Dating Is Hard: Why Forgiveness Isn’t Always The Answer w/Lori Gottlieb EP 1190
17 Nov 2021 · 78 min
In this episode of the School of Greatness, therapist and author Lori Gottlieb joins host Lewis Howes to dissect why modern dating and long‑term relationships feel so challenging. Gottlieb argues that people are never taught how to love or be loved, creating a paradox of craving closeness while fearing the inevitable wounds love brings. She introduces the concepts of "rupture and repair" and "separate realities," emphasizing that misunderstandings arise when partners assume their perspective is the only valid one. The conversation explores how genuine understanding—asking "I understand you" instead of merely saying "I love you"—can reduce daily micro‑ruptures. Gottlieb discusses common relationship pitfalls: unspoken needs, the danger of focusing on "me vs. you" instead of "us," and how childhood unfinished business and attachment patterns repeat in adult partnerships. She outlines the traits of narcissistic personalities, the limits of forgiveness (distinguishing compassion from forced forgiveness), and the importance of emotional regulation and self‑healing as the foundation for a safe relational environment. Practical tools are offered, such as therapist‑assigned homework that shifts focus from changing the partner to changing oneself, the stages of behavioral change, and daily journaling to track positive versus negative interactions. Throughout, Gottlieb stresses curiosity over criticism, the need for flexible, reliable, and emotionally generous partners, and the ongoing, collaborative work required to maintain a thriving relationship.
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This is episode number 1190 with New York Times bestselling author, Laurie Gottlieb. Welcome to the School of Greatness.
My name is Lewis Howes, a former.
Pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur.
And each week we bring you an.
Inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness.
Thanks for spending some time with me today.
Now let the class begin. Welcome back, my friend.
Today's guest is Lori Gottlieb.
She is a psychotherapist, podcast host, and New York Times bestselling author of maybe youe Should Talk to Someone, which has sold over a million copies and is currently being adopted as a television series for ABC. And she's released an incredible new workbook that serves as a companion to her bestselling book called maybe youe Should Talk to Someone Workbook, a toolkit for editing your story and changing your life. And you guys we loved the last time I had Lori on, so we wanted to bring her back on for some incredible more content. And in this episode, we discuss why it's so difficult to find love today, how to better understand the partner you're with currently, how to break unhealthy cycles from your childhood. And this has been something I've been practicing for years, so it's so powerful. The main traits of a narcissist and what to look out for the common myths around how to truly forgive someone and so much more. This is a powerful episode. So at any moment, if you're enjoying this, make sure to share this with a friend or post it over on your social media, tag me and Lori as well. And this is such a powerful interview that we do that I wanted to break it up into two parts and really go over two different topics that we discussed. So this is part one, we'll cover part two later this week. I want to give a shout out to the fan of the week for the School of Greatness from Kay Barre who says, the School of Greatness is my go-to podcast for drives, cardio, morning routines, cleaning up around the house, and listening has pulled me out of those slumps that we can find ourselves in. Listening has jump started my ideas in my mind that I don't think I would have thought of if I didn't listen. And overall, this podcast has bettered My Mindset in Relationships, Health and Motivation, just about everything. Thank you for creating this show. So thank you for being the fan of the week and for leaving us a review. And if at any moment you're inspired by this current episode, please subscribe and leave a review over on Apple podcast right now for your chance to be shouted out as a fan of the week as well. Okay, in just a moment, the one and only Lori Gottlieb.
Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness. I'm very excited. We've got an incredible guest, Lori Gottlieb in the house. So good to see you.
So good to see you.
Glad you're back. The last interview we did where we were talking about your book, maybe you should talk to someone, has helped so many people that we wanted to have you come back and talk about relationships. and I feel like you've been helping married couples and singles try to find love and also just rework their marriages and the relationships and have harmony and peace and love in the relationships for well over a decade now. You've got an amazing podcast, Dear Therapist with another friend of mine, Guy Winch, and you guys help people in this as well. And I wanted to ask you, we were just talking for the last 15 minutes off camera about this. I feel like we should have just recorded that already. But I wanted to ask you about why you think it's so hard for just for people to find a partner today in this climate. It seems like it's hard for people to find a great partner.
Yeah.
And then why is it hard to stay in a healthy, you know, thriving relationship when it just seems like so complicated and challenging for men and women or individuals coming together to be in a happy relationship?
I think it is complicated because no one teaches us how to love and be loved. So you either get that modeling growing up or sometimes you don't get the best modeling growing up, but people don't really talk about it in the way that I think people would need. And so I think one of the problems is that people both want closeness and they fear closeness at the exact same time. And so people kind of walk on that tightrope and a lot of people get tangled up in that paradox.
Why do we want it so bad and what is the thing we fear.
About it so much? Well, the thing we fear is that it's gonna wound us, right? So, I mean, love has the power to wound, but it also has the power to heal. So that's why we have that paradox, because we want it, but we're a little bit afraid of what might happen. And by the way, if you sign up for this, you will get hurt. That's just part of the deal. Even with someone who really cares about you, even in a really loving relationship, at times, you will hurt each other. Why do you- But then why?
How do you repair it? Well, is there a way to get.
Into a relationship without hurting each other? No, because people are human.
Right.
And you know, when I'm talking about hurting, there's different degrees of hurting. You know, hurting could be you didn't understand me and I felt really hurt by that, right? Hurting could be something much more, you know, deleterious. It could be awful. Right, yeah, so there's something, those are very different things. Yes. You know, but I think what happens is people need to learn what we call rupture and repair. So there's a rupture, something happens between you, and then how do you repair it? There will always be ruptures.
Really.
And so, you know, how do you guys repair it together? That's the biggest predictor of whether a relationship is gonna be successful and people are gonna be happy in it.
Your ability to repair.
To repair with each other, yeah.
What is, okay, first off, how do we get to a place where we have less ruptures? To where it's like once a year, once every six months, as opposed to like every other day, a little micro rupture. Is that even possible?
Yeah, so I think that the reason that people have ruptures is because they don't feel like they are understood.
Okay.
I remember one of the most formative things that happened for me was very early on when I started seeing couples. I had this couple come in and I remember that there was a lot of tension between them. And the woman said to her husband, she said, you know what, three words I really want to hear from you. And he said, what do you think?
I love you.
I love you, right? And she said, no, the three words I wanna hear are, I understand you. And I just sort of sat there in my seat and thought, wow, I understand you. That understanding someone is a way of showing love.
Really?
Making the effort to really listen to them, to hear their point of view. And this is where, as a couples therapist, the idea of separate realities comes in.
Okay, tell me more.
Separate realities is, We have to acknowledge that you are going to view things through your own lens, and both of them are right. Both of them are valid. And what people get into trouble is they try to convince the other person that their reality is right.
Yes.
So you see this, for example, take an example of a parent and an adult child. And you have the parent who, you know, the adult child comes to them and says, I feel like you really favored my sibling growing up. And the parent says, that's not true. We love you both equally. We were there for you. And they hear it as an accusation. So you have a choice in that moment. You can say, okay, I'm gonna defend myself against this accusation. And what the parent hears is, you were a bad parent. That's not what the kid is saying. The kid is saying, you weren't there for me in the ways that I needed you to be sometimes.
Yes, sometimes.
Sometimes. It's not black or white. It's not all or nothing. It's not good or bad. is in that messy middle.
Right.
And so you can say, I'm gonna try to understand your reality, even though there's a gap between what I intended and what you experienced. That's okay that there's a gap.
Right.
So where romantic couples get into it is the same thing. There's a gap between my intention and your experience of me.
Oh my gosh.
Right.
And I'm going to make you believe that my intention trumps your experience of me.
Right, but my intention was good. I meant to say it this way. I meant for you to be understood. but the other person's like, well, that's not what I felt.
Well, what happens is, so you see this in therapy, right? So somebody says, well, that's not what I intended. And I will say to them, it doesn't matter that that's what you intended. It did. It had that effect.
Right. Right.
So how does someone change their way of being or their intention or their actions so that the other person feels accepted or heard or seen or understood or loved in that moment?
I think the question we don't ask ourselves enough is, how is what I'm about to do or say going to be experienced by the person I love?
