Ep 434 They Fell in Love Passing Notes in Med School. Thirty Years Later, They're Still Learning Each Other w/Alexandra and Rod Stockwell

Zach sits down with Alexandra and Rod Stockwell, married almost 30 years and both trained as physicians. They met in 1993 as first-year medical students, passing paper notes back and forth during lectures, and that early habit of asynchronous, patient communication turns out to have shaped everything that came after. Alexandra is now a relationship and intimacy coach and host of The Intimate Marriage Podcast. Rod still practices medicine and, in his words, is happy to support her work from just outside the spotlight.The conversation moves through the real mechanics of a long marriage rather than the highlight reel. Rod tells the story of what first drew him to Alexandra: not academic standout behavior, but her willingness to notice what everyone else in the lecture hall was too polite to say out loud, like asking a professor to turn the lights back on. From there, they trace how curiosity became their throughline, how personal growth inside a marriage compounds over time, and how a phrase like connection over content changes what a hard conversation actually accomplishes. Rod offers a simple, practical fix for the "heady" partner who struggles to know what a conversation needs from him. Alexandra shares a technique she once found genuinely off putting, literally timing how long she'd speak, and explains why it ended up building more trust and more freedom, not less.What makes this one land is that none of it is theoretical. Alexandra and Rod are open that every insight came from getting it wrong first, sometimes badly, and having their feelings hurt in the process. For listeners who've been together a long time and wonder if the spark is something you either have or don't, this episode makes the case that it's built, deliberately, one honest conversation at a time.Key TakeawaysCuriosity doesn't have to fade with familiarity. The early-relationship instinct to ask "what's your favorite vegetable" can be kept alive on purpose, decades in.Being curious about your partner has a side effect: it makes you more curious about yourself, too."Connection over content" means prioritizing how a conversation lands over winning the specific point being discussed.Naming the kind of conversation you're about to have (venting, logistics, brainstorming) before you have it prevents partners from accidentally having two different conversations at once.A technique doesn't have to feel natural, or even comfortable, to work. Alexandra found timing her own emotional sharing "disgusting" at first and kept using it because it built trust.Real intimacy is a form of emotional communication every time, not just during "big" conversations. What's underneath a moment matters as much as what's said.Marriage can function as a vehicle for personal growth, not just a container you maintain, if both people stay oriented toward it that way.The best advice in this episode was hard won. Every tool they share came from a mistake they made and repaired first.Guest InfoAlexandra Stockwell, MD: relationship and intimacy coach, host of The Intimate Marriage Podcast. Website: alexandrastockwell.com (book, app, courses, coaching, and podcast available there).Rod Stockwell, MD: practicing physician and Alexandra's husband of nearly 30 years. Not publicly active in the relationship coaching space; reachable through Alexandra's contact page.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.