How Your Psychological Love Life Affects Your Relationships with Thomas Jordan

This is not a podcast about being broken, although you may have been. This is a podcast about strength for women who find themselves in difficult relationships, including that sometimes difficult one with yourself. We'll look at your relationship through a lens of psychology, faith, and a little dash of my own kind of feminism. We're not fixing them. We're fixing you. And that changes everything. Welcome to Stronger in the Difficult Places. Save yourself, heal your relationships. Listen in. Your love life is not only what is visible in terms of the people you have loved and love. Your love life is also what is inside of you that shapes and determines the kind of relationships you'll form and the experiences you will or won't have in love. That's a quote from Dr. Thomas Jordan. He's my guest today. Hi, I'm Dr. Zoe. I'm So glad you're here today. Dr. Thomas Jordan is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City. He's on the faculty of NYU's postdoctoral program in psychoanalysis. He's the author of Learn to Love: Guide to Healing Your Disappointing Love Life, and he's founder of lovelifelearningcenter.com. Dr. Jordan specializes in the treatment of unhealthy love lives and has been studying them for over 30 years. I rarely have men on my podcast, but He's got so much wisdom, and I'm all about difficult relationships, right? So I really wanted to have him on the show to share some of his wisdom with you guys. I think that he has done that. So we will listen in right after my win and my fail. So my win is it's my birthday coming up in a couple days. I'm not sure why we have to keep having these things every year, but here it is again, and I am happy to celebrate the completion of 48 years on this planet. Although I understand ageism and society, and I understand why people, especially women, don't want to say their age, but my 48 years have been hard won. I am proud of the wisdom that I've gained, and I'm thrilled to see what this next year holds for me. We always do some kind of little family adventure on birthdays, and this year we're going to do a Stranger Things experience. Do any of you guys watch the series Stranger Things? I think that's what it's called. Strange Things? Stranger Things. I hope I'm saying it right. I don't watch TV, so I have not seen it, but my boys have. They love it, and I'm going to try to get an episode in before we do this whole experience, but they have this place in LA and they have this whole Stranger Things experience where you are the protagonist, I guess, in the whole Stranger Things. I can't— I'm totally not explaining this well, but we're gonna go do it. It's gonna be a lot of fun. I will try to remember to update you next week on what it was like to have a Stranger Things experience on my birthday. That's my win. My fail is that my procrastination has gotten to me again. My bestie and I wanted to do a spa day and brunch and things like that for my birthday, not on my birthday, but tomorrow. We both have our birthdays in February, so it's kind of a mutual celebration thing. So I was supposed to book it and I didn't soon enough. And by the time I got to booking it, guess what? They're booked until April. April! Oh my gosh. This particular place has kind of been a tradition for us, but clearly that's not happening this year. So we picked something else. We'll have a great time tomorrow. It's really a sad first-world problem thing, and I didn't even want to say it as a fail, but that's all I could come up with, and it is a fail. My procrastination has gotten to me again. Definitely more important problems in the world though, and I admit that and honor that. Like your relationship. That's super important, and I'm excited to talk to Dr. Thomas Jordan about understanding your psychological love language. Life. I believe that he has some really good nuggets. So listen in. Dr. Thomas Jordan, I am so excited to have you on today. As most of my listeners know, I rarely have men on my podcast. So when I do, it's a treat. You might be number 3.

Oh, all right. It's a special group.

It's a special group. So, and I believe 5 years of podcasting, you might be number 3 or 4.

I'll have to double check. Wonderful. All right. Breaking new ground. Okay.

But I love— I loved your book, Learning to Love, Learn to Love. And I see you have it in the background. I love all those books. Of course, I'm a book lover. So when I see so many books piled up in one place, I get excited. But I did. And so I wanted to share, to share your work with my audience.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me, Zoe.

Oh, you're very welcome. So can you share a little bit about what started you on this journey of writing this book, Learn to

Yes, 2 things. One is, in my practice over the past 3 decades, I've seen quite a few people who are repeating unhealthy relationship experiences over and over again and not really aware of how what they had experienced earlier in life was being replicated over and over again in their love life in particular.

Yes.