You really got to get into the head and the heart of the other person with how you just interact in that sphere of influence, right?
Right. And I think people say, oh, that's so much work and it shouldn't be that hard and that's too much effort. But once you start to, going back to I understand you, once you start to understand them, it becomes very easy. You see, it's kind of like they are giving they're giving you their owner's manual. They are giving you the operating instructions. But if you don't read it, then you're gonna keep making the same mistakes over and over. They're saying, Here, let me tell you what happens for me when you do that. Let me tell you what happens for me when you say that. And if you ignore the operating instructions, you're gonna keep getting into accidents.
What if the operating instructions is completely against who you are? I don't know, let's just say your love language is you like giving physical touch, but the other person likes receiving gifts or acts of service, for example. And you're like, this is draining for me to do this thing that the person wants or feels loved by. It feels like so much effort and work. Is there a way to make it so that your strength is actually something they love?
Yeah, well let's turn this around. So if your partner said to you, it's too draining for me to actually love you in the way you like to be loved.
Yeah, it sounds crazy.
Right?
It sounds nice. It's too draining for me to make the effort to show you love in the way that makes you feel good.
Right. Yeah, it sounds.
There was an episode on our podcast, we have this podcast called Dear Therapist, where we do actual sessions with people. And then at the end we give them homework where they have to try out the advice and they report back within a week. And so you can see because we want people to see that actually even one conversation can help you make real shifts in your perspective. And so we had this mother and daughter on and the mother, this was during COVID and the mother like brought over, she said like, I have all these homemade masks and I'm gonna bring them to you and the daughter said, I really don't want those. And what does the mother do? She brings over the mask and she's like, I'm showing that I care about you. I wanna keep you safe and this is a way for me to show that I care about you. And she's like, and I also brought over cookies for the kids and I brought all over these other things and the one thing you picked out was that I brought the masks. And that was a loving gesture. And the daughter's like, no, it actually was not a loving gesture because I told you specifically, I don't want that. So why do we have such a hard time listening to people when they tell us exactly how they want to be loved? It's not that hard to not bring the masks.
Right, then why do we do it? Is it because we feel like that's how we wanna live our lives or why do we do those things?
Right, because we're paying attention to our needs and we're not paying attention to the other person's needs. needs. And this is the primary problem in most relationships, whether they're romantic relationships, friendships, siblings, work, whatever it is, is that people think about the me or the you. Like, am I the problem? Are you the problem? As opposed to we have a problem, the us, right? We have a problem. I had this couple in therapy. He had had an affair, and they both wanted to repair the marriage. So they were both interested in that.
So there was a rupture.
There was a rupture and a big rupture, right? Affairs are these incredibly painful betrayals. And he was all in in wanting to repair this.
He took ownership. He said, I'm sorry, I want to make this work. She said, okay, I want to figure out how to accept this apology and forgive and move on as well.
I want to figure out what do we do? Who are we as a couple now? What does this mean? How do we move forward. And he was not a person who was used to opening up. And a lot of men experience this. They don't know how to be vulnerable. They're afraid to be vulnerable. And so many men will come in, by the way, to my practice, and they'll say, I've never told anyone this before. They've literally never told anyone. Women come in, they say, I've never told anyone this before, except for my mother, my sister, my best friend. So they feel like they haven't told anyone, but they actually have. So he opens up for the first time and he says it was almost like a whisper. He could barely say it. And he said, I'm so lonely. Wow. In the relationship. In the relationship, just in general. Like he didn't even know. Just, I'm lonely. He's not blaming her for the loneliness, by the way. He's just saying, I'm so lonely. And it was almost like he had gone in, ripped his heart out, extended it to her on an outstretched hand, and here's his heart sitting there. And she says, I feel exactly the same way.
Wow.
And I thought, oh, there's this bridge. There's this bridge now between them, right? But then she adds, but I didn't do what you did.
Right?
In other words, I was lonely too, but I didn't cheat. I'm a better person. Right. And what I said to them was, I said, listen, you can go to this place of who's morally superior, who's right and wrong, and who's more injured. Right? You can go-- I've suffered more than you did. I'm the victim here. You can go to the place of like casting someone, you can cast each other in a role of who's the villain and who's the victim. Or you can say, it's not a him problem or a me problem, it's an us problem. There's a loneliness in our relationship. And how do we as a team deal with it? Because we both, we have the problem in the relationship. Relationships are like biospheres. They're like ecosystems. So what you put into the relationship is the air that you're both breathing. Someone says like, oh yeah, I yelled in the relationship, but she iced me out. It's like, look at the environment. Look at the toxic air that you're both breathing. If you yell, she'll ice you out. If you ice him out, he's gonna yell.
Right, right.
Like this is the air. You can't put toxic put toxicity out there and then expect that things are going to be okay, that things are going to be healthy. Right.
So what was the homework for that couple on how to repair and what was the prescription, I guess, the therapeutic prescription?
Yeah. Well for them it was really looking at the relationship from the us perspective is we have an issue that we're trying to solve. We want to solve this loneliness thing in our marriage. People think, people are so self-interested in relationships without realizing it and we I'll do this. We think like, in the moment, I'm gonna do this thing, right? And we don't think about how is that going to affect the couple? It's gonna be good for me, so we're gonna do it. I'm gonna say this thing because I have to get it off my chest. I'm gonna keep this secret because it'll be better for me. No, what's better for the relationship? And we don't tend to think about that. So for them, it was about remembering that if the thing that you're about to do is good for the relationship, It's going to be good for you. We forget that. We think it's the opposite. You know, it's like if it's good for me, it'll be good for him or her too, or them too. If it's good for the relationship, it's good for everybody.
Does that mean certain things you shouldn't say then?
Yeah, like, well, I didn't do that. Like, yeah, I'm lonely too, but I didn't cheat.
Yeah.
It's like, yeah, I'm lonely too. That's the moment of connection right there. I'm lonely too. And what he did in that moment before she made that comment, he reached toward her. He teared up. It was beautiful. He teared up and he moved toward her and he took her hand. And then she says, But I didn't do it.
Oh, dagger. Right to your heart. You're already wounded. You're both wounded.
Right, and so people put up their swords to protect themselves. And what they don't realize is that they're actually gonna make themselves feel lonelier. You keep that sword up, you're gonna be very alone. You're gonna feel very disconnected from your partner.
That takes a level of, what, just emotional intelligence, awareness, peace. What does that take in order to not say that final thing or try to one up the other person in a relationship? What does that take?
Right. Well, the reason that we do that is because there's what's happening between you and your partner in the moment. he cheated, she's very injured by that. That makes sense. We've talked about it a lot at this point. They'll talk about it more. It will be ongoing. But then there's sort of the unfinished business. We have this saying, we marry our unfinished business. And what we mean by that is if I see a couple, show me, tell me how you were loved as a child, and I will tell you how you're loved now, how you love now. Tell me who you love now, and I'll tell you who loved you as a child.
Really? Is there a way to break that cycle though?
Yes, yeah. So that's where the awareness comes in. Yes. So the unfinished business. So part of it is she had, she grew up in a family where her father was cheating, her mother knew, nobody said anything. So now, you know, she's got all of that on top of the crimes of her father in her mind are now the crimes of her husband. Oh man. And they're very different people. Her husband was a very different person from her father, but she could not separate the two of them.
Right, right. What is the reason why people wanna know why the other person did something? Like, you cheated. Why does the partner Always want to know why. Why did you do this? Was I not doing enough of this? What is the reason behind that? And is that beneficial to want to know why the person cheated or lied or manipulated or whatever thing they did?
I think why is important, but why is not simple. So I think what they want is a simple why. Let me connect the dots. I cheated because of X. And then it's like, oh, that makes sense.
It doesn't always make sense.
So then we can just avoid X. and it'll never happen again. Have you ever had the situation where you find out that a friend, like somebody cheated in a friend's relationship, and everybody is asking, what happened?
Why?
And the reason they want to know is not so much that they're concerned for their friend, of course they are, but because they want to know, oh, I don't want that to happen in my relationship. So if I can find out why it happened in your relationship, I can make sure that that doesn't happen in mine. And I think that when it happens in your own relationship, you think if we can figure out the why, then we can make sure it will never happen again. People want guarantees, but there are no guarantees. And the reasons that people have relationships are very nuanced. It's not like, well, my father died and I was feeling dead, so I wanted to feel alive again. Maybe that's part of it, but there might be other reasons too.
