Marriage Rehab: Exposing Narcissistic & Emotional Abuse
Jul 26, 2026 · 43 min · 11 segments
What if the problem in your marriage was never really communication? In this episode of Marriage Rehab, Dr. David Hawkins and Dr. John Hudson challenge one of the most common assumptions in couples…
David HawkinsHostJohn HudsonGuest
So let's start out by setting the scene a couple comes to us a couple comes to i mean roughly you and i have talked about this roughly 50 percent of the population of the of the nation of the world will at one time or another seek out counseling often for couples counseling and when they sit down with a counselor a coach therapist they typically say we just don't know how to communicate And so most counselors then, most coaches then say, oh, okay, that's in my wheelhouse.
And so they start teaching communication skills, how to have a soft startup, how to validate one another.
But what happens when one partner actually communicates clearly, but the other punishes them for it? What happens when honesty leads to ridicule, retaliation, or withdrawal? So can communication skills...
Can communication skills... repair a relationship where one person refuses accountability?
In fact, the situation will likely get worse because we're trying to address the symptom of a much deeper problem.
And you might like peek under there and see, okay, well, we can talk about how we respect each other, how we apologize, how we engage in conversation.
But when half of the couple is broken and unwilling, in fact, like sabotages those efforts, you're actually going in the wrong direction.
Do you agree with this statement, Dr. Hudson? This is a really powerful statement.
I want to say it again because I want everybody to get it, write it down, and really think about it.
It may be what they present with that we have communication problems, but communication is not the core problem in many relationships.
So let's start out by setting the scene a couple comes to us a couple comes to i mean roughly you and i have talked about this roughly 50 percent of the population of the of the nation of the world will at one time or another seek out counseling often for couples counseling and when they sit down with a counselor a coach therapist they typically say we just don't know how to communicate And so most counselors then, most coaches then say, oh, okay, that's in my wheelhouse.
And so they start teaching communication skills, how to have a soft startup, how to validate one another.
But what happens when one partner actually communicates clearly, but the other punishes them for it? What happens when honesty leads to ridicule, retaliation, or withdrawal? So can communication skills...
Can communication skills... repair a relationship where one person refuses accountability?
In fact, the situation will likely get worse because we're trying to address the symptom of a much deeper problem.
And you might like peek under there and see, okay, well, we can talk about how we respect each other, how we apologize, how we engage in conversation.
But when half of the couple is broken and unwilling, in fact, like sabotages those efforts, you're actually going in the wrong direction.
Do you agree with this statement, Dr. Hudson? This is a really powerful statement.
I want to say it again because I want everybody to get it, write it down, and really think about it.
It may be what they present with that we have communication problems, but communication is not the core problem in many relationships.
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