The Romance You Want Starts With These Questions with Lindsay Jill Roth on Love, Intimacy, and Practical Connection

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Welcome to Dear Dr. Tracy, the podcast that dives deep into the messy, beautiful world of relationships. I'm Dr. Tracy, clinical psychologist, relationship expert, and your go to guide for navigating relationships, boundaries in laws, and everything in between. Whether you're striving to rekindle the spark, set healthy limits, or build deeper connections, this is the space where real talk meets expert advice. Together, we'll tackle the tough questions, untangle the sticky situations, and uncover the small shifts that lead to big transformations in your relationships. So grab a coffee, settle in, and let's rewrite the stories you tell yourself. This is Dear Dr. Tracy, your guide to creating relationships that feel good. Hey everyone, welcome Back to dear Dr. Tracy. I am sitting with a really special guest today and I am so Excited to be bringing you this conversation. So I want to say thank you, Lindsay, for joining me here on the podcast, and thank you so much for this beautiful book that you've written. I want to hold it up just to start so that everybody can see it, because this is one. Oh, my goodness. I mean, do you know how many couples could use this book? How much. I could have used some of these questions earlier on and. Well, as well. But before we sink into talking about the book and what led you to write it, maybe you could tell us a little bit about you.

Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for having me. I'm just so pleased to be in your orbit and your realm, and hopefully we'll have a great conversation to inspire lots of people who are listening. But. So I just like you. I needed this book when I was embarking on trying to find healthy love. But let me back up. You asked who I was. So I like to say first and foremost that I'm a storyteller, because in my day job, as I call it, my daily life, I'm a TV producer. And I started out in radio, and then I made my way into tv, but I've always told stories. So this, for me, is my second book. My first one is a fiction novel. So to me, storytelling is valuable when you're passionate about it. You can talk from the heart. And so that's my job. And who knows, maybe this will make it to screen someday. But I knew that I had to tell my transatlantic love story on the page first and bring the help that I needed to other people. I'm also a mom, and so I'm living that busy life between personal and professional and. And figuring out the balance like all of us are.

I love that you bring so much to what it is that you're doing, so much about you as a person, your experiences. And I'm really curious. So you've already mentioned transatlantic love. You've mentioned children. I'm super curious. What led you to write this book?

So I was the girl who was walking down everybody else's aisles. I was in their weddings, and I was looking for my own love and my own romance. And I realized that I didn't have enough clarity as to who I was. Boundaries in my life. I was really figuring them out. And I. I realized later, you know, the hindsight thing, I realized later that I really. Until I was able to put up some boundaries in my life, I was not going to make a great life partner to someone else, even though I thought I was ready. And I was dating. But I realized I wasn't communicating well enough. And I as I was more single and walking down everyone else's aisles, I began to lose myself. Date after date after date. And so the start of romances and practicalities, the book and the story is me claiming myself back and realizing that when I found the right person, I would communicate with them as me and feel really comfortable as me. And so I found someone that I was comfortable with. I found someone who I didn't have to check with my friends before texting him, which is a sure sign that you're with someone who you feel comfortable with. And we had this. I'll jump into the story a little bit. But we had this pivotal facetime. Turns out we were both in New York at the start of this relationship and then he had to move back to London, which threw us for a loop. But actually I say is one of the reasons we were became such successful communicators. So we were on FaceTime one night and I said something I did not know this was a pivotal moment truly. And his response was, I just don't know you well enough yet.

And I was like, oh my God. It hit me because I really liked this guy. And I was in that place of like, either be the Lindsay that you've been in the past or be the woman that you've worked hard to be. And I, instead of running, I leaned into this moment and I was like, okay, listen to him. He's saying we don't know each other well enough yet. The subtext to that is I want to get to know you better. And so I literally, I was in my pajamas, it was night, I was laying in my bed and I googled how to get to know someone better because I was like, I like this guy. And that Google was the start of this book. That was me realizing that we're not taught how to communicate about ourselves, who we are in our past, when we want to grow romantically with someone. And that I didn't have the tools to understand how to be in a grown up relationship. And that is how this book came about. And the book is this transatlantic love story. The questions based system I created for people to achieve love or to fix the love that's not working. And it's been validated at this point point by science, by various experts, celebrity have, celebrities have done the system, real people have done the system. And it's, it's all of that in one pretty pink box.

