You’re Probably Thinking About Boundaries All Wrong

Summary

Modern Love Podcast: “You’re Probably Thinking About Boundaries All Wrong”

Episode Overview

In the April 23, 2025 episode of Modern Love, hosted by Anna Martin from The New York Times, the conversation delves into the intricate dynamics of boundaries within relationships. Featuring therapist and author Casey Davis, the episode explores common misconceptions about boundaries, their impact on personal relationships, and practical strategies for establishing healthy limits. Additionally, Casey Davis reads a poignant Modern Love essay that exemplifies the challenges and resolutions in maintaining boundaries within a long-term partnership.

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Understanding Boundaries: Misconceptions and Clarifications

Anna Martin opens the discussion by highlighting the pervasive misunderstandings surrounding boundaries in relationships. She introduces Casey Davis, known for her empathetic approach to both household management and emotional well-being. The conversation quickly centers on the essence of boundaries and how they are often misconstrued.

Casey Davis on Boundary Misconceptions

Casey Davis addresses a common misconception: “Boundaries are about putting limits on other people's behavior” (07:24). She challenges this notion by explaining that true boundaries are internal constructs that define where one person's responsibilities end and another's begin. For instance, instead of commanding someone not to comment on your weight, a boundary would involve managing your emotional response to such comments, thereby maintaining your own well-being without necessarily dictating the other person's actions.

Practical Application of Boundaries

Davis introduces the concept of boundaries as an "internal understanding" of personal limits and responsibilities. She uses the analogy of an air conditioning system to describe how individuals can regulate their responses to external pressures. This approach emphasizes personal agency in managing relationships, allowing individuals to maintain their emotional equilibrium without overstepping into controlling others.

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Navigating Relationship Conflicts with Healthy Boundaries

Reading and Analyzing a Modern Love Essay

Casey Davis reads a deeply personal essay titled “Is my husband a doormat?” by Lydia Hieiye, which recounts a tumultuous argument between a long-term couple. The essay narrates a moment of crisis where the husband accuses his wife of years of abuse, stemming from unresolved childhood wounds and misunderstandings within their relationship.

Casey Davis’ Insights on the Essay

After the reading, Davis provides a therapeutic analysis of the couple's interaction. She identifies a "vulnerability cycle," where each partner's deep-seated sensitivities and defense mechanisms exacerbate conflicts. Davis explains that the husband's behavior is a manifestation of his childhood experiences, leading him to internalize feelings of unworthiness and fear of being a burden. This, in turn, affects how he perceives and reacts to his wife's actions.

Davis emphasizes the importance of both partners recognizing and challenging their internal narratives. She advises that breaking the cycle involves honest self-reflection and open communication, allowing each individual to understand their own triggers and responsibilities within the relationship.

Establishing Boundaries to Heal Relationships

Davis discusses strategies for determining when to invest effort into a struggling relationship. She underscores the necessity of questioning the personal narratives that fuel conflicts and encourages seeking external support systems. By understanding and adjusting these internal stories, individuals can make informed decisions about whether to continue working on a relationship or to step back for their own healing.

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Personal Reflections: Casey Davis on Healing Relationships

Casey Davis’ Relationship with Her Father

Davis shares her own journey of healing a rocky relationship with her father, who struggled with addiction. Growing up, she internalized the belief that her father did not love her, a narrative that was challenged and transformed through adult introspection and boundary-setting. By redefining her story—from viewing her father as unloving to understanding him as deeply wounded and flawed—Davis was able to rebuild a close and meaningful relationship with him.

She highlights the transformative power of challenging personal narratives and establishing boundaries, which enabled her to reconcile past pains and foster a healthier connection with her father. This personal anecdote serves as a testament to the effectiveness of the boundary strategies discussed earlier in the episode.

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Key Takeaways

1. Boundaries Are Internal Constructs: True boundaries originate from within, focusing on personal emotional management rather than controlling others’ behaviors.

2. Understanding Vulnerability Cycles: Recognizing the interplay between personal sensitivities and defense mechanisms is crucial in addressing and resolving conflicts within relationships.

3. Rewriting Personal Narratives: Challenging and redefining internal stories about relationships can lead to profound healing and strengthened connections.

4. Practical Strategies for Healthy Relationships: Open communication, self-reflection, and external support systems are essential tools in establishing and maintaining healthy boundaries.

