You Winning Life Podcast Ep. 77-Sliding vs Deciding in Relationships with Dr. Scott Stanley

Hey everybody, welcome back to the You Winning Life podcast. I'm Jason Wasser, licensed marriage and family therapist. And today my guest is Dr. Scott Stanley, who is a research professor who conducts studies on marriage and romantic relationships. He's out at the University of Denver and is part of the Center for Marital and Family Studies. He's got a training program for professionals. He's got resource materials and programs for couples and people looking to have more successful relationships. He's also, and you'll correct me if I'm wrong, but probably most known for the sliding versus deciding research and articles and topics and blogs and all that stuff, which is just a fascinating area of how do we get the Most Healthy and Successful Proactive Relationships. So welcome.

Thank you. Glad to be here.

So of all of the different things that you could have picked to focus on, this is kind of like where you're at, right? This sliding for first deciding. How— I just want you to, in a quick snapshot, how the heck did you end up on that?

It's, uh, it's been an interesting travel, but I can, I can give you a pretty skinny but meaningful version. So in the, uh, This will sound like it's a long story, but in the early '80s, I decided for my dissertation I wanted to study commitment. And mostly really commitment from a model of how you measure it and different concepts. And I hovered around a model that focuses on the difference between dedication and constraint. Dedication is more sort of the want-to and constraint is more to the have-to and the things you have to do and stuff like that. So That model has been in me for a long time, research on that. Starting in the mid-'90s, I got pretty interested in the risks associated with living together before marriage, because that was an interesting disconnect. Because everybody, even in the '90s— this is not a recent thing— people believe way back that, boy, that should improve your odds in marriage. And no study showed that. In fact, almost no study has ever shown that. The arguments are about selection and causation and stuff like that. And By around 2000, and Galena Rhodes comes as a graduate student to DU in 2000, so this really kicked up the interest in that because she got interested in the cohabitation side as well. I had also had a theory growing through about '95 on about just how ambiguity was everywhere and just growing. And I think, you know, it's nothing then compared to now in terms of the ambiguity of relationships and sort of the dating and mating stage. And all that collided to just understand that, wow, maybe part of the risk of cohabitation for some people before marriage is that, based on a number of different studies, Joe Lindsay in Australia going back to 2000, Wendy Manning and Pam Smock came out with a great paper in 2005, it became very clear that people didn't tend to decide about— they didn't talk about cohabitation. Most couples just sort of slid into it, sort of gradually grew. So that's where the sliding part came. Came from. And the deciding part comes straight from commitment theory. So in terms of how I've thought about commitment over the years, my favorite one line, um, if you shoot through all the complexity of it, is that commitment's making a choice to give up other choices. And that presents right there the giant contrast between a common phenomenon of sliding through important relationship transitions versus making a decision. And the decisions are going to matter most when whatever I'm doing at the moment is increasing my constraints. To stay in a relationship. So that constraint part that I'd always studied as a big part of commitment really came back full force then in terms of trying to understand that.

So as you're talking about, like, then to now, right, this over the last many years, we have this concept of FOMO, right, the fear of missing out.

Yeah.

And especially now when there's so many more choices in every aspect of our life, whether it's food or where we put our money or what type of car to buy or what computer, all these different things. How has the research kind of identified the idea of people who have this fear of making that choice, right? Like you said, commitment is a choice to give up other choices. How have you seen that kind of— obviously, right, we're knowing that it's getting more challenging with the ambiguity. What does the research and what does your research show to help people get out of that space of being confident with the decision? Because, right, I'm assuming that being confident with the decision is one of the parts of an outcome of commitment, but it's a part of it. It's not the part, right? It's not the result of it. It's a step in the right direction.

That makes a lot of sense to me. Yeah. So let's add a couple of pieces that will help in answering your question. It's really, I think everybody finds it fairly easy to believe, especially if they're in the dating and mating scene, that ambiguity is everywhere. It's just like people are swimming in a sea of ambiguity. So the question's worthwhile to ask, and you hooked on part of it,— as people marry, and many people are just not marrying, but a lot of people still are marrying, but they're marrying later and later and later and later in life. And that means there's this— just because of that alone, there's this extended period of time where maybe people don't want to get real committed. They don't want to be real specific. They don't want to settle down. My big point there was it's interesting to think about the different causes of ambiguity because for some people it's just pragmatic. I've decided— they may have even decided, I'm not settling down until I'm 30. I'm 24. I don't want to be clear with anybody because clarity is going to end a lot of relationships if I know that I'm not planning to like really commit to anybody until— there's— so there's people like that. The other group that I thought the most about though, and this comes partly from being of a certain age to have, you know, grown and lived through sort of the divorce revolution, you know, in the late '60s, '70s, and through the '80s, where, you know, divorce was nothing in the '60s and just exploded. So my initial theory was that— and this is still a big part of it— is that a lot of ambiguity is fed by a fear of being clear, that I'm really afraid that it's not going to work out, so I'm afraid to commit. But I'm also afraid to be really so clear that you could say no, you could reject me. And if you reject me when I've been really clear, that's going to hurt more than if you reject me when I've just sort of not even admitted to myself how badly I want this. So I think it's— and for therapists, I think it's a great thing to realize if you're seeing an individual client or you're seeing a couple that's sort of in that stage that a lot of them come in now where they can't decide whether to get married or break up. That's a fascinating presenting issue for couples now. Assess and think about, well, what's the ambiguity about? They're in this ambiguity. Is it motivated by something they're protecting, which could be what you started with, just, uh, I'm just protecting missing out. I'm not ready to settle down. Or am I protecting something more in terms of emotional security and attachment and a fear of being rejected?