And, and sometimes the outcome of that is tragic, to say the least. I mean, a lot of emotional suffering, a lot of, uh, not being conscious of what's going on. And, and more than that, the resignation that a lot of people get to when they reach their 50s, 60s, or 40s even, and stop believing that love is not for them because they've had so many disappointments. Right. So I, I'm seeing this over and over again. And so I began to collect information. I'm an interpersonal psychoanalyst by training, so I'm very interested in how relationships offer an opportunity to heal, but they also offer an opportunity, a situation where unhealthy patterns can be repeated over and over again. So, um, I started gathering information. I started looking at some of the people that in my practice where these patterns started showing up. I started seeing replications occur, and I saw certain experiences showing up over and over again in people's lives. So I gathered all that information until it reached a point where I said, okay, I have to start sharing this. And that's what prompted the book.

And just so you know, Dr. Thomas Jordan, I see that now in women as young as in their late 20s and 30s, even having already given up.

Oh, yes. Oh, yes, absolutely. The other big reason is I changed my own love life.

Ah, congratulations.

And, you know, in my book, I was, you know, struggling with, do I have to get like my patients to give me permission, talk about their love life? Then I said, nah, let me use myself as a case study. I'll give myself permission. So I did. And so I have a chapter, chapter 5 in the book, where I talk about my own love life, as well as a photograph of my parents and myself when I was very young, because that's where the learning took place. But The point is, I, I realized that I had a disappointing love life from the age of 17 all the way to the early 30s. I was replicating the same patterns over and over again, so much so that when the, the situation wasn't really there, I imagined it was there. I was so set to see what I had been taught. Yes. That I was projecting it into my experiences. My mother, I love her dearly. She's no longer with us. She taught me that eligible women were dependent, controlling, and self-centered. And she struggled with those qualities in her own life. And what I did is I looked for people with those particular characteristics, almost like— and I love to use the word familiar because the root of familiar is family. Mm-hmm. Look for what I was familiar with over and over again. Many disappointments, same kind of feelings of frustration that I couldn't figure out what was going on.

And you weren't consciously looking for them, right? It was just kind of—

No, that's the mystery, right?

Yes, right. Yes.

And, and in the book, I talk about how beliefs, behaviors, and feelings can all be on an unconscious level replicating these things that we've learned over and over again. So in my personal therapy, an analyst who I think had a lot of sensitivities about love life issues helped me become aware of how I was using my mother's— and the word he used was template—

Mm-hmm.

To manage my love life. So I, I began working on that, distancing myself emotionally from that template, and I started looking for an independent, not controlling, and, uh, not self-centered person. And funny thing, a year and a half later or so, Victoria shows up. She's my wife. I've been married for 28 years.

Beautiful, beautiful story. And I know so many people need to hear it. I have clients whose parents, maybe like your mother, taught you about what women were. I have women whose fathers teach them or even say things like all men cheat.

Yeah, right. Oh boy. Oh boy.

And they're struggling to find men who are honorable and that they can be in relationship with. So I'm so, I'm so glad that we're talking about this today. So can you tell me what the word psychological love life means?

Yeah. My contribution to love life psychology, okay, I'm gonna find my place, my niche in that umbrella phrase, is what goes on in our psychology that we bring to our love life. That's the part I'm interested in. The psychological love life is the blueprint that we have in our mental processes that shape the expectations we have, shape the experiences that we unconsciously replicate. Each person has one, a psychological love life. There are certain experiences that found their way into that love life storehouse. What we've learned From those experiences on the level of beliefs. And you gave a, a wonderful example of that. It's like an instruction. When your parent says to you, all men cheat, that goes right into the template. That's like saying to somebody, all men cheat, find the man who cheats.

Exactly.

And that's what happens. And even if you're consciously thinking you're looking for a man who's not cheating, you're gravitating towards father's instruction. Familiar and unconscious. So, and also the feelings, the familiar feelings that get replicated as well. So it's on the level of what we've learned is on the level of belief, behavior. We can find people who we reenact these unhealthy experiences with and find people who reenact it onto us. Right. So I can find if my, if my, if I experienced dishonesty, and that's where I put this cheating issue, That's one of the unhealthy relationship experiences that I've, I've listed. That's an experience of dishonesty. So if you've experienced that, you've observed it, you see the parental relationship, somebody's cheating on somebody else, that's in your unconscious in many instances, not 100%. Mm-hmm. Some people, it doesn't get into the psychological love life. So it's interesting. There's a little bit of uniqueness there, a little bit of individuality that's important. So you have to, Assess each psychological love life independently, looking at the person's experiences, etc. So

I also want to point out real quickly for the listener that sometimes they are very overt, right? A parent will say something, but most of the things that we learn and our foundational beliefs are never actually spoken. They're modeled to us.

Yes, by example.

Exactly.

And by relationship, how we're treated as well.

Good point.