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Notable Quotes

• Casey Davis: “Messiness is morally neutral.” (05:33)
  Davis emphasizes that being disorganized doesn’t equate to personal failure or moral deficiency.

• Casey Davis: “Boundaries are about putting limits on your behavior.” (07:49)
  Clarifying that boundaries focus on personal responsibility rather than controlling others.

• Casey Davis: “Boundaries are an internal understanding of where I end and where you begin.” (08:07)
  Defining boundaries as the delineation between one’s own responsibilities and those of others.

• Casey Davis: “What you’re allowed to inconvenience me…” (32:15)
  Illustrating how internal boundaries affect perceptions of relationships and responsibilities.

• Casey Davis: “It starts with sort of challenging that story.” (35:40)
  Highlighting the importance of questioning and redefining personal narratives in relationships.

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Conclusion

In this enlightening episode of Modern Love, Casey Davis provides a nuanced exploration of boundaries, moving beyond common misconceptions to offer a deeper understanding of their role in fostering healthy relationships. Through insightful analysis and personal anecdotes, Davis equips listeners with the knowledge to navigate the complexities of emotional boundaries, ultimately promoting more fulfilling and balanced connections.

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Further Engagement

Listeners are encouraged to engage with the Modern Love community by sharing their own stories about boundaries and relationship dynamics. Submissions can be sent via voice memos to [e-mail] for a chance to be featured on future episodes.

Transcript

[Casey Davis]

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[Anna Martin]

Hey everyone, it's Anna. The Modern Love podcast team is working on an episode about location sharing and how we decide whether to let a partner, friend or family member track our whereabouts. On the one hand, using your phone to share your location might help you stay connected and build trust, but it can also test the boundaries of your relationship in uncomfortable ways. Tell us your location sharing story Was there a moment you really regretted sharing your location with someone, or a moment you were very glad you did? Where were you? What happened? How did your relationship change as a result? Record your answer as a voice memo and email it to modernlovepodcastytimes.com and we may end up featuring it on the show one more time. Tell us how location sharing has affected a relationship in your life and send it as a voice memoir to modernlovepodcastytimes.com we're so excited to hear from you. All right, on with the show. Love now and did you fall in love last fella?

[Casey Davis]

Love, love, but stronger than anything and I love you more than anything there's to love love. I will take you along with me while I do my Sunday Reset from.

[Anna Martin]

The New York Times, I'm Anna Martin. This is Modern Love.

[Casey Davis]

Sunday reset is something that I do to make my house ready and prepared for the next week.

[Anna Martin]

Today I'm talking to the therapist and author Casey Davis.

[Casey Davis]

I always start by getting out my giant trash can, my big laundry basket, a little basket for items, and some cleaning.

[Anna Martin]

Casey is probably best known for her TikTok videos where she's cleaning up all these messes in her home. You'll see scattered clothes, toys, dishes and trash. You name it. And Casey is adamant that her clutter and yours is okay. It's not some big failure and you don't have to feel bad about it.

[Casey Davis]

I don't know who needs to hear this, but you're allowed to have shit on your counter.

[Anna Martin]

This is Casey's thing. She identifies the stuff that we all seem to have an inner conflict around, like our clutter, and offers a compassionate, pragmatic take on it. She wrote a book about it called how to Keep House While Drowning. But lately, Casey's been talking about more than the literal stuff in our lives. Her latest book is called who Deserves yous How to Create Boundaries to Start, Strengthen, or End Any Relationship. And in it, Casey says boundaries are widely misunderstood. So today, Casey Davis tells me what she thinks we're getting wrong about boundaries and how to better navigate conflict. The people we love. Plus, she reads a Modern Love essay about an argument between a couple that seems to come out of nowhere 20 years into their relationship. Stay with us, Casey Davis. Welcome to Modern Love.

[Casey Davis]

Hi. I'm so glad to be here.

[Anna Martin]

We're glad to have you here. So, Casey, I want to start off by asking about what you're probably most known for, and that is your empathetic, extremely practical approach to housework and doing whatever works for you, even when you're struggling just to keep yourself together. I want to know, where did that come from? Like, how did you find yourself posting videos of your dirty laundry piles on the Internet?