Right. And the trauma that might have come from that previously that they're building up to cause them to where they're being stuck today. And one of the things that I love doing with my couples that I've been actually borrowing from my entrepreneurship journey on that side that I'm weaving back in is the idea of values-based decision-making and core values, and that you have to see yourself as a brand. And if you do a joint venture with someone else, you have to decide what the brand is now going to look like because it can't be a— relationships are not a corporate merger. It's kind of like when Zico coconut water was bought out by Coca-Cola. How does that represent their brand? And now of all the brands that they're dumping that they just announced, Zico is one of those brands that they're dumping because you don't think of healthy coconut coconut water and Coca-Cola as a, you know, as a thing. So the core values have to be there, right? So I have my clients do this, especially for couple— every client, every single client I have them do this within the first 2 to 3 sessions as homework to get this clear is what is their personal core values that on a daily basis when they're making the bigger decisions, they have their list and they have a binary yes or no before the emotions kick in. And we're gonna get into that, the biochemistry and the physiology in a second. Right.

Okay, can I pick up on that?

Please.

I, I think that's wonderful because especially if— and therapists see a lot of individuals these days who are sort of in this game, they're trying to figure this out. Helping somebody figure out what the most essential parts of themselves are in terms of what they're looking for is really crucial. And I, I think that, that sort of emphasis on differentiation and understanding, and also it hooks right into the importance, especially I just want to complete a thought from earlier to add to this thought. One of the problems with ambiguity and sliding and how prevalent— and sliding can apply to all kinds of transitions. In our model, what we really mean by sliding that's dangerous is when you're losing options before you made a choice. You, you're sliding through something that's actually going to constrain you. You have— you may not see it at the time. So if you think about the contrast between if I'm making a commitment I know I'm choosing to be constrained. I'm choosing something among all the things I could choose. That's the essence of the choice of commitment. When I'm sliding, I'm also giving up some other paths or giving up some flexibility, but I'm not letting myself see that I'm doing that. I'm not owning it. I'm not thinking about it. So back to what you said, if somebody knows their core values or the core things, you know, I think people overemphasize that like 20 things they have to match on.

I say 4 to 7.

Yeah, it's a smaller list and it should be the big stuff. Like, how do you feel with this person? What's your— do you want kids? What's the most important values to you? What values do they need to share with you? It's that stuff. Because if somebody doesn't understand that stuff, they're less prepared to even understand where they're sliding into a situation where they're not going to get that stuff. So that's great.

I think, right, that's default network that's kicking in of, right, unfinished business, family of origin, intergenerational themes, trauma, so forth, repeating patterns, repeating patterns, right? And then just— and I had a session like that this morning with a spouse of one of my clients, and it was like, you heard the brain shattering, and it was so exciting. And then the client was so excited to, to go through that process of intergenerational stuff that they're bringing to the table. And so, so taking that to the next step, right? It's— so I look at it two ways. One is, what are the core values for you Right? And I want you and both you and your partner both should identify what your core values are. Because like, people always talk about this. And I use this example a lot. There was a Match.com commercial a bunch of years ago. I don't know if you remember this. And it was in New York City. And they're asking her if she wanted to join Match.com. And it was, I think she was Australian. And she's like, I don't know. And he's like, well, what are you looking for? She's like, someone funny and nice and kind. I'm thinking like, who doesn't want that? Like, that should be a given. Not, that's not the high bar. That should be the barrier to entry. And those are also attributes. They're not core values. And I always want people to differentiate the two. But I also say this, I can't help you get what you want if I don't know, A, what you believe and what you're making your decisions on. Because we can talk about an issue for sessions, but if I don't know what the binary yes or no, black and white, what you're making your decision on is, how am I know I'm helping you get to where you really need to go that's healthy for you? Right? So I'll start with that. And then what I'll do is I'll have them as a couple, then sit down together and write their relationship core values. Yeah, proactively.

I think that's great. And in fact, one of the things I actually just did a tweet thread about yesterday. My handle is @deciderslide. I had thought about this twice in two days. I do a lot of— Galena and I have published a ton on the concept of asymmetrical commitment and how people get in relationships where there's really a differential level of dedication between the two parties. Partners, which is a sucky place to be. And I think with a lot of sliding, it's just more easy than ever for people to get into those relationships. But I was, I was thinking in two days in a row, so I figured, well, I should tweet about this, uh, that people, just like you and I talked and we just had a moment of clear agreement there, people are trying to match on a whole bunch of dumb little things, uh, maybe not even understanding the important things. But one of the things, if somebody— and I, I don't presume anymore 20 years ago, I would have presumed this happily in any conversation. I don't presume this anymore. But if somebody wants the lifelong, long-term committed marriage, if they want that, they need to be— they do need to be searching for that. They need to be searching for somebody that has that value of you're going to— it's long-term. You're choosing to really work at making this work and give it a go. Because you can't just presume now that somebody you fallen in love with, who's happy and kind and fun, has that mindset for what they're looking for. So if it's what you want, you better be checking that list before you're increasing anything about constraints.

