The 4 Seasons of your PMDD Relationship-The Spring Phase

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The strangest part of PMDD isn’t always the luteal phase crash. It’s what happens right after, when you wake up feeling clear, calm, and loving again and your relationship is still sitting in the wreckage of the week before. That “spring” phase can feel like relief and whiplash at the same time: the brain fog lifts, affection returns, and you want closeness now, yet your partner may still be guarded, disconnected, or hurt.

We walk through what spring really is in a PMDD relationship, why it can take a day or two after your period starts to fully come back to yourself, and why partners often struggle most during this window. We also name the patterns that quietly keep couples stuck in the monthly breakup cycle: over-apologizing to force fast repair, avoiding the conversation and acting like nothing happened, and performing “I’m fine” instead of staying honest and regulated.

Then we get practical. We share the repair framework we use with clients: ownership without self-shame, awareness without blame, clarity about what you needed, and a solution with real proof. If you want better PMDD communication, healthier conflict repair, and a plan that protects both partners, this is the roadmap.

Subscribe for the next season, share this with someone navigating PMDD, and leave a review with the one spring repair line you’re going to try first.

Transcript

Welcome And The Seasons Framework

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to another episode of the In Love with PMDD podcast. I am your host, Dr. Rose Algaton, your PMDD relationship psychotraumatologist. I help you stop the monthly PMDD breakups. And last episode, we really talked about the winter phase of your PMDD relationship where you feel like you're always fighting, you're always arguing, you can't seem to be on the same page, you're not seeing things eye to eye. You've maybe said things that you regretted, you've done things that you regretted, and you found yourself in that cycle. So when you come into spring, it is normally when you're coming out of the luteal phase, when your PMDD symptoms have gone away. And a lot of times that happens a couple of days within the cycle, within the luteal phase. So it's not, it's not like when you're completely out of the luteal phase and then you go into menstruation and you first get your period, it almost takes a couple of days for you to fully come out of winter in order to get into spring. That's what we're going to talk about today. And I know for some people, immediately, as soon as you get your period, you feel like you're back to yourself. You feel like you can see things clearly and everything's great. And for some people, it takes a couple of days. I know earlier in my journey, as soon as I got my period, my first day, I was normally feeling better. I could see my partner clearly. I could see our relationship clearly. I began to get really grateful that I was with my partner. But as I've gotten older, it's taken a couple of days into my period to where I can really feel like I'm in spring. Okay. So what spring

What Spring Feels Like

SPEAKER_00 1:32

is, is when you come out of a PMDD episode and it's been really horrible for your PMDD relationship, and you look at your partner and you have this feeling of a mix of relief that you're all of a sudden seeing them in a more positive light. But then you're also feeling this level of guilt because you're replaying things that you've said and that you've done in the last PMDD episode. And then immediately following that guilt is that pressure to fix everything. You're remembering all the hurtful words that you've said to your partner. You're remembering the ways that you maybe haven't met their needs, or you're remembering things that they said that they wanted to do or they wanted to experience, but you weren't able to do that. Maybe when you go into your luteal phase and you're in that winter season, you're not communicating as much because you're not in a place where you feel like you can handle it. So then when you come out of that and you come into spring, all of a sudden you want to connect. You have this very intense urge to connect with your partner again, but you don't even know where to start because you're scared of making it worse. You're kind of walking on eggshells. This is when you, the individual who has pre-menstrual dysfort disorder, starts walking on eggshells. A lot of times we talk about the partners who are walking on eggshells all during the winter season, all during the luteal phase. But when we come out of PMDD, that's when we actually begin to walk on eggshells because we don't want to say anything to make anything worse. You're kind of like going towards your partner, like I come in peace. I'm not trying to upset you. I'm not trying to argue with you. I'm just trying to be in a place where I'm, you know, letting you know that I'm open again, right? That's when you're in that spring season where you feel like you're capable of having those hard relationship conversations or any, any conversations. You're capable of being around your partner and you're not feeling triggered, that you're not getting irritated by their existence. You don't feel like that they're slamming things, you don't feel super um sensitive to the things that they're saying and doing. That rejection sensitivity has pretty much worn off. And you've come into this different version of yourself where you're literally like, I'm in spring. Let's make the best of these great days. Let's reconnect. Let's make memories together. And what I want to let you know about spring is a lot of times the partners have