[Casey Davis]

Yeah. So as a therapist, I knew that when I was gonna have my second baby that I was gonna have some problems with mental health. Like, I just. I struggled a little bit with the first one. And I just know myself, I knew I might tend towards anxiety and depression and things, especially in a postpartum phase. So I had a whole plan, and it was a good one. It was, you know, we're gonna have meals delivered and playdates set up, and the two year old was gonna go to daycare, and, you know, family was gonna stay for up to six weeks at a time. And then I gave birth three weeks before the shutdowns for Covid. And all of a sudden, that whole plan went away.

[Anna Martin]

Oof.

[Casey Davis]

And one of the things that happened, like, I've always kind of been a messy person, but for the first time, it wasn't functioning. Like, we're running out of clean dishes and there aren't clean clothes anymore, and the laundry is piling up, and everything is so messy. And I can barely walk. Cause of all the baby toys everywhere.

[Anna Martin]

And you spend so much time, all your time basically in the home because it's. It's locked down.

[Casey Davis]

And so that's when I started making videos about cleaning and figuring out ways to clean. That kind of worked for me as a messy person. And so that's how it all started. And then it kind of took off. But what took off about it wasn't just people saying, oh, my gosh, like, what cool little hacks? It was the People that said, sometimes my house gets like this, and I feel so much shame about it. And that's when, you know, the therapist in me was like, listen, like, messiness is morally neutral.

[Anna Martin]

Say that again because it's such a central point. Messiness is morally neutral. What do you mean by that?

[Casey Davis]

What I mean is that it's not a character defect to be a messy person. It's not a moral failing to be someone who, you know, isn't neat and tidy all the time. And as I spent a lot of time on social media talking about, like, homes, one of the things that I would notice is that when people would talk about their relationships online, they would get a lot of really moralizing advice. So it wasn't just, here's a better way to communicate. It was, how can you put up with that? I could never put up with that behavior. Or it's how, you know, I can't believe that you left that person when they were at their lowest. I would never leave someone when they are at their lowest, you know, what do you mean you left? Cause they had a mental health problem. Like, there was all of this kind of moralizing. And I saw people. It was like they were trying to fight two battles at once. They were trying to figure out, what do I do about my relationship? But instead of just trying to figure out, like, what's the right thing for me to do next, it was, and what does that mean about me? Am I weak for staying? Am I a jerk for leaving? Am I being, you know. And so it just. It really muddies the waters when trying to figure out what the best decision for you is.

[Anna Martin]

Yeah. You've been talking more and more online about relationships, and you have this new book all about relationships and building and keeping boundaries in them. It's very helpful and practical. There are flow charts inside. But something you say about boundaries in the book is that they are widely misunderstood from your perspective, can you tell me why that is? What do people seem to think boundaries are?

[Casey Davis]

The misconception is that boundaries are about putting limits on other people's behavior. Yeah, right, Mom. Don't talk to me about my weight. You cannot talk to me that way. When you go one layer down, lots of people will try to address what's wrong about that by going. It's actually boundaries are about putting limits on your behavior.

[Anna Martin]

Yep.

[Casey Davis]

Right. It's. I'm gonna walk away from this conversation if you keep talking to me this way. I'm gonna not bring my kids to see you. If you don't get vaccinated but even then, we're missing what boundaries are really about, because both of those, I think one's a little bit more right than the first one.

[Anna Martin]

Right, right.

[Casey Davis]

But it still makes it a very external exercise where the decisions and the consequences and the, you know. Okay, mom, you can't talk to me that way. Okay, well, mom is still doing it. So what now? Well, now I need a consequence. Okay, well, then I won't see her ever again. Okay. Are you ready to get rid of an entire relationship with someone over this thing here? And maybe you are, but yes. Okay. Oh, well, actually, she watches your kids on Thursdays. It's the only way you can work. Oh, well, okay. Right. Like, we get real sticky real quick. I would say there's this third option where we say that boundaries are an internal understanding of where I end and where you begin. It's where my feelings end and your feelings begin. It's where my ability to affect my own decisions and actions end and your decisions and actions begin. And it's also this understanding of what belongs to me and what I'm responsible for and where my responsibilities stop and your responsibilities begin. When it comes to our relationship with each other.

[Anna Martin]

I mean, you gave this example about a mom who keeps talking to her kid about their weight. What would be a boundary there that would be effective in that context? That works on that internal understanding of, this is where I end. This is where you begin.

