Life can hand us a lot of lemons, and of course, you hear the whole "just gotta make lemonade out of it." But what if there are just too many lemons to make that lemonade, or you don't like lemonade at all? Today we're talking about how to navigate the storms that life brings when it's all piling up at the same time, and how to work through your relationship so it can handle what's coming. Today is a Dear Katie episode, and I'm going to be answering one of your questions, and specifically, a couple who's going through a lot. So, get yourself a warm drink and let's dive in!

Welcome to Relationship Reset: Reignite, Reconnect, Rebuild, the podcast for high-achieving couples who want to transform their relationship from surviving to thriving. I'm Katie Rössler, a relationship coach and counselor with over 15 years of experience helping busy, overwhelmed couples rebuild connection, trust, and intimacy. If you've been together for years and feel stuck on autopilot, disconnected, and frustrated by constant miscommunication, you're in the right place. Each week we'll explore practical tools, relatable stories, and strategies to help you reignite the spark, rebuild your bond, and create the relationship you've always dreamed of. Because no matter how long you've been together, it's never too late to hit reset. Let's dive in!

So, here's the letter I received:

"Dear Katie,

My husband and I have been married for 12 years, together for 17. We have four kids who are 10 and under, including one who has brain cancer. To say we're 'in it' right now is an understatement. We work really well as a team when it comes to the logistics of our family. I would say we're happily married, but there's a ton of room for improvement, because we do drive each other crazy, and I can't help but feel like life could be so much better if we just stopped fighting about stupid crap all the time. I realise this is going to sound really one-sided, but I wanted to get your take on it, so hopefully you can shed some light on a few things for me.

My biggest issue in my relationship is that we have the same fights over and over. I don't get nights out (because: four kids), so I like to have wine at home. We used to drink together, but now it's rare. He makes me feel terrible if I have a couple glasses of wine to unwind at the end of the day, and I'm a rebel at heart, so I just subconsciously say, 'Screw you, I'll do what I want.' But I do find I avoid it, or even have to hide it sometimes, to avoid the fight about whether it was 'necessary' today. Keep in mind I'm not getting smashed; that's rare and would be on a night out. Also, he sees so much on Instagram about health that it almost chokes him. Too much advice from too many people; no one can possibly follow that head-spinning information on a daily basis. He's the kind of guy who wants to be the best version of himself at all times (or at least he thinks he does), and I just think that theory is crazy.

He's also very critical of me, including with parenting, what I feed the kids, screen time. Comes down on me when I don't do something I said I would do (which is almost always, because I had 300 other things to do and either didn't get to it, or forgot, or changed my mind for some reason between when we had a conversation about something and when it actually happens). I'm in the trenches every day with them, so I have to be able to make game-time decisions, period. He gets mad at me for not listening to him. (Kids interrupt me a lot when we're talking, especially for standing in the kitchen, and of course they never ask him for help with whatever, or a snack, and I respond to them so I can keep them moving along, so that we can just keep talking.) He doesn't see it that way; he thinks I don't value him. It's just a knee-jerk reaction to me, I just respond to them. He honestly gets so offended and mad. I feel like I'm walking on eggshells in our relationship a lot, and the kids can tell. When he's away for a week, we have so much fun, we feel free, and I hate that he doesn't get to share in that feeling with us. But sometimes he feels like a dark storm cloud hanging over us with all his rules and expectations.

He does work so hard for our family and does a ton for the kids every day, so it's not like he's a total jerk, just saying there's room for improvement. This creates a ton of tension between us, and I hate it. I just feel like life would be so much happier if we didn't have these issues constantly coming up. Like, lighten up, dude! We have such a good life. I just wish he could see that I'm awesome, let me be myself, and chill out! I live in the gray area, I thrive there, whereas he needs black and white to make him feel like he can breathe. I can't breathe in the black and white zone, hence the issues. Please help!

Xoxo, Love in the Gray Area"

Okay, so, Love in the Gray Area, let's start off with the fact that you led this letter with, "I have 4 kids, and one of them has brain cancer." When I talked at the beginning of this episode, I talked about when life throws you a whole bunch of lemons. Little kids are not bad, but when you have many kids who are 10 and under, and one of them has brain cancer, right? A health issue that is impacting their life on a daily basis? This is a lot. So, we're going to be talking today a lot about grief, a lot about communication, a lot about control — and not people trying to control each other, but just trying to control life, because there are a lot of factors that can't be controlled, and how those things can negatively impact the relationship. Let's start with grief, okay?

