Eli Weinstein on Navigating Marriage in the Parenting Years

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Debbie Reber (0:01)

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Debbie Reber (0:33)

I'm Debbie Reber and this is Full-Tilt Parenting. In the past few months, I've shared a couple of episodes about parenting partnerships when raising neurodivergent kids, including a really good episode with Martina Nova on how to get on the same page. And then a few months ago, one where my husband, Derin and I sat down to talk about how we've navigated co-parenting our neurodivergent kiddo over the past decade. Today's episode is also about parenting partnerships, but from another but equally important lens. Expectations, resentment, mental load, and communication that can strain the relationship during intense parenting years. My guest to talk about it is Eli Weinstein, a licensed clinical social worker, husband and dad of three, and host of the Dude Therapist podcast. Eli has been featured on more than 250 podcasts and outlets, including The Kelly Clarkson Show, Psychology Today, Parents and Men's Health, and his new book is called From I Do to We Do, Navigating Marriage Through Parenting Years. There are lots of takeaways in this one. It's really actually made me think differently about how Derin and I can better work together. And Eli shares lots of just practical real world tools for repair, for clearer communication, for shared responsibility, and especially keeping our partnerships strong, even when things get really messy. And two quick housekeeping items before the episode. First, all of my free resources at Tilt Parenting, some mini courses, the resource vault, and the school database are now in the new Differently Wired Family Hub. So you can get access to all of those by going to tiltparenting.com/hub.

And then if you want to watch podcast episodes instead of just listening, you can find videos for all of my conversations on the Full Tilt Parenting YouTube channel. And while you're there, please subscribe. That really helps with the YouTube algorithm, so more people who need these conversations can find them.

Thank you so much. And now here is Eli Weinstein.

Hey, Eli, welcome to the podcast.

Eli Weinstein (2:41)

Hey, thanks for having me. Super excited to be here.

Debbie Reber (2:43)

I love talking about parenthood and couplehood, and you have a book which I just read. It's called From I Do to We Do, Navigating Marriage in the Parenting Years. And of course, I read it through the lens of like, what's happening in my world right now and with my partner. And we've talked about this stuff from different lenses on the show before, but I think this is yet a whole different perspective. So maybe we could start by you sharing a little bit about what you do in the world and why you wanted to get this book out into the world.

Eli Weinstein (3:16)

Sure. So I'm a full-time therapist, full-time dad of now three. We have a newborn baby, four weeks old, baby Gabby. Before this coming on here, I was holding her for about an hour, hour and a half, not sleeping last night. You know, the normal.

Debbie Reber (3:31)

You're in it.

Eli Weinstein (3:32)

We're in it. And so it was a lot of things that I was feeling as a human being, as a dad. And as a therapist, I work with couples every day, at least one couple or two couples every day, or I work with individuals within their relationships.

And it just was this stuff coming up with the parenting and the balancing and the communication. All the things that the Gottmans have written about and Sue Johnson, all the wonderful Tina Bryson, Dan Siegel, all the beautiful things. But to me, there was never a book that was a relationship book for the parents. And there was never a parenting book that talks about the relationship.

And a publishing company reached out to me because of my podcast. Someone heard someone of something, and it just teaches you that you never know who's watching and who's listening. And that's not a creepy thing. It could be a positive thing, right? So keep pushing, keep posting, keep hustling, keep doing what you believe in, and you just don't know who's out there who goes, oh, this means something. And they reached out and said, hey, we want you to write a book. There's not a lot of male therapists who are out there honest with no BS as a dad, as a husband, and all those wonderful things that make me who I am. And I'll be honest, I hate writing. Like, it's one of my biggest fears.