Couples repair following betrayal
How do couples repair following betrayal or new information?
When is repair possible and when is it not?
Clip on: How do couples repair following betrayal, when new information cannot be undone or when silence is punishing?
Can repair lead to deeper closeness?
When does it work and when does it not?
Clip from Janella Purcells podcast TOXIC SILENCE Season 2: Finding Health Through Authenticity .
Watch the full episode which speaks to the power of attunement, and what happens when we don't receive it growing up, and how it informs our present day relationships.
EPISODE: The Legacy of Lost Attunement with Hāweatea Bryson of Nature Knows
When we talk about lost attunement, we’re really talking about one of the earliest forms of toxic silence. It’s the silence of a parent who doesn’t respond, who doesn’t see, who doesn’t mirror us back to ourselves. It’s the silence that says: your feelings don’t matter, your voice doesn’t matter, you don’t matter. And that silence leaves a legacy.
As Hāweatea shared, for boys, that legacy might look like a kind of hyper-toughness — or the opposite, emotional collapse. Some grow up taking on a mother’s emotions while being abandoned emotionally themselves, left feeling powerless. Others shut down completely in adult relationships — emasculated, passive, resentful, or split between the perfect façade and hidden shame. And yet, when they finally receive attunement — when they feel accepted — they come alive again. They feel empowered to act.
For girls, the silence can turn into over-performance, the endless need to prove worth. It can look like overcompensating — always giving, rarely receiving. Or it can take the form of fantasy — waiting for the idealised wedding, or the moment she’s finally rescued and seen.
Underneath it all lies the same thing: a deep, aching longing. A longing to recreate the wound of abandonment, this time hoping for repair. And painfully, many of us manifest the same dynamics — sometimes even toxic ones — in an unconscious attempt to heal that original silence.
This is why we need to talk about it. Because toxic silence doesn’t just sit in the past. It reverberates into the present — shaping who we choose, how we love, how we speak, and how we silence ourselves.
And this brings me to today’s guest. Hawatea Bryson is a dear friend and a powerful therapist who’s deeply alive to these themes right now in her couples work. She’s been exploring what she calls silent relationships — how lost attunement shows up between partners, how it keeps us stuck in cycles of longing and avoidance, and what it takes to finally find repair.
Together we’ll explore:
How silence becomes toxic in relationships.
How men and women carry the legacy of lost attunement differently.
And how we can move from being silenced to reclaiming our authentic voice.
Because silence will shape us — but when it’s met, named, and transformed, it can also set us free.
Episode Points in order spoken:
Exploring the early wound of lost attunement
Risking to be full heard: finding your voice
The Dilemma: speak truth or keep connection?
How lost attunement shapes boys emotional lives
Over performing and fantasy: girls attunement legacy
Distinguishing silence: Yearning, rejection and acceptance
Uncovering ancestral stories through intergenerational silence
When silence heals and when it suffocates
Building deeper trust through vulnerability and repair
Reclaiming your voice: practical steps and wisdom
Listen into the full episode here:
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