So, when we talk about grief on this podcast, I want you to just know I'm not talking about the fact that someone died, and then we have the experience of loss, which we tend to relate to grief. Grief, in my definition, is when we let go of the way we thought life would or should go. If you've been following me a while, then you know that I have a book called "The New Face of Grief." I'll make sure it's linked in the show notes, but it talks about how we experience grief throughout our lives for various reasons, not just because someone died, but also when life doesn't go the way we thought it would. And frankly, when we become parents, we do not imagine our child having such a difficult health issue as brain cancer, right? That's not what we envisioned parenthood to be like, or having a child. And you have four, and one of them has brain cancer. They're all 10 and under. So, on top of the fact that you have a child with a health issue, you also have young children. Young children who throw temper tantrums, young children who are learning to master different skills, young children who are probably very active and doing lots of things.

So, Love in the Gray Zone, I don't know what your grief process has been, but what I can tell by the problems you and your partner are having, that you both handle the grief experience differently. Your personalities are different. One of you likes to have more control over the situation that they're in, and one of you is much more flexible and adaptable to what comes. When we experience grief differently, when we experience challenges differently, we can clash, we can get so frustrated and upset. But the problem becomes when we are insecure about how we handle our grief. If you choose to have a glass of wine at the end of the night for whatever reason — stressful day, you enjoy it with the food, whatever it is — I'm not relating this to a grief response, but if it is part of your grief response of, "I am not happy, this is not what I wanted life to be like," then that is your grief response, right? Your partner, who might deal with grief by trying to control what they can — you know, what he is able to control — then he might be hyper-vigilant around health, especially given the fact that you have a child with a health condition. It makes total sense. But this clashing is what's causing the issue, right? We experience life challenges and grief differently, and until you sit down and have that conversation about, "This is how I do it, and this is how you do it," and being very honest and taking ownership for what your needs are in the grief process — from each other, from yourself. And that might mean, "I need you to accept me as I am, and what I choose to do, you may not agree with it, and you may desire for me to be greater and better, but I need you to meet me where I am."

I think we all have a desire to see our partner be the best version of themselves, not only for them, but also to help us, because we want to be with that version of them. We can see it; we are able to see someone's greatness way more than we can see our own greatness. And he's able to see your greatness. He is able to see what you could be, and what you probably show glimpses of at times, and that's what he's really holding onto when he gets frustrated that you don't hit that mark. But we are human. And when you are taking care of four kids, 10 and under, and one with a major health condition, it is going to be very hard for you to consistently show up in a certain way and to be able to handle all of that stress. Compounded stress over time impacts our sleep. It impacts our physical health by how we eat, what we're able to eat, how we digest food. It impacts our memory; we tend to have short-term memory issues, even long-term memory issues. Compounded stress over time is basically — we have been in fight-or-flight mode without much of a break, and when that happens, slowly we start to have some long-term issues. So, I can imagine on the outside, he is trying to protect you from that, but the way he's going about it makes you feel controlled. And again, here you are, kind of that butterfly. "I just want to be able to fly however I want, wherever I want, in whatever direction, and it may not make sense to anyone else, but I get to the next flower." Then you're going to feel trapped when he wants you to do it a certain way.

So, start with a conversation about how the two of you handle challenges and how you guys can start to meet each other eye to eye where you are, versus have expectations and get upset when the other person doesn't meet it. Because your Dear Katie letter is also saying, "I want him to change, I want him to be different, I want him to accept me as I am, but I also need him to, like, lay off and calm down and be less controlling." But that's who he is. So, how can we meet him where he is in his own process?

The second is around communication. So, how the two of you guys are able to connect and communicate now. It's not clear in the letter, but I'm going to guess, again, young kids — it may be difficult to even have the energy and the time at the end of the day to have a good conversation. And then on the weekends, I'm imagining, 'cause I have three kids 10 and under, that it's kind of hard to have those good conversations as well, depending on what type of help you have, or childcare. You might be limited in the time that you can actually talk. And I find couples who are in this level of stress on a daily basis — they tend to do great when the kids are not around. They have, like, a really good, solid foundation, connect, they're able to laugh and enjoy time together. But bringing in the stress of kids and all of the things that brings is what's impacting their relationship. The extra stress is what is breaking down, sometimes, the foundation of the relationship. There's trust being broken, respect issues are occurring, and their communication is really starting to fall apart.

So, the second thing I want you guys to be thinking about is, how can we start to communicate more effectively to each other, and not from a place of shame, guilt, and control? How can we get curious and ask questions about what was meant by what was said? What happened today that led to it, so you weren't able to follow through with the thing you wanted to do? "Let me better understand," versus "You prove it to me." "I really want to know so that I can let go of my own frustration." When we can come from a place of curiosity, our communication improves. When we can come from a place of, "How can I better support you?" our communication improves.

