Love Shack Live: Helping Couples Rescue Their Relationships

Relationships are complex. They are filled with ups and downs, highs and lows. And sometimes, it can feel like you're struggling just to keep your head above water. If you're feeling like this, then it's important to reach out for help. That's where Tom and Staci Bartley come in. As relationship experts, they have helped countless couples overcome the challenges that they're facing. And now, they're here to help you. The Love Shack Live Show is filled with advice and tips that will help you get your relationship back on track. So if you're struggling in your relationship, make sure to tune in, it could be the best decision you ever make.

Love Shack Live: Helping Couples Rescue Their Relationships is a society podcast hosted by Staci Bartley, Relationship Expert, with 285 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 85.

Staci Bartley, Relationship Expert hosts Love Shack Live: Helping Couples Rescue Their Relationships, a society show with 285 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

• 

  Love Shack Live: Helping Couples Rescue Their Relationships

  #286: We’re Back… and Italy Changed How We Think About Connection

  Sep 26, 202647 min

  Ask Us A Question We’re back. ❤️ After six weeks away from Love Shack Live and three weeks in Italy, we’re finally back behind the microphones. And we came home with a question we haven’t been able to stop thinking about… “We feel more like roommates than partners.” “I feel alone, even when they’re right there.” “We love each other. We’ve just lost the connection we used to have.” We hear versions of these sentences all the time from people taking the Better Love Quiz. And after spending three weeks in Italy, we came home wondering about something we hadn’t considered quite this way before: What if some of the connection we’re missing isn’t something we need to find again? What if our everyday lives simply aren’t giving us enough opportunities to create it? We expected to miss the castle, the wine, the food, and those ridiculous Tuscan sunsets. Instead, we missed the people. Walking into the kitchen and finding someone there. Sitting around the table long after dinner was over. Hearing laughter from another room. Wandering without a destination. Twelve people with nowhere more important to be. And then we came home. Everything was quiet. It made us realize how incredibly efficient we’ve become at not needing one another. Groceries arrive at the door. Entertainment streams into our homes. We work remotely, text instead of visit, eat while answering emails, and fill nearly every empty space in our day. It’s convenient. But there may be a relational price we’re paying for all that efficiency. In this episode, we’re talking about what Tuscany reminded us about how human connection actually grows, why familiarity can make us stop noticing the people we love, and how to bring some of that la dolce vita back into an ordinary Tuesday. We talk about why connection needs proximity and repetition, the Italian piazza and the disappearing “third places” in our own communities, why humans bond through participation rather than observation, and the surprisingly important art of lingering. And if you’re thinking, “ That sounds lovely, but I don’t have time for any of this,” we talk about that too. Because rebuilding connection doesn’t have to mean a romantic vacation, a giant relationship conversation, or packing your bags and moving to Tuscany. Sometimes it starts with dinner lasting twenty minutes longer. In this episode: Why connection needs proximity and repetition What Italian piazzas taught us about making room for the unplanned The relational price we may be paying for convenience Why you can’t observe your way into connection Aperitivo , lingering, and il dolce far niente , the sweetness of doing nothing What happens when the person you love becomes so familiar that you stop really seeing them Simple rituals that create more opportunities for connection at home Why “I don’t have time for that” might be exactly where we need to start Where to Start Not sure whether what you’re experiencing is a rough patch or something more? Take the free Better Love Quiz at BetterLoveQuiz.com . In about five minutes, you’ll get your personalized Better Love Blueprint and see which relationship skills could use some attention right now. Staci’s new digital book, Is My Marriage Dead? , is $9 and designed to help you get clearer about what’s actually happening in your relationship and what your next honest step might be. Want to join us in Tuscany next year? Email love@stacibartley.com and let us know. And stay tuned, because we’re also working on opportunities to gather a little closer to home. Okay, but is my relationship actually in trouble? If you’ve ever wondered that, Is My Marriage Dead? is for you. It won’t tell you to stay or leave. It will help you figure out what you’re actually looking at, what real repair requires, and what to do when the most honest answer you have right now is I don’t know. $9 digital guide. Start reading today.

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Love Shack Live: Helping Couples Rescue Their Relationships

  #285: How Do You Know If Your Relationship Is Worth Fighting For?

