Why Men Can't Access Their Feelings — And What It's Doing to Your Relationship | ft. Dr. Gloria Vanderhorst

Here's something nobody told you: boys come into the world with a broader range of emotional expression than girls do. And then we spend the next 18 years systematically shutting it down.

In this episode of Between the Sheets with Dr. Z, Dr. Stephanie Zwonitzer, DNP sits down with Dr. Gloria Vanderhorst — psychotherapist with over 50 years of experience and author of Read, Reflect, Respond: The Three Rs of Growth and Change — for a conversation that reframes everything you thought you knew about men and emotions. Dr. Vanderhorst has spent decades working with boys from preschool through adulthood and has watched the same pattern play out: a child with a full emotional range gets shamed, shut down, and trained out of vulnerability. Then he grows up, gets married, and his partner wonders why he won't open up.

The answer isn't that he can't. It's that we taught him not to.

What you'll learn in this episode:

• Why boys are born more emotionally expressive than girls — and what happens to that capacity over time
• How shame and social conditioning box away emotions without erasing them — and why that means it's never too late
• The free feelings word list Dr. Vanderhorst swears by — and exactly where to put it in your house so it actually gets used
• Why women say they want emotionally available men, then unconsciously shut them down when they try
• The car, the dark room, and the bedtime cuddle — why side-by-side conversations unlock what face-to-face conversations can't
• How unexpressed emotion ends up stored in the body as physical pain and illness
• Why men's deepest friendships often involve zero emotional vulnerability — and what that costs them
• The connection between emotional intelligence and problem-solving that most people never make
• When to stop trying to fix it yourself and get outside help — and why earlier is always better

Dr. Vanderhorst's free feelings word list and blog resources are available at drvandherhorst.com. Her book Read, Reflect, Respond is available on Amazon and at bookstores everywhere.

📅 Hormonal shifts affecting mood, connection, or desire in your relationship? We can help. Book a consult at reviveish.com

Work with Dr. Stephanie

www.reviveish.com
info@reviveish.com

Episode is sponsored by Boston Scientific and EDCure. For more information click here:
www.EDCure.com/BTS 

Connect with Between the Sheets:

IG: @ReviveISH

Email: podcastbetweenthesheets@gmail.com

#podmatch

Want to be a guest on Between the Sheets: Exploring Sexual Health & Wellness? Send Stephanie a message on PodMatch here: https://podmatch.com/hostdetailpreviews/btswithdrz

Transcript

Stephanie Zwonitzer (00:01.102)
Hey guys, welcome back to Between the Sheets. I am so happy that you joined us this week. We have Gloria VanderHorse here with us today who is a psychotherapist. She has over 50 years of experience working with preschoolers through adults in her dynamic psychology practice. Her current focus is on the emotional development of men and boys and how culture robs men of access to the full range of emotions, leaving them handicapped. She is the author of a New York Times bestselling book called Read, Reflect, Respond, the three Rs of

and change. Gloria, welcome. Thank you so much for being here with us today.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (00:35.528)
Thank you, Stephanie. I'm glad to have this opportunity to talk with you.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (00:39.04)
Yeah, absolutely. So tell me how this kind of came to be your focus. How did you realize that this was what men really need help with?

GLORIA Vanderhorst (00:49.746)
So I've been educated by boys and men. When I started my private practice, I had a friend who ran a preschool. And preschools are, by and large, in the United States run by women. And the little boys in the preschool tend to have more energy, they're more fidgety, they move around more. And so they get referred out for evaluations.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (00:53.697)
Mm-hmm.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (01:04.856)
Mm-hmm.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (01:12.866)
Yep.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (01:18.28)
to identify whether they have a problem, do they have attention deficit disorder. So I started my practice with evaluating preschool boys and they educated me. I've learned a lot by working with these preschool boys. Many of them who were referred really didn't have a problem. They were just normal.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (01:18.615)
Yep.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (01:22.626)
Mm-hmm.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (01:29.804)
Okay.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (01:34.124)
Yeah.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (01:45.57)
Mm-hmm.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (01:47.186)
healthy boys. But in the context of a female environment, they stood out, right? They like to move. They like to fidget. They're busy and their bodies are active, much more active than the little girl's body. And so I learned a lot about what it means to be a boy in this culture.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (01:56.526)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (02:02.541)
Mm-hmm.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (02:13.763)
Mm-hmm.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (02:15.751)
And then they educated me about the full range of emotion that they are capable of. We've done as psychologists, we've done a lot of research on emotional development, but the research has not been translated into the popular literature. It's not well known that boys come into the world

