Episode 90. The "Passion Paradox"with Dr. Bruce Chalmer: Escaping the Death Spiral of Intimacy
The Death Spiral of Passion — and How Faith Can Bring Love Back to Life
Every couple begins with spark. You fall in love, build a life, share dreams, maybe raise kids, juggle bills, and celebrate milestones. Slowly, though, the fire that once felt unstoppable starts to cool. The routine of responsibility replaces the rhythm of romance.
According to psychologist and author Dr. Bruce Chalmer, that’s not a personal failure—it’s a predictable pattern he calls “the death spiral of passion.”
When Safety Smothers Intimacy
Dr. Chalmer explains that as couples grow together, they naturally increase the stakes for stability. The more you have to lose—home, kids, routines, reputation—the more you crave safety. But intimacy, by its nature, rocks the boat.
So, to keep the peace, partners start avoiding topics that might lead to conflict. They walk on eggshells. They edit their feelings. They stop asking the risky questions: “Are we still close?” or “What do you need from me that I’m missing?”
And slowly, the relationship flatlines. It feels calm but cold. Alive on the outside, lifeless inside.
As Dr. Chalmer puts it, “Living organisms won’t tolerate that for too long. Lack of intimacy feels like depression—it’s a loss of aliveness.”
The Faith to See Differently
Here’s where Dr. Chalmer’s perspective gets beautifully unexpected. He says depression is being prevented from practicing faith—not necessarily religious faith, but the deeper conviction that life is still right to be what it is, even when it hurts.
That mindset of faith changes everything in marriage. It lets you say, “This conflict might be painful, but maybe there’s something right about facing it.”
Faith invites curiosity over criticism. It asks, “What’s happening between us that I need to understand?” instead of, “What’s wrong with you?”
When you believe that even the hard parts have meaning, you stop panicking and start listening. That shift alone can pull a couple out of the spiral.
Seeing Through New Eyes
In our discussion, we likened it to Viktor Frankl’s experience in Man’s Search for Meaning. Frankl survived a concentration camp by learning to step outside his suffering—to see his life as if through a jury-room camera, observing rather than reacting.
Marriage sometimes needs that same “third-eye view.” When you can step back and think, “Maybe my spouse isn’t cruel or uncaring—maybe they’re scared, tired, or overwhelmed,” you create space for compassion instead of defensiveness.
That perspective shift can be the first breath of oxygen in a marriage that’s been gasping for air.
The Seven Words That Can Save a Marriage
Dr. Chalmer sums up decades of therapy in a simple formula:
“Be kind. Don’t panic. Have faith.”
It’s deceptively simple—and profoundly hard.
Be kind doesn’t mean “be nice.” It means remembering your kinship—that you’re on the same team even when you disagree.
Don’t panic means don’t let fear drive your words. Stay grounded when emotions surge.
Have faith means trust that meaning can exist even in confusion—that growth might be hidden inside discomfort.
Couples who practice those seven words find they can face nearly anything.
Making Meaning Together
Every couple hits seasons where love feels more like work than magic. But the difference between a dying relationship and a deepening one is how you interpret the struggle.
When partners make meaning out of the mess, they build resilience. They stop asking, “Why is this happening to us?” and start asking, “What can this teach us—and how can we use it to help others?”
As Heidi said in the episode, “We see growth when we realize our pain not only shapes us, it equips us to serve.”
Conclusion
This week, try applying Dr. Chalmer’s seven-word formula the next time tension flares.
Pause before reacting. Breathe. Don’t panic.
Respond with kinship. Say, “I love you, and I’m trying to understand.”
Add faith. Remind yourself there may be something right—some meaning—hidden in this hard moment.
You might be surprised at how quickly warmth returns when you choose presence over panic.
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0:02
Welcome to Marriage IQ, the podcast helping you become an intelligent spouse.I'm Heidi Hastings.And I'm Scott Hastings.We are two doctors, 2 researchers, 2 spouses, 2 lovers, and two incredibly different human beings coming together for one purpose, to change the stinky parts of your marriage into scintillating ones using intelligence mixed with a little fun.
