Dr. Tracy Dalgleish

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Dr. Tracy Dalgleish

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Helping you feel less lonely in your marriage

Couples Therapist | Speaker | Podcaster |
Author of ‘I Didn’t Sign Up For This’ and ‘You, Your Husband, and His Mother

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06/18/2026

The joke isn’t actually about golf.

It’s about expectations.

For a lot of families, Mother’s Day still includes a lot of mothering. But Father’s Day often comes with permission to step away for a few hours.

Neither is inherently wrong.

But there are questions we rarely ask and it’s worth pausing to ask each other:

What are the unspoken rules in our family?
Who gets uninterrupted rest?
Who gets leisure without guilt?
Who is expected to remain “on duty” even on the day that’s supposed to celebrate them?

Sometimes the things we laugh about reveal the assumptions we’ve stopped noticing.

06/16/2026

One of the biggest myths I hear when it comes to in-laws is the myth of equalness.

“If you set boundaries with his family, you need to set them with yours.”
“If you spend this much time with them, you should spend the same amount of time with us.”

But families are not equal.
✨ Not all families honor boundaries.
✨ Not all families treat the in-law like their own.
✨ Not all families create safety and respect.

And when one side respects your relationship while the other constantly tests limits, trying to keep it “equal” only leaves you feeling resentful.

This is where my VAULT Method comes in, inside You, Your Husband, and His Mother—my book all about helping you set boundaries and communicate as a team with family. Especially for those who have a difficult relationship with their MIL.

✨ Order your copy today. Leave a comment with the word ‘TRIANGLE’ and I’ll DM you more details.

06/13/2026

When your partner says they’re overwhelmed, they’re usually not saying you’re failing.

They’re saying, “I need you.”

The more we hear criticism instead of need, the harder it becomes to stay connected.

06/12/2026

My husband and I have a rule when we travel.

Okay we actually have two…

Rule 1. Always put the passport back where you found it.

Rule 2. We don’t get annoyed and mad AT each other. We get upset at the situation.

When you’re tired, when you carried the weight of the entire family to get you to the moment past security, the last thing anyone needs is to get stuck in their pattern.

Don’t let the pattern hijack you and your trip.

Leave a ❤️❤️ if you know the airport struggle, or tell me how you tackle the stress that comes with travel.

06/10/2026

For a long time, I read quiet as a verdict.

When Greg got quiet, I’d fill in the blank myself, and the blank was always something about me. He’s pulling away. I did something. This is the start of the end.

What I eventually understood, in my own marriage and in my office, is that a shutdown is rarely a message about you. It’s a nervous system that hit its limit and went offline.

These are the things I think the quiet partner would say, if the words could get out in the moment.

Send it to your person. Or save it for the next time the silence shows up.

Comment 30DAYS and I’ll DM you the link to 30 Days to Us. 5 minutes a day to build the kind of safety that lets the hard words come.

06/09/2026

Let this land: Boundaries in your relationship don’t create distance. The absence of boundaries create disconnection.

We think healthy relationships are about sameness. But when we keep seeking to feel the same, think the same, act the same, we slowly grow resentful. We lose our desires and needs. And in any codepedendent relationship, that loss of self creates a pushing away from the other person.

Counterintuitive right?

The alternative is building healthy interdependence—which balances autonomy and interconnectedness.

Tell me in the comments: Does setting a boundary in your relationships come easy for you, or is it something you’re working on?

💛 If you’re struggling with resentment, feeling lonely in your relationship, or not sure what you need, check out my book “I Didn’t Sign Up For This.” Through real case examples of couples in my office, I teach you all you need to shift from codependency to interdependence.

Comment COUCH and I’ll send you the details.

06/08/2026

I hear some version of this in my office every week:

“The fight is over. But we’re not okay. And I don’t know how to get back.”

Couples come to me having spent days barely speaking — not because they’re still angry, but because nobody knows how to make the first move back.

Here’s what I want you to know 👇

The awkward silence after an argument isn’t a sign that something is broken. It’s a sign that your nervous system is still in protection mode, even after your brain has moved on.

What I often see is that couples know how to fight. They’ve had plenty of practice. What they don’t know how to do is come back. To actually return to each other.
The sentences on these slides aren’t magic. But they close the gap between “the fight is over” and “we’re okay again.”

That gap is where distance grows when nobody names it.
Start with the one that scares you. That’s usually the one your relationship needs.

If coming back is the part you keep getting stuck on, this is exactly what we practise inside the 30 Days to Us Challenge — one small reconnection at a time, for 30 days.
Comment or DM 30Days and I’ll send you the link.

06/05/2026

Relationships are about understanding who our partner is, understanding who we are, and then finding a way to come together.

This can be a starting place to understand what repair could actually look like.

If you’re looking for more:
Comment 30DAYS and I’ll send you the link to 30 Days to Us — 5 minutes a day for 30 days, built on safety, communication, and connection. Because knowing the right words isn’t quite the same as being able to use them.

Comment ‘254’ for my podcast episode all about the repair. And be sure to listen to the previous episode on the rupture. Greg and I share two of our most common disagreements and how we’ve shifted the conversation.

06/04/2026

A pregnant woman asked me:

“Is it okay to prefer my mom over my mother-in-law after the baby is born?”

My answer isn’t really about moms versus mothers-in-law.

It’s about trust, familiarity, and feeling safe during one of the most vulnerable seasons of your life.

Most of us don’t think twice about asking our own mother for what we need. The relationship is already established. The expectations are known.

But with a mother-in-law, you’re often navigating a newer relationship, different expectations, and figuring out how to express your needs and boundaries.

The issue isn’t who gets to hold the baby.

It’s whether a new mother feels heard, respected, and supported when she says, “I’d like my baby back.”

That’s what this conversation is really about.

Leave a ❤️❤️ if this resonates or share what you needed most after having a baby.

Address

Ottawa, ON

Website

http://www.drtracyd.com/

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