Stephanie Zwonitzer (02:32.078)
Mm-hmm.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (02:39.694)
Mm. Yeah.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (02:44.699)
with a broader range of emotional expression than girls do. Now that's a shocking piece of information, right? It's just mind blowing, right? Boys can be more intense on the positive end. They get more excited, more exuberant, more expressive, and they can be more agitated on the negative end.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (02:49.262)
Interesting. Yeah. Yeah, it really is. Yeah.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (03:14.791)
I didn't know that, right? In all of my studies and education, no one had ever pointed that out. And so when I started to work with preschool boys, I started to dig into the research about what is it that makes little boys so different?

Stephanie Zwonitzer (03:17.527)
Yeah.

Great.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (03:24.406)
Mm-hmm.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (03:36.128)
Yeah, it's so interesting as you're talking here. I'm picturing my life with my own son. and exactly what you're saying, he had female preschool teachers, female teachers, and his preschool teachers were actually phenomenal. I won't discredit them because they totally played with his. But yeah, but his

GLORIA Vanderhorst (03:42.31)
Yeah.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (03:51.425)
spare, lovely people.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (03:56.456)
I was called into the principal's office so many times, so many times for my son goofing off and throwing pencils and doing silly things and all of these things. And it wasn't until just now when you said this, his male teacher, and I think it was fourth grade, gave him the bounce, the ball that you can sit on, gave him fidget things, gave him a board to put around him when they needed to take a test, those kinds of things. And you're right, it was the male teacher that saw that. That's so interesting.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (03:59.592)
Thank

Really? yeah!

GLORIA Vanderhorst (04:16.23)
Right.

Right.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (04:23.405)
It was there.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (04:27.702)
Yeah and and he's a very successful young man now, but school is not built for little wiggly boys.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (04:31.463)
And I have my, yeah, well, I have my own story and it's not about a wiggly boy, it's about an adventurous little girl who is my granddaughter, but she had a male preschool teacher and they were doing finger paints, right? So they have this paper and they're, you know, doing the paints on the paper. Well, she started to move off the paper onto the table. She's finger painting the table.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (04:47.256)
Mm-hmm.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (05:01.541)
And then she's finger painting the leg of the table. This guy took his phone out and videotaped her. He never stopped her, right? Never chastised her at all. He was just amazed and he videotaped her, right? But if it had been a female teacher, she would have been confined, right? It would have been stay on the paper, right? We don't want paid on the table.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (05:11.714)
Yeah.

Right.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (05:20.93)
Yeah.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (05:24.939)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (05:30.811)
So there's a huge difference between the attitude that a woman has teaching and a man has teaching. The man, because he has his own range of emotional expression, which runs broader, is more tolerant, right? More willing to experiment. So I did talk with someone a few weeks ago.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (05:54.658)
Mm-hmm.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (05:58.995)
who I believe was a preschool teacher in Sweden. And they're required to have both a male and a female teacher in the classroom. And I thought, that's brilliant. All right, why not? Right? Have a male model, a female model, and team them together in the classroom. I think it would make a huge difference for the education of boys.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (06:05.944)
Mm-hmm.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (06:10.254)
Hmm.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (06:14.828)
Yeah, makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Yes.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (06:26.924)
Yeah. Yeah.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (06:28.104)
I would love to see many changes in the way that we run preschools. I say we should put a tree in every preschool so the boys can climb the tree and listen to this story.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (06:38.198)
yeah yes yes no i do i remember my son's preschool teacher shout out miss susie sometimes she listens she was fabulous with him specifically because of his extra energy and and he was such a good kid like he hated being in trouble he hated you know all those things

But he just had, like you said, this extra energy and he needed ways to get it out and she worked very well with him. And then again, when he was a little bit older and he had the meal teacher. But yeah, it's so interesting to point that out. I hadn't looked at it from that perspective. I just knew he was my silly wiggly boy. And you know, and my daughter didn't get called to the prince. I didn't get called to the principal officer for her.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (07:05.992)
Right?