[Casey Davis]

So what I would say is this. Asking your mom to not talk to you about weight in and of itself is not a boundary. It's just a request. You have requested that she do something. You can't control whether she does or doesn't. But it might be that the act of you voicing what you need is you being a boundaried person.

[Anna Martin]

Huh?

[Casey Davis]

Like, if my mom discounts me, if she dismisses me, if she keeps doing it, I still had a boundary. Because the boundary was I'm not going to care more about taking care of feelings that don't belong to me than I am about taking care of feelings that do belong to me.

[Anna Martin]

Oh, I see what you're saying. It's like, I'm not gonna care so much about my mom's reaction to what I say. That's not my responsibility. That's where she begins. Yeah, I mean, it's. It. That makes sense to me. And then it's also, like, when you're describing this maybe more common understanding of boundaries, I picture, like, a wall. It's like, thou shalt not pass my boundary. You know, like it's, it's like I'm staking this line in the sand. That's the sort of maybe more common conception. What's a better way to think of, like, your understanding of boundaries? Kind of putting you on the metaphor.

[Casey Davis]

Air conditioning.

[Anna Martin]

Wow. You had it. Tell me what that means.

[Casey Davis]

Okay, so I used to work in drug rehabs. Yeah. And when I was an executive director, we'd have this, like, morning meeting, and everyone would come in, and they'd kind of give their little reports. And I would often get people come in, and they would report on something happened with the clients, and it would be, like, very urgent. Like, okay, this happened and this happened and this happened. And that kind of, like, anxiety is really contagious. So you can find yourself being like, okay, we got to get the mom on the phone. We got to get. They're saying they want to leave. They're saying.

[Anna Martin]

Right.

[Casey Davis]

And what I realized is that I used to have to tell my staff, like, when someone says something to you, the client's coming to you, and the client's treating this like it's urgent. Instead of just automatically adapting the level of urgency that someone is trying to give you about something. I said, I want you to envision that you have this, like, invisible barrier, and inside your barrier, you have a thermostat. And the thermostat is what dials up or down, like, the level of urgency and pan, like, don't look at how their thermos, like, how high their thermostat is set. Look objectively at what they're telling you. I'm out of my medication. I want to leave. This person has said this to me, whatever it is, Right? And then you decide what level of urgency you think is appropriate for this matter and set your own thermostat.

[Anna Martin]

You know, I, I, I want to talk about another idea that you also take issue with, similar to how you think about boundaries, which is this idea that you must love yourself before you can accept love from another person. That's something I feel that's been, like, ingrained in my psyche. I see it on Instagram all the time. Like, it sounds like it makes sense. So what's wrong with the idea that we must love ourselves before we're able to love someone else?

[Casey Davis]

So I wouldn't say there's anything wrong on its face, but, like, all therapeutic concepts that have made their way into pop psychology, in order for that to happen, it goes through, like, a memeification process where it gets really slimmed down, really simplified, and the truth in that message is that if I'm trying to fix my feelings of unworthiness by being loved by others, it won't work. Yeah, it doesn't work that way. But what that can sometimes become is this message that unless you can meet all of your emotional needs by yourself, unless you can repair all of your wounds, only when you have fixed your self esteem can you then be in a healthy relationship. And that's not true.

[Anna Martin]

It's a high bar. Yeah.

[Casey Davis]

And I mean, a lot of times we say like relationships. I think in the context that we're talking, we're often kind of referring to romantic relationships because those are the ones that we perceive as kind of being optional. But the truth is it's like you are in relationships. You may not be in a romantic relationship, but regardless of how healed you feel you are in relationship with people, you don't have to wait to be put together before you can enjoy, pursue, or, you know, be in a healthy way in a relationship.

[Anna Martin]

In a way. I think that so many modern love essays are about people figuring that out. Do you know what I mean? Like, realizing that they are deeply imperfect and yet they find this amazing love. Or like, I have this beautiful love. I can accept this beautiful love. I can give it. You're about to read a modern love essay for us that feels very resonant with the advice in your book. I can basically imagine the author having like a copy that's like dog eared and marked up on her nightstand. Before we get into you reading this essay, do you want to say anything to tee it up for us? Why you chose it, why it resonates.