So, if you were working with me, we would have some serious discussions about your personality differences that are showing up and that are clashing in the moments of stress (which are often), and how you guys can communicate differently. How his frustrations don't have to become a shame or guilt spiral for you, a feeling like you're failing. How, when he wants things to be a certain way, he's able to honour and respect that it doesn't have to go his way, and that he's able to sit with that uncomfortability. Right? For many of us who are parents, when we see our partner doing things differently than what we want them to, or maybe that we thought we agreed to do, we get, I'll be honest, into micromanaging mode, and we want to control how they're doing things. But every parent has their own journey in parenthood with each child that they have, and we have to honour and respect that. We cannot control every little detail of what they do. And often when we're trying to do that, it's out of a fear-based place. "I'm afraid if you feed the kids this, this will happen over time." "I'm afraid if you get angry at the kids about this, they're going to have a complex later in life." If we try to prevent everything from happening, we are going to affect the relationship with our child and affect the relationship with our partner.

So, I think this is a piece where having a good conversation about, "Yes, you have really great intentions, but your delivery in sharing your disappointment, your delivery in sharing, you know, what you would like to see different, can become upsetting to me, can affect me, and here's the ways I would be open to you sharing those things, and here's what I need from you — some trust in me as a parent, some understanding and some grace that there might have been a difficult day or difficult situation, and I'm not, quote, 'dropping the ball' purposely, actively to affect you, to negatively impact our kids long-term. There is a reason why I've had to change and shift things." And I think there needs to be some ownership that often, when we are in extreme stress on repeat, that we will take the easy way out. Yes, of course! Yes, I'm going to feed them that! Yes, I'm going to show them that! Yes, I'm going to have them do those things because it will make my life easier in this moment! Our partner doesn't have to like that, but taking ownership for it will often decrease the argument, because we're at least acknowledging, "Yeah, I did do that. There's a reason. You may not agree with it or like it, but there is a reason, and I stand by it."

The third piece here is control around expectations, which we just kind of talked about with communication, but a key piece is that your partner seems to really thrive with, as you said, the "black and white," but more, it's around controlling our environment in the ways that help us feel safe, to feel comfortable, to feel a sense of understanding. And I can imagine, having a child with brain cancer, there's a lot where we don't feel safe, in control, or understanding what's going on. So, the things that we can control, the things that we can hold onto, some of us will do that even more. Some of us will let go even further, some of us will hold on even more. So, talking with your husband about, "Hey, what are realistic expectations in this season of our lives? And if you have different expectations than me, what are the ones you're willing to let go of during this season? What are the ones you're willing to adjust?" Because if you're the one who's taking care of the kids more than he is, which it sounds like based off of your letter, then you really are the primary, and that can be absolutely infuriating for the support partner, right? They're like, "But I want things done differently!" But they're not around, and maybe they want to be around more, but they can't be, so it's even more of a pain point. But it doesn't mean it's your responsibility to fix that for them.

So, I would recommend not even committing to expectations that you could see are unrealistic. We all have an ideal scenario of how we want things to go, but life has handed you many lemons. So, realistically, in this time of compounded stress, what can be achieved? What can you actually fulfill? And with that, then you start to create things where he feels a sense of control and understanding, and to have expectations that can be met. And then over time, you guys can work towards increasing those. But you both have to agree on the expectations.

Now, I totally get it. There are those times where we agree with a partner, "Yeah, that would be better. Yes, it'd be great if I didn't give them this, or do this," but it isn't realistic, and we know, at the end of the day and in the back of our minds, "I'm probably going to do that thing." So, it's better that you guys have some honest, open conversations about that, where you say, "I know your desire is for XYZ, but ABC

is what I'm able to fulfill right now. Now, hopefully in a year, when they're older, I can do these things. So, where is the middle ground for us? Where are the areas where you can feel comfortable with how I do things, and be able to let go of how I don't do things?"

I think we often take control — that our partner tends to, like, seem to admit, like, "I have a desire for control, I need to control these things" — as something about us. And I can tell from your letter there's this sense of, you know, like, "Let me be," right? The rebelliousness, "I just want to be me, leave me alone." And you have a desire for freedom, but it sounds like he has a desire for freedom too, it just will look differently than yours. So, being able to have a conversation around, "Hey, I get that you're not trying to control me, you want us to have a better life, which allows for more freedom. We're in this season of our lives, and freedom looks like XYZ for me. How, again, do we start to find that middle ground?" It's not that he's trying to control you, as much as it feels, right? Like, "I feel like a caged animal," like, again, that butterfly, "I feel like I'm a caged butterfly." No. I think, based off of what you wrote, that there is a desire for greatness in a season where it is really hard to get there, and you are doing the best you can, both of you. It's wonderful to have dreams and aspirations, but it will always feel defeating if we don't feel like we're getting anywhere close to them because of the season of life we're in.