GLORIA Vanderhorst (07:24.434)
That's right. That's right. And it's because of that natural capability to have a broader range of emotional expression. So we need to educate the population that that's true of boys so that we expect it. But the other thing that we need to do is that we need to give boys

Stephanie Zwonitzer (07:32.835)
Yeah.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (07:37.09)
Mm-hmm.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (07:40.642)
Yeah.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (07:46.371)
Yeah.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (07:52.457)
access to that full range when they're interacting with their friends. We tell boys not to cry. And that is ridiculous, right? You're playing on the playground, you get elbowed out of the way, so you know, get out of line. And you naturally are going to tear up and

Stephanie Zwonitzer (07:55.256)
Mm-hmm.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (08:01.374)
huh.

Yep. Yep.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (08:11.318)
Mm-hmm. Yeah!

Stephanie Zwonitzer (08:20.331)
Mm-hmm.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (08:21.404)
That's a healthy reaction to being shoved out of line. It's a really healthy reaction. We need to legitimize that reaction for boys as well as for girls.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (08:26.616)
Yeah.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (08:35.316)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, so as parents listening, most of our demographic here is older, know, middle-aged, older, you know, adults on this podcast. So we can certainly take what you're saying and help our kids. How do we help the men who went through this and are now in adult relationships and maybe not tapped into those emotions because they've been told their whole lives that we have to dampen that down?

GLORIA Vanderhorst (09:02.778)
Right, here's the good news, right? You never lose access to those feeling states, right? They get blocked, right? They get boxed away in your brain, but your brain still has the capability of finding all of those feeling states. So one of the things that I have on my website that's very helpful that

Stephanie Zwonitzer (09:10.881)
Okay.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (09:30.575)
anybody can download for free is a list of feeling words. This is probably three pages long, three or four columns of words on each page. mean, it's a ton of feeling words. And the marvelous thing about the human brain, even though as a male you've been shut down and completely told that you can't

Stephanie Zwonitzer (09:35.502)
Mm.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (09:43.297)
Yeah.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (09:57.825)
access feelings on this softer end of the continuum. If you have access to a list of feeling words, your brain will recognize that feeling immediately. So you can expand your feeling vocabulary just by using that list of words. I've had families, I say print it out, put a copy on the kitchen table,

put a copy in the area where you all socialize and watch television and put a copy in the bedroom. Right? So that you have easy access at any point in time when a boy or a girl, but typically boys are the ones that have a hard time accessing their feeling states. So if they're struggling to figure out what am I feeling in this moment, your brain,

Stephanie Zwonitzer (10:31.682)
Yeah. Yep.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (10:56.178)
will find it. Just scan through those words and it will just pop off the page. Your brain will find it and in that way you're expanding your own feeling vocabulary. So that's one of the things that I would say to every man that I work with. right. Print this out. Put it in places that you can easily access. Put one on your desk or in your drawer at work.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (10:57.559)
Okay.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (11:07.886)
Yeah.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (11:14.21)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I mean that makes total sense.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (11:24.762)
so that you can expand your own feeling vocabulary. The good news is that your brain still knows all those feelings, can find them for you, but the teacher has told you not to unlock that, not to access those feelings.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (11:34.602)
Yeah. Well, yeah, absolutely.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (11:42.188)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, and just by identifying it and feeling what they feel in that moment, they can maybe communicate to their partner or if it's one of the boys communicating to their parents about, in my body right now, I feel irritable. And what that means to me is my heart is racing and I don't want to talk right now. I don't want to, you know, and it kind of gives them that vocabulary to understand what their body is feeling with that word that their brain was like, that's what it is. And then they can absorb that and feel that.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (11:49.456)
Okay.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (12:02.31)
Right.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (12:11.538)
Right.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (12:15.21)
time they can say hey I'm irritable today.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (12:17.67)
Right, yeah, it gives you agency, right? We all want that as human beings, right? We want to be in charge. We want to know ourselves. It gives you agency to expand your feeling vocabulary.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (12:20.599)
Yeah.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (12:24.13)
That's amazing.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (12:28.835)
Yeah.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (12:33.27)
Yeah and I love that you're saying that the brain doesn't forget this. I think that's so amazing and now how does that work with because we all hear about that's from your childhood trauma. So how does that kind of connect with we didn't know this word meant this. We see it on a sheet and our brain tells us this is what you're feeling right now. Is that generally associated with things that happened in in a childhood? Okay.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (12:37.201)
it.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (12:43.505)
Okay.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (12:53.394)
this.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (12:58.714)
absolutely. Absolutely. Right, so.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (13:02.594)
How does that really work? Can you give me an example?