[Casey Davis]

Yeah, I mean, I chose this essay because I could see myself as both of their therapists or just one of their therapists. And I could see clearly where, you know, they were kind of missing each other and how easily that happens. And it just, it's. It's a very kind of universal story if you look at what exactly is happening between them.

[Anna Martin]

We'll be right back.

[Casey Davis]

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[Anna Martin]

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[Casey Davis]

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[Anna Martin]

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[Casey Davis]

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[Anna Martin]

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[Casey Davis]

Is my husband a doormat? By Lydia Hieiye Nearly four years ago, at our home in Zadar, Croatia, during what had been no more than ordinary bickering, my husband yelled unimaginable words, you've been abusing me for 20 years. The fight had started the previous night. He had snapped at our daughters for being their usual rambunctious selves as they were getting ready for bed. I had been working at my laptop and his nervous tone tore through my focus, so I lashed right back at him, irked for having to concentrate again at that late hour. We lay in bed afterward with our backs to each other, only one of a handful of times we had done that in our 20 years together. I was annoyed but not worried. It was a stupid fight. He'd been under some stress. Tomorrow he would apologize and we would move on as we always did. He had been irritable for days because of an enneagram personality test I'd sent him a link for. When he came out of our room with his results, his face was ablaze, furious, which was odd. My husband is the calmest, most easygoing person I know. I'm a nine, he said with disdain. The peacemaker. That's great, I said, a bit envious. I was a four, the individualist, what seemed to me to be a frivolous and self serving type compared to the altruism and kindness of a peacemaker. I'm an official people pleaser, he said. My personality is a doormat. That whole day he brooded over his results and I found it hilarious. Who in their right mind gets upset about a pop psychology personality test? That's what I love most about you, I said. That you are understanding, collaborative, considerate. But he shook his head as if I didn't understand it, didn't understand him. And in the following days he grew increasingly irritable, bursting with annoyance when he had to take out the trash or when the children didn't line up like soldiers. The moment he barked orders to brush teeth or go to bed, it all came to a head in our fight when he spewed those words at me that I had been abusing him. When he said that, I laughed. The accusation was ludicrous. We were best friends, and throughout our relationship we had been helping each other work through our respective childhood wounds, and both strove to be the safe person for the other. Being accused of the very thing we had fought to overcome struck me like a bad joke. But after I laughed off his accusation, he persisted, and after I pushed back, he insisted. What seemed like years of pent up frustration gushed out of him. You're so controlling. He yelled. I can never go anywhere without you guilt tripping me. You always give me the evil eye when I say I'm going for a run or kite surfing. I can't do anything for myself without you resenting it. Everything I do has to be in service of you or the kids. Some of that might have been true earlier in our relationship, but it had been years since I had worked through my insecurities. Now I actually liked when he went kite surfing or running because he was happier, more relaxed afterwards, and I had no idea he begrudged all he was doing for our family. We were splitting the chores fairly. I thought. I cooked, he drove the children to activities, he took out the trash, I did the laundry. But now he was saying he felt like I was inflicting those chores on him, stripping him of his freedom. An old fear reared its ugly head. What if this was how my husband had always felt about me and our marriage? What if all this time he had felt subdued and oppressed and was only now finding a way to voice it? I was left dazed and speechless by shock and fear, and I took our car keys and left. For the longest time I paced the sea promenade in the westernmost part of our town, exasperated. From where I stood, I could see the boardwalk on the other side of the COVID Twenty years ago, while we were falling in love, we sat on that boardwalk as I told him about a fight I'd had with my parents. He listened but didn't offer solace or commiseration, which I thought was strange. When I asked him what his parents were like, he said, I'm lucky. My parents are great. Those words were jarring, not just because we were 18 and I had never met a teenager who liked their parents, but because there was something borderline insensitive about the eagerness with which he said it. Given my own distress, it took years for me to understand that he hadn't been rude or insensitive. He had only been working hard to convince himself of his own words. The truth about his parents slowly revealed itself to us over the first decade of our life together, often through their own words. His mother told me she hadn't planned to have him when she got pregnant, his older brother was 4 and his father was stationed away. She was struggling, so she made plans to have an abortion. His father intervened, but I sensed that she still had reservations. Perhaps there was a part of her that never fully accepted her son. Over the years, my husband told me stories from his childhood that he thought were normal but struck me as neglectful or that made him feel like a burden, like his mother not visiting him in the hospital when he was a toddler, or acting as though his lunch money for school was a big expense. My husband cut ties with his parents some years ago, but only after I grew upset at the way they treated me. I guess he hadn't deemed himself worth fighting for. He may have cut ties, but the feeling of being a burden remained. He was still censoring himself, making himself invisible by not asking for anything. It wasn't that I was controlling, it was that he was preemptively trimming his own wings before even asking for what he wanted or needed, and then resenting me for it. I came back home to find my husband sitting on the couch with his head in his hands. He looked at me, all the fight already drained from him. I'm sorry I took it all out on you, he said. You weren't abusing me. I can't believe I said that. That damn Enneagram. It really got into my head. He had been doing some reckoning of his own while I was away, and he realized why the Enneagram had triggered him so much. It hadn't shown him the person he was, but the person his childhood experiences had conditioned him to be. And there was a deep chasm between those two versions. After the Enneagram held that mirror up to him, he couldn't reconcile himself to it, but he also didn't know what to do about overwhelmed him completely. I thought that cutting ties was enough, he said. But there's still work. So much work. I know, I said, and held him the next time. The wind blew a constant 20 knots, the kind that's perfect for kite surfing. My husband grew antsy as usual, wired like a tightly coiled spring. Only now I understood the friction consuming him for wanting something and trying to talk himself out of it at the same time. The wind is great, he said, but it might rain today and the kids would need a ride to school. If I take the car, we'll make do, I said. You should go if you want to go. I gave him a meaningful look and and he contemplated it for a moment, along with my emphasis on the word want. I Want to go? He said finally, the words coming out loaded, almost cathartic. Then go. I said it was an awkward first time choreography, a dance we would have to learn to perfect over time. But with practice, it became easier for him to put his foot in the right place and for me to move where I was supposed to, out of his way. I recently asked him to take the Enneagram test again. He was reluctant, worried that he would be triggered the same way. But I insisted. It's so easy to miss even the most monumental transformations when they're made in baby steps. And something told me he wouldn't be disappointed with his results this time around. Later, he emerged with the widest smile and said, I'm a seven. I laughed. It figures. A seven. The enthusiast. Optimistic, fun, loving, and extroverted.