Why they have affairs, you mean?
Yes, yes, yes. So people always think that if I know why, and by the way, like in that example of him saying, I was really lonely, There was a why. It did not bring relief. You think it's like, oh, if I solve the mystery, then I'm gonna feel some sense of healing, of relief. No, you really have to deal with what's in front of you right now.
From all the cases you've experienced, what are the three main causes of cheating or someone having an affair?
Well, that's the thing. There are so many, right? So it could be something going on in the relationship, like there's a lack of connection, Someone's trying to control the other person, someone isn't present enough for the other person, they're bringing their own childhood stuff to the relationship, so there's a lot of conflict in the relationship. There's too much agreement in the relationship, meaning, agreement.
Too much agreement.
Agreement, meaning nobody's talking about what you need to talk about, so everybody's just kind of dealing with all of the things that are not working on their own and it's like, I don't wanna rock the boat. And so everybody's very smiley, everybody agrees with everybody, but underneath there's a sense of like, oh, I don't really feel like I'm in this. We can't really talk about the things that I wanna talk about. Or both people generally feel that way. And so there's a lot of just being too nice.
Interesting, okay.
So those are the couples who are like, oh, I never saw it coming. If I see a couple and they agree on everything and they have no conflict and there's nothing going on there, What are we not talking about here? Not because I'm looking for problems, but because people are not clones of each other. They're going to have differences. And then there are reasons that people cheat that have literally nothing to do with their partner.
The partner could be amazing.
The partner is amazing and it's not about the partner. So, I remember I had a couple and she was so confused by this. She was so injured by this beyond just the betrayal, but because she said, I gave you everything that you always wanted. I gave you stability. I gave you warmth. I gave you unconditional love. I gave you joy and fun and I gave you all those things and still you cheated. Why was I not enough? And he said, but you were enough. It wasn't that you weren't enough. It was that I did not know how to deal with enoughness. Like I have not dealt with my childhood wounds. Wow.
Right?
I didn't feel worthy of enough.
Wow.
And so he had a lot of stuff to work out and it literally had nothing to do with what she was or was not giving him. And she was like, why, why, why? And she was like beating this out of him. And he's like, it's not about you. She could not accept that because it was better for her to feel like I have an answer that makes sense to me, that there's something I can do differently. And that was not the answer.
That's why you hear the cliche thing, it's not you, it's me. When someone's like breaking up or when something happens, no one can really accept that. 'cause they always think, well, if I was great, you'd still wanna be with me.
You know, like, no, no, no, no, no. Sometimes it is the other person. And that is how they're breaking up.
They just say it that way.
They just say it that way. But in this case, it was true. He was saying there was nothing that you could have done differently. This was something about me that I'm just seeing now. And by the way, sometimes, and this is the thing that betrayed partners have the hardest time accepting, the reason for the affair is I was trying to save the marriage. People think, oh, please. You know, like, don't give me that. Really? But this is what people do. They're trying to save the marriage. So they want, they're trying to get their partner's attention. They're trying to say, they couldn't say it to their partner for whatever reason. Because maybe they had tried to say it to their partner and their partner was like, I don't know what you're talking about.
Say what?
What were they- you- know, like, I don't have enough of you or we don't have enough connection or I can't bring up things that are uncomfortable in this marriage, because every time I do, you try to shut me down. So they've tried, maybe. And so then they blow it up, and they say, like, there's the only way that I can get you to see that there is a problem in our marriage. They sabotage it, yeah. Right, and it's not necessarily conscious. It's like they're doing this thing because they didn't know what else to do, but they're not like, I'm gonna have an affair to do that. Sometimes they do it because they say, I really want to keep, there's so much good in this marriage, and I really want to keep it. But there are certain things needs that I'm not getting met in this marriage and my partner is not listening to me about this. So, I'm gonna get those needs met and I'm not even talking about sexual needs. They're gonna get those needs met somewhere else so that the marriage can stay intact so we don't rock this boat. Because if I bring this up, my.
Partner might leave me. -Wow. So, it's getting the needs somewhere else.
Because the partner is not giving you.
What you need in that moment. But you still want to hear it. -But you still want to stay in the marriage. But you need to get your needs met somewhere. If you can't get them met in.
The marriage, you're like, well, where do I go? Right, and they're not necessarily sexual needs. People think affairs are always about the sex. They're not always about the sex. What could it be about? What other ways? About, I wanna feel alive. I wanna feel connected.
I wanna feel special. I wanna feel understood.
This other person listens to me. So they're still having a sexual interaction, but it's not necessarily about the sex. Sometimes, and by the way, because we don't know how to define affairs, everybody defines it differently. So it's kind of like people think, When I'm with my partner, because we see the world through a similar lens, we're going to agree on what betrayal means. What does it mean to cheat? What does an affair actually mean? And you'll find that people have wildly different definitions.
Like, what's the range?
Is cheating, is cheating, you have been getting together with your ex, even though it's completely on the up and up, you've been getting together with your ex, but you didn't tell me you were having these lunches with your ex. That feels like a betrayal to me. I should have known about it, even if nothing's happening. I should have known about it.
That may seem like an affair to some people.
It seems like a betrayal. We call it a betrayal.
Yeah.
Or someone will say like you're having an emotional affair with this person. How do you define that? What does that actually mean? You might have different definitions of that. Like, why can't I have a friend.
Who.
Is not a romantic partner, but you see this person as threatening, but this person is not threatening.
Do you think people can have opposite sex friends while they're in marriages. Yeah, absolutely.
But the boundaries, the lines have to be explicit. Like what do you and your partner say about what those lines are so that you'll know when they're crossed. If you haven't talked about what those lines are, you don't know when they're crossed. Until someone says, wait a minute, you crossed a line and the other person says, I didn't know the line was there, I thought it was over here.
So it could be like, It's interesting, I was meeting with someone years ago who is someone older than me in my industry. I was like, I'd love to meet you. It was non-romantic at all, but I was just like, I'm inspired by what you're creating. I'd love to have lunch with you or have a coffee. I can't remember what she said. She said something like, We just have to make sure it's in public because me and my husband have an agreement if we're meeting someone of the other sex, something like that. But it wasn't that detailed, but she was like, oh, we just need to make sure it's in public. you know, I just never do anything one-on-one privately with anyone. Like so, and I was like, okay cool, yeah wherever you want to go. And I was like, that's a good boundary, an agreement.
It's like... And that works for them, that might not work for someone else. Someone else might feel like, well that's really controlling. But you don't know the history of their relationship. And she didn't by the way have to say that to you. She could have just said like, let's meet at wherever. Of course, yeah.
Right?
Exactly, yeah. You know, so maybe she was just.
Trying to let you know, hey by the way... But this isn't anything yet.
Whatever you might be thinking.
Trying anything. So, which I thought was cool.
But it is cool that they talked about it.
Yes.
And that's the point, is that people need to talk about these. People assume that their partners think about the world in the same way they do, and they get into trouble when they realize, wait a minute, you think this? And then they judge the person for thinking something else. Like, how, and I'm not talking about affairs now, but just anything. How could you think that? How do you think that way? How do you believe that?
As if, Yeah, then you wouldn't wanna talk about that person anymore, 'cause you feel judged already, right?
Right, right.
Sorry, what were you gonna say?
Well, I think that people need to come at each other with curiosity rather than criticism. Isn't that interesting? Oh, you think that? Tell me more. Just say those three words. Tell me more, or say more, tell me, I'm curious, I want to understand how you think about this. Not because my way's better.
So what if the thing that someone starts telling this, you know, story or fantasy or whatever it is, value system they have, and it's completely against what their partner thinks or believes, then what? If they're like, oh, we're in a big conflict here of what you think and what I think.
Yeah, I think underneath the sort of content is the process. The process is what's going on on an emotional level between you. And usually there's some, there's some kind of agreement on an emotional level. Like you might think blue and I might think green, but actually we both think colors, right? Like there's something that's, there's some point of connection there, but people kind of back into their own corners because again, the worst thing that you can do to somebody is try to get them to think your way instead of being curious about understanding how they think.