GLORIA Vanderhorst (13:05.37)
Yeah, so it's a marvelous process, right? So in early childhood, if you have been shamed for having soft or tender feelings, so it's normal, it's natural, right? For boys and girls to have soft or tender feelings. If you've been shamed for having a tender

Stephanie Zwonitzer (13:11.351)
Okay.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (13:34.759)
moment then that's traumatic for you. All right because we want to be attached to the people in our family. All right that's our initial point of safety and we build from safety into building deeper relationships. So we value the feedback

Stephanie Zwonitzer (13:59.778)
Mm-hmm.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (14:03.336)
from the adults around us. So when we get shamed, we learn immediately not to go into that feeling state because it disconnects me from the people around me. many people have an extremely narrowed range of emotional expression because they've been teased or they've been shamed or they've been ignored.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (14:19.224)
Mm-hmm.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (14:33.256)
Good news is all of that is still accessible to you. You just have to find the right pathway. The feeling sheet is an option. Using my book is an option. And putting yourself into therapy is also an excellent option. But it's entirely possible to recapture the full range of emotional expression.

and to be able to do a better job of problem solving. Men have a hard time solving emotional problems, right? The divorce rate is 50%, right? That's because men and women are not communicating with each other, right?

Stephanie Zwonitzer (15:05.326)
okay.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (15:13.794)
Mm-hmm.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (15:22.03)
Yes, yeah well and it goes back to a lot of times we'll have conversations where the woman is such a stereotypical thing but it's real. The woman's telling her feelings and you know kind of venting to her male partner and he wants to fix and so he's not listening to the emotional side of it. That's all she wants is support for the emotional side and he's like well have you thought about this? Have you tried this? Have you? And they go into fix-it mode because they don't tap into that emotional part.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (15:38.384)
Thank

GLORIA Vanderhorst (15:45.766)
Right. Right.

That's right. That's right. And we've trained them not to tap into that. All right. And then that leads to conflicts. Those conflicts lead to divorce. And the worst case scenario is violence. You if you look at our jails, they're full of men. They're not full of women. They're full of men. All right. And I think this is the reason they're full of men is that they never learn to

Stephanie Zwonitzer (15:54.038)
Mm-hmm.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (16:07.842)
Yeah. Right? Yeah.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (16:19.672)
express the full range of emotions. So you can't do good problem solving if you can't identify your feeling states. We're feeling individuals, right?

Stephanie Zwonitzer (16:32.416)
Yeah, that's interesting. I've never connected your ability to be emotionally intelligent and work with feelings to problem solving.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (16:41.926)
Right. You have to be able to connect those. I have to be able to identify what I'm experiencing in the moment emotionally and cognitively so that I can talk about it intelligently. And because we rob boys of the ability to maintain access to their feeling states, they grow up in systems where even their deepest friendships

Stephanie Zwonitzer (16:44.472)
Hmm, that's so interesting.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (17:11.72)
Men have very deep friendships with each other. They bond with each other, but they do not share with their closest associate, their closest friend, intimate struggles that they're having. I have seen so many men in therapy describe that they've had this issue.

for a long time. have these deep friendships, but does your friend know you're wrestling with this? Well, no. Right? No. I thought I wouldn't, you know, I'd be too embarrassed to share that with my friend. But human connection is critical for our health. It's critical for our survival. So if we...

Stephanie Zwonitzer (17:56.834)
Mm-hmm.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (18:10.116)
are not allowed to share and problem solve with another person, we damage ourselves both emotionally and physically. I think that men develop more physical problems as they age and I think it's connected to the fact that they really don't have.

the opportunity to express things emotionally so they hold them in their bodies.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (18:38.71)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, and we're finding out a lot more about the emotions within our body over time and with research that, you know, pain in the hips can be directly related to sexual trauma. Pain in the arm can be directly related to it. It's so fascinating to me what our body does, right? Like, our body wants to express that emotion. And if we let it, great, but when we don't, it damages our body.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (19:00.284)
That's

GLORIA Vanderhorst (19:05.736)
That's That's right. So that's why, you know, I'm very passionate about boys and men giving them permission to access the full range of emotion and retraining themselves makes a huge difference when you can express the full range of emotion.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (19:07.254)
It's fascinating.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (19:13.742)
Mm-hmm.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (19:21.656)
Sure, sure.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (19:27.022)
How as a partner in an adult relationship can I help my male partner be more in tune with those and feel safe to be in tune with those around me?