Why Partners Struggle In Spring

SPEAKER_00 3:43

the most difficult during this the time during the season. And it's because they've been the same the whole time and they maybe have wanted to connect while you were in winter. They wanted to connect while you were in your luteal phase, and they've had to kind of what I call sit in a corner with their feelings and their emotions and wait for you to come out of the alluteal phase to come out of PMDD. So when you go to reconnect with them, that's when a lot of times the couples have this level of disconnect because now you're ready to be open. Now you want to talk about things. Now you want to do things where just a day before you didn't want to do it and you didn't even want to have them suggest that you do anything. So I want you to recognize that when you're in spring, you're not fake for feeling differently now. I know a lot of times we can have this imposture syndrome where it's like, how can I feel completely different? And how come I'm acting completely different? A lot of times you're authentically acting how you feel when you get inside of your spring season. You're authentically feeling that way. But your partner might not understand how you can feel so differently with just a matter of a day, right? So this is when you get into your true baseline, right? Of who you genuinely are, the true core of who you are, the true nature of who you are, the reason why your partner fell in love with you is because you're back in that place. And so, what I want you to really understand, two versions of you exist within the relationship. Two versions. You go through four seasons, and we're going through all four of them as I'm going through this series. So we've gone through winter season. If you haven't listened to the episode, make sure that you go back because this is really going to tie into that. And now we're in spring. Now you're in a place where you're repairing a lot of the damage that maybe you have done or your partner has done in that winter season, in your luteal phase when you were in PMDD. So these two versions of you exist in your relationship, and spring is where you're finally able to meet yourself again. You're getting back to the core of who you are. I know a lot of times my partners used to say, I even looked differently, I sounded differently. The tone in my voice was completely different when I was in my spring season because I was in this place of having a level of compassion when they would, you know, have conversations. I wasn't in this place of getting defensive. There was no blaming, there was no shaming, there was no defensiveness. It was just compassion and wanting to really, you know, pretty much active listening. Like I'm wanting to see where you are. I'm wanting to connect with you. I'm wanting to be intimate with you. And basically during this time of spring, your nervous system regulation returns. You all of a sudden feel safe with your partner again. You feel like you can have conversations with without feeling like they're going to use it against you. You feel like you can be open, you can be even more playful, even more loving. You know, in the spring season, you're you're a lot more affectionate. Where if you're in the car and you're normally just in your own bubble, maybe you're reaching out of your hand and you're holding hands again or you're doing little things for them, for your partner that you normally would have done before, but you weren't doing in your luteo phase. All of those instincts are coming back. And again, it's not fake. So for the partners that are listening, I know a lot of times it's hard to believe that those things are coming naturally, but they are coming naturally because the nervous system has calmed down. You feel safe again. The relationship feels safe again. That stress response is not there anymore. You're not feeling like you're not compatible. Maybe you shouldn't be together. You're not feeling the threat of the relationship. You're almost feeling the safety of the relationship. And you're feeling like you're grateful to have a partner, you're grateful to be in a relationship. And that oxytocin really comes back. It increases, which is that bonding hormone. So maybe you want to be more intimate on a sexual level. Maybe you're kissing and you haven't been kissing in your whole Ludeal phase and just hugging and doing little things that make you feel more intimately close with your person. And then cognitively, this is huge for me. The it's like the fog has lifted. I see the clarity. The clarity comes back. The things that my partner is saying and doing it makes more sense. It aligns more. It's a level of alignment where you feel like this is my person. You feel more confident in saying that versus when you're in your winter season and you're in your luteal phase, you kind of question it. You're kind of like always like, is this my person? It's almost this realm of like testing it. You're kind of as soon as they say or do something in the winter season, you're like, oh, that's proof that they're not my person. Well, when you're in spring, you're in this place of confidence, like this is my person, and you're able to cognitively say, This is my person because they do this, this, and this. This is my person because they do this, this, and this. And so spring isn't just about reconnecting, it's about reconnecting in a healthy way. It's when, you know, if you think of the season of spring where you're starting to see like flowers are blooming and you're kind of coming out of your shell and you're feeling lighter and you're feeling more free. And that's a perfect example that you're in spring. So what I want you to do, and what I would really want to teach you today, is not make mistakes when you're in spring season.