0:33
Welcome back everybody to another episode of Marriage IQ.Today we have Part 2 of a really fascinating, insightful interview with Doctor Bruce Chalmer.He's a Jewish psychologist that lives in Vermont and has been a statistician but is now for the last many years helping couples with their marriages.
0:54
He has so many fascinating insights and it gets a little exciting and exciting between.It was a great interview I what can I say?Yeah.So we hope that you'll enjoy it and listen on.So you talk about a death spiral for passion.
1:11
Can you tell us about that and how does that happen?It's the idea that what a normal couple does, you know, couple gets together and they get to know each other some and they fall in love.They get married, they have kids, they build a life together.All of those things, every one of those steps increases the stakes for stability.
1:30
You know, especially having kids, that's a huge one.But even not having kids, just building a life together, people start to feel like, wow, I don't want to lose this.It's really important.And of course, I respect that.And So what happens then is they will prize stability.They won't want to do things that rock the boat too much.
1:47
Well, as we've been talking about, one of the things intimacy does inherently is rocks the boat or risks rocking the boat.And so it's especially if they've been so afraid of it that those attempts at intimacy have resulted in like nasty arguments or deep freezes or whatever they may be.
2:04
That can be really unpleasant.We all know what that feels like.It's really painful.If that takes over too much, people will then be that much more afraid to risk intimacy.And that's the death spiral.And so the more they shut down, the more they're walking on egg shells in each other's presence, you know, whatever metaphor you want to use, the more they're shut down, the less intimacy there is, the more it becomes a crisis.
2:28
Because, as I say, it's kind of inherent to what I'm talking about.Living organisms won't tolerate that for too long.It feels deadening.It's interesting, You know, Scott, when you said you were feeling depressed.Yeah, that's what it feels like.Lack of intimacy feels like depression or worries about that.
2:44
I mean, that's what depression is.It's this feeling of not feeling alive.And in the writing this book, I, I have a, a very different definition of depression.It's not the DSM 5 definition at all.It's not a technical one, but I think it's an interesting operational one.It has to do with faith.Depression is when you are prevented from practicing faith, by which I mean that the faith is the basic sense that even when it's painful, and I don't understand it because we don't have a God's eye view of the universe, nevertheless, there's something right about this whole business and depression is an ailment that prevents that.
3:15
And so, you know, you could say, why can't you snap out of a depression?Well, when they can't snap out of a depression is because the very things that would support that mindset aren't available to them.That's what depression.I would probably agree with you mostly on that.There are some organic causes of depression, of course, you know, physiologic decrease levels of certain neuro hormones and things.
3:36
But I, I like that.I like that perspective.Oh, yeah.But that doesn't, yeah, I'm not excluding the physiological at all there.That's, that's often how it happens.But you know, physiological and psychological and spiritual and emotional are all tied up together.Right, that is correct.
3:51
There's and so you can't always point to the causes being just physiological, or even just psychological.Intertwined.So say that statement again one more time that when you're going through something that is risky, is uncomfortable, which by your definition would actually be intimate in some ways because it has the opportunity for growth.
4:13
If you can look at it and say there has to be something right about this in the universe.Is that what you said?Tell me exactly.Yeah, I mean, for religious folks, it's pretty straightforward.For religious folks, in terms of Western religious traditions, Christianity, Judaism, Islam would all have this sort in common.
4:31
It just means God is fundamentally good.Whatever God is God's good, you know, and you were asking that, you know, what theologians call the the problem of theodicy?You know, why would God let bad things happen to good people?Why would a good God let this happen?And there's lots of answers to that.And I'm not a theologian, and I'm sort of glad I'm not because I, you know, that I didn't want to go there.
4:49
I'm not a philosopher.You know, that's the most common question that atheists ask.That's the lead to atheism, it.It can, although it's interesting, I remember Rabbi Jonathan Sacks died a few years ago, but it brilliant rabbi and he was the Chief Rabbi of England.They have such a thing in England, Chief Rabbi of Britain or England or whatever it was anyway.
5:10
And he used to point out when he was talking about, do you remember the term the New Atheist?That was sort of a movement about 1520 years ago, maybe 25 years ago.There was these particular people who were sort of fundamentalist atheists, you know, in other words, you couldn't challenge any aspect of it.