Interesting.
You don't have to agree with it, but you just have to understand it.
Because people want to be understood more than anything else.
More than agreed with.
Really?
Just, I can see why you think that way or why you felt that way. I don't, you know, I don't agree with it, but I can see that that's how you think about it. I get that.
So, understand, but you don't have to agree with someone.
You don't have to agree.
Okay, I like that.
Those are two different things, understanding them and agreeing with them. It's kind of like if your kid comes home from school and says, that teacher was terrible. They marked me off for not turning in my homework. You might agree with the teacher. Yeah, okay. They should mark you off for not turning in homework.
But I understand where you're coming from.
But I understand that you're really upset about this. I get why you're upset. I get that it feels bad to be marked off for something. And maybe we can talk about what's going on for you and why you didn't turn it in. Let's talk about that.
Underneath it, interesting. How many of the married couples that come in How many percentage wise would you say there's some type of affair or cheating that happens with the couples that come to you? Or just in therapy, do you think? What's like the percentages?
It's really interesting that you ask that because when I think about all the betrayals that happen in couples, you know, betrayals of like, you gave me the silent treatment when I needed you or I was sick and you had a toothache, you know? And you didn't call me. Or, you know, like all the betrayals that just happen on a daily basis. The betrayal that really gets people is, you know, this idea of cheating. It really cuts to the core in a way that the other people can be awful to another person. Like you can scream at someone and say horrible things, which I think is just Psychological, you know, just betrayal right there.
It's trauma.
It's trauma. It really is, yeah. Yeah. It's like holding someone hostage to your emotions. You know, you're really like, it's a real assault. It's an emotional assault.
I think, yeah, I think it's horrible.
And then, you know, oh, but wait a minute, you had lunch with this co-worker. Oh my God, can you believe? And then you tell all your friends.
He was having lunch with her, right?
He betrayed me, yeah, yeah. But then you don't say to your friend, you wouldn't believe the way what he called me or what he said to me when he screamed at me in that moment. It's really interesting to see what affects us on this deep core level. And I think it's because we have this idea in modern society that our partners are supposed to be everything to us. And there's this little bubble of the two of us, and it's the two of us against the world. Like it used to be you'd have community for some of your needs, you've had friends, you had family, you had all these different things. And now it's like, this is the person. If the person strays in some way, then I am threatened in this way because I don't have the safety of us anymore. Even though the other thing is arguably just as bad.
Just as bad.
Yeah.
If someone screams at you and allows their emotions to take over and puts it on the person they say they love the most, for me, it's just, like you said, psychological war.
Yeah.
And I feel like, you know, the psychological things are harder to get out of than someone like punching me in the face. I don't know. I mean, physical abuse is not good either. But for me, it's like the psychological messes with your emotions.
Right.
Well, what's so confusing about it is that people are not always that way. Right.
So it's once in a month he does this or she yells this way, you know?
Right, right. So it's kind of like, you know, but look at all the look at all the good things. Look at all the other things. And so it's it's hard for people to reconcile. You see this with narcissism. narcissistic people a lot. And I don't like to use diagnostic terms very much because I think the behavior is more important than the diagnosis. But when we look at narcissistic traits, for example, we all know people who have been with someone who is incredibly charming, incredibly confident, incredibly into you in this way that makes you feel like you are the center of the universe. You're the center of this person's universe. And then they do something so callous.
Like what?
So, I mean, you know, something that they just, they lack empathy in a moment when, you know, like your mother died and they didn't show up for you in the way that you would expect.
Right.
Or even just something on a daily basis, you know, just something where like their needs were so much more important than yours. We had on the Dear Therapist podcast, we just did an episode called, I think it was like Audrey's narcissistic ex-husband. And again, we don't, we haven't met him, so we cannot give him a diagnosis. And I don't even know that he, you know, fits a diagnosis. But her perception in the marriage was just that his needs came above hers. But she said, I was addicted to his approval. His approval meant everything to me. The fact that he could have had anybody and he chose me. So we all get sort of swayed by those people. It's very easy to get swayed by those people. Some people figure it out before they get into a relationship with them that, oh, wait a minute, you know, this feels really good for a moment, but this isn't what I want to live with.
This is my vision.
This is, yeah. Right, right. But other people, you know, it takes them a long time to kind of figure it out. And so for her, she was so damaged by it. Then they got divorced and he was about to get remarried, and it's been seven years. since they got divorced, and she's still so damaged by it because she never processed it, she never understood her own role in it. Why was she with him? So I think it's easy to blame the person who's narcissistic.
You chose to be in a relationship and stay in a relationship at the same time.
Well, what was the draw for you? What is that pattern? And usually it's people who have their own issues with intimacy. A narcissist is a great partner for someone who, and I say great partner, meaning that's who they're gonna choose. It's not a fun relationship. But it's a great partner for somebody who really is afraid of getting too close because the narcissist will never let you get too close to him.
They will never fully open up vulnerably.
They will never let you get there because they are so ashamed. Their main thing is they're covering their shame.
What would you say is the main traits of a narcissist?
Grandiosity, really wanting to be the center of attention. this veneer of confidence, being very easily wounded. Oh, wait a minute, you complimented this other person's whatever it is, they get so wounded, like, well, why didn't you compliment mine?
Right?
Oh, yeah. Oh, you think that person's attractive? They'll like ice you out. Wow. So super jealous too, or no?
Very, very. But they act like they don't care.
Oh, you wanna do, go ahead. I don't know.
Like passive aggressive jealous or something, right?
Yeah.
Very passive aggressive. Aggressive.
Yeah.
Huh. Any other signs that people should look out for if they're like starting to date someone, they're like, huh, this seems very narcissistic.
I think that Jekyll and Hyde quality that, you know, one minute you're like this and the next minute you're incredibly cruel. You can be incredibly warm and loving and incredibly cruel. And the two, you toggle between the.
Two in a way that is frightening.
It's like a split personality, huh? Yeah. Yeah, but it's not because the narcissist is doing the thing, you reel them in, the narcissist reels the person in with the charm.
With the charm.
With the seduction. With the you are the center of the universe. And then, oh oh, you're getting too.
Close to me, so I'm gonna be cruel. So it's interesting, so it's like if you're with someone who's showing these traits and they're just wowing you and they're so nice and loving and grandiose, but then if you truly open up and you wanna get to know their heart, That's when they start to do other things or what happens then?
Yeah, yeah. If you get too close, if you get too intimate. Get too intimate with them. Right, either you're being too intimate with them, although they want you to be somewhat intimate with them so they know how to use it against you.
Right, tell me your deepest darkest secrets that I can use against you.
And I will use it against you in the moment when you are most vulnerable.
Wow.
Or they don't want you to know too much about them, right?
They hide certain things.
Well, they hide their vulnerability. They don't know how to get authentically close to another person.
Why does someone become a narcissist?
Oh, that's... You know, I think so many people, anybody who's had experience with someone like that wants to know that. And you'll see that, you know, this is when we talk about we marry our unfinished business, right? So it's the person who grew up feeling very... They didn't get their knees met. They didn't get, you know, they were either neglected, Or they grew up with a narcissistic parent. So what do we do with parents who don't meet our needs? On the one hand, we rebel against them. We say, I'm not going to be like that. I'm not going to choose someone like that. So the narcissist doesn't choose another narcissist. If the narcissist grew up with a narcissistic parent, they don't choose another narcissist. They choose someone like the other parent who was with the narcissistic parent. And then what they do is they take on the traits of the narcissistic parent. Now why do they do that even though they were so injured by that kind of parent? It's like the person who grew up with an alcoholic parent or a person who like couldn't self-regulate. Why did they become the angry yeller even though their parent was the angry yeller and they said, I would never do that. How do you get close to a parent who couldn't get close to you? You become like them. That's your connection to them. This is completely outside of your awareness. You don't realize that. But we still, the wish never dies that we can be close to our parents. The wish never dies. So what do we do if we don't process this?
So if we process it, then we know.
If we process it, then we know, okay, I have to watch out for that. I have to find another way to grieve what I didn't get growing up. I have to really go through that grief process. And I'm going to have that loss is going to live with me, but it's going to live with me in a way that isn't so sharp. So you really have to grieve it. But if you don't grieve it, you repeat it.