Absolutely. And the constraint, so to speak, we can substitute— can we substitute it for the word commitment? Right? Because— and it's part of it. Right? It's part of it. So what's from your research, what's required to take it to that? Healthy commitment? What's required for that?

So there's a developmental point and a maintenance point. So I started my career really focusing on commitment as a maintenance theory. You know, I was thinking about married couples and what are the ingredients and how do they keep it, you know, strong? How do they keep dedication strong? Constraints are given, you know, for a long— for any couple accumulating things, children, building having some life together, investing things together, they're constrained. But so the art of that is how you maintain dedication, which is the want to and make you a priority and sacrifice for you part. But having said that, the developmental part— and Galena was really great in pointing this out because it was all over where a lot of my thoughts were going, but she just nailed this— that a lot of the risk for a lot of— Galena Rhodes, my colleague— a lot of people When they're sliding, what they're doing is they're increasing constraints before they've, A, developed enough dedication or developed a clear enough mutual dedication to each other. So the timing there is really wrong. That's the making it harder to break up before I've decided I really want to stay. So part of what's needed is a better timing for some people that you don't want to have the costs of leaving to start to accumulate before you've really clarified that not only you want to stay, but they want to stay. You know, that's that check-in part.

And I don't think a little bit from that perspective is that sometimes they're trying to be overly helpful to the other person as an expression of showing love and commitment.

Oh, that happens too.

Yeah, that's what I'm hearing from that.

Yeah, no, there's even, uh, since Samantha Joel has a study that, that shows that, and it hooks right into a lot the kinds of things that we talk about. Because in one of her studies, she talks about some subgroup in the study where they actually, in our way of thinking, they got the, you know, they probably slid through some things, the constraints increased, they're undoubtedly living together, but the dedication isn't so high to really sustain the long-term great thing. And there's plenty of people in that scenario that some are staying because of finances, you know, they don't have good options. Some are staying because they fear nobody else would want me. But what she identified, she added one, and I've tried to measure this before too, so I've thought about this, but some are staying because they just, they care a lot for this person, but they don't actually really love them. And it's sort of a pity thing, which is pretty pitiful.

But if they're not aware enough of that, how do you How do you differentiate? And I know this wasn't necessarily something that I was thinking of asking, but you're leading me there. How do people differentiate between love being an emotion that's an outcome of action, right? That it's no different, that you don't always feel love, no different than you don't always feel anger or disappointment or happiness or joy or frustration. How do we differentiate between love as an outcome of that dedication, of that commitment, of deciding that you guys are working towards something together as a shared unit versus, well, I care about them, I love them, but I'm not in love. Like, what have you discovered or thought about from that perspective?

Well, that's such a fascinating question. Yeah, we got into a really interesting thing right there. Because I, you know, I want to say two things at the same time. People want— you want to be in love and you want a commitment based in love. But it's also just fine if on a lot of days it's more the other, you know, just— I mean, because Jamie— I just read an article by— about Jamie Lee Curtis's marriage 2 days ago, and the article's been around for a couple years, and it goes back to some great quotes she had. And she has this really fascinating story. I think she's been married— it's approaching 36 or 38 years now. So it's a long time for Hollywood, right? But— and And you can tell, you know, there was a lot of love and attraction. There always is a lot of love and attraction. Well, there isn't always, but there almost always is a lot of love and attraction early on. But there's times where, you know, you just like, you're doing things because you care about this person. You might not feel in love today, or you, you know, that, that stuff varies. But she, one of her great quotes, she said, uh, uh, I could write a really good book on marriage. And I think she could, but her whole book is the title. And she says the title would be "Don't Leave." And she's not saying— this is always important to bring out— nobody's saying stay in a dangerous, damaging relationship or that things can't go really south or go sour or that somebody didn't see something they should have seen. But beyond that, there is something to be said if a person wants the long-term investment and what you can build together, which leads to a kind of intimacy I want to talk about for just a moment. There's times where you are toughing it out. And what I think happens to a lot of couples today that's sort of sad, if they slid through a bunch of milestones early on where it wasn't clear decisions, I think there's kind of a little bit of a doubt whether, well, why am I actually here? I never really decided to stay, I just got like on this train, which is real different. I think like what Jamie Lee Curtis is saying is, I really chose this guy, you know, I decided this, I made a choice to give up other choices. And there's some days she's kind of admitting she'd like to get off the train, but she's saying the secret is don't leave, you know, because there's this investment. And let me comment about this because I'll forget about it if I don't say it. There's this great kind of intimacy you can see develop with couples that have really made it longer term, which is based actually on their imperfections. That there's like almost a little joking or not even understanding sometimes, sure, irritation, but there's like an appreciation. Yeah, that's that thing you do, you know, that there you go again, you know, that's the, uh, but here we are, we're doing this anyway. Right.

Yeah.

There's a lot to be said for that. And it's a pretty realistic, healthy expectation.

That's amazing. I have this like picture in my mind and I don't know why this is coming to me, but it's just like this playful image of like someone who's like going to the gym all the time and someone asked me, but you were there yesterday. And, and they're like, well, what are you working on today? Your legs. And the person, right. And it's known like in the workout world, every day is leg day, you know? So, right. It's like, it's like that same, but like, no, of course we're working on the marriage today. I don't want to go to the gym. I was there yesterday. And but you have to go back today.