[Anna Martin]

When we come back, Casey Davis explains what this couple did right and how boundaries helped heal her own relationship with her dad. I'm Brian Rosenthal. I'm an investigative reporter at the New York Times. My dad is a scientist. My career has been devoted to scientific teaching and research. I remember growing up I didn't fully understand what he was doing every day. But now that I work as an investigative journalist, I do understand. So you have to start with facts. From those facts, a hypothesis appears, and then you work on trying to test that hypothesis. I do the same thing, obtaining documents, crunching the data, and I talk to as many people as possible to get to the bottom of the story. The New York Times does not publish until we can prove that something is true. The best scientists are able to do that deep work because they receive funding from their university or from the government. We as journalists depend on funding from subscribers. You can support that type of work by subscribing to the New York Times. Casey, wonderful job reading that essay. You know, when I asked you to read, when I teed it up, you said you could imagine yourself as both of these people's therapists, the author and also her husband. And I'm curious, having just read it, like, what would you say to both of them?

[Casey Davis]

Hmm. So, you know, when I, when I hear her husband's story, I am immediately sort of hearing their relationship in the context of a vulnerability cycle. And so it's this idea that within each of us, we have these particular sensitivities to things. And when we experience those sensitivities being activated, it often triggers us to become defensive. And so I see this cycle playing out with this couple because often our sensitivities are created in our early childhood moments. And so when we hear that his mother was neglectful when she acted like he was a burden. He developed a sensitivity around inconveniencing people, feeling like a burden. And part of his defense mechanism is to kind of overextend how he's paying attention to everyone else. So to be hyper vigilant, you know, so that when his wife kind of looks at him a certain way.

[Anna Martin]

Yeah, yeah.

[Casey Davis]

He's interpreting little movements of her eyes as. Okay, she's irritated that I did that.

[Anna Martin]

At the beginning of the essay. Yeah. She just looks at him. Well, she looks at him annoyed by her own admission. But, yeah, he. It's bigger for him.

[Casey Davis]

Yeah. When you hear him say things like, every time I go out, you give me the evil eye.

[Anna Martin]

Right.