You take on the trait of one of your parents or something.
You take on their traits because it helps you feel close to them. Oh, I'm gonna feel close to you in this way. This is not in your conscious awareness. And then people don't realize it. They think, oh my gosh, one day someone says to them, you are exactly like your mom, your dad. And they go, oh my God, I am. Right, if they're not, if they can get past sort of like the narcissistic protection.
Yeah, of course.
Which would be one.
I don't like my parents.
No, I'm not like them at all. I'm not like them at all. Like if you could take a videotape of a scene from your childhood and you take a videotape of how you're acting now with your own child, you would be stunned.
Wow.
So how does someone, if they're, okay, they've realized maybe there's narcissistic traits or that's a full-on narcissist that they're in a relationship with? What are the next steps they should take? Is there a way to actually, I mean, you can't really change someone in a relationship when I'm hearing you say you can't, no matter what you do, the person's not gonna change.
Right.
So do you need to change in order for them to change or is it just if you're with someone who's diagnosed narcissist, there's no hope for actually healthy growth in the relationship?
Well, someone who has narcissistic traits generally doesn't come to therapy because they don't think they have a problem.
They're like, no, I'm good.
Right. So how they come in is they're having some relational difficulty. And the relational difficulty is either they're coming in for couples therapy because the other person dragged them there. So often we say that the reason that people come to therapy is to deal with the people who won't go to therapy. You're coming to therapy to deal with the person in your life who won't come to therapy.
It's funny that, yeah, three previous relationships I was in, I was like, we need therapy. We need to like, we're getting to a point where I was like, something's not working here. Let's go to therapy and like try to work this through. None of my partners wanted to go to therapy. They resisted, resisted, resisted. And I was like, what? We're not figuring it out on our own. Like, I'm trying, you're trying, it's not working.
Let's go.
Let's have someone look at, no, it's.
Like so much resistance. I was just like, right. And so in that case, I'm not.
Saying they were all narcissists, but there.
Was definitely some- so I'm not even talking about, well let me differentiate. So there's, a narcissistic person, meaning diagnosed narcissistic, or even people with narcissistic traits, they tend not to come on their own to therapy unless they actually agree to come in couples, and they're coming because their partner is making them come.
Yes, that's the only reason.
Or, and then you kind of see how flexible are they with their story, right? Because everybody's coming in with their story, both people, both people need to be, right? The other reason, like in maybe you should talk to someone, John, right? When I talk about him, he's this guy who's in his 40s, he's married, he has some kids, and he is incredibly insulting to me from the minute he walks in the door. Everybody else is the problem. In fact, the chapter is called Idiots because he says everybody else is an idiot, right? Why can't people, why aren't people as smart as he is? Why aren't people as competent as he is? Why can't people do things right? Why does he, and he's like the beleaguered victim. You see that sometimes.
I'm so talented and smart, I'm the victim.
Because no one is- the victim of all these other people are causing so much anxiety in my life. Like why are they doing things the way that they should be done? Why are they complaining about all these things? Not realizing that he's the one doing the complaining. Complaining about everything, yeah. Right, right. You know, we call it complaining from the victim position. You know, or being offended from the victim position. Sure. Now everybody else is the problem. Or the reason that people are cruel to another person is they say, you know, like I was the victim, so I can hurt you twice as much. So if you hurt me, I have a right to hurt you. Back. Right, right. I'm doing this to protect myself.
Right.
So when John came in, he was, you know, you very much say, a lot of people would say, I don't wanna treat somebody like that because I don't know how much progress they're going to make because if they can't self-reflect, well you have to be able to see yourself. In the book I talk about the difference between idiot compassion and wise compassion. So idiot compassion is what we do with our friends. So your friends say like, listen to what my partner did or my mom or my kid or my sibling or whatever it is. And we say, yeah, that's terrible. You're right. How dare they? You're right, they're wrong. It's just we just back them up blindly. because we think we're being supportive. But if you actually listen to your friends over time, you might hear that there's a pattern that they are kind of complaining about similar types of things. It's kind of like if a fight breaks out in every bar you're going to, maybe it's you. We don't say that. In any compassion. So in therapy, what we offer is we offer wise compassion. And in wise compassion, we hold up a mirror to you to help you to see yourself in ways that maybe you haven't been willing or able to do. And compassion is the key word here because we're doing it compassionately. So someone who comes in and they're not able to self-reflect, they're not able to see the reflection in the mirror and say, Yes, oh, I have a role in this too. Yes, it's true the other person does this, but I have a role in this too. So when you are asking about change, when people come in for couples therapy, I always give them an assignment before they come in. And the assignment is this, because normally the first thing that'll happen if I don't is they're gonna come in and they're gonna name all the ways that their partner needs to change, and then we get nowhere. So I say to them, I want you to come up with how you can make this relationship better. I want you to come up with what you're going to do, what are you going to be working on to make this relationship better, even if your partner never changes. And they each have this assignment. So from day one, they come in, and even though they might have a lot of reasons that things aren't working out that they think are their their partner's issue, their goal in therapy is to work on the one thing or the two things or the three things that they think they can do to make the relationship better. And it changes the whole course of the couples therapy because it's not about changing the other person. The magic of this is that they say, well, what's the point of doing it if they're not going to change? Well, first of all, again, going from the me and the you to the us is things are going to go more smoothly. because you're going to be doing something to improve the relationship. But the other part of it is, and where the magic comes in is, you can't change another person, but you can influence change in another person. So when you do something differently, you are helping the other person to change. No one changes because you say, I want you to change in this way. That doesn't really happen. They might do it, they might pay lip service to it, it doesn't really last. But if you start changing, if you make it easier, you help them to change by making it easier for them to change. so let's say they really need space. Give them some space. Let's say, you know, you try to control them less. Let's say that you don't engage in the same familiar argument over and over and over.
You.
Maybe you do something kind for them. And then people say about that. They say, well, why should I do something kind? Why should I go first? If they would be nice to me, I'll be nice to them. It doesn't matter. You need to go first. because someone needs to do something. Someone needs to change the dynamic. It's like a dance. And so if you do something nice for them, you might notice that they, not because it's a tit for tat, not because they're doing it because you, it's because they feel safer. They feel more loving toward you. They feel like, oh, that was really nice. I really liked that. Now I actually want to, on my own volition, want to do something nice for you.
Yeah.
What if someone says, I'm gonna, I'm gonna improve all the, you know, three, five, ten areas that I know can improve. And after six months, the other person's like, yeah, I deserve all these things, and I'm not going to give any more. Then what? If you keep coming back, have you seen that where people come back to therapy? It's like, okay, I've done this, I did this, I did this, and they're still not happy, they're still upset, and.
They'Re still not shifting in certain ways. Well, first of all, I think that what they engage in then What I call the pain Olympics, which is like, whose pain is greater? You know, like, I'm working so hard, I'm working 12-hour days. Well, I'm taking care of the kids, or I'm doing this, or, you know, like, I'm doing all of this kind of labor in the relationship, and you're doing all of the... It's, there's no, there's no winning the pain Olympics.
Like, let's just say that you're both.
At a 10, okay? You both win. You both are in pain. You both lose. But you both lose if you keep trying to compare it. The point is, you're both struggling. And what's really interesting about couples is that couples don't tend to tell the other person exactly how they're struggling in a relationship. Instead, they act it out. They act out their fears or their disappointment or their hurt in other ways, but they don't directly say, this is how I'm struggling. And so if you're in couples therapy, you're gonna start talking about those things. And if you're not, then you're not really doing couples therapy.
Right.
So, you know, I mean, I think that your therapist will tell you very early on, like, this is the work that we're doing and this is, I think some people think that couples therapy is you come in, you download the argument of the week or the struggle of the week, you leave, you come back the next week and you download the new thing. No, that's like talking to a friend. There's no point to that.
What should the point of therapy be?