GLORIA Vanderhorst (19:40.679)
Well, that's a marvelous question, right? Because women do have more access to their own feeling states. They say that they want their men to have access to their feeling states. But the truth of the matter is, if you watch couples, and I've done a lot of work with couples, right? If you watch couples,

Stephanie Zwonitzer (19:44.962)
Sometimes I have those.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (20:09.372)
The woman can give intellectual validation to, yes, I would love for him to be more expressive. But when he takes the risk of being vulnerable, she shuts him down pretty quickly, right? With kind of placating responses.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (20:21.902)
Mm-hmm.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (20:36.974)
We as a society have trained ourselves to be afraid of the emotional expression of men, right? Because the majority of it that we see is aggressive. So we anticipate that if I give space for my male to be more emotionally expressive, that I'm putting myself in danger.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (20:47.715)
Yeah.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (21:06.746)
Right? So a guy will come home from work, for example, and he's definitely had a bad day. All right. The wife will ask what happened, how, you know, your looks like you had a pretty bad day. He'll give a headline. All right. And she will give some kind of an empathetic, but placating response. Right. If it were a female friend.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (21:22.295)
Mm-hmm.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (21:36.851)
doing exactly the same report, right? She would get a cup of tea. She would say, down and tell me more. She doesn't say that to her husband. She doesn't say, sit down and tell me more. All right? She kind of does a, you know, thanks for sharing and then goes back to whatever she was doing before. So we've, we've got a double training going on, right? That

Stephanie Zwonitzer (21:43.092)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (21:50.626)
Mm-hmm.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (21:58.508)
Okay.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (22:03.01)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (22:06.354)
We've trained women to want the emotional connection, but not to have the resources to help that male do the deeper dive into feeling states. A woman will sit forever with a female friend and listen to everything. But to a guy, she's out of there pretty quickly.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (22:11.628)
Mm-hmm.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (22:26.638)
Mm-hmm. We will. Yes. Yes.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (22:35.572)
Yeah, so it's on us too. Yeah, it's on us too to do that. Yeah, we need to give them that space. Tell me more. What else? Yeah. Yeah.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (22:36.561)
And we could change that, you know? Yeah.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (22:43.91)
Right. Mm-hmm. Yep. Mm-hmm. Keep talking. Right? How many times have you said that to a girlfriend? Keep talking. A bit more.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (22:50.878)
yeah, absolutely. Mm-hmm, that's so interesting. Okay, so we can definitely hold a better space for our partner and give them that safety and that time to express what they're actually feeling and going through, and that then will translate into future conversations where they want to share with us more. Okay, I love that, I love that.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (23:03.197)
Right.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (23:11.46)
Absolutely.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (23:15.542)
It's amazing to me how many levels of our relationships come back to communication. And if we don't have those skills, then that makes that really difficult. What are some other skills that our listeners can do in their relationships to really give that safety and that space to each other?

GLORIA Vanderhorst (23:36.285)
Well, I think each partner really needs to be able to expand their own feeling vocabulary. You know, I can't help someone do something that I haven't done myself. Right? If I'm going to teach you how to knit, I need to know how to knit. I'm going to help you expand your own feeling vocabulary.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (23:49.698)
Mm-hmm.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (23:57.44)
Yes, that's helpful.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (24:03.996)
then I need to know my own feeling vocabulary, right? So what are my limitations? What are the words that I keep using over and over again? And can I do a deeper dive into my own history, right? And expand my own feeling vocabulary and uncover some of the earlier interactions or traumas that are limiting me.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (24:07.319)
Yeah.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (24:12.375)
Mm-hmm.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (24:33.86)
and holding me back from a deeper relationship. So you also have to educate yourself in order to facilitate educating the guy that you love.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (24:46.742)
Yeah, yeah that makes sense. Is there a time when our couples should say, know, hey we really we really need to get an outside perspective. We need somebody to help teach us these tools.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (24:59.304)
I think as soon as possible is the answer to that, right? When distance appears in a relationship, it will appear in a couple of different forms. It'll appear either quietly, right? So you don't do as much interaction anymore. Things are transactional. You've got a good system going, but you're traveling in parallel, right? Or you're fighting.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (25:03.159)
Yeah.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (25:24.866)
Mm-hmm.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (25:29.062)
with each other, right? That the tension has increased, arguments increase, dislike of the other person increases. And so there are silent ways to create problems in distance and there are loud ways to create problems in distance. Paying attention to that distancing mechanism, whatever.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (25:29.09)
Yeah.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (25:44.578)
Mm-hmm.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (25:57.977)
it is, is really important and caring enough to point it out and seek a change. If we don't seek a change, then everything is going to escalate. It will definitely get worse. It's really important to identify that stressor early on and seek help. Ask for help.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (25:58.934)
Mm-hmm

