girls of reproductive age. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/endometriosis ComPaRe-Endometriosis study (Journal of Women's Health, 2026). In almost 7,000 women, the average time to an endometriosis diagnosis was about 10 years. https://www.contemporaryobgyn.net/view/women-with-endometriosis-or-adenomyosis-face-10--to-11-year-diagnostic-delays-study-finds Dr. Tammy Nelson's six-week erotic date protocol (eBook). The version of sensate focus Mallaree uses with couples. https://www.drtammynelson.com/product-page/six-weeks-of-erotic-dates-a-protocol-for-erotic-recovery Linda Weiner and Constance Avery-Clark, Sensate Focus in Sex Therapy: The Illustrated Manual (Routledge, 2017). Dr. Ingrid Clayton, Fawning: Why the Need to Please Makes Us Lose Ourselves (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2025). From our fawning conversation in Episode 5. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/779579/fawning-by-dr-ingrid-clayton/9798217045327 Music licensed through Soundstripe. Code: JOOQWZ2UIH5DYEFO, RNW8MJ2HUADXUHW7

  3. Oct 26

    I Walk in the Door and I'm Already in Trouble

    It's 11:30 on a Thursday. Alex walks in from a friend's birthday party. Erin is on the couch with the TV on, not really watching. Three minutes later, one of them is halfway up the stairs and the other is saying, "Nothing. Night." Nobody yelled. Nobody cheated. It started with a read receipt. And it's the same fight couples have for years, about dishes, money, sex and in-laws, until one day they stop having it at all. Dr. Mallaree Blake is on a well-deserved vacation, so this week Dr. Brittany Woolford tries something different. She takes one ordinary fight, written for the show, and slows it down line by line: what each of them was already telling themselves before the door opened, the test one of them didn't know they were taking, and the one honest sentence of the night, said to someone's back. Then the redo. What each of them could have said before the party, and where the line falls between co-regulation and codependence. (Most of the internet draws it in the wrong place.) If you've ever said "can we talk tomorrow?" and meant "please stop," this one's for you. Have a story you can't tell your friends? Share it anonymously through this form or you can find the link in our Instagram bio (@ismyrelationshipnormal). We'll clean it up, so you can just get it out. We're licensed psychologists, but this podcast isn't therapy, and we never use real client stories. FURTHER READING Sue Johnson, Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love (Little, Brown, 2008). Johnson calls the pursue-withdraw dance the "Protest Polka," one of three "Demon Dialogues." Fraley, Hudson, Heffernan & Segal (2015). Are adult attachment styles categorical or dimensional? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 109(2), 354-368. Anxiety and avoidance behave like sliding scales, not types. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000027 Music licensed through Soundstripe. Code: 8GECHCRXRZZTPJEY

  4. Oct 19

    I've Cheated in Every Relationship Except This One

    She's cheated on every person she's ever been with. High school, college, the guy she lived with in her twenties. Then she got married, and for ten years, nothing. She'd stopped thinking about it. Now there's a guy at work. They text at night. She knows which days he'll be in the office, and she's noticed what she wears on those days. Nothing has happened yet. But she can feel the itch coming on, the same way it did every other time. Dr. Brittany Woolford and Dr. Mallaree Blake get into the difference between a normal crush and what she's describing, why "innocent banter" is never as innocent as it sounds, and the slow, quiet drift couples therapists worry about more than fighting. Plus whether "once a cheater, always a cheater" holds up, when relationship anxiety starts to look more like OCD, and how to tell your partner something like this without making it their job to manage. Before the story: does telling your spouse your friends' gossip count as breaking a confidence, and why are men so bad at bringing any of it home? To close: what the research says about the seven-year itch, and our honest take on TikTok's 2-2-2 rule. If you've ever felt the urge to burn it all down when nothing was actually wrong, this one's for you. Have a story you can't tell your friends? Share it anonymously through the form in our Instagram bio (@ismyrelationshipnormal) or with the form We'll clean it up, so you can just get it out. We're licensed psychologists, but this podcast isn't therapy, and we never use real client stories. MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Shirley P. Glass, PhD, Not "Just Friends" (Free Press, 2003). Where the "windows and walls" idea comes from. Tsapelas, Aron & Orbuch (2009). Marital boredom now predicts less satisfaction 9 years later. Psychological Science. Couples who felt their marriage was in a rut at year 7 were less satisfied at year 16. https://news.umich.edu/seven-year-itch-boredom-can-hurt-a-marriage U.S. Census Bureau (2011). Number, Timing, and Duration of Marriages and Divorces: 2009. First marriages that ended in divorce lasted a median of about 8 years, with separation at about 7. https://census.gov/library/publications/2011/demo/p70-125.html Knopp, Scott, Ritchie, Rhoades, Markman & Stanley (2017). Once a cheater, always a cheater? Serial infidelity across subsequent relationships. Archives of Sexual Behavior. People who cheated in one relationship were about three times as likely to report cheating in their next. A higher risk, not a sentence. https://digitalcommons.du.edu/psychology_faculty/75 Wilcox & Dew, The Date Night Opportunity (National Marriage Project, University of Virginia). Couples who spent time together at least once a week reported higher-quality relationships. It's a correlation, as Brittany says on air. https://news.virginia.edu/node/133523