So, I always tell couples, "What can be adjusted? How can we start to look at realistic expectations that are healthy in this season of our lives, knowing that we have a desire, in five years from now, to get to that higher level?" If you can remove the sense of, "He's trying to control these things about me," right? "If I have the drink, or how I parent, or whatever it might be," and to understand it through the framework of, "He has a desire for greatness, like he said, and it's hard for him to reconcile that with how our lives are, like, there's just — there isn't one, so it's like it's one or the other," and to find a way to honour your desire for freedom without getting in the guilt spiral, 'cause I could tell through the lines of what you're writing there's a guilt spiral there of, "I'm not doing well enough, I wish you just thought I was awesome and cool, look how amazing I am." I'm pretty sure he probably already thinks these things if I sat down and just asked him, but if I got into the nitty-gritty of decisions you make, or how he trusts you, that's where we would see this, that's why you're picking up on it. And often, when we are feeling it to the magnitude that we are, and it's impacting us, that's our unfinished business from our own childhoods. Whether it be how we were parented, or how teachers were with us, or coaches — there's usually someone, or others in our life, that have impacted us around our unfinished business. And it seems like part of your unfinished business is around this need for freedom. "I want to be the butterfly that can flutter around and go wherever I want, allow me to be that," okay? But how do you do that in the context of four kids, and one with brain cancer? That's a challenge.

So, you, as well, have to sit down and say, "Where is freedom in my life right now? And what are the things I'm willing to have be a little more organised and planned and have a trajectory for, instead of me just kind of winging it?" And I'll share with you: often, couples have these personality differences you're describing. There's usually one that's much more free-spirited. If you're, like, enneagram, Myers-Briggs, this would be the person who has the P personality — perceiving, you know? They're the ones that are, like, packing last-minute, much more, "Come with me, let's just go with the flow, let's see what happens." And then there's a J personality type, which is judging, and this person needs more deadlines, control. These are the things that are expected of me, I will fulfill those things, right? Like, they're just very clear on that. That's just personality differences, and again, we attract the opposite in many ways with that. You probably fell in love with each other for some of these qualities. Like, I — I joke with couples often who have this difference, and I'm like, "I bet you loved how free-spirited he or she was, and like, they were just so easy and go-with-the-flow, and so adaptable, and, like, up for anything." And they're like — they laugh, they're like, "Yeah, like..." Now you can't stand it because they're not planning, they're not organised, they don't know what they want to do next, and, like, yep. We loved these qualities about our partners at one point, and now they can drive us insane.

So, we have to remember that there are positives about every personality type, there are positives about it. We are probably clashing on the negative. So, how do we start to look at them through the lens of those positives again, and see what they can bring to the table with that? And what are our expectations that are unrealistic of them, because we're thinking, "Well, you could be so much better if you would be this way," and it's just not realistic they're going to be that way, 'cause that's not their temperament, that's not their personality.

So, hopefully I've given you some good questions and conversation topics for the two of you to have in the coming weeks to get on the same page about some of these things. And maybe you've tried some of these conversations already, but I really think I would discuss it through the lens of your personality differences, some of your own personal things that are coming up in the relationship from your own past, and also, how is grief impacting your day-to-day? How is the fact that there are a lot of things you can't control impacting how you're living your lives, and how differently you live those lives, but how you come together every day to live a life together.

So, Love in the Gray Zone, all of these lemons you're experiencing, you can make some lemonade, but you also can just say, "There's just a lot of lemons here. How do we navigate that, and how do we do it together, so we're a team, rather than feeling we're kind of at each other's throats, or I feel like you're constantly watching me, and I'm frustrated by you." And a big key for anyone who is going through challenges like this is to find the humour in what's going on. And why do I say that? It's not to laugh everything off, but it is to be able to shift our brains from holding one negative emotion into, "Okay, I can see the lighter-sided things, so then I can relax a little bit more." That might help your partner, because often, when somebody feels a lot of that control, and it's kind of focused on how things could be negative or bad, they need light-heartedness, which it sounds like you bring to the table. So, helping them laugh, helping them feel a sense of — the pressure cooker is, you know, being released a little bit at a time, the steam is coming off — will help them a lot.

Okay, Love in the Gray Zone, those are my thoughts. I hope this supports you and your partner. I'd love to hear if it helped or not. And for those of you listening, if you're going through a challenging season like this, or if you have thoughts for Love in the Gray Zone, go ahead and email me: it's katie@katierossler.com , and let me know. And to us all, we have to remember relationships are 50/50. It isn't all just one-sided, that one of us is the problem. We bring things to the table too, and the more we're able to look and take ownership of what we both are doing, the faster change and growth can happen in our relationship.

Okay, that's what I have for you today. If you would like to submit a Dear Katie question, look in the show notes below for all that information about how to do so, and I can't wait to see you next week!

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