The Over-Apologizing Trap

SPEAKER_00 8:38

Because I know a lot of times earlier in my journey, when I would get into spring season, I would make these mistakes. So I'm going to teach them to you today so that you don't do this because you may be thinking that you're doing a positive thing in your PMDD relationship, but you actually might be doing a lot of damage. So the first thing that I don't want you to do when you're in spring, when you notice that you're feeling better, when you notice that your symptoms are lighter, when you notice that you're feeling more loving towards your partner, I don't want you over-apologizing to try to fix everything fast. I know one of the main ways that you can fix something in your PMDD relationship is by taking accountability for your actions. But there's a difference between taking accountability and over-apologizing. So what I mean by over-apologizing is you're listing out all of the things that you said, you're listing out all of the things that you've done, and you're trying to fix things. So you're going back and you're saying, I'm sorry for talking to you like that, and I'm sorry for doing this, and I'm sorry for doing that. By over-apologizing, what you're really trying to do is you're trying to soften your partner. You're trying to get them to get over whatever it is that you know you've said and done. And a lot of times for some people, there's two types of individuals. This is for partners that have PMDD and partners that don't. For some people, you're able to get over things fast. Like it doesn't take you long to get over something, right? Something that's said, something that's done. I've had a lot, I tend to attract a lot of partners where it doesn't take them long to recover. But for me, it takes me a little bit longer to recover from hurtful words that are said, hurtful things that are done. And I feel like apologies kind of when you're over-apologizing, like, yes, you can do your initial apology where you're just saying, you know, I'm sorry for that, or that was my bad, or I shouldn't have handled the situation like that. But when you're over-apologizing, it's almost to this realm of trying to speed past the natural process of processing the emotions. And it's kind of like, I said, I'm sorry, right? So we're good. I said I'm sorry, so we're good. And it's like, it's not, that's not always the case. It's not always a simple apology, but I know that when you're in that realm of doing it, it's because you want your partner to turn back to being loving, to turn back to being connected because that's the state that you're in, and you want to be on the same page with them. Overapologizing doesn't help you fix things fast. Sometimes you do the initial apology and then you let them sit with that. You let them see you. One of the best things that you can do when you're in spring is to let your partner see that you're safe again. You don't have to tell them, I'm out of PMDD, I'm not feeling my PMDD symptoms anymore. A lot of times they can already tell. It's not something that you have to really explain to them. They can already tell when you're out of your luteophase because you look, you feel differently. Like the feelings that they have when they're around you feel differently because you're in a state of calm. You're not in a state of panic, you're not in a state of overthinking, you're not in a state of confusion, you're not in a state of brain fog. And just you being naturally in your state is enough for your partner to know that you're in spring. So we do not want you over-apologizing for everything that you've done in your luteal phase that has caused damage to your PMDD relationship. It doesn't fix things fast. It almost, you know, forces your partner to be in this state where they feel like they have to get over it, right? And the