So, right. So in the instance of dishonesty, you're, you're, uh, you're cataloging that. You, you've got that in. And so the behavior could be, I could cheat, or I could find people who cheat, who don't have, uh, uh, the ability at this point in their lives to make the kinds of commitment that ensures a relationship has longevity. So it can come either way. The behavior can be finding people or doing the behavior oneself. But fundamentally, it's unconscious either way.

Right. Makes sense. So I know that someone listening, when they hear about these blueprints and they think about this foundational learning, it can be probably a little depressing or sad to think, well, now, well, what can I do about that? If that's who I am foundationally, how can I change it? And we're gonna get to that. But first, I wanna address, you mentioned The 4 basic characteristics of an unhealthy love life. So you mentioned one, which was dishonesty. I want to identify those other 3, and then we'll talk about now what can we do about this?

Uh, I have 12.

Oh, 12. Okay. I thought there were 4. Wow.

Uh, abandonment.

Okay.

Abuse.

Mm-hmm.

Control. Dependency. Dishonesty. As we mentioned, dominance, exploitation, intrusion, mistrust, neglect, rejection, and self-centeredness.

Okay.

These, these are the experiences. Some enter the love life sphere more than others, but these were the experiences over time that I found showed up the most. In people's love lives.

Can you tell us what intrusion is? I think most people know what all of those other ones are. Can you describe intrusion?

Intrusion would be violating someone's privacy. For example, let me see off the top of my head, you get into a relationship with someone who doesn't respect your privacy. Now there's a little bit of overlap. You could say that's a form of emotional abuse. And you're right. There's an overlap between a lot of these qualities. But the violation of privacy boundary is an extremely important form of abuse that I thought should be named separately. Because intrusion is basically not respecting somebody's privacy or somebody's sovereignty is another way to say that.

Boundaries even. Boundaries.

It is an individuality of each person. You know, I— people say to me, what is a— what's a healthy love relationship look like? Well, it looks like a bunch of stuff, but one of the things it looks like is 2 individuals under the umbrella of an interpersonal relationship where their individuality is respected and given a place to grow.

Beautiful. I love that definition. So if you're listening out there and you— he just ran by those 12. You can always rewind it and listen to those 12 again. So if those 12 are in a part of your relationship in some kind of big way, obviously— I mean, obviously, as humans, we make mistakes, right? But if they form— how would you describe it? If they form what, then it would be considered an unhealthy relationship?

How would I describe one of the—

No. So if they are predominantly maybe in your relationship, or if they occur over and over again repeatedly, then we would consider that part of it.

Right. Yeah. Um, the first thing you're going to look for, and by the way, when you made your introduction, you, you, you referenced people might feel a little sad. You know what went through my mind? The fact that we can work on our love lives.

Yes.

It's a wonderful realization. Too many people think they can't. We work on our financial lives, our medical lives, our educational lives, our occupational lives. Few people work on their love lives. Most of the people I know don't know what they've learned about love relationships. If I go out in the street and say, excuse me, what have you learned about love relationships? They're like, get away from me. I don't know you. It's like, we don't necessarily know what we've learned. And if we've learned something unhealthy and we're not aware of it, that's tragic. The good news is we can do something about it. It's a learning experience. Learning is one of the things we human beings do best. If we learn, we can unlearn.

And you know what I also think is that sometimes maybe we think we've learned something, but it's more surface. It's not necessarily about us. And so we think, well, I won't pick that kind of guy again.

Right.

Right. Really, it's understanding what was going on and maybe some of those foundational beliefs. Yeah.

Yes, definitely. You know, the, the 12 unhealthy relationship experiences, when they're creating disappointment, multiple disappointments, which you're talking about, they unfortunately, when there's an unconsciousness that one of these, or several of these unhealthy relationship experiences is dominating a person's love life, right, there's going to be collections of unresolved hurt. That's a very common consequence, unfortunately. And when there's unresolved hurt, there's defenses. There's things people tell themselves to cope with the fact that there's unresolved hurt. And that's what you're talking about. Superficial ways of, oh, that's not important. Don't look at that. Don't think about it, or some other way of trying to live with the fact that multiple disappointments are being created over and over again, collecting unresolved hurt over and over again. So this process is very tragic, and can really tie up a person's love life, get it stuck. So the fact that you can, once you become aware that it's possible to work on your love life, and I love that phrase, I mean, it matures into work on your psychological love life. Yeah. Once people become aware of the aspects that I'm talking about. But work on your love life means, okay, let me look inside. Let me look this way, psychological. Let me look into my psychology to understand how to make permanent changes in my love life. Okay, that's step number 1. Great beginning concept. Very hopeful, very optimistic. Right. First thing you want to look for Repetition. When these learned patterns are unconscious, they're in control. They're habitual. Over and over again, they're patterning different people. Yes.