5:25
They would pick out something about religion and just call it completely evil.And he was saying no, atheism deserves better than them because atheism has a atheism has a good place in the discussion around religions.What I often say to atheists is, well, the God that you don't believe in isn't the one I believe in.
5:43
I'm not sure where that is far apart as you think.You know, if, and you know what happens for a lot of folks in, in my tradition, especially American Jews there, there's lots and lots of folks who went through bar about mitzvah at the age of, you know, 12 or 13.And then their parents didn't do more and they parents didn't do much.
6:01
It happened more in in my kids generation than in my generation even.And so their view of God and, and understanding is frozen at the age of a 13 year old.And then they're wondering how could adults take this seriously?Well, there are adult ways of thinking about this where you don't have to be a little kid.
6:17
The concept that that reality is right to be what it is, That's what I mean by faith.That's what you're asking about.That concept.The reason I call it a mindset is that it isn't a statement of fact that can be proven or disproven.That's right.Any more than the existence of God is actually, Before I was a psychologist, I was a statistician.
6:35
I'm an old math guy and I used to work with people doing scientific research.I was the statistician on a lot of stuff, so it's fascinating.There is no way to prove from data that God does or doesn't exist because.And this is how you can have, for example, fundamentalist Christian paleontologists.
6:55
How is that even possible?Well, because.Oh, it's possible.It is possible.Well, here's here's my outsiders.I'm not, I'm not neither Christian or fundamentalist, but here's my outsider's perspective, which is to say, well, you can say God created the fossil record no problem, you know, 5000 years ago or whatever number they would use.
7:14
And other people would say, well, that is not a from a scientific perspective.If all you're saying is we have the fossil record as it is, we can't infer anything from whether God created it 5000 years ago or not because it would look exactly the same scientific.So it means the same thing.
7:30
So the paleontologist would say, yes, exactly.We'll do our carbon dating and say this carbon dating would say this particular, you know, plant material came from, you know, 3,000,000 years ago or whatever that they would say.I obviously don't know much about carbon dating, but there you are.And there's no way to prove it.And so my assertion about fate is sort of in that domain.
7:48
It's like, well, it isn't an assertion of fact.I can't say the world is right to be what it is because right and wrong isn't a statement of fact.It's a statement of opinion.It's like it's a value judgement.I'm saying a mindset that values that, that says there's something meaningful about this whole business, even when it's really painful.
8:08
It's a mindset that I'd rather live with.The classic, a classic example of that kind of faith.And I'm not sure he used the same word, but you know, Viktor Frankel's book, A Man's Search for Meaning.Yeah.He's he's writing about finding meaning in Auschwitz in a place of pure evil, pure unmitigated evil.
8:25
And and he's finding a way of at least the suffering.How you bear the suffering can be a meaningful thing.I want to jump in right there on this because we love that book.Actually it's it's one of our top all time books and it's really been instrumental in helping us re look at life.
8:43
And so getting back to this death spiral in a relationship.Yeah.And Viktor Frankel, I I think what it sounds to me anyway, like what what you're trying to get at is that the way to pull out of this death spiral in a relationship is that we have to pull back.
9:02
We have to start looking at things from a different point of view, an objective point of view, an outside point of view, which is what he had to do.And that's what kept him alive, He.He said he had to pull back.Like you're in a, a jury room and you're looking at a video about what's happening, not living it, but you're looking through a lens of someone else.
9:22
And that's really kind of the crux of I think pulling out for him, pulling out of his death spiral, cause a lot of people did die there because simply because they gave up.Yeah, yeah.That was what was interesting, because whether you lived or died there had almost nothing to do with your own personal characteristics, because lots of people died, didn't matter what their attitude was.
9:43
But then there were the people who were still alive, but they were dead while they were alive.Yeah, that's a good point.So tie this into marriage then.So in terms of marriage, if the death spiral thing and the reason it's a rather dramatic name, I give it, But the death spiral thing leads people to feel less and less hopeful about the possibility of finding each other again.