[Casey Davis]

So it's easy for a couple to kind of fall into this, like, no, I don't. Yes, you do. No, I don't. Yes, you do. About the evil eye or whatever. Right. But when in reality, what's happening is that his defense mechanism is that I'm gonna become hypersensitive to when someone is irritated with me. I'm gonna make myself small so that they don't think I'm a burden. And, you know, in that way, that's how I'm gonna kind of move through life. Because if someone's upset with me, it means I'm a burden. And if I'm a burden, I'm unworthy and I'm not lovable. And kind of all those things left up from Mom. Right. And so part of what he's been doing in his marriage as this defense mechanism, like. And she nails it, right? She sees it off the bat, trimming his own wings. Well, I just won't go. It's kind of funny because it reminds me of a conversation I had with my husband one time where I was like, I want to go. You know, I forgot what it was. I want to go get my nails done on Thursday. And he was like, okay. I mean, I have something, but I need to move it. And I remember one time being like, I hate that you acted that it was, like, inconvenient of me to go get my nails done. And he looks at me and goes, it is. And he, like, didn't mean it in a mean way. He's like, but it. I mean, it is inconvenient.

[Anna Martin]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Casey Davis]

It doesn't mean that I'm not, like, willing to do it. It doesn't mean that I think you're doing anything wrong. It doesn't mean. And it was just wild for him to Say you're allowed to inconvenience me.

[Anna Martin]

Yeah, that's powerful.

[Casey Davis]

And I was like, oh, but just like the guy in this essay, I was interpreting. Well, I don't. Like, I'm not allowed to inconvenience.

[Anna Martin]

I mean, vulnerability cycle is a large part of your book. And you said it where, like, the author of this essay, she does a pretty remarkable job at realizing that they're caught in this cycle, like, diagnosing it as it were, working proactively to break that cycle. If a listener of someone is struggling within that cycle, trying to break out of it. When you find yourself in that kind of conflict, what are the questions you need to be asking yourself about your own behavior and your own responsibility in that cycle?

[Casey Davis]

Yeah. So this is really where, like, having an outside support system comes into play. Because we need to ask our, you know, our partner, our friend, whoever we're kind of talking to, like, really listen to how they're interpreting things. And then you're probably going to need to talk to someone else. Hey, they're interpreting it like X. Here's what I did and said, I'm interpreting, like, Y. And I wish there was, like, a real question to ask yourself, but truly it is more about pausing. This is where the boundaries come in. Because when she says, oh, he's not reacting to me. He is reacting to the story he tells himself about our relationship. He is reacting to some internal childhood wounds. That's boundaries. That's her being able to go, I understand where I end here and where your stuff begins.

[Anna Martin]

She does a really good job at that. I mean, that is what you're saying is she is being a boundaried person in the way that she works through this conflict with her husband.

[Casey Davis]

Not only is she being a boundary there, because if she were to stop there and go, so figure it out. This isn't about me. Get it together. I can't believe. Right. That would not be being boundary. Because boundaries aren't just about what am I responsible for. They're also about my responsibilities to you. And she knows that part of her responsibilities to her husband is to listen and to have empathy and to try and understand and to support. And that's how she's expressing that when she says, please go.

[Anna Martin]

Yeah, go, Kaiti, I want you to go. Yeah.

[Casey Davis]

She doesn't. It's okay. If she were to go. Yeah, I mean, you could. I was gonna go to the grocery store, but you know what? Go ahead like that. There would be nothing wrong with that reaction. And she's not obligated. To do something. But she is going, I wanna go one extra mile for you. I wanna act out of love and tenderness. Because I feel like I'm responsible for that. And I want you to hear me in this moment, and I want to help you. That's also boundaries, I wonder, like, moving.

[Anna Martin]

It outside of the experience of the author and her husband. And just sort of. Generally, if you're in a relationship where you acknowledge. You realize, like, something really has to change. How do you decide whether it's gonna be worth the effort? Clearly, in this essay, they make that choice. But let's say just, like, zoomed out.

[Casey Davis]

Yeah.

[Anna Martin]

How do you know if it's worth it to put in that work?