Avoidance And Accidental Gaslighting

SPEAKER_00 11:46

next mistake that you can make when you're in spring is avoiding the conversation completely, right? You're avoiding having any conversations about how you were in PMDD, how you were in your winter season, how you were in your lunatical phase. You almost want to avoid it. And that's a form of gaslighting because you're acting like you weren't in a different state, maybe a day ago, a couple days ago, a week ago. You're gaslighting your partner into thinking that I've been this way the whole time. It's just been you, or nothing bad has happened, or what's wrong with you? You know, have you ever done that? Because I understand how you can do that because you feel like there's two different versions of yourself. But have you genuinely looked at your partner and saying, um, when you're in spring, when you're outside of PMDD and you're kind of like, what's wrong with you, babe? Like, what's going on? You're kind of asking your partner why they're in the state that they're in because you're not associating yourself with the luteal version of you. So when they're a little standoffish, when maybe they're closed off, maybe they're completely detached at this point, and you're asking them why they're in that state, it's almost like they think that you're you're gaslighting them again because they're like, you know why I'm like this. Like then you're forcing your partner to bring up everything that happened in PMDD. And then that's when even when you're in spring, you can get into this realm of getting defensive. Because then instead of just talking about the things that happened in your luteal phase in your winter season, you start defending them because now your partner's like, What do you mean? Why am I like this? I'm like this because you said this to me and you did this to me, and you're forcing your partner to reveal all of the things that they've been holding in during that winter season and the luteal phase. So we don't want you getting to a place where you're acting like nothing happened. I need you to address what happened in a healthy way, not act like nothing happened and then not expecting your partner to just move on. Just because you say sorry doesn't take away at all of the hurtful words that your partner said. And this is why I try to help you get to that place when you're in your winter season, when you're in your luteal phase, that you do the least amount of damage as possible because there is a cleanup process to everything that you've done in your luteal phase that has damaged a relationship. There is a level of responsibility that you have to allow your partner to take some time if they need to take some time. And I know that's the hardest thing to do when you're in spring and you're wanting to reconnect and they're still in a place where they're disconnected because they've had to be disconnected in the luteal phase. And now you're kind of feeling alone. You have all of these loving feelings and you're you're now getting upset with them for not connecting with you in a way that makes you feel good without really recognizing maybe they wanted to connect with you a couple of days ago and you weren't in a place to do that. So it's not a tit for tat thing, but it's if they had to understand how you were in your winter season, in your luteal phase, then you need to be able to understand where they are when you get into your spring phase. Because just because you're in spring doesn't mean that your partner's in spring. And this can be the same thing for the partner that doesn't have PMDD. Maybe there's times where you have less stress in your life and you're wanting to reconnect with your partner, but they're in their winter season. When you are both in a relationship and you find yourself in different seasons, you have to give an allowance for that person to be wherever they are. You don't want, you won't want to start being fake and pretending. I used to do this all the time. I used to pretend like I was in spring when I was really in winter, which is another common mistake that you can make is to pretend like you're not suffering even when you really are. And I remember I had a past partner that kind of like lumped when I did that because they didn't have to deal with me in PMDD. They didn't have to deal with me in my winter phase because I never subjected that to them. But then there was this level of there was no intimacy there because I couldn't truly tell them how I was really feeling because how I was feeling in my luteo phase, in my winter phase was a trigger for them. So I would always pretend like I was in spring. I was always in this space, like, we're okay, we're okay, we're fine, we're fine. And I was never really in this place of being honest with myself. So you want to be as authentic as possible because the more that you hold things in, the more you're gonna get resentful, the more you're gonna get bitter, and it's gonna cause you to have a lot of unforgiveness. You're gonna start to resent your partner for making you be in a place where you don't feel comfortable, right? So here's the thing: you can either rush the repair, you can avoid it, and both of them are gonna keep you stuck in the cycle of not being authentic, of not being connected, of being fake in your relationship. So we're not gonna rush past it by over-apologizing, by trying to fix everything, by trying to over-function. I know so many of you can start to, oh, I want to cook dinner, I want to do the dishes, I want to do all these things because you feel like your time is limited. So you only have a limited amount of days where you're actually feeling good. So you're trying to pile on all of these things in your PMDD relationship. And it's very overwhelming for your partner. I've counseled hundreds and hundreds of partners and they say, like, I enjoy it initially, but it's it's a lot to take on because it's hard for them to really wrap their head around that you're a completely different version of yourself. So we don't want to rush it, we don't want to avoid it and pretend like nothing happened because we don't want to keep you in that cycle, cycle. Okay.