The point is that you want to be doing, most of the therapy of couples Therapy takes place outside of the therapy room, meaning what happens in between sessions. So we came in, we talked about this, you learned something new about yourself, you learned something new about your partner, and then we always say insight is the booby prize of therapy. That you can have all the insight in the world, but if you don't make changes out in the world between sessions, the insight is useless. So then, okay, you have this insight, you learn something, what are you going to do with that knowledge? Use it. Why are you wasting your time and your money coming in here every week? -Go apply. -You're not gonna use it.
-What'S been the thing that you've seen as a therapist where you realized, oh, this is something that I have done in my relationships or oh, actually this is a really great lesson for me because I used to do that and I don't want to do that anymore or something like that. Has there been anything?
-I would say all of it.
-Really?
-I mean, I think that that's what makes makes relationship so interesting and people think that it's only happening to them. They're like you only do this, you know, it's really interesting that they think that they're the only ones that do this.
My friends don't do this.
Nobody does this. Their partners don't do this or I only act this crazy around you, right? Like I don't do this, nobody else elicits this kind of response in me. Well of course they don't elicit that kind of response in you because you're not in an intimate relationship with them. They're not bringing up all that unconscious stuff that comes up when you're in that intimate relationship. So I think that the good news for couples is that anything they bring in, I've seen it before. I've experienced probably some of it before. And it's so universal. And if people could stop being so, people can blame and shame. They blame the other person, they feel shame themselves. and then they don't really make progress because they're afraid to really look at these things because they're really uncomfortable talking about them. But when they find that, oh, this is just the human condition, and this is what happens when we get scared. This is what happens when we feel threatened. And maybe it's not even your partner who's threatening, but it's something about being this close to someone, or there's something your partner does that reminds your nervous system of something that happened earlier. Like, who am I talking to right now? Am I talking to the child who had to come up with a way to protect yourself from whatever was happening? And it was very effective. It was ingenious as a child because you had to. You didn't have agency. Or am I talking to the adult who has agency and doesn't need to use that way of protecting yourself that is actually creating some conflict in your relationship?
Which everything goes back to healing.
Yes.
And like if we want to create a thriving, healthy relationship, within the human condition, which is going to have some bumps along the way, it sounds like we need to constantly going back to healing. If there's something within me that's stressed, where can I heal? Is that what I'm hearing you say?
And the thing is that we expect our partners to do that healing for us. The person who's going to heal us is ourselves. And that goes against everything we believe about love. And when I said at the beginning of our conversation that love can wound, but also love heal. What I mean is that if you can heal yourself in the context of a loving relationship.
Right, not the other person healed me.
Right, the other person didn't heal me, but I was healing myself and the other person was there as I was doing it and the other person was healing themselves as well. And what happens is you learn how to heal yourself because you have the safe environment in which to do it. If you have an environment that's not safe, you're not going to feel safe enough to do the work that you need to do to heal yourself.
-Wow. So, what does a safe environment look for another partner to feel I'm safe and I can process the things I need to process in a healthy manner.
-That your partner can handle the truth of who you are.
-Ooh. -All the messiness of you. All the stuff in your past.
-As long as you're kind. -Right. -That your partner can handle the truth of who you are. That you can show up. You can be authentic. They're not going to judge you. They're not going to use it against you and say, Ah, yeah, see that thing that you told me like three months ago. That's why you're doing this thing right now. Oh man.
No.
Never do that.
Don't do that. Don't use it against them.
Wow.
You're just like your mother. Don't do that.
That's the worst thing probably.
Right, right. It's like I'm showing up here and I need you to show up here. And how can we show up for each other? What does that look like? Can you handle the truth of who the other person is? And so what does that require? Requires emotional regulation. This is the best thing you can do, by the way, as a parent for your child, emotional regulation, that can you regulate? We did on the Dear Therapist podcast, we had someone on who was like, I just, I can't, when my children have big feelings, I can't handle their feelings. And when my husband, and I can't deal with this with my husband, right? And so it was like, how do you handle, how do you regulate yourself emotionally?
How do we learn to do that? That's a skill.
It is a skill. It's a master of skills. Especially if your parents did not know.
How to regulate themselves emotionally. People are screaming and reacting or passive-aggressive.
And yeah, slamming of doors. Right, or the opposite, where there was.
Just, they couldn't regulate it all, so they numbed out.
They didn't express at all. So you got nothing, right? They said they love you, they had no, yeah. There was no kind of warmth or affection or even talking about feelings like you had a bad day at work at school that you knew, I don't, my parents are not going to know how to talk about that with me. Or they're going to try to talk me out of my feelings.
-You'Re fine.
It's okay. -You're fine. Like, oh, don't be sad.
Hey, let's go get some yogurt. Let's go get some ice cream. -When our partner comes to us at the end of the day, let's say, or in the middle of the day, they call us and they say, I'm feeling emotionally overwhelmed. I'm feeling like betrayed with my friendship. My parents did this. My work, They're just feeling like I'm emotionally a wreck. What can the partner do in that moment to make them feel in a safe space and feel like it's okay to express it without also having them be like, okay, they're gonna do this every day. It's like, because that's not good either. They're always gonna be an emotional avalanche on your partner daily. You know what I mean? It's like, how do you create that balance?
Right. I think that you need to learn how to listen and you need to learn how your partner wants to be listened to and people don't bother to ask. And so we assume that the person wants in that moment what we would want if we had that exact same problem that day. So when your partner comes to you and they say, oh my gosh, you have to hear what happened today. You might say to them, how can I help right now? Do you want to just vent right now? Do you want to hug? Do you want me to help problem solve with you? what would be helpful right now? And they might say, right now, I just want to tell you what happened. And I don't want to hear what you think about it. I don't want to hear, I don't want to problem solve. I just want you to hear it. I just want, I just want to vent right now. And then they might say, but like tomorrow, I might want your ideas. Opinions, yeah. Right, I might want to talk about this with you.
That's such a challenging thing for someone, when someone comes to them with like a problem or a challenge, it's so hard for someone to have the self-awareness to say, How do you want me to listen to you right now?
How can I help right now?
I feel like it's so hard for, maybe I'm speaking for myself and for, you know, men in relationships that I've talked to, it's hard for them to be like, okay, you're overwhelmed. How can I listen to that?
Yeah, there's a fire. I've got to put it out. No, no, no, no, no. It's challenging, I think. Can you emotionally regulate yourself? Because just like with the parent and the child, if you are emotionally regulated, If your child comes home and says, oh, this thing happened, and oh my gosh, and you're like, oh my gosh, oh no, let's call the school, let's call the teacher.
No, right? So it's more like, oh, let's talk about it. It's almost like both parties learning emotional regulation for each other. It's like, without dumping on someone, how do I regulate and heal or process.
And then communicate, ah, I'm going through something challenging. We always say, one person, there can only be one person going crazy at a time. No, really, I mean, someone's got to be stable. It's like a seesaw. You can't like someone like one person has to be the adult. Only one person can go crazy at a time. So if one person is going to regress and kind of go into that childhood place or they're really dysregulated, whatever it is, the other person has to stay emotionally regulated. You can't get dysregulated by your partner. You have to be regulated in that moment for your partner.
And emotional regulation or learning that skill, what I'm hearing you say goes back to healing first, right? It's like learning to process whatever trauma, challenges, pains, hurts that has happened in your life, whether it be recent or in the past, processing grieving, healing, forgiving that journey, which my therapist says healing is not an event, it's a journey. It's not like it doesn't happen one time, it's like a journey. It seems like it's something we should be working on consistently, is that right?
Right, and working on healing your yourself. And so when your partner comes to you and you feel really just activated by what they're coming at you with, you kind of have to take some breaths and you have to take care of yourself then in a way that you weren't taken care of before. If you're getting really triggered by it, it's probably because you had that experience with your parents and nobody was there for you. You didn't know what to do in those moments.
Yeah, you didn't have a boundary or something.
Right, right. Yeah, and so to be able to say, okay, how can I stay grounded right now? What do we do as a couple right now so that we both are able to have this conversation?
Should people get into relationships without healing first?