Stephanie Zwonitzer (26:23.672)
Mm-hmm.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (26:27.916)
Yeah, I agree. think that, you know, it's kind of like, I remember at one point in time, somebody telling me that we were having a conversation about prenuptial agreements. And I was like, gosh, that in my mind at the time, my naivety said, well, that's just asking to fail. That's just saying we don't expect to be together. So let's do this prenuptial. And they said something that was so powerful to me. They said, no, actually it's when you both love each other the most and you prioritize each other the most.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (26:40.956)
Mm-hmm.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (26:46.12)
Thank you.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (26:58.02)
That's when you make the decisions about if we end, you know, this is how we're going to do things because you'll do it the most fairly. You'll do all these things. And I thought, gosh, that's such a different perspective. And I have held on to that. And I love that perspective. And I think that that's so true when we translate that to couples therapy and things like that as well. If you can go in when you still like each other and maybe you're just noticing slight communication issues or something before it gets bad, like you're saying, go get the

GLORIA Vanderhorst (27:01.308)
Mm-hmm.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (27:10.662)
Okay.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (27:20.775)
Mm-hmm.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (27:26.492)
Right.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (27:27.76)
tools and go because then you can work through the difficult things and where you're off a lot better and kinder. Yeah, because I think a lot of times by the time we're even thinking about working through things, we're resentful, we're angry, we're using mean language and it's not helpful.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (27:31.1)
Thank you.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (27:35.238)
Right. Right.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (27:43.721)
It's very important that we ask for help, but it's difficult for a human being to ask for help, right? We've been trained to be independent, to problem solve on our own, but it's a powerful process because we're born connected to another human being, right? We're born connected. We seek

Stephanie Zwonitzer (27:49.582)
Yes.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (27:59.534)
Yeah.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (28:09.666)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (28:13.288)
connection and that means that asking for help when you're in trouble is a normal natural reaction. Give yourself permission to ask for

Stephanie Zwonitzer (28:26.848)
Yeah, and I think a lot of us don't want to be failures. And that's how we look at it. I was the first divorce in either side of my extended family. And I felt a lot of shame about that. I was embarrassed to call people and tell people we were getting divorced because no one on my mom's side, my dad's side, my grandparents, no one was divorced. Never. And here I was 28 years old and getting a divorce and it was a good thing. We're much better being divorced.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (28:29.788)
Mm-hmm.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (28:35.505)
Mm-hmm.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (28:45.736)
ever,

GLORIA Vanderhorst (28:56.776)
Thank you.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (28:56.842)
we would have ever been together, but it was very shameful and I felt, yeah. And so I think that, you you're right, like a lot of what happens to us beforehand and a lot of the cultural truths are

are perpetrated in our relationships and you know had that man and I been meant for each other and had done all the work and all those things we may maybe could have worked it out maybe not I don't know I don't go into that because that's all in the past but I think we did not have some of the tools that through all the therapy I've been through now I have and so I agree with you I think it's so important to get those tools and to get them early on so you can kind of build this network of

GLORIA Vanderhorst (29:12.381)
Right.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (29:22.876)
Mm-hmm.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (29:40.41)
of feelings and safety and communication.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (29:41.777)
Right. And we could do a much better job in our educational system of facilitating and teaching what the dynamics of a relationship are really all about and what's the skill set that you need to be in a healthy relationship with another person. We miss this opportunity in the educational system.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (29:49.407)
Yes.

Hmm.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (29:57.57)
Mm-hmm.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (30:00.94)
Yes.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (30:11.72)
I remember when I was in high school or middle school, they gave you an apple, right? They pair you up and give you an apple and the two of you are supposed to take care of this apple for a week, which means it functions like an infant, right? You can never leave it alone.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (30:28.686)
Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (30:37.844)
You always have to take care of it. Well, by the end of the week, you know, some people came back with apple cores. They'd eaten their baby or terribly bruised. So it's funny to look back at it, but it's it was an exercise that really is important.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (30:44.65)
Right. Yep.

Yep.

Yeah, threw him in the backpack. Yep. Yes!