  5. Oct 12

    I Hate My Best Friend's Husband

    He calls her "retired" because she stays home with the kids. He sat in the car through the last hour of a kid's birthday party, then honked when he wanted to go. And every night, her best friend gets the voice memos. This week's story comes from the friend. They've been close since college. She can't stand the husband, and her best friend keeps saying she's done with him, then posts an anniversary photo about how lucky she is. Now the friend's own kids don't want to go over there, and she's run out of things to say. Dr. Brittany Woolford and Dr. Mallaree Blake get into why "stay together for the kids" might be the wrong call, why cruelty mixed with affection is so hard to walk away from, and the one sentence to use the next time he puts her down in front of you. Plus whether you can tell a friend you're done hearing about her husband, how to bring up what your kids are seeing, and why you can go to therapy with your best friend. Before the story: the difference between regret and remorse after an affair, and a famous statistic about relationships that start as affairs that turns out to have no study behind it. If you've ever been the friend on the other end of those voice memos, this one's for you. Have a story you can't tell your friends? Share it anonymously through this form or head to our Instagram bio (@ismyrelationshipnormal). We'll clean it up, so you can just get it out. We're licensed psychologists, but this podcast isn't therapy, and we never use real client stories. If you or someone you love is in danger, call 911, or reach the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 (thehotline.org). MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE William M. Bumberry, PhD, Healing the Trauma of Infidelity: Powerful Skills for Rebuilding Trust and Attachment to Find Love, Commitment, and Intimacy Again (New Harbinger, 2025). ISBN 9781648485725. Hall, J. A. (2019). How many hours does it take to make a friend? Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. About 50 hours to a casual friend, 90 to a friend, and more than 200 to a close friend. https://news.ku.edu/2018/03/06/study-reveals-number-hours-it-takes-make-friend Holt-Lunstad, Uchino, Smith, Cerny & Nealey-Moore (2003). Health Psychology. People who wore blood pressure monitors for three days had higher readings around friends they felt mixed about than around people they simply disliked. https://news.byu.edu/news/nuances-interpersonal-relationships-influence-our-health-new-study-shows Second Saturday divorce workshops from WIFE.org, for anyone considering, going through or finished with a divorce. And Leslie Garske of Garske Divorce Mediation, the Denver-area mediator Mallaree mentions. https://www.secondsaturday.com

  6. Oct 5

    He Never Yells, So Why Do I Feel Crazy After Every Fight?

    He's never yelled at her. So why does her stomach drop every time she needs to bring something up? This week's story is a fight about once a month that always goes the same way. She walks in knowing exactly what hurt. Twenty minutes later she can't find her point, they're arguing about what she "actually said," and somehow she's the one apologizing. He's the calm one, the logical one, and he's been in therapy long enough to have the vocabulary. Dr. Brittany Woolford and Dr. Mallaree Blake get into why "I'm just being logical" usually isn't, why the calm partner can be just as activated as the one crying, and the three-part move that leaves you comforting the person you came to with a complaint. Plus why you should never tell your partner they're gaslighting you (even when it fits), the trauma response almost nobody talks about, and where the line falls between a couple that fights badly and a relationship that has become emotionally abusive. And to close on a lighter note: are you and your partner food divorced? Mallaree swears by it. If you've ever walked out of a fight unable to remember what it was about, this one's for you. Have a story you can't tell your friends? Share it anonymously through the form in our Instagram bio (@ismyrelationshipnormal). or use this link. We'll clean it up, so you can just get it out. We're licensed psychologists, but this podcast isn't therapy, and we never use real client stories. MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Dr. Ingrid Clayton, Fawning: Why the Need to Please Makes Us Lose Ourselves (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2025). The book Brittany promised to link. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/779579/fawning-by-dr-ingrid-clayton/9798217045327 DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender). Psychologist Jennifer Freyd's name for a common response to being held accountable. https://www.jjfreyd.com/darvo Esther Perel, "Would you rather be right or be married?" (Letters from Esther #43). https://estherperel.com/blog/letters-from-esther-42-would-you-rather-be-right-or-be-married The Gottman Institute, "The Four Horsemen: Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness, and Stonewalling." Why contempt is the strongest predictor of divorce. https://www.gottman.com/blog/the-four-horsemen-recognizing-criticism-contempt-defensiveness-and-stonewalling/ The Gottman Institute, "Physiological Self-Soothing." What flooding is, and why it's so hard to hear your partner once your heart rate passes about 100 beats per minute. https://www.gottman.com/blog/weekend-homework-assignment-physiological-self-soothing/ The Gottman Institute, "Managing Conflict: Solvable vs. Perpetual Problems." The 69% finding we came back to from last week. https://www.gottman.com/blog/managing-conflict-solvable-vs-perpetual-problems/ Roisman (2007). The psychophysiology of adult attachment relationships: Autonomic reactivity in marital and premarital interactions. Developmental Psychology. Partners with avoidant (dismissing) attachment looked calm during conflict conversations but showed heightened skin conductance, a sign of holding emotion in. https://experts.umn.edu/en/publications/the-psychophysiology-of-adult-attachment-relationships-autonomic-/ Dozier & Kobak (1992). Psychophysiology in attachment interviews: Converging evidence for deactivating strategies. Child Development, 63(6), 1473–1480. The original skin-conductance finding. Internal Family Systems (IFS), Richard Schwartz's "parts" model. No Bad Parts (Sounds True, 2021) is the easiest place to start. https://ifs-institute.com/ https://www.soundstrue.com/products/no-bad-parts-1 Couples Therapy, the Showtime docuseries with Dr. Orna Guralnik, streaming on Paramount+. https://www.paramountplus.com/shows/couples-therapy/ Psychology Today, "Can a 'Food Divorce' Help or Hurt Your Relationship?" (October 2026). https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/a-funny-bone-to-pick/202610/can-a-food-divorce-help-or-hurt-your-relationship OFF THE CLOCK Bourbon & Beyond, Louisville, Kentucky. https://www.bourbonandbeyond.com/ The Haunting of Bly Manor (Netflix). Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Mist and Fury. Chapter 54, if you know, you know.