I loved reading your story about the transatlantic romance because it resonated so much with me in the sense of my own story and truly why I think Greg and I worked out so well in our partnership. And that is because I met him in a bar one night here in Ottawa. And he at the end of the night had said, can I have your phone number? And I said, I'm not really a phone kind of person. Here's my email address. And so we started to communicate by email and we really got to know each other. And then our entire relationship was long distance until two months after we got married, which forced us through the highs and the lows, but it really forced us to have to communicate against challenges. And Lindsay, for more context of that, I was this young 22 year old who had just left, left further from home, moving across the province. I was learning emotionally focused couples therapy. I was supporting my supervisor in releasing a book for the public and she had said, do you have a partner here? Read this chapter and do it with your partner. And so here I am with my new boyfriend saying, what are your needs and longings? What are those core emotions that you feel with me?

Yeah, but we just had to have.

This conversation where normally with other people similar to you, I would have had this front on. I would've spent so much time thinking, what does this person want from me? How should I show up? How do I please and be the good girl?

Who do they want me to be? Right.

Oh, oh my goodness. Who do they want me to be? And yet that's not a way to build a relationship. And I want to even switch into the title of this book because you've called it. It's almost like two words that mean opposite things. Romances and Practicalities. We often don't read romance books and see the practicalities behind it. We don't see the romance movies. Tell me how the title came to life with this book.

So what's really funny is that a lot of times when you write books or you start projects, the title changes and you know, the thing that you had at the beginning doesn't make it to the end. But actually I had romances and practicalities from the beginning because I thought, okay, I want this romance, but we need to be practical. And lots of times in romance it's about sex and the feeling and the butterflies and the back and forth and the excitement and that real up and down. And then once you're in love or in lust or in like enough, then you start broaching practicalities. And that's how romance has really progressed till recently, which is what I'm actually trying to change, right. That fairy tale romance, the princess that has it all but never has to talk to her prince.

Right.

Or the prince who can just get the princess because it is a fairy tale. And what I realized that the sexiest type of romance actually is based in the practicalities. And the way to have a long term partnership is to start with the practicalities. And that practicalities are actually to. If you start by having conversation, you get in deep with someone, you share honest things about yourself, that intimacy brings you closer in a real way and it informs how you set yourself up for the future. It informs how comfortable you are physically in bed with each other. So I want to start with the practicalities to enhance the romance. And that's sort of what I'm going into.25. Well, it is 2025, but that's my 2025 message. And beyond is that the practicality will get you the, the long term romance that you're looking for. It doesn't mean marriage. To each their own on that. But whatever long term relationship means to you, you need the practical to sustain it.

I love that you have put these two together because I often think about the attachment research and how we move from this romantic part, our relationships, this infatuation, the honeymoon stage that doesn't last forever, but it then moves you into the security that's needed in a long term bond. And it really is about that sense of knowing myself, but then also knowing the other person just as much as. And, and that's, that's intimacy. That's a true way of connecting.

And why wait to know if you're going to have that security with someone until after you've spent months with them, after you've slept with them, after you've gone down this path to then realize, gosh, I don't really feel safe, what am I doing? Or a lot of people don't actually take into account that they don't feel safe because they're down such a deep path and they want it, whatever it means, so they keep going. And life's hard enough.

Yeah. Yes. It's this sense of how do I know ahead of time? When you were creating the book and going through each of the chapters. So there's 250 questions. And I love that you don't be.

Scared by hearing that. Don't be, please. They cover so many things. It's meant to excite, not frighten, not at all.

And it is in a sense of. You can choose your own journey within these questions. It doesn't have to be a. I'm going to sit across from you for 10 minutes and fire through 20 of those questions to check in. But I'm curious, as you were creating this and going through it, were there any questions that were a surprise to you or that took you off guard or maybe ones that you reflected back on that you hadn't explored earlier on? Tell me a bit about that process.

Yeah, so the. The general theme here is that I include 250 questions in this book because a lot of times I feel like people don't know what to ask the person that they're seeing.

Right.