So people always think that this is a really interesting question because people always say, you, have to be whole and then you can get into a relationship. I think that it's not, again, not that your partner is going to heal you, but we start to heal when we are able to learn more about ourselves and you don't learn a lot about yourself in a vacuum. Okay? We are most revealed in an intimate relationship. That is where we are most revealed. Yes. You know, and if you, by the way, if you think, oh, my friends know me really well, you know, this other person knows me really well, this person I've known since kindergarten knows me really well, they don't know you in the way your partner knows you. Intimately like that. They're not going to see you in the same same way. And so when somebody can really see you in that way and love you and be there for you and be imperfect and not be all good or all bad, you know when you say to your partner, you,'re always this. Well, no, there's sometimes that. But you're not always that. You know, when you paint somebody becomes, you know, you get roles in a relationship like you're the irresponsible one. you know, you're the one who overreacts. Well, no, sometimes you're right. I was late for pickup. You know, you're right. But let's not do kitchen sink fighting, which is like, let's name all the times that not only was I late, but that I let you down in these other ways, right? If you can deal with that one incident, that person will probably say, you,'re right. I needed to leave earlier. I didn't account for traffic. Next time I'm going to do it better. As opposed to, oh my gosh, this avalanche is coming at me.
I don't even hear this person.
Anymore. I don't even hear what they're saying.
Right. Because then you just shut down. If you're being made wrong over and over again, it's hard to really like pay attention and focus. There's like a wall.
And when someone says to their partner, like, you,'re too sensitive, you know, you're so sensitive, the response there is, Yes, I'm sensitive, and you know that. And so why wouldn't you want to take my sensitivity into account? I see it as a strength. that I feel things. I feel a lot of things. And I use those feelings. And I know that maybe my boundary has been crossed or this doesn't feel good to me. And so if you know that I have these sensitivities, why wouldn't you take those into account?
Right. Right. Let's say we've gone through a breakup and you're like, Man, I feel wounded from this previous relationship where there was a lot of hurts and pains that just, you know, didn't feel good. what would be the process that you would recommend for someone while they're single to really grieve, heal, forgive, process in order to set themselves up to being the best person they can be when they're in that next relationship.
Well, first of all, you've used the word forgiveness a little bit, so I just want to talk about that for a second. So I think there's this idea that if we forgive someone that we will be set free in some way. and I don't think that's always the case. We have this expression forced forgiveness, which is like, you know, you don't actually forgive the person, whether it's a parent or an ex or, you know, someone who really wounded you. You don't have to forgive them. And I think with parents, it's easy to say, I can have compassion for them now as an adult because I see what their life was like or I see what their struggles were. I see that they had mental health issues or whatever it is, or I see how how hard their upbringing was, but I don't necessarily forgive what they took from me in my childhood or how they treated me.
So you're saying it's sometimes it's good not to forgive.
It's okay not to forgive. I'm saying if you truly forgive that person, great, but that's not necessarily the goal. It doesn't make you less of a person. It doesn't make you less evolved because you can have compassion but not forgiveness. And the same with an ex, if someone really hurt you, maybe you can have compassion for the woundedness in them that made them treat you in that way. But you don't necessarily have to forgive them. In fact, I think that can do more damage than good when you tell yourself that you forgive someone when you actually don't. That forced forgiveness can be a trap. And it can leave you in a stuck position for much longer than you would be if you just acknowledge that I don't actually forgive them. I can see that they were wounded. I'm not going to put myself in that position. I'm going to choose a different kind of partner. next time.
Right.
I'm not gonna, I don't need to beat myself up or hold a grudge anymore, but I don't want to forgive. Is there a way to like not hurt yourself and still not forgive?
But why am I, why is so much of my emotional real estate going in that direction? You know, it's like we only have so much emotional real estate. How much time are you thinking about thinking of this other person? We had this again. I keep talking about the podcast because these are such common issues that on the Dear Therapist podcast, we had this this woman come on and she was spending so much emotional real estate on this person who had treated her badly. And we were like, you are spending so much time on this that you are not even available for another person right now. You are not available. You won't even think about people who are, it's kind of like I use this analogy, the dry well. That there are people who, they keep going back to the dry well. They know there's no water. They know that there's like an emotional void there and they keep going back every day expecting that there's gonna be water there.
Just thinking about it or thinking about it or thinking about it.
Yeah, like thinking like I'm gonna keep trying to get this, like this time you're gonna be emotionally, the person has never been emotionally there for you in the way that you want.
What should they do? Just move on there?
So it's like go where the water is, go to a different well and they don't, they're so focused on, but I want water from that well. I want it from this particular well.
The dry well.
The dry well. It's like you're never gonna get water that well is dry. Go where the water is.
Psychologically, why do we fixate on that sometimes?
Because they had a dry well somewhere in their lives. And they think, I'm going to now, we call this repetition compulsion. Freud called it repetition compulsion, and I'm not all on board with Freud, but there are certain things that he wrote about that actually do play out that I see all the time. And one of them is we say, this time I'm going to choose a partner who is exactly like that person who didn't meet my needs. We don't do that consciously, right? In fact, they look very different. We think, Aha, I won because I chose someone very different. But then when you get into a relationship with them, you see they're also not emotionally available or they also have an anger issue or they also are withholding or whatever it is. And so then we say unconsciously, but this time I'm going to win. This time I'm going, I couldn't get my parent to do it, but I'm going to get them because sometimes They can be so loving and kind and all these other things. So, this time I'm going to get them to do that. But you won't. Again, we don't change another person. You can only change yourself. In that case, the change might be, I'm going to go where the water is.
I'm going to choose differently. I'm going to go where the water is.
And I'm going to look at why I don't go where the water is. Because so many times people don't see that they are literally surrounded by water, but they don't take it. They won't drink it. To them, it's almost like water is the water is the poison, even though the poison is the dry well.
Why is that?
Because they don't know that it's safe. They never experience it. It feels so foreign to them. It's like, it's kind of like you are in this war zone and we're gonna fly you. -You're gonna fly you. -Right. Your whole life. And we're gonna fly you into a safe territory. And you land in the safe territory, but you've never been in a safe territory before, so they speak a different language and they do different things. They drive on the other side of the street and they have different customs and they wear different clothes and you're like, this feels really uncomfortable because I've never been in a place like this, even though it's really warm and safe. So hot. And the people are really nice there.
Yes.
But you're like, I don't know, all I know is the familiar. This is why people don't change because they say, I would rather be in something that is familiar to me because at least I know it than to go in this situation where I don't know the customs and the language and I don't know how to be around people. who are kind to me. I don't know how to be in those situations.
This is so relevant to me right now because my girlfriend, we started dating and within the first couple months I go, this is really weird. This is really weird. And I go, I don't know what it is, it just something feels weird. There's nothing wrong, it just feels weird because it's so healthy. I go, it's so healthy that I just never experienced this. and it's so foreign, but I know this is so much healthier than anything I've ever experienced. I'm like, I just need to communicate. And I was telling my therapist, I was like, I don't know what it is. It's just so healthy. It just feels good.
It feels good, but then you don't get it. You don't get it.
But it's just different. It's just like, it's just blow, it's just weird to the mind.
Right. And you have to get used to it. You gotta get used to it.
Wait, there's peace? Wait a minute. There's not bombs going off everywhere. Okay, yeah, there's peace. I'm not gonna get exploded on. It's like a process of learning how to adapt to a healthy environment. At least it has been for me.
Yeah, and for people who grew up that way, that is what they seek and that feels good to them. And when someone isn't good to them, they get out of that very quickly. They're aware of it. They're aware of it. So the way you feel in a healthy relationship is how they feel in an unhealthy healthy relationships. They feel like really on edge and they're not gonna stick around. The goal here for you is to say, wait a minute, this is actually safe. Don't sabotage. And to not let your fear blow it up.
Yeah, it's weird. I don't know it's just really weird.
There's a word, cheirophobia, which means fear of joy. So, cheiro means fear and phobia. I'm sorry, cheiro means joy and phobia means fear. And people who grew up in those environments that didn't feel safe often struggle with cherophobia because when they feel joy, they don't trust it. Like maybe sometimes their parents were there for them and then, oh, my depressed mom would go back into her room again and, you know, I couldn't trust it. Like it felt so good to have a mom, but then she's gone again, right? So then when they grow up and then they meet someone who's there and really available to them. Consistently. oh, the other shoe's gonna drop.
Eventually they're gonna do something.
Right. I cannot trust this peace, this healthiness, this joy.