Yes.

If you want the results, right? It's—

go ahead.

Yeah, right. So I see like, and I heard this in a different context, but I really tie this into relationships, is that we shouldn't look at it as us being in a relationship. We should look at it and maybe start defining it as relationshiping, that it's the act of process.

It's a daily act. It's getting up every day. Uh, and I would add, you know, that just works out better for people when they have a clear anchor, you know, somewhere that I really chose this, as opposed to I slid all the way up to being in front of the therapist right now, which I think we see a lot of couples that, you know, that are that way now today. Um, in fact, a little comment to therapists, uh, I think in terms of thinking about dedication and constraint and the timing and sliding and things, I think it's an immensely valuable exercise now for couples therapists to take a little history on the development of commitment. Take a look, you know, what happened here, what happened here, and what you're listening for is where constraint got ahead of dedication. And what you're listening for is whether one or both— it's more often going to be one of the two— didn't ever really exactly decide to even be there, and now they're sitting on the couch in front of you. And And that's worth thinking about how you would help them construct a sense of choosing to do this. To get back to that daily thing, the relationshiping. How would you choose now even if you sort of didn't get in the choosing line before?

Yeah, and one of the questions I asked yesterday to a new client who was telling me about like, well, 8 years ago and we got together and it was immediate, you know, it was pretty quickly after my previous relationship, but now we're just like we're two different people and I don't think we look at things the same way and this really bothers me about them and I didn't realize it was going to be that bad, right? I love when they say, I didn't think it was going to get that bad. I thought it was an issue, but I didn't think it was going to like, you know, and I said, well, how far into your dating did you acknowledge this and say like, this doesn't, this is not my worldview and this is just not how I live life and what I expect for life? And he responded like fairly quickly. And I'm like, and why is it 9 years later that you're finally addressing it? And what were you afraid of what happened if you did then? And what was your assumption about why it wouldn't change or evolve and get bigger? So I think that's something that's really important that we do need to put out.

And I'd add a question in that loop. In the very way you're thinking about, you're sort of starting to diagnose something with that new client. I would ask, hey, when did you start living together? Right.

Oh, very quickly. Very—

they will keep—

I asked that, right? Because it was part of the— and you were in my mind in the back of your mind.

Right. Because the, the problem for some of these— not for all these couples, but for some of them, it's who they would have chosen anyway. But for some people, they started living together so soon, or it was such a slide without a clear sense of who are we and what are we doing, that for some of them— I mean, this is really essentially what Galina and I predict, and we have a lot of evidence that this is true, it's just hard to pick out the specific individuals. But overall, it's undoubtedly true that there's a lot of people that started living together or they got pregnant early, you know, or that, you know, they got constrained so soon they're not sitting there in front of you with the person they would have chosen if they hadn't have slid through whatever that transition was that really locked them in.

Right. So it sounds to me like it's reactive circumstantial decisions versus proactive game-planned One of my clients said like, "Wait, so I'm supposed to like pretty much try to game plan and create a playbook for as many different possibilities before they happen as possible?" I'm like, "I mean, if you do it in your company, why aren't you doing it with your wife?" Yeah, that's funny. That's a good comeback. Right? So why don't you have like when football players go and they watch video of the team that they're playing next week, right? And then seeing what, you know, they don't know what the person's actually going to do, but you have prediction, right? And if you know that these are the problems that you're going to face as a parent, that's the problems that your friends are facing in a community or in a school or whatever, Why can't you take 20 minutes and just game plan that? Okay, here's the heading of the issue. Here's all of our options. Let's at least have some semblance of a game plan. And I felt like, right, if people do that proactively, 'cause everybody's so afraid and I'm finding, actually I was having a WhatsApp conversation with a friend of mine about like that and intimacy and the core values this morning, that people are so afraid to put who they are out there that like you said, they're either gonna get rejected or they don't wanna feel that they're like being looked at as being selfish or being an asshole or being like, you know, But those people also probably don't ask for what they want or what they need in a restaurant. And it's kind of like someone going in with a food allergy to a restaurant and they're like, well, this is on the menu and you're afraid to ask because you don't want to insult the chef or the waiter. And therefore I'd rather get sick than hurt your feelings.

And I think this lines up with all the work that we've done on asymmetrical commitment. But if you think about relationship, again, I think for therapists working with a couple or individuals about their relationships, you want some history about the formation and the timing of constraints and dedication and this kind of stuff. And one of the things that happens is that it's easy to— it's not unusual in a new relationship or one that's, you know, just going for 6 months or something, for the two people to be in pretty different places about their level of commitment. I mean, they may be both having fun, but one could be really getting much more committed than the other. And a lot of this lines up nicely with attachment theory dimensions too. Yeah.

And that's a good segue into the biochemistry of all this at the beginning. So, can you kind of unpack that? And I know that like a lot of people may not be familiar with like, right, the biochemistry and all the different, right, the dopamine and the serotonin, but also like, right, the triune brain theory, which we were, you know, we were talking a little bit about before in our previous conversation. But yeah, I'd love to hear it from your perspective of like that initial stage, because we do know it wears off, right, the 7-year itch. And I know Gottman talks a lot about this as well. But from your perspective and your research, walk us through, right, that biochemistry initial attraction and then what happens when it wears off.