  Sep 19, 20261h 4m

  Ask Us A Question One night, you’re absolutely done. You’ve had the entire conversation in your head. You know what you’re going to say in the morning. You may even feel strangely calm because, finally, you’ve made a decision. Then morning comes. They hand you your coffee without being asked. They do something small that reminds you of who they used to be. Maybe you laugh together for the first time in weeks. And suddenly… Maybe I’m overreacting. Maybe it’s not as bad as I think. Maybe we could actually fix this. Welcome to the Land of Maybe. It’s the place between staying and leaving where the evidence seems to change every day. One terrible night convinces you it’s over. One good morning makes you question everything. And people can live here for years. So how do you know when what you’re experiencing is something worth fighting through… and when you’re holding onto something that simply isn’t working anymore? That’s the conversation we’re having in this episode. We’re sharing stories from couples who came frighteningly close to ending their relationships, including one who had already filed for divorce, and what became visible once they stopped trying to answer the stay-or-go question first. We’re also talking about some of the things that make the Land of Maybe so difficult to escape. The fear that too much has happened. The things other people are telling you about your relationship. The question of whether you’ll ever be able to let go of what happened. And the resistance that can keep you stuck even when part of you desperately wants something to change. There’s also a very personal story from our own marriage that we haven’t talked much about, including a moment when Tom genuinely wasn’t sure whether we were going to make it. And before the episode ends, we boil this entire conversation down to three questions. They’re not “Do you still love each other?” And they’re not “Are you happy?” They’re the three questions we’ve learned to listen for when someone comes to us saying: “I don’t know if this relationship is worth fighting for anymore.” Your answers may tell you something very different than you expect. Resources & Links The Better Love Quiz: If you’re stuck wondering whether this is a rough patch or something more, start here. 22 questions, about five minutes, free and completely private. → https://www.betterlovequiz.com/ Is My Marriage Dead? + The Crisis Communication Scripts: Created for the place where you know something needs to change but you’re not yet sure what that means for your relationship. → https://stacibartley.mysamcart.com/is-your-marriage-dead A Quick Note This is the final episode we brought back while we were away, and I saved this one for last on purpose. We’re home from Tuscany now, which means brand-new Love Shack Live episodes begin next week. ❤️ Okay, but is my relationship actually in trouble? If you’ve ever wondered that, Is My Marriage Dead? is for you. It won’t tell you to stay or leave. It will help you figure out what you’re actually looking at, what real repair requires, and what to do when the most honest answer you have right now is I don’t know. $9 digital guide. Start reading today.

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Love Shack Live: Helping Couples Rescue Their Relationships

  #284: Can You Change Your Attachment Style?

  Sep 11, 202658 min

  Ask Us A Question You know the words by now: anxious and avoidant. Maybe you’ve taken the quizzes, watched the videos, and gotten pretty good at spotting the pattern in your own relationship. And you’re still having the same fight. So what are you actually supposed to do with any of this? In this episode, we’re talking about how attachment styles can help us understand a relationship without turning into permanent labels for ourselves or our partners. We’ll look at why anxious and avoidant people are often drawn to each other in the first place, what actually happens when one person starts reaching and the other starts pulling away, and why knowing your “style” is only the beginning. Tom and I are also sharing a story about a season in our own marriage when he pulled away, I chased, and space became a very real conversation between us. We’re answering your questions about breadcrumbing, meeting an avoidant partner in the middle, and why it can feel like all the responsibility gets handed to the anxious person. And near the end, I’ll give you four sentences you can use when someone you love has gone quiet on you. The words are simple. What you do after you say them is the harder part. A Quick Note We’re almost at the end of this run of your most-requested and most-downloaded episodes, brought back with new opens and closes. Brand-new Love Shack Live episodes are right around the corner. Resources & Links Attachment Style Questionnaire (ECR-R): The original attachment questionnaire we reference in this episode. → https://openpsychometrics.org/tests/ECR.php Is My Marriage Dead? + The Crisis Communication Scripts: Two new resources to help you get clearer on what’s happening in your relationship and have the conversations that feel hardest. → https://stacibartley.mysamcart.com/is-your-marriage-dead/ The Better Love Quiz: 22 questions, about five minutes, free and completely private. Get clearer on whether you’re experiencing a rough patch or real trouble. → https://www.betterlovequiz.com/ Okay, but is my relationship actually in trouble? If you’ve ever listened to Love Shack Live and wondered that, Staci wrote Is My Marriage Dead? for you. It won’t tell you to stay or leave. It will help you figure out what you’re actually looking at, what real repair requires, and what to do when the most honest answer you have right now is I don’t know. $9 digital guide. Start reading today

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Love Shack Live: Helping Couples Rescue Their Relationships