So what does someone do when they're in that situation where it's like, wow, there's a healthy environment, but maybe they're in a previous relationship where it felt healthy for six months or a year, and then something switches in the relationship and it's not healthy, but you stick to whatever pattern you had before. What should they do in that? Speaking to myself, what should I do? You know, or someone like me, When they're in a healthy environment, when they've got an amazing partner.
That's when you have to realize that the war is over.
Oh my gosh.
So, you know, you're not in the war zone. The war is over and it's like PTSD. It really is. And so you have to look around and you have to ground yourself. You can put your feet on the floor. You can breathe. You kind of have to orient yourself to your environment and say, Hey, it's peace time. The war is over.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah.
And not conflate your past with the present. So people are time traveling what they're doing in that moment. They're saying, wait a minute, you know, like, I put I'm in the war, I've got to be hyper vigilant. No, you're actually safe.
Otherwise, I'm gonna yelled at or exploded on or whatever.
I'm gonna step on a bomb. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And also, the first time something happens in those relationships, like a healthy relationship doesn't mean that there's no conflict or that you don't disagree or whatever it is, it's that it's going to be handled really differently. It's, hey, let's talk about it.
It's all good.
Let's figure it out. It's okay. It's not, again, rupture and repair. How do we repair? And so it's not like, oh, there's a rupture. That's the end of our relationship. It's there's a rupture and we're going to have lots of them in the.
Course of our relationship. So let's learn, let's see how we repair things together. Let's see how we work as a team. Yeah, that's powerful. What would you say Someone's getting into a relationship, a new relationship. When would they know? What would the signs be that this is the environment of a really great match for both of you? What would that environment look like? Are those things happening look like or feel like?
It depends who you are. So if you're someone again who grew up with what we call secure attachment, then what looks good to you is what you saw grow up. coming up, that you guys, you know, you might have disagreements, but there's a lot of goodwill. You know, there's that the Gottmans, who are these marital researchers, they always said, you need, you know, we talked about the Goodwill Bank, that you need to put five deposits into the Goodwill Bank for every one withdrawal that you make. So, you know, do you have that five-to-one ratio? Are there like five positive interactions between.
The two of you for every sort of difficult interaction?
Because if it's five difficult and one positive, the relationship's not gonna work. It's, well, again, it's not gonna work, but if you grew up again with this other kind of modeling. Secure attachment or?
Insecure attachment.
Insecure attachment.
Secure attachment is what you want. You want secure attachment, right?
Insecure attachment is. As you grew up with, you know, different, there are different versions of it. You got too much of something, not enough of the other thing, whatever it is. But in a way that was exaggerated, in a way that it really affected you. We talk about the good enough parent, like no parent is perfect. So it's more about being the good enough parent. That's secure attachment. But if there was a constancy to the enmeshment or the withdrawal or the neglect or the chaos or the anger or whatever it was, or the parent who was really inconsistent, which is really confusing for kids. Like one minute the parent is like this, the next minute the parent is like that.
So they're more insecure attachment.
Right, right. And then so then if you're in that relationship, that might feel normal to you as an adult.
Was that healthy?
No, of course not.
So when do you know you have a healthy match? What does that look like?
Right. So, you know, it's I think you have to say like, what is the quality of this relationship on a daily basis? What does it look like on a daily basis? And sometimes it helps people to keep a journal We had this woman on the podcast, she was in this relationship and it was really, really dysfunctional. And Guy and I were like, you know, it was so apparent and I think to the listeners too. And Guy and I were saying to her, listen, you keep justifying his behavior. You know, you keep saying, oh, but then he's also like this. So, you know, there was no reality check. And we said, we want you to actually keep a journal. Every day we want you to write down like, what is going, what are the deposits in the bank? What are the withdrawals from the bank? And she kept the journal and it was very eye-opening to me.
The amazing of all the things, yeah.
Right, because it was kind of like, you can justify anything in your head, but when it's all there on the page, you start, Is this the kind of relationship that I want? And then you have to do the work of why am I attracted to this?
Why am I in this?
Why do I stay?
Yeah, why do you think people stay in something like that where they have pages and pages daily of things that like, around neglect and, you know, frustration as opposed to an environment, quality of peace and abundance. You have to remember, too, that change.
Doesn'T happen just because you have an insight. So, you know, if it did, it would be so easy. Awareness isn't good for me, but I'm.
Not gonna change, though, yeah.
Well, people, you know, it's like, this is why New Year's resolutions don't work, too. Because, you know, it's not like you just, the Nike thing, like, just do it. Change goes through this process. So there's actually a chapter, and maybe you should talk to someone called How Humans Change. and it starts with pre-contemplation, where you don't even know that you're thinking about making a change. Like maybe I'm gonna leave this relationship someday. You don't even know you're thinking that. That's pre-contemplation. Contemplation is you're thinking about it, but you're not ready to do it. Then there's the preparation stage. And in preparation, you're actually thinking about what would that look like? Let me look at apartments. Let's think about, so it's a process.
It's not like a process. I have an idea of leaving tomorrow.
But here's the thing about the stages of change. So there's the preparation, then there's action where you make the change, like you actually leave. That's not where it ends. Maintenance is the next phase.
Because you might want to go back. Right, right.
It's that 3:00 a.m. of the soul, right? Where you're like, oh, I'm so lonely and oh, he's texting me and you know, whatever. Maintenance is how do you maintain the change? And the big misconception people have about maintenance is that you make the change and you're gonna maintain it. And if you slip up, like, you know, you give in at 3 a.m. and you're like, oh yeah, no, I'm not gonna eat healthy. Or, you know, like, oh, you know, I'm gonna eat healthy and then, oh, no, you didn't eat healthy for one day. Oh, I failed.
No.
Built into the maintenance phase is that you're going to slip back. That's human. And you have to have so much self-compassion in the maintenance phase. And people think, oh, if I have self-compassion, then I'm not holding myself accountable. That's not true because nobody has has ever succeeded at something through self-flagellation, at least in the long term. Self-flagellation is where you're like, oh, you're so terrible, you're awful. Think if your kid came home and was like, oh, I really, I did really badly on that test. And you said, that's terrible, that's awful. Are they gonna do better on the next test? Are you gonna say, oh, let's see what didn't work. Let's see what you didn't understand. It's okay. Let's see what you can do. Maybe you need to study differently. Let's see what happened. If you slip back, which you will, you have to be really kind to yourself and say, okay, let me try to check in with myself. What happened? Oh, my mother called and that triggered me. Or, oh, I'm really worried about this thing about work and I was feeling insecure. Or, I'm just really lonely and I didn't have a better coping strategy for being lonely. So next time when I'm lonely at 3:00 a.m., I'm gonna do this instead. Right? And you're really kind to yourself and then the next time you do it differently.
Wow. Okay, some more quality. The quality on a daily basis, that's really the main thing I'm hearing you say of this could be a potentially healthy match. If the daily quality is solid, is good, is positive, is inspiring, right? Is there anything else to look for if this could be a great match? Same values.
Well, yeah, I mean, people think just because we really have fun together and we're really attracted to each other, that it's all gonna work out when one person wants kids and the other person doesn't, or one person wants this lifestyle and the other person doesn't. Or this person's values are different from mine, as you said. And I think at the end it really comes down to the character qualities. So many times people ignore the basic character qualities about a potential partner. Like, is this person responsible? Do they do what they say when they say they're gonna do? to do it. Can I trust them? And I don't just mean trust in terms of what we were talking about earlier with affairs. I'm talking about can I trust that they have my back? Can I trust that they're going to show up for me in the way that they say they will? Are they reliable? Generosity, and I'm talking about emotional generosity. Can they be emotionally generous in the moment with me? And the number one quality, by the way, when you look at studies of what will predict whether a couple, whether somebody is a good partner in a couple, is how flexible is this person.
Flexibility, right?
Flexibility, yeah. Flexibility.
Around what?
Around everything. Just can you be flexible instead of like, my way is the right way? And that doesn't mean, by the way, that you give up your sense of self, that you agree with everything the other person person says, it's can you see another point of view? Can you entertain another point of view?
Be open to it.
Can you be open? Are you open?
Yeah.
Is your partner flexible?
Thank you so much for listening.
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