You mean the other people are doing something or we're doing something repeated?

We're doing something to recreate.

Right.

Over and over again. We're familiar with that are fundamentally unhealthy in this example we're talking about. So, uh, there's repetition. Repetition is the first sign that we've learned something that we could be unconscious of that's in control of our love lives.

And sometimes this repetition can be inside of the same relationship, and sometimes it could just be having the same relationship with different people over and over.

Absolutely right. And it gets complicated once you see how it gets applied, you know. That's for sure. So finding the rep— the repetition is very important. That's the first sign. Oh, I may be in a pattern of multiple disappointments in my love life. So from there, people need to become aware of what is being replicated.

Mm-hmm.

And replicated means that there's something in our past experiences that is providing a template, a blueprint, that we're using unconsciously to recreate, and that's a very important word, recreate the same kind of love life experience over and over again. I can't tell you, Zoe, how many times I've interviewed people that marry 3 types of people, the same type of person.

Exactly. I see it over and over again.

Does the same thing over and over again. A woman came to see me many years ago. She's a beautiful example of what made me write this book. A woman in her 50s, she, in an initial interview, she told me she grew up in a home with an alcoholic, violent father who was physically abusive to the mother. She and her siblings witnessed this experience. She grew up, left home, married 2 alcoholic, violent men. And the third one was a boyfriend who was starting to become abusive.

Mm-hmm.

And I remember at, in the interview saying to this woman, educated, intelligent, sensitive person, do you, do you think there's a connection between what happened in your family and what's going on in your marriages? And she looked at me with a look like, what?

Wow.

And I'll never forget that look because that look told me that there wasn't a link between those 2 situations, what happened in the past and what's happening in the present. So it's very important to make that link, and the link is made when we realize that something is blueprinting our love life experience. Now what that means is minimal or no choice.

Okay.

You think you're making choices? No. And I like to tell people, no, no, no. When the unhealthy relationship experiences are dominant, you are not in control of your love life. And that's a very shocking thing. People look at that like, whoa, what's he talking about? No control of my love life? How does that— the patterns, once you look at them, And consciousness is what we're talking about here. Right. To become conscious, repetition, now replication. What in my past is being replicated that's in control of my love life? Very important question. So once you've identified— for me, it was the dependency of my mother, the control that was part of that dependency, and the narcissism that she was trying to Repair. Narcissism oftentimes involves an effort to repair some kind of damages that have occurred and are in the psychology of the individual. So she was always focused on herself in some way that was very troublesome in her love, in her relationships, and in her emotional experiences. So it's very important to identify what these unhealthy relationship experiences are. Then we move to how they get recreated. Now, the learning, the unconscious learning, and that's fascinating concept, by the way, unconscious learning.

It is.

You know, learning takes place as soon as you show up. Before you show up. First moment. Even before.

Yeah. Yes, it does.

You're learning, what kind of environment am I coming into?

Right?

It's like, yeah, is it stressful? Is it loving? You know, absolutely. So Mother Nature made us to be extremely receptive to learning, to incorporating experiences, early life all the way to the end. It's one of the things we human beings do best. Now, me as an analyst, interpersonal analyst, I think a lot about unconscious learning because in my way of thinking, I think we're so good at learning We don't know how good we are. We don't realize how good we are.

That's true.

That at some point in the future, we're going to realize that the brain of an infant, the brain of a young child, is absorbing so much information from all the experiences it has. It does its own individual setting it up inside in the psychological, psychological love life, in the example we're talking about. In other ways as well, but they're learning a lot from what examples, what modeling, what examples are being provided from people, situations, community, the whole nine. So, um, I feel, and my research told me, that breaking it down into beliefs, behaviors, and feelings helps a person identify what they're doing, what they're experiencing, that's recreating these replications I spoke about.

Right.

So that's the tool. The tool is to use consciousness to identify the beliefs. For example, someone will tell me in the course of a conversation, love life conversation, and you use this example, it's a common one, all men cheat.

Right.

All women are controlling bitches. Uh, all, uh, all men, uh, will abandon because the experiences that they have and had reinforce that kind of belief. They don't necessarily know as a, you know, totally thought-out thing, I'm going to believe that all men are abandoning. No, it doesn't happen on that level. It happens on the level of sort of like a— it gets in. It's an absorption.