Stephanie Zwonitzer (31:03.63)
Mm-hmm.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (31:06.95)
to educate teenagers on what does it mean to have responsibility for another human being and what's the skill set you need to learn in order to be responsible for another human being. We've had an opportunity to do much more training about emotion and about relationship dynamics and about problem solving.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (31:07.096)
Yeah.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (31:15.606)
Yeah, absolutely. That's a great analogy. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. I love that.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (31:29.261)
Yeah.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (31:36.994)
educating yourself about your own emotional states. We could do a good job.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (31:42.742)
Yeah, I think you're right. I think if our educational system adapted a lot more human interactions and feelings and things like that, we actually had classes on this stuff. Man, we would be so much better served to be in friendships, relationships, work relationships where we have to like you whether we want to or not and work with you. it is a disservice that we don't have those kind of classes.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (32:09.479)
Right.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (32:10.54)
Yeah, I agree with you. That's fascinating. So what are some tips we've talked a lot about in a coupleship? So for those of us that are parents and we're raising our boys and our girls, but especially our boys, we've got the feelings sheet. What else can we do to help them grow into wonderfully emotionally intelligent young men?

GLORIA Vanderhorst (32:12.278)
Thank

GLORIA Vanderhorst (32:17.704)
Mm-hmm.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (32:33.116)
You can be observant, right? You can be much better at observing body posture, tone of voice that gives you information about emotion, right? We wear our emotions, right? They're not a secret, right? They can be seen in our bodies. They can be

Stephanie Zwonitzer (32:51.554)
Yeah.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (32:56.472)
Yeah.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (33:01.992)
heard in our tone of voice. So paying attention to body movement, body posture, tone of voice and being curious. Right? We don't take enough time to be curious, particularly in the current environment. Children are programmed to the hilt.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (33:15.086)
Mmm.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (33:30.936)
Yeah.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (33:31.877)
They get out of bed, throw breakfast into their bodies, go to school. After school, they go to an athletic event or some kind of other music. They're in classes, they're in trainings, and they don't get home until seven, eight o'clock at night, throw food in their bodies, take a shower, do their homework, and go to bed.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (33:55.438)
Mm-hmm.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (34:01.32)
Mm-hmm. Exhausted.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (34:01.746)
There's not, yes, there's not time for interaction. So we could definitely change that, right? Remove an activity so that you have time to sit with your child, take a walk with your child. tell people, teenagers in particular will do a much better job.

of talking if they don't have to face you. Put them in the car.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (34:33.57)
Yeah. Yup.

My kids have both liked coming in, I go to bed early, so they will come in and lay in bed next to me and talk. And I was just talking to my mom about this on the phone, because I used to do it to her as a teenager. And I said, you know, it's one of my favorite times and one of my most annoying times all at the same time, because I am ready for bed. And could you not have wanted to talk to me two hours ago when I was awake and ready for this? But no, they wait till I'm half asleep. But it's still my favorite time, though. I had both kids home. My daughter was home from college.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (34:42.514)
Okay.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (34:56.922)
No, could not. Could not.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (35:06.422)
three of us were laying in my bed one night just chitchatting and it was the most wonderful time but you're right they're not looking at me we're both laying on the bed looking at the ceiling or whatever and and it gives us that time

GLORIA Vanderhorst (35:12.84)
They're not looking at you, right? Right, because we express so much, all right? Communication is not just language coming out of your mouth. It's your facial expression. It's your body posture. In fact, they say more than 90 % of communication is nonverbal. And so it's safer if I don't have to process all of that detail.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (35:24.609)
Yeah.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (35:33.485)
Hmm.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (35:37.133)
Yeah.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (35:41.641)
So if I'm laying on the bed, if we're driving in the car, where we don't have to face each other, there's an opportunity to be more open, take more risk in sharing. So go for a walk with your kids, put them in the car, go for a drive, make up a reason to go for a drive, and you'll get a ton more information than sitting across the table from them.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (35:47.554)
Mm-hmm.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (35:54.819)
Mm-hmm.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (36:03.863)
Yeah.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (36:11.918)
It's interesting, my son actually did that for me, one of the best conversations we had, were laying in bed and he was joking with him about something and he's like, mom, that's why I don't tell you more things about that. And I was like, what do you mean? And he's like, because you make it a joke. And I was like, but you know, I'm just like joking around. And he's like, but that makes me not want to tell you because I want you to respond to me and just be like, okay, that sounds great. And not, ooh, you were talking to a girl. Like I thought I