So we need a little help there. And if I can guide you, whether it's money, families, sex, pets, you know, routines and rituals, in laws, sleep, if I can guide you into helping you ask questions to get to know someone better, then that is going to help your journey. And through the book, you hear my story, you hear other people's stories, and there are many on ramps for people to use the system so you can really bend it so that it lends itself to what you need. Right. It will help you if you're not yet dating someone. It will help you if you're just about to get engaged, and it will help you if you're trying to figure things out. So for me, no, there were not 250 questions when I created this initial list, and I didn't do it all correctly. And I'm really honest in the book about how I didn't always do it right, because if I always did it right, then that's really not inspiring for people to pay attention to now for us, for example.

My now husband. I'm not giving. There's no spoiler alert there. We did get married, but this is the journey, you know, to and beyond. For us, religion was a big deal, and we came at that from different sides. We're different religions. We didn't know how we would raise our kids if we were to have them. And I was really afraid to broach that with my now husband. And so for us, that was really the most challenging of chapters. But, hey, for me, that was a challenge, and that was a surprise for you. That could be something totally different. It could be family or pets or in laws or money. And that's the beauty of this. People often ask, what's the hardest section? What's the hardest question? What's the most fun? It's like, what's. What are those for me is going to be different for you? And that's the beauty in this whole thing.

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Well, you don't think about it. A lot of times people say to me, so what are you saying? Are you saying that if I'm meeting someone the first few times I should look at them and say, say how many kids do you want to have and how much money do you make? And what. How did your parents argue when you're growing up? And no, I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that if you're just getting to know someone and you want to learn about them, there are different things that you can say to get you off the subject of, like, where you grew up, what you do for a living, and what restaurants and locations you want to visit in your lifetime. Right? How typical is that for a chat? So if I'm sitting across from someone and I say to them, hey, like, what's your thought on having pets or cats or dogs? Or did you have a pet growing up? It's such a harmless question. But what you learn about the person sitting across from you is so much deeper than other things. So you could learn about their childhood. You could learn that they got bitten by a dog when they were six and actually have a fear of them. You could learn that they're allergic to cats but always wanted one, so are saving up for one. You know, you could learn about how they are as a caretaker.

Right?

All of these things that give you clues to the human who's sitting across from you and that are actually really fun to talk about.

I really appreciate you bringing up the religion piece in your own experience, because sometimes what I hear people do is they come to this spot of saying, I don't think it's right because we're not on the same page. And a lot of fear comes up in this. And even we think of any of these conversations, someone maybe who's a light sleeper, well, am I going to find someone who snores all night? Or the family history, oh, well, they don't have a close relationship with their family, so what does that mean for me and my family? And I'm curious what you have to say about that. If people find themselves feeling more fear around the answers to these questions instead of connectivity and intimacy.

So I think the first point of fear comes based on our own personal and childhood experiences, Right? So that is where we always come at things. So, yes, there's fear in opening oneself up. And then there's also that fear of, I want to go deep with someone, but I don't know if they want to go deep with me. So there are a couple of sort of fear pillars that I think come up before a specific question. And all I can say to these people who feel this fear is, I felt it, too. Of course I felt it. I still feel it. But it's always easier to revisit something in a relationship, in a friendship, in a partnership, than you've spoke, if you've spoken about it in the past. And that's why I encourage people to speak up. And actually, I find that sometimes the fear about bringing it up is so much more before the conversation than after the conversation. And, you know, if someone says to you, I don't know the answer to that question, but I do. I want to understand it. That's just as good as an answer, because it means that you've got a conversation started. And if someone shuts down, it doesn't mean they don't want to have the conversation with you. It's a clue to understanding why. So fear is good. Fear is good. And then getting through that fear and realizing that you made it through is also a positive experience. I don't know how you would frame that for your clients because you're the actual therapist, but I really feel like. Feel like this. The fear thing is. Is a great driver, and people surprise you. And look, I. I also encourage people if you feel fear. So I felt fear about religion, right. I'm Jewish. My husband is Church of England.

