When your partner shuts down in the middle of a hard conversation, it's easy to read it as punishment — as coldness, stubbornness, or not caring. What if that's almost never what's actually happening?
In this episode, Todd Creager — Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with 35 years of experience — takes a closer look at stonewalling, one of the patterns John and Julie Gottman identified as a serious warning sign in Relationships. Todd offers a different way to understand it, one rooted in Internal Family Systems (IFS) and the way protective parts of us learned to manage emotional danger long before our current relationship existed.
He explains that stonewalling isn't cruelty. It's a manager — a protective part that decided somewhere along the way that silence was safer than speech. That part didn't develop in response to your spouse. It developed in response to what happened much earlier: a child who was dismissed when they spoke up, shamed when they were vulnerable, or simply never had anyone attuned enough to make expression feel safe.
Todd walks through real examples from his practice, including the client who remembers being met with anger as a child for expressing a normal feeling — and the client who has no clear memories of meanness, only an absence of attunement. In both cases, the outcome was the same: the body learned to go quiet.
The shift Todd describes — from “why are you doing this to me?” to “what does that part of you need so we can come back to each other?” — is where real repair begins. Not just of the current conflict, but of older wounds the relationship has quietly been carrying.
If you or your partner stonewalls, this episode gives you a new framework for understanding what's actually happening, and a starting point for approaching it with less blame and more curiosity.
Listen now — and if this work is resonating, visit toddcreager.com to learn more about individual and couples Therapy, or explore his self-guided programs.
If this episode resonates with you, please share it with someone who could benefit and leave a review. Your support helps us reach more couples who are ready to transform their lives.
Check out my complete program “From Bickering & Escalating to Connecting & Loving” for more in-depth guidance: https://www.toddcreagertraining.com/loving-connecting-masterclass
Todd Creager, LCSW, LMFT
Todd is a sex expert and therapist in Huntington Beach. He provides relationship Coaching to couples throughout the world and in Orange County including Irvine, Newport Beach, Corona del Mar, Laguna Beach, Seal Beach and Long Beach. (714) 848-2288.
You can find more tips and resources from Todd Creager at: https://toddcreager.com
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