  7. Sep 28

    We Opened Our Relationship & Everything Fell Apart

    She said no for ten years. Then she said "fine." Our listener figured opening her marriage was a win-win. He'd finally get his needs met, and she'd finally get the couch to herself. Then he slept with a mom she sees at school drop-off. Then she downloaded Tinder and surprised everyone, including herself. For a few months, their marriage was better than it had been in years. And then it all went sideways. Dr. Brittany Woolford and Dr. Mallaree Blake get into what happens when "open" is used as a fix instead of a decision: why "just sex, no feelings" was never going to hold, whether you can cheat when you're allowed to sleep with other people (you can), and why so many husbands are blindsided once the door is actually open. Plus the research number that should make any couple pause before downloading an app. If you've ever said "fine" when you meant something else, this one's for you. Have a story you can't tell your friends? Share it anonymously through the form here. We'll clean it up, so you can just get it out. We're licensed psychologists, but this podcast isn't therapy, and we never use real client stories. *Research and books mentioned Haupert, Gesselman, Moors, Fisher & Garcia (2017). Prevalence of experiences with consensual nonmonogamous relationships: Findings from two national samples of single Americans. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy. The source of the "1 in 5" stat, and every respondent was single. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27096488/ Infidelity Survey, Wheatley Institution & Institute for Family Studies (2019). Nationally representative: about 3% of Americans are currently in a consensually non-monogamous relationship, and 12% ever have been. https://ifstudies.org/blog/national-survey-reveals-generational-differences-in-consensual-nonmonogamy- Rogge, Hangen & Crasta (2019). Getting Clear on What You Want: Delineating Types of Consensual Non-Monogamy. Journal of Sex Research. Fully negotiated arrangements looked like monogamous ones. About 60% of people in one-sided arrangements reported significant dissatisfaction, roughly three times the rate. https://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/do-open-relationships-work-405232/ Thompson, Hart, Stefaniak & Harvey (2018). Exploring Heterosexual Adults' Endorsement of the Sexual Double Standard among Initiators of Consensually Nonmonogamous Relationship Behaviors. Sex Roles. Women who proposed opening up were judged more favorably than men. Swinging was judged more favorably than polyamory or an open relationship. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-017-0866-4 Justin Lehmiller, Tell Me What You Want (2018). A survey of more than 4,000 Americans' sexual fantasies. Group sex topped the list. Tammy Nelson, The New Monogamy: Redefining Your Relationship After Infidelity (New Harbinger, 2012).Relationship agreements and contracts, especially after an affair. https://www.newharbinger.com/9781608823161/the-new-monogamy/ John Gottman & Nan Silver, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. Where the finding that 69% of relationship problems are perpetual comes from. John Gottman & Nan Silver, What Makes Love Last? (2012). The weekly "State of the Union" check-in. Multiamory (podcast and book, Multiamory: Essential Tools for Modern Relationships). The RADAR check-in for couples navigating non-monogamy. https://www.multiamory.com/book