My fear in talking to him about this subject made me dig deeper into my religion before I had this conversation. So I actually am grateful that we came at it from different perspectives, because I understood what was important to me before having the conversation with him about it. Sometimes I think when. If we're too much the same, we skip over that. And I don't advocate that too, because then there's a presumed similarity when actually you need to talk about money. Even if you think you grew up in similar circumstances or if you grew up around the block to someone, you still need to talk about what it was like inside their house growing up.

I love that you've addressed it this way, and this idea that fear is an indicator that something's really important to you, and it's not so much that it should be avoided, but rather we can lean into it because that fear, in a way, is telling us something is really important here. You wouldn't feel fear having this type of conversation with someone who didn't matter to you, someone you didn't want to deepen that.

And I think it's okay.

So I do think.

I think it's okay to say person who you clearly care enough about to want to talk about real things. I feel fear right now. I'm, like, shaking a bit. I'm a little bit nervous. I'm, you know. You know, holding on to my childhood teddy bear because it scares the you know what out of me. But I really think it's important for us to go there. Can you go there with me? I mean, be Upfront about it, for sure.

And there's this meta process that we're not quite labeling yet. I think you have in a way. But let's make it really explicit around this book. One is, what's the actual answer to the questions? And how does that align with you and who you are and what your values are? But the meta piece of this is how does this person respond to the questions? How does this person give information or connect with you or share parts of themselves? And that in itself is information for you, for you to understand. Who is this person? How do they respond to these types of questions? Can they meet me on that emotional level, that is.

And are they listening to your answers? So a good example of this is someone I always get asked about one of my favorite questions. And a lot of people respond to the how do you argue? Question, which is a great question, because a lot of people don't. Well, a lot of people have an argument and then never actually work out how they argue and how they argue together, right? So almost before you have this argument, I want you to have a conversation. Just say, listen, I would really respect someone so much if they were like, I am very passive aggressive, but once I get it out, I'm done and I move on. I mean, wouldn't. I would. I would respect someone if they said that to me. Listen.

I like to verbalize on the go, and I like to work it out as I'm having this. My partner is the exact opposite. He needs a minute. He needs more than a minute. He's a, you know, he's a spreadsheets, maths, numbers guy. He needs to get all his thoughts like ducks in a row. And those two styles do not lend themselves to each other at all. Right? So we discovered really early on when we had a conversation about, hey, how do you argue? And what do you need? That he lets me go for a minute or so and then I say, I give him the grace of saying, okay, let's take a minute. Let's do our own thing for a bit. Let me give you time to just chill out, think about this, ruminate, and then we'll come together and we'll have a conversation. And that has made our arguments now about what we are actually fighting about. Or he would say, at this point, we don't fight. We. We don't. We don't fight. And like, well, we kind of do, but we do it in a very respectful way because we're not arguing about how the other's arguing. We're not pissed.

That we're not communicating, right? So to your point of.

If someone is listening to you or not, we know and we give each other the grace because we respect each other for how we argue. But the only reason we do that is because we have the conversation about it.

I love that you're calling that out. Just this idea of can we go inside of ourselves and acknowledge what are the things I tend to do in a dynamic with you? I think about long term couples that I see and just how hard it is for us to shift from the. We feel disconnected and stuck. We do more of the outward piece. If you were different, if you did this, if you just. And what you're saying about this conversation that you had is we went inside and said, here's this piece about me, now let me understand this piece about you. And then I love what you've done because in a way you're. You're co creating, you're creating this together, which is not to be feared. That's something that we can learn to do and it's quite powerful.

I also think what these questions do is first, if you go through them yourself, you understand what your needs are, what you might be holding onto. You know the term deal breaker? I don't love it, but it makes sense, right? You can either really hold on to things that are true deal breakers for you, or you can let go things that aren't because you've actually spent some time thinking about why they are so. And why they're not. But this book also gets you to ask for what you need with someone. So I interviewed, I love this story. I interviewed someone who was really annoyed every night when her husband. So it was a husband and wife team in this case, didn't take out the trash. And it would get her so angry. Like no sex for him, right? Like none. It would, it would completely ruin their bedroom time because she was so annoyed and she took a minute, she took a step back and she realized that she had this expectation that that was his job. She realized one, that it came from her father doing that every night. She also realized, number two, that she never told him.