I think at some point, sometimes it will begin to become conscious because they begin to repeat the pattern and they begin to experience it themselves. And so then I think at some point it can become conscious. But

that's a good moment. That's a very good moment.

Unless they've just internalized that that's the truth. And so then if we look at these, if we look at what you're saying, so the first, the first is to become aware, essentially.

Absolutely.

Is awareness.

Conscious allows you to use the tool of consciousness now. Consciousness is a tool. It's not just like the Freudians taught us, you know, oh, ha, I have consciousness. Now I can go change my life. Not necessarily. It's how you apply consciousness.

So we become aware. We create that link. And then what?

And then state— I call it the unlearning method. Method stage 1, step 1 is what you mentioned, identifying repetition, replication, and how it's being recreated. That's number 1. Step 2 is the wonderful ability we humans possess to challenge ourselves. Now, I like to think of these kinds of challenges as therapeutic. We learn something unhealthy, we learn something better. But this better is not strong enough to stop what's unhealthy. But it can get strong enough with practice, with conviction, with awareness.

With intention.

Absolutely. Over and over again, realizing that, wait a minute, I'm not going to do that. That was unhealthy. I'm not gonna pick the same guy over and over again. People will say to me, Dr. Jordan, I went on a date last night. You know, they're on— they're in stage 2, and the guy's just like the last boyfriend I had. I'm really not interested. And we'll get into the particulars because they're applying their consciousness to challenge and disrupt the unconscious learning that's taken place.

Right. And so it's looking a little bit deeper, for instance, because it's easy to say, well, I'm not going to pick that guy again. And you find a guy that looks very different, but it's being able to understand what are those signs that this man is maybe abusive, that maybe he's got addiction issues. It's, it's being able to look at those signs and looking over the facade of whatever is being—

Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely.

So here's my question, though, for women who are in relationships that may be difficult and maybe they're looking at it and going, okay, well, I can see I already did that, but I'm in this relationship, I'm committed to this marriage. How can I work on my psychological love life? How can I uplevel or heal or improve my marriage when I already know that these things are in place, that I've picked someone that's about my past wound?

Okay, that's an excellent question. And it has a complication attached to it. The complication is, well, let me state the fundamental principle. If you're aware of your psychological love life as an individual, You're ahead of the game.

Mm-hmm.

There are options. If you and your partner,

mm-hmm,

are aware of each other's psychological love life and your own,

mm-hmm,

you're on your way.

And you both can be working on it.

Best situation, couple marital therapy.

Mm-hmm.

Where people become aware of each other's psychological love life and their own, and they work to support each other making changes. And keeping the unhealthy aspects out of their relationship. Perfect. Okay, now if you're in a situation where your partner is not interested but you are, gets a little complicated.

Mm-hmm.

Now I think that there are things that you can do if you are aware of the psychological love life that basically shaped the relationship, created the relationship. Um, it's going to be unpredictable, unfortunately, whether or not the relationship can be improved or it's going to stay the same. When one person changes in a couple, the conditions tend to get shook up now.

Yes, 100%.

There's something that happens. It's not going to be status quo. Now, a psychological love life aware person Can say to their partner, look, uh, when you do A, B, and C to me, I don't like it. It reminds me of what someone else did to me years ago. Let's stop doing that. You hurt me when you do that. Now, how your partner responds to such a heartfelt request is very important. Ah, you're making a big deal out of nothing. I'm not changing. That's psychological bull. I'm not doing anything. Not good.

Right.

Uh, tell me more about what you're feeling because, uh, it's important. I, I appreciate your honesty. Good answer.

Yes. Right.

Um, the sensitivity's there to begin to value what's been learned and how it gets replicated in our relationship.

So you made an excellent point that, you know, if your partner is willing and able, then you guys can both improve and grow together by understanding and asking those questions about your psychological love life. If your partner is not willing, you also made an excellent point that whenever you change one part— and my listeners know I say this all the time— whenever you change yourself, the system has to change. And so there is still Hope.

Hope

for yourself, number one, right? And for the relationship, possibly. And I think I would just like to encourage the women out there to just stop there instead of— because sometimes we jump to, okay, well, what's going to happen if I improve myself? If I, if I increase my psychological love life, health, right? What's going to happen to the relationship? And I would encourage a woman to just stop, stop right at Let me increase my health, and let's let the chips fall where they may, because the relationship will change. It will most likely change for the better. But what we know is that you will hopefully change for the better. Yes. But what we know is that you will. You will change. And

that, and you know, right? And in in that hopeful, unpredictable place that's inevitable in this scenario, I want to mention. And I know that there are people out there in your audience that perhaps aren't ready to hear this, but if you find that changes are not possible and your feelings, your heart tells you that you need these changes, you've outgrown the way the relationship has been, say, for a few years or something, and you need those changes now that you've become aware of how these patterns are replicating. Mm-hmm. If your partner says no, there's always ending a relationship.