Repair Script With Ownership

SPEAKER_00 16:49

So the next thing I want you to do is when you're in spring, this is how I want you to handle it in a healthy way because you're gonna be in spring every single time that you get in your period and your symptoms go away. I want you to take ownership. And when you have the conversations, I'm gonna give you some conversational scripts that I use with my private clients that are really, really helped. And I really want you to start by saying, I want to acknowledge. And when you say I want to acknowledge, you're taking ownership of what you did. I don't want you saying, I want to acknowledge I did this because you make me feel this way. Keep the statements about you. I want to acknowledge that I said this or I could have handled the situation better. For me, uh like I told you before, mine is offense. I want to acknowledge that I got offended when you probably didn't even really mean it that way. I took the situation and told myself a story in my mind about what you meant when you said these things, and it probably wasn't true. And I treated you like it was true, and that wasn't the right way to handle it. When you are acknowledging, you are what I call waving the white flag. You're not making any excuses, you're acknowledging it, and not in a way where you're self-loathing, where you're feeling bad about yourself and you're feeling like a monster and you're feeling like a horrible person, but in a way where you're validating how your partner may be feeling in this moment. I understand that you may feel disconnected right now, and I want to acknowledge that that's probably because of my behavior. And then the next thing is awareness. During my winter phase, during PMDD, I felt like this. And you really just lay out specifically how you felt and you kind of let your partner know that I felt this way, but it's not even because you did it on purpose. It's not because you made me feel this way. I want you to get out of the habit of saying you made me feel this way. Because if you're supposed to be blaming any anybody in this circumstance, it's PMDD. And I understand that you can even get to the point where you're taking on PMDD as a separate entity and saying PMDD made me feel this way, and PMDD made me do this. It's still you, right? So I don't want you to have this level of disassociation to where there's PMDD and there's you. You're together. You have premenstrual dysphoric disorder. So during my PMDD, I felt like this. So you're having awareness and a sense of and clarity and letting your partner know this, I acted like this, but this is how I was really feeling. I felt rejected. I felt offensive. The next thing I want you to do is for clarity purposes, right? What I needed from you was this, but I didn't express it. So you're getting really clear on what it is that you needed from your partner during that specific time. And you're not in a place of blaming them for not giving it to you, but you're having clarity on know that I got offended and all of that. But what I really needed was to feel accepted. I know for me, that's always my biggest thing. I need to feel accepted. I need to feel free in my relationship. I don't want to feel judged. I don't want to feel like I have to be a certain way. So, what I really needed was safety to just be myself. And when I was sitting there feeling offended, it's because I felt like I wasn't getting accepted for who I was and I was almost getting picked apart. And that really has to do with my childhood. And, you know, during my childhood, there was a lot of verbal abuse and there was a lot of blaming and shaming. And whenever there's moments of, you know, asking maybe questions are a big thing for me. Questioning me automatically makes me feel like you're judging me, and then I get offended. And so I could say, you know, when you asked me those questions, I really felt like it was coming from a way of judging me, like I wasn't being accepted, and then I wasn't cared for, and then I wasn't loved. It was almost, it almost put me in a place where I felt like I had to prove myself to you. And that really goes back to my childhood trauma of when I had to do that growing up. So you're giving your partner a little bit of clarity as to why you acted the way that you did, not in a way of making an excuse for it, but just walking them through this is how I was feeling, and this is what my actions are. I have no excuse for them. I shouldn't have handled it that way, but this is what I was feeling, just so you know. And then we're this is so important because I feel like everybody skips this part, right? You go through the ownership, you say the apology, you want to acknowledge it, you have the self-awareness where you're saying this is how I was feeling in PMDD. You give them clarity about where you were coming from and you skip the solution.