  8. Sep 21

    My Husband Has a Work Wife

    "I can't tell if I'm crazy for being mad or crazy for not being more mad." That is the first line of this week's listener story, and it is the question underneath a lot of relationships that look fine from the outside. Her husband has a work wife. That is not her name for the woman. It is his. It is how she is saved in his phone, and it is how he introduces her to the family. He shares his location with her and not with his wife. They have a standing Tuesday dinner. Last year the two of them wore matching costumes to a work party his wife attended. He invited the work wife and her husband along on a family vacation, and spent more time with her than with his own kids. When his wife brings any of it up, he gets defensive, tells her that a close relationship with this woman is helping his career, and asks when the last time was that she planned a date night. Brittany and Mallaree are, for the record, each other's work wives. So they explore what dynamics might be oaky in this type of relationship and when it can go too far. They get into why jealousy is information and not a character flaw, why "my boundary is that you can't go to happy hour" is not a boundary, what monogamous couples could borrow from the way non-monogamous couples actually talk about fidelity, and why the most useful sentence this wife could say has nothing to do with the other woman at all. Also in this one: the Mike Pence rule, the myth that you need shared interests to have a good marriage, and the TikTok trend where two people call you at the same time to see who you call back first. Normal, or not normal? They land on an answer. Mentioned in this episode The New Monogamy: Redefining Your Relationship After Infidelity by Tammy Nelson, PhD Have a story you want us to weigh in on? Our submission form is completely anonymous. Tell us what is going on and we may read it on the show. Complete this form. New relationship story every Monday. Find us on Instagram @ismyrelationshipnormal Dr. Brittany Woolford and Dr. Mallaree Blake are licensed psychologists. This podcast is for education and entertainment. It is not therapy, and it is not advice for your specific situation. *A note on a statistic Dr. Woolford mentioned in the show: the claim that 70 to 75% of relationships that begin as affairs end is widely repeated, but it comes from clinical experience, not research. No study has tracked these relationships over time. The closest evidence looks at relationships formed by pulling someone away from an existing partner (Foster et al., 2014, Journal of Research in Personality), which found lower commitment, satisfaction, and investment. Those samples were young dating couples rather than married adults, and the researchers found that personality traits explained much of the effect. So it may say more about the people than about how the relationship started. Music licensed through Soundstripe. Code: 7DVDBXCH82U9V6K8, VDL2HLHGJEBLP2RU

  9. Sep 14

    I Can't Remember the Last Time I Wanted Him

    She's 41, two kids, fourteen years in, and she still loves her husband. She just can't remember the last time she wanted him. This week's relationship story submission asks the question “is this just what happens now? And if it is, isn't the loving thing to stop making it a crisis and just keep faking it?” Brittany and Mallaree get into what's actually happening when desire seems to go offline and why "just push through it" quietly makes things worse, the difference between the kind of wanting you've been told to expect and the kind most of us actually have, and the moment a partner who simply misses you tips into something unhealthy. Is it normal? Yes. Is it something you just have to accept? No. Got a story you're quietly wondering about? Share it anonymously here If this one landed, follow the show and send it to the person you were thinking about while you listened.

  10. Sep 7

    When They Don't Text Back

    They didn't text back. We all have different reactions to being left on read, but this reaction could actually be based on your attachment style. In this first episode, Dr. Brittany Woolford and Dr. Mallaree Blake lay out the attachment framework they'll be returning to in nearly every episode of this show, and discuss how these attachment styles play out in their own relationships. Along the way we discuss a divorce at twenty-seven with no roadmap and nobody to ask. The early, lawless years of Tinder. A first date conducted over video in 2020, and a relationship that got very serious very fast in a 500-square-foot studio apartment. You'll also find out who we are and why we have any business having opinions about your relationship. That part matters more than it used to, given how much of what you're hearing about relationships comes from people who've never told you where they learned it. Starting next episode, this show is built entirely from your relationship stories and answer “is this normal?” Submit yours anonymously: anonymous form link Follow: @ismyrelationshipnormal

  • 10 Episodes

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
4 Ratings

About

Every relationship has moments that make you wonder is a red flag... or just another Tuesday? Each week, Dr. Brittany Woolford and Dr. Mallaree Blake read an anonymous listener story about something happening in their relationship that they want feedback on, but don't want to share with their friends. We then dive into whether or not this is normal relationship behavior or something that needs to be immediately addressed. Sometimes the answer is "yes, everyone does that." Sometimes it's "okay, we need to talk about that." Either way, you'll leave understanding a little more about why people do what they do in relationships. Have a story? Submit it anonymously — link in the show notes and on our instagram bio @ismyrelationshipnormal. Is My Relationship Normal Podcast is for entertainment and education. It is not therapy and does not create a clinician-client relationship.

Information

  • Creator
    Brittany Woolford
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    10
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2026 Brittany Woolford
  • Show Website
    Is My Relationship Normal