That was sort of one of his jobs in the home that would make her really happy. And once she communicated that he was able to say, that's it, that's all. That's what I have to do to make you not angry in the evenings. And so this process makes you realize what you want and comfortable asking for what you want, which only again sets you up for that long term.

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We have so many implicit expectations and beliefs and stories and ideas about others. And it really is about slowing it down and being able to communicate it with another person. And that's, that's what I love so much about your book, about the process that you're offering us is hey, here this is. And one of the questions actually really stood out for me thinking about a woman I worked with in therapy. She had two, two young kids as many of the people listening have children as well. And she came in feeling really resentful towards her husband because she felt like she was doing it all. And when we Stepped back from that we started to look at. And the question I remember asking, I think is similar to what you have in your book, is what roles did you see your parents play? And what roles do you think? Because her husband wasn't coming for therapy, but what roles do you think he saw his parents play? Okay, now let's be really curious. What roles are you each playing? And it was this aha moment for her to say, oh, I'm being exactly like my mother, and I actually, I don't want to be this role. And he's being exactly like his father. And I don't think this is working for, like, revelatory, you know, aha moment, which I. Yes, yes. And just this kind of experience of now I feel empowered to go back to my partner. Not in the blame and criticism that she had been stuck in, which was, you don't do this. You never. You always. I always have to. And instead, going to him with curiosity and saying, let's talk about what we saw our parents do, because, you know, I think we're playing out those roles and can we then reassess? And there's a great.

Gosh, I keep saying great story in the book. Obviously, I wrote this book. I love this book. I'm so proud of this book. So for those great stories.

They're all great stories.

But there I have a moment like that, which you know about since you've read it, where I was. I'm not. I don't want to tell the story because it's a great story. But see, another great story where I had a moment where I was turning something inward on myself that my boyfriend at the time was saying, because I actually thought it was about me. And it turns out it really had nothing to do with me at all. And it was about something that had happened in his childhood that he was then not knowingly projecting on me, and it was that, aha. I remember exactly where I was when I had the aha moment. Right. And it was like, oh, my gosh, this isn't about me at all. Oh, okay. And then I went to him and said, hey, I had this theory. Can you let me just go there with you and really be open to what I'm saying? Because I'm feeling bad about something, and I actually think maybe this doesn't have to do with me. And again, it's about finding that person who you are comfortable speaking with about anything and everything so that when these things come up, up, the opening of the conversation is not so scary.

Right?

Yeah. The opening is not scary.

Do you find. Listen to me, turning the tides here. I'm asking a question. Do you. Okay, good. I always love that the most successful. In your mind, whatever successful couples means to you, having been in therapy with so many, do you find that there are traits that are similar between the ones that you feel are the most set up for success long term?

Yeah, I'll actually cite some of the Gottman reasons. I love the Gottman, which is around. Yeah. They've, they've offered, along with Dr. Sue Johnson, they've offered so much work in how we understand couples and love and attachment. And in their research, they find that people, especially men, who allow their wives to influence them, they are more likely to be satisfied at follow up. So that is a really big piece and that, that's the piece around. Well, I'll give you an example. I started to ski in later adulthood.

That's hard.

And I've been doing it now for six seasons. Very hard, especially when I had a traumatic event when I first tried in grade five. But, and so Greg was so patient around it, but I allowed him to take me to those blue runs and then black runs, and, and it's been a challenge, but he influenced me and I opened myself up to allow him to do that and vice versa. Where we're struggling with something, or I see him struggling with something, he'll hold space and hear what I am offering him. So that influence, I think, is a really important piece for couples. And around influence also comes the ability to compromise. And that is recognizing that it's not, I'm right, you're right. But then again, I come back to this word co creation, because it really is for me, it's about two people coming onto the relational arena. Brene Brown uses that idea of the vulnerable arena, coming into it and recognizing that you're two different people making space for both of you and learning how to dance together. And I know a lot of people get stuck in this idea around compatibility. And my belief is that there's not the one out there, but rather you recreate the challenges and heal those challenges through the person that you're with. And as one couple once offered me this image, it has always stuck with me that they're like two stones being bumped up against each other on the beach. And over time that rock, the, the rough edges then become softened and smooth. And that is just such a beautiful way to understand the ups and the downs of our partnership.