So, you know, we don't study the biochemistry, but plenty of people have. And it's very clear that falling in love, which by the way, is just— it's a bad term if you consider any lofty definition of love because it's, you know, it's falling in lust or something or lots of like, but it's not probably really love if we have any element of commitment as part of the definition of love. But it is so chemistry-laden early on. There's so much going on with dopamine and epinephrine and adrenaline and, you know, all this sort of stuff that just lights people up. And I think, you know, there's certain common terms in our culture that are just sort of funny but say a lot, like, you know, the idea of beer goggles. You know, that when somebody's first falling for somebody or thinking they're attracted or getting attracted— let's talk about attraction, or infatuation is really a good word— you can't see clearly. You're not, you know, you're on drugs. You are literally, you know, you may not have taken anything extra, or some people may have, but, you know, uh, or at least alcohol is often in the mix.

Well, you are in Colorado, so yeah, yeah, yeah.

So you're on you're on drugs, even if you don't take them, and you're not seeing things carefully, which means if somebody's serious about making a good choice and lining up well, they have to at least— you'd hope for a little bit of a rational part of our mind that could give ourselves enough time not to get overly locked in by things until we can see a little more clearly. Because we should just assume, you know, if you're falling in love with somebody right now, somebody listening to this, you're just falling in love with somebody right now, you're not going to see them clearly for quite a while. This is also— and you see all these things, Jason Wasser— the same person, you know, they might decide, yeah, that makes sense, that makes sense. I said, well, you know, one of the things you could do is you could ask if you have a good friend, you could ask a good friend, hey, what do you think I'm not seeing? People don't want to do that though, either. Or they'll ask just the friends that are going to give them the answer that aligns with the chemistry, not the answer that "you know, he actually seems a lot like the last guy that had a zillion red flags and I already see a couple and you don't." A lot of people, they don't really want to hear that, but that's asking for trouble.

Yeah, I was at an event a couple years ago and there was a female from our social circles that had that reputation with dating those same guys over and over again. And I remember she was venting to me about something and I'm like, "All these guys, all they want is like sex." And I'm like, "Okay, so my question to you is, uh, date 1, 2, or 3, did you sleep with them?" "Yeah." And she had no response.

Yeah, it's, uh, so let's add that to the chem— I mean, so it's just total— there's electricity all over the place anyway. And unless the sex was terrible, um, well, even actually, even though it was bad, people can— this is the other thing that happens these days. So if people are marrying, let's say the people people that are going to settle down on marriage, they're marrying like around 30 now in American culture. So the, you know, the average age is about— it's just 30 now for men and just shy of that for women. This gets to this experience question that I know you and I could talk a little bit about. That if somebody's really— if that's their plan, people are not in relationships between, you know, 16 and 28, you know, and then they're going to magically like turn on the relationship thing. Obviously they're in a lot of relationships, and there is an uncomfortable truth in that, that people have to actually— well, they don't have to, but they would be wise to think a little bit about, well, how much experience do you actually want to get, and what sort of experience do you want? Leading up to when you might settle down. Because if you haven't made any decisions about that or don't have any sort of framework for that in the first place, it's pretty easy to like have had a whole lot of relationships that didn't work out. And then, well, what have you learned from that? And it might not be some good things. Some people learn, but a lot of people don't learn a lot from their relationships.

It's coming to mind, there's a great YouTube video of Dr. Abraham Tversky, who was big in the addiction, right? But he was talking in one of his things about fish love. A lot of people are in— I don't know if you've heard this or saw this.

No, it sounds great.

He said a lot of people view their relationship just like when they're ordering dinner about, I'm around it and I want it because it makes me feel good when I have it versus if you really love the fish, why are you killing it to eat it?

Yeah.

Right? No, I love fish or I love, right, whatever, you know, steak or I love— right? But if you really love, right? Which is how it makes you feel.

Right. It's a different equation. Like, oh, is this somebody I could actually sacrifice something for?

Right.

And would sacrifice something for me? I, I was, uh, this was a, this was a great anecdote. And, and some of the stuff, uh, I would like to say, and I do believe this, that some of these things are less gendered than they used to be, but there's still, if you're into the, the One of the strongest differences between men and women that still holds up super reliably, even as a lot of other things maybe aren't quite there or fade away, is the willingness to have sex with somebody that you hardly know, or quickly in a relationship, or casually. That's just a big difference. And so plenty of women are on the fast track there, but many more men would be if they're able to be. And And that's just— that's an important thing to realize because that's— and whether somebody's, you know, gay or straight or whatever, they should think about where are they at in the spectrum of what meaning they attach to sex. And they should not assume that whoever they're with or attracted to at this time has the same attached meaning to what having sex with you is, because that's a pretty giant disconnect for some people, and it's a painful one to figure out later in terms of the asymmetry when it's really not there. Then it's, you know, you're living a chapter in the "He's Just Not That Into You" book, and that's a painful place to be.

Right. So then how does one know, right, that if it's something serious versus this ambiguity, right?

This was the story.

Yeah, yeah.