[Casey Davis]

It's a great question. And I think what's important is to remember that in any relationship we're in, the first step is always questioning the story that we are telling ourselves about what's going on. Like, we have these stories, right? And those stories trigger our own sensitivities and our own defense mechanisms and kind of make the whole thing worse. And so when we have sort of looked at our stories, challenged that maybe they're not quite accurate, and we have gone to the other person in the relationship and gone, okay, I've looked at this on my side. Here's where I think maybe I am reacting defensively. Here's where I think maybe I have some sensitivities. Here's where I think maybe those sensitivities are coming from. Here are some ways that you are behaving that's hurting me, you know? And ideally, both of you do that, or you at least invite the other person to do that. If they don't, that's when you have to start asking yourself, like, okay, like, how long do I fight for this?

[Anna Martin]

Has this kind of thing ever happened to you where you had to step back and say, like, what is the story I'm telling myself about this relationship?

[Casey Davis]

Yeah. Interestingly, the first time that happened was my dad. My dad and I had a really rocky relationship growing up. And he had some addiction problems. I had some addiction problems. And one of the earliest stories that I told myself. Cause my dad and mom had a really bad custody fight. And my dad fought for custody, even though I wanted to go with my mom. And my dad really struggled to show emotion. And so, you know, he was kind of cold in my mind. And so the story I told myself from a very young age is, my dad doesn't love me. He kept me to punish my mom, and he doesn't love me. And there were some real not okay behaviors around the addiction, but that was how I interpreted that for a long time. And I'll never forget, like, being in rehab at 16 and having a family session with my dad and me bringing this up like, my dad, you know, you just did this to whatever. And my sister. I have a half sister. We have the same dad. My sister pipes up and is like, that's not how that went down.

[Anna Martin]

Huh?

[Casey Davis]

And says, you know, dad swore he would never give up time with another child again. And he fought really hard because he didn't want to be a weekend dad. He wanted you to have a dad in your life. Now, that doesn't mean, oh, so all my feelings are invalid. And it was totally okay that there was addiction. Right. But in that moment, the story that I had about my dad's behavior changed again. It didn't make it okay that he wasn't emotionally available or that he was kind of an angry drunk sometimes, but something inside of me as an adult was able to heal a childhood sort of story. And it changed the way I interacted with my dad, because I'm no longer operating from this story of I'm not worthy and you didn't love me. I'm operating from a more adult story of you were broken in some ways, and you were deeply wounded in a lot of ways. And you didn't have skills that you didn't have, and you probably didn't have them because your parents didn't give them to you. And it's not an excuse or it doesn't make everything okay, but it's a very different kind of pain to grieve that childhood than it is to grieve that you weren't loved.

[Anna Martin]

Yeah. Can I ask, like, what is your relationship like with your dad now?

[Casey Davis]

So my dad and I are actually really close now.

[Anna Martin]

Amazing.

[Casey Davis]

My dad ended up getting sober and taking a lot of responsibility for childhood. But that didn't happen until after I had sort of challenged that story and had some boundaries around how I interacted with my dad. And, you know, I had to ask myself, you know, am I able to heal from these wounds in this relationship, or will it require me disengaging from this relationship to heal? And I was able to answer, and I was able to come to the conclusion that I could continue on a healing journey while in a relationship with my dad, but only because I recognized he might never change. But I'm. But I'm glad, and I'm so happy that we have a different relationship and we're very close today and but yeah, it all starts with sort of challenging that story.

[Anna Martin]

I am so happy for the two of you. That sounds hard won and difficult in a lot of ways and also very beautiful. Casey Davis, thank you so much for this conversation today.

[Casey Davis]

Thank you.

[Anna Martin]

This episode of Modern Love was produced by Reva Goldberg and Davis Land. It was edited by Lynn Levy, Gianna Palmer and our executive producer, Jen Poyant. Production management by Christina Josa. The Modern Love theme music is by Dan Powell. Original music in this episode by Sonia Herrero, Carol Sabaro, Dan Powell, Alicia bitub and Pat McCusker. This episode was mixed by Daniel Ramirez with studio support from Matty Masiello and Nick Pittman. Special thanks to Mihima Chablani, Nell Galogly and Jeffrey Miranda. And to our video team, Brooke Minters, Felice Leon, Michael Cordero and Sawyer Roquet. The Modern Love column is edited by Daniel Jones. Mia Lee is the editor of Modern Love projects. If you want to submit an essay or a tiny love story to the New York Times, we have the instructions in our show Notes. I'm Anna Martin. Thanks for listening.