And I think what, what you were saying has made me think that a lot of people go into relationships, thinking that compatibility is either there or it's not.

But there's so much you can do to influence compatibility. But it starts with understanding yourself and, and once you know what you bring and have perspective on things, I really find that's when you're able to be a better partner because you're allowed. You're allowing yourself to let things in, and then you're giving as well. And it's something that needs to be worked on. But I hate. I actually hate the term worked on, because it's really fun to dig deep with someone you care about. And I will say, whether it's my questions or other conversation mean it's. It is sexy. I mean, no matter. You could be going for a walk in the park. You could be having my preferences. Bowls of ice cream with lots of sprinkles. You could be over a glass of wine, whatever it is. People who do this at home, few questions in, they're putting their books down and going upstairs. Because opening yourself up to someone and feeling safe doing it is a beautiful thing. And that energy really does transpire between people, and it's really special.

Yeah, that. That's the intimacy, Lindsay, that you're talking about. And the way I think about intimacy is this. This idea of really releasing control in the sense that you don't know what the outcome is and you're allowing yourself to be vulnerable. You don't know what's going to happen, but you sit down beside your partner and you take that leap into opening yourself up and allowing them to see you and you to see them, bringing in that curiosity.

And it is.

It's exciting. And. And I really do wish more couples in general could see that in order to have that. So all the key ingredients to intimacy, pleasure, play, curiosity, freedom, power. Not in a gross way, but power in the sense of, you know, I feel so good and this is what I want to do. All of that comes from emotional safety and vulnerability. And that has to start outside of the bedroom in order to create that exciting.

Dr. Peggy Klein Platz, a sex researcher, uses the word optimal. Optimal sex life. But really that pleasure play and enjoyment.

I mean, about when you just forget if it's a romantic thing or not. When. When you have that, a magical conversation with someone and it's like, God, that just hit me on all levels. Like that was. We had the best conversation today. You remember that, and you remember how good that feels, right? And that feeds you in such a way that just hopping into bed with someone might feed you in that moment.

But is not actually the test of sustainability for long term. And by the way, this doesn't have to be a prescriptive exercise, right? You can go through this book and have some questions that you'd like to ask people. Someone across from you doesn't need to know that they're being questioned from a book. They just might think that you're really interesting to talk to because you ask them many different things. And again, it doesn't have to be what was the perception like inside your childhood home versus outside your childhood home. It could be things in the book like if we were stuck together on a desert island, what skills would you bring to help keep us alive? And that just takes you on a whole other tangent. Right? It could be do you prefer laundry or dishes?

Right.

There are great stories that people have to tell when you have a question like that and you're sitting with someone and they get into it.

I was recently asked about how phones are impacting our relationships as couples. And when you say that immediately I think and we can put down the phone and come into ourselves and be present with the other person. And that really is this long lasting hit of connection in our bodies and our brains. That's so exciting.

Experience the other day. So this is a first for me as a parent. Okay.

And.

And there's a point in what I'm saying. So I was, it was last Friday night. I was bringing my kids to another friends for the, the moms, the women were getting together and all of our kids range in age from there was the youngest at the point was seven, I think the oldest was about 13. Mine were the youngest and there were six kids. There were five boys, one girl and my kid was the young one. So I didn't know how these like bigger kids were gonna interact when they were all together. And it was a Friday night, everyone was tired. It was the end of a long school week. Every kid was on a device. Every single kid was on device. And my 7 year old said to me, and it's funny because I wasn't going to let him bring his iPad. And I said I'll give you TV time on the way home because it was a bit of a drive. And so we had it. And he said, mommy, everyone's on a device. Please may I use my iPad? Beautifully asked, very polite. He knew he wasn't getting screen time to later. I said of course. And I was so sad about this. These kids didn't talk to each other the entire night. And we live in a city and it wasn't like they could just go outside and play basketball. So it wasn't one of those things. But I, I, I'm still feeling sad about how these kids didn't talk to one another this evening. And it makes me think about what you just said, because if we're, and again, this is not what this podcast is about, but today. But if we're, if we're on a Friday night and there's six kids together and everyone is on their individual device, how can we expect people to then, in their interpersonal relationships, to know how to have a conversation with each other?