So I was— Galina and I and colleagues have developed a relationship education program. We have a— Howard Markman and I have worked on ones for years for couples, but this one's for individuals, and it's used especially with people from disadvantaged backgrounds and things like that. And early on, we were going to different groups and piloting things and learning things about what we should cover. And it's a lot of this kind of sliding to siding stuff and safety. In all of our things, we talk a lot about emotional safety, physical safety, commitment safety, you know, these different kinds of safety. So I'm talking with this group once, really disadvantaged folks, and the group was all women and one guy. I don't know how the guy actually got in the group, it was a government program, but I asked them, I said, "How do you know if, if somebody's committed to you?" you. Uh, and I— this could seem like an exaggeration, but all the women were saying that, well, he, you know, buy you, give you gifts, he'll take you out, he desires you. It was all infatuation stuff.

I mean, it was all like external things.

It was Disney movie stuff, you know, it was your princess stuff. And And this guy said, and you could— it was like, must have been so weird for him being in this group because he's just this one guy with all these women. That might not have been that weird, but it was pretty weird. But he said like almost under his breath, I could almost not hear it, but I heard him say it. He says, uh, "Will he sacrifice for you?" Yeah. And so they're all saying hearts and flowers kind of stuff, and he says, "Look at whether he'll sacrifice for you. Will— does he show any evidence that he'll give up something for you, that he'll even like go to the show you want to go to instead of it's always the one he wants to, or do the thing you want to do, or, you know, is— will he sacrifice for you, right?

And will he celebrate your wins that have nothing to do with yours? Yeah, that's an add-on to that.

Yeah, I just thought that was a great experience. And it relates to something I thought about a lot is signs of infatuation and signs of commitment. And commitment are two different things. And both are great. Uh, you want somebody that's really attracted to you and you want to be really attracted to somebody. But if you're starting to get serious and before you get too constrained, a person needs to be looking for signs that this person could commit to me, that they could make me a priority and that they follow through.

And the shared meanings and dreams are on the same path. I heard a great podcast episode from Lewis Howes in the School of Greatness podcast. He had Jesse Itzler, major entrepreneur and now owner of the Hawks, but really big in Zico Coconut Water. He was the one who brought it here. We were talking about it before, but he's the one who brought it in and partnered up with whatever, as well as other business ventures. He's married to Sara Blakely of Spanx.

Wow.

And they both got married.

Power couple.

Power couple, right? I mean, she's like, right, when you can, I guess, really, you know, awesome, savvy, really cool businesswoman. And he shows up to everything in running shorts and a headband because he's just an ultra sporting, like, "What's the new challenge I'm taking on today while I'm also being an entrepreneur?" So when you look at them, it's like this odd couple because she's in her cute outfits and he's literally in 1970s running shorts. And on this podcast, it was so great on this episode with both of them about the relationship. They said they both got married, I think it was in their 40s. Late 30s, early 40s, and it was her first marriage. And he remembers that he was on their second date. She's like, "What really got me was on our second date, we're out at some event in New York, and Jesse said to me," Sarah's saying this, "Jesse said to me, 'I got a question for you. Do you still want to drive carpool?'" And he wasn't saying, "Well, you're the mom, you're the woman. Are you giving up everything to take care of the kids?" He was asking, I know you have this amazing business. And he didn't even know how successful she was. He didn't really do her goo. He met her through a networking thing that he hosted, but he didn't know that she was like, you know, on the way to becoming the first self-made woman billionaire without outside funding. But it was kind of like, is being an active mom important to you at while you're, you know, and is that something? 'Cause I want, I want to also drive my kids to carpool. I don't want to be that type of dad who's just in the business. And they started going off on all the things that they really wanted that were the most important to them.

Wow.

Obviously outside their businesses. And that was like day 2. Yeah. In a restaurant.

But a great discussion. Yeah.

Right.

A gutsy discussion.

Yeah, right. But I wonder if like, you know, again, as we tie my perspective of like weaving therapy and entrepreneurship together, like these are conversations that are happening in boardrooms or in business meetings or in acquisitions and weekly, you know, weekly goals and things like, why aren't we, why are we so afraid to do this? Why are people so afraid? Especially the first couple dates. And even maybe as the momentum gets, you know, the fear factor maybe builds up because now, like you said, they're more invested. But just off the get-go, like, why are people afraid to like just put out what they want? And putting aside the people who aren't clear with what they want, let's separate those. But those, like the fear of like saying, this is what I want, do you align with that? And just be more binary. Like, like people are, people are okay swiping left and right on an app, but why aren't you okay?

Exactly right. Yeah, I— so there's— it could be partly back to something you and I already talked about, but the, you know, the fear of rejection is greater about this than in a business. You sort of expect some rejection and you expect some deals don't work or it's not a good alignment. But I think there's something deeper going on there. So there's different expectations, but part of the package of different expectations is that you're really describing due diligence. Right? I mean, yeah, you just— if you're serious about a business working, you just can't make any just sloppy— you're not in business long if you make sloppy decisions. You can blow some, but you can't blow them all. And the due diligence model is such not a romantic story model. So, and I think people are still really want the romantic story. You know, they want to be swept off their feet. They want the movie ending and all that kind of stuff. And that's that path. If it doesn't include any due diligence or at the right moment, you know, it's the timing of due diligence. It's not like you don't do that on the— well, most people wouldn't do that on the first date, you know, like, it's great you described that as— that's a couple, they know this could go somewhere. So the second date, that's an appropriate conversation. But there's a lot of people that, you know, there's a lot of distance between asking somebody on the first date, "How many kids do you want to have with me?" versus, "Hey, it's 8 months in, we've been living together for 3 months, and I have no idea whether you even want children or want to ever marry.