10:02
And that just feels awful.And so the way out of that is, and it's interesting, Scott, how you were saying sort of pull back from it, like all of Viktor Frankel's way of saying it.Yeah, you have to be able to pull away from it far enough to be able to see, wait a minute, There are other ways of looking at this.
10:20
And it can't be that my partner.Well, it almost certainly can't be that my partner is crazy or evil or stupid.That's a statement of faith right there.I have met people on occasion who would say, and I don't mean to be make fun of serious mental health issues, but I have met people crazy occasionally, very rare in 30s of practice.
10:37
A handful of folks I haven't said, Oh, well, I can tell right away that neither one of you is nuts.They usually say that in the first second.You know, they already know it.I trust they already know it.They usually smile when they say it.They're glad to hear it.They don't need me to tell them that, but it turns out to be an important thing.I'll often return to it.It's like, well, you're not nuts and yet you did this thing that you yourself are saying you shouldn't have done, but you're not nuts and and you're not fundamentally evil either.
11:00
You know, again, that's the statement of faith.Have I met people that I would say maybe they're like psychopaths or sociopaths again, in 30 years of thousands of people, yeah, probably a few, but very, very rare.And they don't come to therapists.Yeah, it's about maybe 5%.It's higher in medical offices, just so you know.
11:18
Well, it, I mean it's higher in corporate, in executive Queens as well.You're actually exactly right.I think it being able to pull away, look at a different perspective, different point of view, good.I, I think that it's important that all of us know that in order for us to do it safely, we have to trust the process, right?
11:35
Because I might be scared of pulling back and looking at another perspective because now I fear that my perspective is going to be trampled on and I, I have to trust.I have to learn to trust.And that's what you're calling faith, right?I have to have faith that my own perspective is not going to be trampled on.
11:56
As I that is indeed.Someone else's perspective.And you know, I want to give a shout out here to actually a couple of different organizations that are all about that.One is called Braver Angels.Have you ever heard of them?They are dedicated to having conversations across the political divide.
12:12
Boy, do we need that these days.They are amazing that way.And then there's a there's some overlap.Some of the same people are involved in an organization called the Pro Human Foundation.The Co founder of that is a man named Darrell Davis, who you may have seen profiled like on some of the TV news shows or something.
12:29
He is a black man, jazz musician.He has to be pretty well known, I guess, in the jazz world.Oh yeah.But yeah, you've heard of him, right?And he, he has a wonderful Ted talk where he explains this process.He was saying, how can people hate me?You don't even know me.So what does he do with that?He ends up befriending the Imperial Wizard of the KKK.
12:47
Oh yes.We've actually.We've seen him.We've.Seen him speak.Yep, yeah, yeah.Incredible, astonishing courage.But the thing that I find so inspiring about it in this context is he didn't go and yell at them and say how terrible they were.
13:02
He went and was curious and was respectful.Now that doesn't always work with everybody.You know, that's a Gandhi, I think said non violence would not have worked against Hitler.I think Gandhi said that.I don't know I should look it up, but I think I remember something like.That sounds true.And maybe that's wishful thinking, but I think that's what he said.
13:18
But in any case, that notion, and it happens in a marriage as well when people can, and it's specifically when you talk about guys and therapy that worry that our point of view is going to be trampled on or we're not going to be, you know, we're going to be mocked or trivialized or whatever.When we actually able to feel like, oh, somebody can actually respect my point of view, that tends to get respect back.
13:40
Not always, but it often does.And in Darrell Davis's experience, it was so like shocking how they just came to learn more about each other and have peace and see each other as humans, not as what the outside those kind.
13:57
Of those, yeah, those kind of stories aren't gonna make the headlines.The Pro Human Foundation is trying to make them more headlines.You know, they're trying to let people know about that.Cuz what was interesting about it was, you know, like we were saying, he didn't, he did it with respect.He has a collection now as over 200 guys basically rejected or, you know, renounce white supremacy, right?
14:19
Based on his conversation, not just him, but him and lots of other people that he invites them to talk to and the people who were in the KKK, for example, the people he would talk to.And there's other examples of this too.There's a guy, this guy's last name is Black, although he is a white man who was being groomed to be the head of a major white supremacist organization by his father, who was the head of it.