Clear Solutions And Proof Plans

SPEAKER_00 21:11

We need actions and solutions that will prevent your partner from feeling like this again. So many times, if your partner feels like you're it's always gonna be like this, they're always gonna have to deal with your attitude, they're always gonna have to deal with you shutting down, they're always gonna have to deal with you going off on PMDD rage. That's when they get hopeless and they feel like they can't stay in the relationship and they need to do the PMDD monthly breakups because there's no solution, there's no actions. I cannot tell you how many clients that have come to me and said, I've gone to other, you know, therapists, counselors, psychologists, and we've just talked about the things that have gone on. We talk and talk and talk and we go through the emotions and we explain what happened in the situation, but there's never any solutions. And then therefore, they feel like they need to break up because breaking up becomes the solution. You want to have a solution after you laid everything out on the table. This is the way that you tie it in. Moving forward, babe, I want to do this. Or moving forward, babe, I'm not going to do this. I personally had to do this in my present relationship because, you know, when you go through a new relationship, there's a level of discovery that happens. So when I get into my spring phase, I realize and spring is perfect for clarity because you realize what works and what doesn't work. And so in my spring phase, I'm able to say, you know what, this worked and this didn't work for me. So I understand that you were feeling not respected during this time. So moving forward, I'm going to make sure that I don't do that again because I want you to know that I do respect you. I do love you. I do care about you. And now that I know that doing this action makes you feel disrespected, moving forward, I'm not going to do that again. Now, what I don't want you to do is make promises that you can't keep. If you're still in the realm of kind of managing your stress responses and your triggers in your PMDD relationship, that's something that you know that you need help with. Go to inlove with pmdd.com, get those counseling sessions so that you can show them a plan because it's very strategic. When you are working on your trauma triggers, your PMDD trauma triggers, you have a plan in place. I'm providing you with tools. So if you don't have the tools, but you're promising not to do it again, that's a mistake because you're probably going to do it again. If there was no changed behavior, then I'm probably going to do it again. If I don't have a tool to shift and change the way that I manage my triggers, I'm probably going to do it again. But what you need to do for your partner is provide them with proof. And it's nothing wrong with them asking for proof because they want to know, okay, you're not going to do it again. How do I know that you're not going to do it again? That's when they can really begin to believe you because if you just say, I'm not going to do it again, but then you do it again, it's almost hurting even worse because now they're not going to believe that they can trust anything that you say. There has to be hard lines in your relationship where you've crossed the line of being verbally abusive, physically abusive, disrespectful, all of these things. You have to be able to have a tool in place to say, I'm going to prevent this from happening again by doing this or by not doing this. And it's not just, I'm not going to do it again because I know that it hurts you. What is going to stop you? This is what your partner is going to want to know. What is going to stop you from doing that again? And if you don't have anything to tell them, they're not going to believe you. And if they believe you and you do it again, you're going to be doing even more damage. So you, I want to emphasize that you're not blaming yourself. You're not shaming yourself, but you're definitely not over-explaining. I don't want you over-explaining. Sometimes when you start talking in circles, your partner stops listening to you anyway. I've I've noticed that it's like if you, if your solution is so long-winded, but it's not being very clear, they're probably not going to believe you because they're going to be trying to sift through all of these things, but you need to have a very clear, actionable plan. Dr. Rose told me to use this tool and I'm going to use it, and that's going to prevent me from doing this. Very clear, very honest, very transparent with the process. I've been working on this or I am working on this in this specific way. And due to the work that I'm doing, I'm not going to be reacting to you in this way anymore because I know it's going to do damage to our PMDD relationship or our relationship. However, you talk about it, however, you communicate it. Again, put all of these things in your own words. Okay. So what I want you to know about spring, spring is your golden opportunity to repair the damage that has been done from your winter season in your PMDD relationship. But if you do not use it intentionally, you're going to go right back into fall, which is what we're going to talk about on the next episode. And if you don't take this window of opportunity to repair the damage that has been done, you're going to be in that monthly

Spring As A Repair Window

SPEAKER_00 25:32

cycle. And it's going to, that cycle is going to lead to the PMDD monthly breakups. It happens every single time. So if you're listening to this and you're thinking, okay, I get it, but I still don't know exactly what to say. I still don't know exactly what to say. I have created the PMDD relationship seasons guide. This is going to give a guide of what you say in each phase of your cycle. If that's something that you want, I want you to um reach out to me. My email is rose at inlove with PMDD.com. And you're going to be able to get the tools of exactly what you're supposed to say in every single phase of your cycle. So if you're tired of guessing what to say in your PMDD cycle or you're kind of saying that I feel like I keep saying the wrong things or I keep doing the wrong things, then you're going to need this guy that's going to help you. So again, if that's something that you know that you need help with, go to nle with pmd.com. You'll be able to get the guy there as well. And next time we're going to be talking all about fall. But make sure that you get in on practicing what you're supposed to be doing for spring so that we can move into the next season. Until next time, we got this. I love you.