  #283: Why We Wait Too Long to Get Help With Our Marriage

  Sep 9, 202650 min

  Ask Us A Question There's a conversation you and your partner need to have, and it's been sitting under the grocery list and the kids' appointments for a few years now. Not because it doesn't matter. Because you figure they'll be there no matter what, and everything else has a deadline. So here's what we're after today. How come our marriage is the one thing we're ashamed to get help for? You'd hire somebody for the business. You'd find a specialist for your knee. You'd tell your friends about both over dinner. There's a phrase in here I want you listening for. Emotional gas. It explains almost everything about why you can't get traction right now no matter how hard you're trying, and it explains what somebody is actually telling you when they say "I just can't do this anymore." It isn't what you think. Brooke asks the question I get more than any other, what to do when you know you need help and your partner is dead set against it, and she gives you the words. Two sentences. Then she tells the story of her and Jack, which she's never told on this show. She was 18. What she found out at 30 about why he really ended it is the part I wasn't prepared for. And the thing we've been sitting on for months. Both books are out. Is My Marriage Dead? is for the person who can't tell whether this is a rough stretch or the real thing. I was a divorce mediator for thirteen years, and there's a pattern in there I have never seen anybody else name. The Crisis Communication Scripts is the other half, because changing a pattern takes two parts and most of us only ever get handed the first one. If you've been telling yourself you'll deal with this once things settle down, listen to this now rather than later. Later is the whole problem. Resources & Links The books are out. Is My Marriage Dead? A Divorce Mediator's Guide to Finding Out What's True, and What to Do About It The Crisis Communication Scripts: Exact Words for Our Most Challenging Moments: https://stacibartley.mysamcart.com/is-your-marriage-dead/ Better Love Quiz: 22 questions, about five minutes, free and completely private. An honest answer to whether this is a rough patch or real trouble. https://betterlovequiz.com

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Love Shack Live: Helping Couples Rescue Their Relationships

  #281: How Defensiveness Breaks a Relationship Down, Piece by Piece

  Aug 22, 20261 hour

  Ask Us A Question Your partner finally tells you that something you do hurts them. And before they even finish, you're already explaining. "That's not what happened." "That's not what I meant." "I never meant it that way." "Well, you do it too." That's defensiveness. But, it never feels like defensiveness from the inside. It feels like telling the truth, which is why it can chew through a relationship for years before anyone catches it. And nobody gets a hall pass here. Staci does it. Tom does it. Brooke does it. You do too, probably in a way you'd never think to call defensive. So here's what we're after today: if defensiveness is supposed to protect us from getting hurt, how come everybody who leans on it ends up hurting more? We get into how fast this stuff moves. Staci says the emotional safety in your relationship doesn't wear down over years, it's gone in a nanosecond, and there's a balloon analogy in here you won't be able to unsee. Also why "that was never my intent" might be the most defensive thing you can say, even when it's true. And the part we'd stay for: there's one sentence that gets you out. Three words. It works mid-argument, it works when you're wrong, and it works when you're dead certain you're not. Not spoiling it here. Brooke tells the story of what her partner said to her about six years ago, the thing that rattled her more than anything else in their relationship. Including the part where she still couldn't admit he was right for months after. She's not the hero of that one and she tells it anyway. Fair warning: you might get a little defensive listening to a whole episode about defensiveness. Happens all the time. That's usually the good part. Press play before the next round of that same fight. A Quick Note: For the next several weeks we're bringing back the episodes you've asked for and downloaded the most. Our family is heads down on two things we can't wait to share with you: two brand-new resources we're putting the finishing touches on, and our very first international retreat in Tuscany, Italy. Brand-new episodes are back mid-September. Take the Better Love Quiz: If you can feel that something is off and you can't tell how serious it is, this is where to start. 22 questions, about five minutes, and you get an honest answer to the question you've been carrying around at 2:00 in the morning. You also get your skill score, so you know where to begin instead of guessing. Completely private. Only you see the results, and your partner is never contacted. betterlovequiz.com Work With Staci: If you know you need more support than a quiz right now, book a private session. This is exactly what we do with couples: helping them get better at emotional weightlifting so the same fight stops running the relationship. stacibartley.com/private-sessions

  ListenShow Notes

Recent guests on Love Shack Live: Helping Couples Rescue Their Relationships. Study who booked and why before you pitch.

Based on semantic analysis of episode topics and host coverage, this show is a strong guest fit for executives in:

Industry fit is computed by PitchCentric using vector embeddings of the show's episode catalog.