14:41
And he went to the University of Florida.Maybe you've heard the story.And he met an Orthodox Jewish student who invited him to come to a Sabbath dinner at his house with a whole bunch of other people with all sorts of different backgrounds.And again, it was the same story over time.And they all knew who each other was.
14:56
And he didn't immediately say, oh, yeah, I'm done with that stuff.It took time.And what he points out, he's now well known for working with people in that community and among white supremacists, helping them not be.He said, you know, when he was in that, he didn't think it was harming anyone.
15:12
It wasn't out of malice.He just thought those ways of thinking were valid ways of thinking.It wasn't until he actually met people and he said, oh, wow, some of these ideas, first of all, are wrong.They just inaccurate, like in terms of who's superior to whom, that just it turns out not to be true.
15:29
He keeps seeing all these examples where it isn't true.But then there's also, and it was harmful, you know, it's like I didn't realize we were causing harm, but we were actually causing harm.Well, we don't want to do that cuz he's basically a decent human being.He didn't want to be not a decent human being.So I just find that stuff really inspiring.
15:45
And that's you can do that in a couple when a couple can start to see you're not out to get me.You're not just trying to thwart me.And this is another big one, especially this was gendered in a particular direction too.Women will often say, I don't, Did we say this earlier?
16:00
I don't remember.Women will often say, well, he doesn't care enough, You know, he doesn't care about me.I mean, occasionally that's true.Mostly it's not.It's not that he doesn't care about you.It's that he's terrified to go there with you.He's terrified to go to that territory, and when you see it that way, it's like, maybe I can understand this.
16:15
Not like it, but at least I can understand it.So he's scared of the intimacy in that direction.Yeah, we men speaking for all men, like I can speak for all men, but we won't say it.I think it's true.We won't say it first.We won't even tell ourselves we're scared often.We'll, we'll get angry, but we won't be scared.
16:32
You know, the anger is like often covering up fear.And we certainly won't tell our wives that we're scared because what kind of a man would I be if I told my wife I was scared, you know?But we often are really scared of stuff.Bruce, tell us about the seven word formula.Yes, and I don't know how many people are seeing this as opposed to hearing it, but for people who are maybe seeing it, I have it on a cup.
16:52
Be kind, don't panic, and have faith.This is for the podcast that my wife and I do.We call it couples therapy in seven Words because of those 7 words.So I'll tell you about the formula.It originated early in my private practice.I've been doing it for 30 years.So maybe 28 years ago or so.
17:07
I remember I was in a consultation group meeting and we had just finished up.We must have been talking about couples therapy.I frankly don't remember what we were talking about, but we were leaving.We were getting up to leave and one of my colleagues, a friend of mine, said to me, how do you do couples therapy anyway?
17:23
You know, silly question.We're literally leaving the room, you know, but I'd actually been giving it some thought and I'd, I'd been thinking, you know, if I really boil it all down, I suppose what I'm basically trying to convey is be kind and don't panic.Be kind in the sense of kinship.
17:39
Not just be nice, but recognize your common kinship and don't panic because if you panic, you can't do that.So he said, well, that's interesting.I started sharing that with some of the couples I work with.They would say, I can see how that makes sense.Tell me, how do you not panic?And they had me there because it's like, well, I wish I had a simple formula for that.
17:59
But when I gave that some thought, I realized the couples that I see who are not panicking are the ones who are manifesting that sense of faith.We've been talking.So have faith and what I say about faith.And I don't think this will be surprising to you.I said, I already said this earlier.
18:14
It's not a knowledge, It's not something you can acquire from a book.It's a practice.You have to practice faith.And that's.Not necessarily religious, right?So not necessarily religious, no.And you know, I have known, and this is kind of broad brush here, but I've known very religious, some very religious people who don't seem to manifest in that sense.
18:33
They're so rigid in their thinking that they can't imagine thinking any differently, even when thinking differently is called for.And I've known some very non religious people who have and vice versa, by the way.So it's not exactly correlated with religion, but it's certainly not hostile to religion at all.
18:51
My definition, it's like, no, there are people who can show a lot of religious faith and their faith in God supports that mindset.That says, yeah, somehow this is livable, even though I don't know how yet.That's what I you know, that religious people go up and manifest that kind of faith.I think another way to say what you just talked about is making meaning of whatever the difficulties are meaning in it.