GLORIA Vanderhorst (36:34.107)
I think we have.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (36:41.488)
Right. Absolutely.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (36:41.912)
was being silly and it was a frustrating for him and I was so proud of him for telling me that and I said absolutely you got it and I have not done that to him since and he has opened up more to me since and it was amazing and I was so proud of him for telling me that in that moment I because I wouldn't have known that that bothered him

GLORIA Vanderhorst (36:53.872)
Right, right.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (36:59.057)
Absolutely.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (37:03.796)
how many of us do things like that? Like we think it's silly, we think it's cute, and man if they don't tell us that it bothers them we have no idea.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (37:07.986)
Right.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (37:12.166)
Right. So you've done an excellent job of parenting because he took that risk.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (37:18.54)
Yeah, I have great kids and we've always had good communication. think, you know, part of being divorced from their dad when they were really little is I always wanted to have them have a safe place. Whether it's something's wrong with between me and you, something's wrong with between your dad and you, whatever is going on, something at school, bully, whatever, I always wanted to be that safe place. And I did, I worked really hard. I learned a lot of tools to do that because I think especially in this society,

GLORIA Vanderhorst (37:28.796)
Mm-hmm.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (37:39.952)
Mm-hmm.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (37:48.484)
with so much social media and all of these things that we can pull away from each other, kids really need a safe place. Yeah.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (37:51.369)
Right? Mm-hmm. They do. And that takes time, right? Your example of laying in bed with them in the evening is a great opportunity. It does take time in order to give the adolescent the opportunity to open up, right? They're not gonna do it immediately.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (37:59.575)
It does.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (38:09.026)
Mm-hmm.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (38:18.103)
Right.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (38:18.716)
You have to give the time and the space and be welcoming of that time and space.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (38:24.29)
Yeah.

Yeah, that's fascinating. I have learned a lot as a mom. Yes, yes. This is awesome. What a great conversation. And I hope that it's really helped our listeners not only in raising their sons and daughters, but also in their own connections. Thank you so much for being here, Gloria. This has been a wonderful conversation. Yes, absolutely. Tell our listeners where they can find you and about your book and everything.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (38:31.288)
Excellent. Good job.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (38:44.304)
You're welcome. I've enjoyed it, Stephanie.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (38:51.578)
Alright, the easiest way to access me is to go to my website and that's www.drvandherhorst.com. So it's www.drvandherhorst.com. You can find all kinds of resources there, right there. Everything that I've written in blogs is there.

videos about different approaches to therapy. It's a really good kind of educational website. And the feelings list is there to be downloaded. And you can access my book through by going to any bookstore and asking for read, reflect, respond, the three Rs of growth and change. They will order it for you if they don't have it in stock.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (39:27.656)
your feelings list. yes

GLORIA Vanderhorst (39:49.636)
Or if you don't have a favorite bookstore, go to Amazon. Amazon will send it any place in the world. And it's a great resource because it has an essay on one page and the facing page is blank. Now this is a journal book, but most journal books have lines on the facing page for you to write responses. But I've told you today,

Stephanie Zwonitzer (39:56.94)
That's great.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (40:05.55)
Mmm.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (40:14.36)
Mm-hmm.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (40:16.754)
that you come into this world with full access to your emotions and you can't write as an infant. Right? And so I want you to be able to access that storage that is there and you can do it by drawing, can do it by scribbling, you can do it by writing words so you're free to write words on the page.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (40:25.634)
Yeah. Yeah.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (40:46.77)
but the pages blank so that you can take a deeper dive into your storage lockers in your brain and access some very early feeling experiences. So get a copy of the book and start your own journey in discovering your own emotional history.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (40:53.73)
Mm-hmm.

Stephanie Zwonitzer (41:08.928)
I love that. That's amazing. And we'll put all of this in the show notes you guys so you can look there as well for the links and the name of the book in case you forget it. Thank you so much, Dr. Vanderhorst. It was such a pleasure to have you on here. Everybody. Thank you. All right, everybody. Don't forget to check out reviveish.com for all your sexual health and hormone needs here in Maryland for your telehealth appointments. And as always, go have some fun between the sheets.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (41:18.61)
You're welcome. I've enjoyed the conversation.

GLORIA Vanderhorst (41:34.12)
You

Stephanie Zwonitzer (41:37.112)
Perfect!