And I'm more concerned about that at that point than like on the first or second date saying, you know, you know, are there children in your life, like siblings or cousins? Like, you know, do you like hanging out with children? What's your— right, those type of things where you're going from a macro. Yeah, right. And you're, you're being an investigative reporter, not a judge during executioner. Um, and one of the things I— before I, I, you, you know, the Disney concept is I, I would love one day for, you know, how Disney's now starting to like they put a caveat on some of their movies, like, you know, at the time it was created, there was some culture inside, right? So, but, you know, they're kind of coming out. I would love for them to, instead of have all the movies that say, and they lived happily ever after, to change that and said, and next month they had their first couples therapy session.

Yeah, that's great.

And that's caused— and then they had, because of that, they had their happily ever after, right?

It's— I've thought about this, uh, not only do movies do but you know, you see very few movies where they really show the long-term couple working it out. Every now and then you get one, every now and then you can see it, but even— I'm a big Jane Austen fan, although I haven't been reading and thinking a lot about it for a while, but there's so much in Jane Austen that speaks to these same things, especially my favorite book is Sense and Sensibility because it's just— some of the stuff is just hilarious and it falls right into what like things that we talk about in terms of ambiguity and clarity. And, but if you think about, if you know any of the Jane Austen stories or you think about them, they were really popular movies, they're really popular books, and none of them go beyond the commitment point. I mean, they're all about getting to that point. And Jane, I think, has a lot of wisdom about getting to that point because every one of her books is sort of like the dilemma about falling for the wrong man and finding and choosing the right man. So they're all about like the pitfalls of the choices. And the married couples in her books are all, you know, some of them are really healthy and strong and some of them are not. So yeah, she does, she does that, but the story stops at where it actually gets hard. So, um, and that's what you're describing with the Disney movie, you know, they could also just have an ending at the end.

Well, now life gets harder and You know, well, it's like, I think, I think 10 Things I Hate About You from the '90s, I think that was based on one of the Jane Austen books, where it's like, you know, it's the bad guy, and she has this really nice guy, then she ends up falling, right? Which one does she go for? Is it she falls for that, right? And like, you know, tries to reform him and make him the bad, right? All those different things. It's like, there's so much like that people are going into these relationships where I'm, I like you, but, but now change, Yeah, yeah.

So there's two big misnomers. One is that I'm gonna change you a lot, and the other is, well, this is not a healthier expression of that. It's not a solution to that. The people that are looking for the soulmate in the sense of like the perfect partner, uh, and when people are thinking about the perfect partner, they're not thinking about somebody who's willing to engage with them in the struggle of life and commitment and working it through. They're thinking, you're never going to challenge me, you're never going to be upset with me, you're going to like help me in my growth. All the kind of stuff that Eli Finkel talks about. Um, and maybe, you know, there might be a few people on the planet that sort of find that, but it's so rare. But it's such a common expectation now. Uh, and it could also be back to a number of things we talked about. If that's so much what people think they need to have for it to work, maybe some people don't ask enough questions that they should ask because they don't actually want to know that there's anything imperfect here. You know, they're living in the chemistry, things are moving along in some way. Why would I kick the tires? The air might go out. And at some point, yeah, maybe don't kick the tires in the first 3 dates, but at some point you should be kicking tires. You should be checking.

So what are some of the things, just like if you can bullet point, like if these are some of the things that have shown up in your life, you probably should go to therapy before you move into either a dating relationship, or if you're in a relationship already, whether you're not yet married or you're married, these are the things that you should definitely, like these are the things we found that kind of indicate that you're gonna, you might not eventually be on the right path or, you know, it can take you towards. So what were some of those?

So one would be, a history of a lot of partners, you know, a lot of relationships that didn't work, especially, you know, if you went through a number of relationships where you like got to know them enough and decided you're not the one, that's one thing. And some people don't go through enough relationships, by the way. Some people don't check out enough partners. You can go too far and you can go not far enough in sort of due diligence in that way in terms of a search.. But if somebody's had a lot of partners, a lot of relationships that didn't work, especially if they were surprised, if somebody's continually surprised that the person wasn't as serious or as interested as they were, that would be— I mean, I would, I would want to get, you know, I'd recommend somebody get help with that. You know, go figure that out. Why are— what are you not seeing? What are you missing? How are you deluding yourself that that keeps happening? Because that's probably going to keep happening. Could be an anxious attachment kind of dynamic. That, that could be a common sort of explain— explanation. People that often have ended up in relationships that, uh, so there's the getting left or just finding out this person's not as committed to me, or getting in relationships where the person doesn't treat you well. You know, there's violence, aggression, there's threat, there's some lack of safety. Um, all those would be signs. I guess another one that's just a hallmark of a lot of things would be just great anxiety about, uh, the other direction, about, you know, the— not anxious attached, but the avoidant sort of stuff. I always bail bailing out, you know, after we get to this point. That would be a sign that maybe you should talk to somebody and figure out if you're always bailing out or you're always the one hanging on while the other bails on you. Maybe you could figure that out and help yourself get around that. Because if your goal— again, I think it's worth asking people, is this actually the goal? Do you want lasting committed love? Not everybody's going to get it even if they want it. But if you want it, it's worth thinking about what are my strategies that'll get that and how do I have to work with the strategies around my foibles, my traumas, my, my challenges.