Yes, yes. I think about. Have you read the Anxious Generation?

Great. Oh, my God. I mean, what Jonathan Haidt is doing is amazing. And so someone, another writer, actually, who read my book, had, and this was not my intention. So this is all her Nikki, Nikki Krause had. She said to me, you know, we've left your book on the kitchen table, and she has a tween daughter. And she said, so we're not covering the sex chapter, but every night at dinner, we're asking, you know, one to three questions, and we're answering them as a family. Leave it to her to think to do that.

Right. I love that. Yes, yes, of course.

Oh, my goodness.

Of course. That's just so lovely. Life.

Yeah. And it's, you know, I think of that experience of seeing the kids and the discomfort, even for myself as a mom with my friends and almost the leader of being able to say, hey, all. Okay, you have had your 5 minutes on screen time. Here's a basket. It's not my house. Here's my purse. Put them all in. And, you know, good luck. Yeah, right in the, in this way of, of. Oh, there's so, there's, this is such a different conversation, but I, I feel that. And I, too, know that struggle where. And Greg and I have this story. I have the story in my head where I say to him, I remember the night you brought the iPad into bed. He had actually won it at a golf tournament. And what a cool gift. Right? Because it's like. Yeah, right, Absolutely. I was excited for him, but I remember it being in bed, and I remember it being like this third person, which, you know, I didn't invite you in, and now you have access to the world right beside me. And we've just seen the impact of that over time. And so it really does take this kind of bold, courageous sense of ourselves to say, hey, let's put these away. Let's try something different. Let's switch the cycle up. But. Or.

Or, oh, gosh, I. I feel using them together. So like a ritual that my husband and I do every night is we get into bed. Even if he sometimes goes. Even if I go to bed or go to sleep, he goes to work in his office in our house. He'll go and work for a few hours. But we get into bed together, we pull up the iPad and we do New York Times crossword puzzle and connections and strands together on the same iPad. So, yes, it's technology, but we're working together to achieve a goal. So using it for something connective versus just. Just doom. Scrolling each on our devices next to each other.

I love that. I love that ritual. Lindsay. Greg and I had a scrolling ritual on one of the platforms in the early days of COVID And so we would spend Friday night, we'd take 20, 30 minutes and we would just laugh at all of these videos back. Okay. I could talk to you all day. But thinking back to your book, Ron, the show notes, it's such a beautiful. It's so playful. It's so. I want to leave this. This, you know, I'm gonna follow. It's because they also like to tease Greg and I when we kiss.

Mine too. Romance.

I'll put it out there for them too.

But thank you so much. Just thank you for championing this. If you. Let's. Let's.

Thank you. Thank you. Lindsay, I have one last question. Let's end off with if you could go back to your younger self, what do you wish she had known? Now that you've written this book, you have 250 questions to offer us. Thinking of your younger self, what do you wish?

So I was always very confident in my future career life. I always had courage. I always had.

Confidence. And I knew I would make something of myself professionally, but I didn't have that in terms of finding future love. And I wish that I was able to say to myself, hey, it's going to end up being okay, and it's going to happen on the timeline that's right for you may not be right for everyone else. So just lean in and enjoy what you're going through knowing that it will be okay. I think that would have helped.

That's such a beautiful offering. Thank you so much for that. Lindsay. Thank you so much for your time today. I'm so grateful to have you here with me.

Thank you for having me and for really championing the book.

All right, as always, I want to hear from you. And if something resonated from today's episode, send me a DM on Instagram. Leave a comment below and let me know. As in every episode, I have one thing to ask from you and that is to help me reach more people with the podcast. If anything stood out for you from today, click subscribe. Click the stars. Leave me a few words. I read all of the reviews and I actually didn't know this about podcasting, but this is what helps helps other people to find the podcast and that will help me continue to grow. And if you're looking for more support, don't hesitate to reach out. Grab my 30 days to us. It is such a fantastic challenge. It's one thing a day for you and your partner to try to improve your connection. Or if you're ready for that deep dive, join me inside my relationship repair program called Be Connected. All right, and until next time, take good care of you.

I have to remind you at the end of every podcast episode that this is for educational purposes only and does not substitute for the care from a licensed mental health care provider.