Mm-hmm.

Which doesn't mean failure. It can mean moving on.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

It can mean evolving one's love life.

Mm-hmm.

And I like to tell people that because sometimes people get stuck on the feeling of, oh, I'm gonna have to settle because I don't want my love life to have a failure experience.

Right.

And I, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm sort of, uh, I've been sort of seeing the evolution of love lives in my work.

And

evolution can mean going from a relationship that's toxic and not growing and going into a relationship that's growing And healthy because people change individually.

Right.

And the first thing they do is check with their partner. Look, I wanna make this— I, I don't like when you abuse me emotionally or verbally.

Mm-hmm.

This needs to stop.

Mm-hmm.

We need to go to couples therapy. No, I'm not interested in that crap. I'm not going. You have a decision to make whether that relationship Should you stay in it, or you're going to draw a line and say, I'm moving on in my love life?

100%.

Let's do step 3. What's that?

Yes, I said thank you for your wisdom. Step 3.

Okay, step 3. Uh, 1 is consciousness, 2 is challenging the unconscious pattern once you become aware of it. 3 is doing something different. And the different— the word I like to use instead of different is opposite.

Hmm.

Opposite of abandonment, commitment. Opposite of abuse, respect. Opposite of dependency, independence. All the way down the line. The opposite, I think, in this situation is therapeutic. It moves the love life in a new direction.

Mm-hmm.

It provides a concept in people's mind to use. In my love life changes, I became aware my mother didn't teach me this. I didn't have any sisters.

Right.

That women can be independent, not controlling, and intimate, not self-centered.

Mm-hmm.

That's what my wife Victoria is. We work in a group practice. She's also a psychotherapist. She had her own life when I met her. Um, I believe she's a very intimate woman. We have a family, have a child. I mean, I became aware that my limited view was not the whole picture.

Right.

So once I knew that there were people out there who were really eligible for relationship, Who possessed the growth, the capacity, the interest. I began looking. I be— I became interested in relationship. I went through psychological changes, and here comes Victoria, and that's the mystery.

But it's not the mystery. You changed your lens, and so of course you attract it.

Well, I set out an aura or something. Who knows? She called me. She called me to refer a patient.

Of course.

I mean, how does that happen? I didn't have contact with her for a couple of years. I've known her for 6, and then, you know, a couple of years, and then all of a sudden she's on the phone referring a patient to me. I mean, it's like, did you pick up some brainwaves, Victoria, on the other side of town? I don't know. But hey.

No, I mean, it happens in the same way in the most toxic and dysfunctional space. And so, of course, it makes sense that it would happen in the most healthy and positive way of—

Well, there you go. Wonderful point. Absolutely.

Dr. Thomas Jordan, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom. You know, in an effort of time, we need to close today. But I just want to encourage the listener out there who's heard your story, who's, who's beginning to understand their foundational beliefs and how they affect their current love life to get your book, Learn to Love.

If they use the whole title, it'll be easier to find. Learn to Love: Guide to Healing Your Disappointing Love Life.

Beautiful. And I will also put that link in the show notes as well.

I have a website as well, thelovelifelearningcenter.com, which is a lot of interesting— I wanted it to be an online site that people could get some information about solving real love life problems. And yeah,

I will add that to the show notes. Is there one last, just one last word of encouragement you'd like to give to someone out there who is in the midst of a disappointing love life?

Yes, I would say it is entirely possible and important that you work on your love life. Consider it an area of your life that can be worked on, and that's the great hope. And once you become interested in your love life in this way, you begin to become aware of how the psychological love life, the love life that sits inside of your mind, is something based on learning, so it can be changed, it can be updated, it can be improved upon. And when you do that, there are real, oftentimes dramatic changes that can take place in your love life as a consequence of that work.

Beautiful. Thank you so much for coming on today. Thank you for sharing your insight.

Thank you for inviting me, Zoe. I had a lot of fun. Thank you.

Thank you for listening to Stronger in the Difficult Places. New episodes go up on Tuesdays. Subscribe to my email list so you don't miss an episode and have a strong week.