Nice. So right, it sounds like if they want to be a pioneer and go to an uncharted area, they have to get okay with getting uncomfortable and doing that work. Which leads me to the last question that I have is, as you've been a pioneer and going into places that other people necessarily haven't done. And now it's come back around that, you know, this is now a thing in our field and recognized. What difficulties did you— difficulties and controversies have you and your team had from where you started to where you are now that may have been, you know, difficult for you guys to get through about this whole topic and theme?

I think I, I don't feel like we've had a difficulty getting through on this topic and theme in terms of speaking with other people. We've had the good fortune of being really curious about these dynamics as they were just unfolding and getting really powerful. So I, I think that's not a challenge. To me, uh, this is the best version of that question and I answer, I can come up with that question. I think for me and my colleagues right now, and I've noticed this just recently, especially me, what I'm always adjusting, but I'm adjusting more now. And I don't like that this is true for society's sake in terms of, I don't think it's a good direction, but I'm adjusting more now to the idea that an increasing number of people actually have given up on marriage, or the idea that they could have lasting love, or that that should even be an aspiration. And, um, and you'll notice I did it a couple times today as we were talking. I'm increasingly working that into how I describe things, in that I'm not assuming anymore— but this has been an adjustment— I'm not assuming anymore that everybody I talk to even wants that.

That.

Some people, maybe, I think most people still want that, and most people benefit from that, but not everybody wants that. Some people can even articulate, hey, I'm gonna be, I'm up for serial monogamy, or I'm up for not even monogamy, I'm just up for serial, you know. People can say that, and I, it's been an adjustment in our, in my thinking and and how we talk to groups and audiences to just allow that there is a lot more diversity in what people want now and what they can recognize that they want and how they might get it. And as, you know, counselors and therapists or people that develop programs for individuals and couples, we have to think about who's really in the room and who's a customer for what.

And I think part of it also has to do with how How well can you over-communicate that? Right? And I really do stress the over-communicate, over-express, because the worst thing they can say, they can never then say, "But you didn't tell me." And then it's on them, right? About what the decisions that they make for all that stuff. So, um, since we're talking about the theme of over-communication, I would love for you to share all the different things that people can get in touch with regarding what you're doing, where they can find you online, some of the programs.

Great. So a couple of different resources for different kinds of listeners. My, uh, I'm fairly active on Twitter. My handle is DecideOrSlide. I have a blog I've been writing for many years. Uh, there's actually a couple different outlets. If people follow me on Twitter, they'll get to where the articles are that I come out with at any given time. But the main one is called, uh, it's Sliding Versus Deciding. It's slidingversusdeciding.com with just the VS, although I think I have the versus URL too. So I'll write about— and this is a lot of stuff you and I have just talked about— are the things I talk about most on that blog. There's a similar one with the same title at Psychology Today. So sometimes I'll post both places, sometimes just one, but they can follow me on Twitter. The other whole side of my life I'll just comment on. My colleague Howard Markman and I started a business in the '90s where we disseminate relationship education, and we do training in working with couples and how to teach people how to, you know, skills, dynamics, commitment, strategies for building stronger relationships, marriages. That's PREP, which stands for the Prevention and Relationship Education Program. They can find out a lot more about that at prepinc.com. And then just two other quick things since you gave me the opening. We've been building some training courses in a, uh, in another site, uh, which is called Prep Online Training, preponlinetraining.com. One of the courses that, uh, your audience might be interested there, we have a 12-hour CE course for therapists there that is essentially— it's really great video from live trainings 2 live trainings that me, Howard Markman, and Galena Rhodes did, taking all this kind of stuff, not only the PREP stuff and the communication conflict management sort of toolbox, but this latest stuff about commitment and how it forms, and how do you work with couples around commitment issues and the formation of commitment issues in counseling. So it's all that kind of stuff, and it's at preponlinetraining.com.

Awesome. That sounds so amazing. So, right, everybody out there who's been listening, whether you're trying to make your relationships better and deeper and more authentic and more proactive, there's good stuff for you there. If you're on the clinician side, right, we also have that other side, but I want to thank you again for joining us. It's always exciting to talk about not just the how to make it better, but the research and the science and the neuroscience. I love the whole neuroscience side.

It's fascinating. And I'm sure we're just scratching the surface.

We are definitely just scratching the surface. So for everybody out there who's listening, and you got some value out of this episode, please do us a favor. And if you know anybody that would be— that would also benefit from it, please pass it on to them, right? You can just share it out directly from, you know, whether it's the podcast platform or going to our page and it has multiple podcast platforms and subscribe so you can get this episode and other episodes. But also do us a favor if you can leave a review for us on iTunes. Massively helps us get in front of other people, more people get this incredible knowledge as well as like the time that all of the guests have committed to being here to share this information. And that's a little bit of thanks that we can get to help give and share this information more that we're so passionate doing. So, so Dr. Scott Stanley, thank you again for hanging out with us today.

Thanks very much, Jason Wasser. Great show. Great job. Thank you. Thanks for a good interview.