Empowered Relationship Podcast: Your Relationship Resource And Guide · Dr. Jessica Higgins

ERP 504: Loving Through Estrangement: How Couples Can Heal, Support & Stay Connected — An Interview with Dr. Rachel Glik

·48 min

Dr. Jessica Higgins opens by framing family estrangement as painful ground that couples often have to cross together. Dr. Rachel Glick brings a spiritual lens, treating parents as first in an energy flow and describing cutoff as something that can affect the self as much as the relationship. She connects that idea to obligation, growth, and healing, rather than guilt or duty alone. The discussion keeps coming back to how couples stay aligned when a family rupture sits in the background. Higgins and Glick treat empathy as a practical behavior, not just a feeling. They talk through how to raise concerns carefully when a partner enters the picture. Tone matters as much as content. A concern can sound caring or intrusive depending on how it is offered. The episode keeps pointing back to respect for the other person’s path. It suggests that a parent needs to notice when they are stepping into someone else’s lane. That awareness becomes part of the repair. Glick describes how affirming language can help protect trust. She models phrasing that leaves room for the other person to choose. The exchange also shows the value of asking permission before offering advice. That permission does not weaken the message. It makes the message easier to hear. The conversation returns to the idea that couples do better when they treat each other as allies. They do not have to solve estrangement right away to stay connected. They do need to avoid turning every family issue into a test of loyalty. The conversation stays measured and relational throughout. It leaves room for complexity without losing its direction.

As heard by us

A careful look at how couples can stay linked while family ties fray.

This episode treats family estrangement as a problem couples have to live through together, not something they can neatly solve from a distance. Dr. Rachel Glick gives the conversation a spiritual frame, casting a cutoff with a parent as an obligation to the self and to growth.

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Why you'd press play

For when family estrangement is stirring tension in your relationship, and you want a gentler way through.

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