19:15
And that research shows is that you're on a trajectory of resilience and transformation and that you're able to make it right.Yeah, we had a deep discussion with some friends last weekend.Yeah, we did.
19:30
This.Meaning versus purpose, I said.They're not the same thing.My purpose of life, I can define it, I can use words.The meaning of life, however, I cannot really describe in words like I sat there and I sat there and I sat there and I don't think it's possible for me to articulate what meaning is, however I know what it is when I feel it.
19:54
Yeah, of course, the nerdier of your listeners.And I am a recovering nerd.The frequent relapses myself will will understand when I say Oh no, the meaning of life is 42. 42 right?We had that.That was part of the.We had a very deep discussion about this by that.That's in that fits 42.
20:10
What does that mean?Well, whatever you want.So I'm glad you I was going to bring it up.I thought, no, it's it's too.It's.Too.But I mean, but you did so thank you.But it's something we create meaning, like you said, Viktor Frankel going back to him, he created meaning from this third eye point of view, which is that was very what we call.
20:37
Insight in a way, right?And I think most people want this, their DNA, their biology, they're born.If you ask anyone, we were doing a lot of reading, a lot of research on this.People who are religious, non religious, getting married is a huge deal.
20:55
They don't know why when the question is asked.Pew Research, Pew did this is on millennials.You know, a big majority of them said, yeah, we want to get married someday.Why?And I don't think a lot of people know why that they're just driven to have this relation, this deep, intimate, single relationship.
21:18
You know, it's some men say, well, that's not me, You know, I want to just spread my seed.But toward the end of our lives, we'll come back to this.And even a lot of us in the beginning of our lives, there's this deep meaning we cannot explain.
21:35
And I think what you're saying, Heidi, is that when we make meaning out of this mess, whether it's a spat last week, whether it's a betrayal of some sort, an affair, whatever it is, big or small, that we come back and we create meaning that we both own.
21:56
And I think that comes when we can see how it helped us grow, first of all, and second of all, when we see how it helps us help other people.Those two things give a lot of meaning to any adversity that we go through.All right, so be kind or no, No, don't panic.
22:13
Don't be kind.Don't panic and have faith.That's it.I like that.I like it.So 7 words, yeah.Be kind, don't panic, and have faith.Well, this has been a very passionate, exciting.I wasn't expecting this.I it's great.
22:32
Yeah, it's been really.Cool, well I enjoyed it too.Yeah, wonderful.If people want to find out more about what you're doing, where would you send them?Yeah, easiest place is my website, brucechalmer.com.If you spell my name right, you got it.Brucechalmer.com.CHALMER.
22:48
Right.Correct.Yeah.And so Bruce Chalmer, all one word for the name of the website and that's got information about my practice because I'm still in practice.And also I do tell I'll practice.So I can pretty much see people coaching.I can do pretty much from any place and also by my books.
23:03
And there's a link there to get you to our podcast, Couples Therapy and seven Words.So that's probably the best way to get in touch with me.I will note, I don't know when this is coming out, but this new book I'm working on soon because I expect to be done writing it within the next month or two.
23:19
I'm looking for people to read the pre publication version and give me some feedback.And given that I'm especially looking for people who are in that situation where they feel miles apart but they still love each other, that's a sad situation.But if that is any of your listeners and they want to get in touch with me and offer to be pre publication readers, I would be happy.
23:38
That's great.I love that.Offer.Thank you so much for being on today, Bruce.And you're very welcome.Thanks for having me on.And for all of the rest of you listening, we're glad that you were able to join us and look us up.Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, you know the usual stuff.
23:55
And leave us a rating review if we don't deserve your five star review.Please e-mail us at hello@marriageiq.com.And also jump onto marriageiq.com, our website, and sign up for our weekly tips e-mail.
24:12
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24:28
How's that? Oh, I like that.So anyway, thank you everyone for joining us.Remember, the intelligence spouse knows that to change from a stinky to a scintillating marriage first requires a change in themselves.And we will see you next time on another exciting episode of Marriage IQ.
