How To Let Go Of Toxic Love & Attract A Healthy Relationship

There are two big things happening at one time that I've never done before. I'm going on a book tour for my new book, Make Money Easy, and I'm doing a podcast tour at the same time. It is going to be big, and I'm going to seven cities in 10 days. Get your friends, get your family, bring everyone you know to these cities. I'm coming to Austin, Texas, New York, Boston, we're going to Nashville, then we're going to Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco. Make sure to get your tickets right now. Go to lewishouse.com/tour. Again, bring everyone you know. If you're looking to create more financial freedom and abundance in your life, and you wanna see a massive guest live on the School of Greatness Show, get your tickets. I can't wait to see you there.

The greatest harm that I've ever done to other people was through me not knowing how to take care of myself. Because if I don't take care of myself, a few things are gonna happen. I'm gonna lose my mind. I'm gonna become super needy, super clingy, and super manipulative because I'm gonna try to get my needs met through you. And that means I'm gonna be objectifying you and using you as a parental replacement, a like, A sex toy, a sleeping pill, an unpaid therapist, you know, whatever the need, this huge yawning need in me, I will, parts of me will go out there and try to get that need met, you know, so either I can figure out how to get that need met or like that teenager is going to figure out how to get that need met. And all the amends that I've ever had to make to anybody in my life for the grave harm that I brought to them were because I didn't know how to take care of myself.

Really?

And so I had harmed them, blamed them, used them, manipulated them, you know, tried to force them to be something that they couldn't be, become infuriated and enraged when they couldn't do it, when they couldn't deliver, cheated on them because if they couldn't do it, I'm gonna go find somebody else who can, you know, like all of it. And so where self-care becomes not so much a sort of new age catchword, But a deeply humanitarian public service is, Byron Katie said it so well, nobody is safe from me when I need them that much. Nobody is safe from me, right? So I actually want, as somebody who loves, genuinely loves humanity, I wanna be somebody who people are safe around. And if I'm not taking care of myself, I am an unsafe human being for anybody to be in any relationship with, whether it's a momentary relationship or a romantic relationship.

Yeah.

I mean, you've talked publicly about kind of your love life and your relationships and books and, you know, talks and everything. You said you were married and divorced twice. What did you learn after the first marriage into the second marriage?

Nothing. No, that's not true. I was a much better second wife than I was a first wife.

Really?

But.

You know, I haven't really learned anything till recently. Really? You know, and-- you-'re just repeating patterns. 100%. so I've spoken very openly about identifying as a sex and love addict. And I go to a room for that. I go to a 12-step program for that. It took me until I was 50 to find out that there was a room for that. And I spent decades, and I mean untold thousands of dollars sitting in therapeutic situations with, you know, it wasn't like I wasn't trying to be different. You know what I mean? Like I was paying a lot of people to try to help me not be like the way I am and. No one ever said, you're a sex and love expert.

Really?

And there's a room for that. There's a 12-step room for that. And here's a phone number. Look this, you know, go get yourself some help. Because there's so much secrecy around it. Because I think especially for women, there's a tremendous amount of shame. But my acting out was nuts, Louis. I mean, you mentioned that I was divorced twice, but I actually recently had lunch with my old couples therapist, who's a wonderful, brilliant couples therapist, and I said to him, Mark, did you ever have anyone else who was a patient of yours who brought three different people to see you over the years? And he was like, Nope. And I was like, and none of them were my husband. None of them were the people I was married to. That was like between my marriages that I was bringing, and he was like, yeah, I don't think I have ever had anybody bring in three different relationships and say, Please make this work for me. And he said, I have to hand it to you though, Liz. they were all so different to people.

You were the same.

Yeah, he's like, I really admired the fact that like, and I was like, yeah, because I was trying to find what is the formula, who do I have to connect with that this is gonna work, that this great echoing God-sized hole within me, this deep unsolvable problem of never feeling like there's enough love. Is it you? Is it you? Is it you? Do I need someone older? Do I need someone younger? Do I need a man? Do I need a woman? Do I need someone who loves me more than I love them? Do I need someone Do I love more than I, do I need two people? Do I need an open marriage? Do I need, like, I wanna, and I say this with all love, I'm so proud of myself that I spent 35 uninterrupted years trying to solve that. Like trying to solve that and being like, why can't I make this work? Very similar to an alcoholic who's like, well, maybe if I just don't drink hard liquor, maybe if I just have wine, maybe if I just have beer, maybe if I just drink on the weekends, maybe if I, you know, it's like, I'm trying to figure out how to have this thing not do what it always does, which is blow up in my face and leave me flat on the bathroom floor wrecked.

Depressed and sad and lonely.

Suicidal, if not homicidal. And so it wasn't until I-- so.

You'Re looking for people to be the solution, but it wasn't. What was the solution?

The solution is befriending myself and finding a source Finding what I have always needed, which is a source of infinite, inexhaustible love. And that cannot come from another person. Because sometimes people have to get up and get a sandwich and go to work and like go to the DMV and like do other things besides- I love you all. -besides pour love into me. You know what I mean? Like they have other things they need to be doing. They can't. Even if they love me, they can't, like a person can't do that or they might die.

Which happened.

You know, which happened. Or they might change, or they might have another crisis in their life that they have to attend to, right? And then I'm howling on the outside like a seven-year-old, like, who's got me? Who's got me? Where did mommy go? Where did daddy go? Am I safe? Why am I on this tundra of loneliness again? Right? So for me, it's about finding a source that can keep up with my need. and pour it infinitely into me.

That seems impossible on another person.

It is impossible on another person. And listen, I'll save you all the trouble. I did the research. Like I went out there and found a lot of people to try to get that from. It didn't work. And it works for a while, like all drugs.

Six months or something.

Yeah, it works till it doesn't. Like every other substance, every other drug, it works till it doesn't. And then you wake up on Tuesday morning and you're still you. You know, and you're still you and you're still lonely and you're still overwhelmed and you're still confused and you're still hungry, you know, 'cause this thing can't be filled. So, and I also needed to find a community of people who understood me. And the first time, well, actually the second time, 'cause I went to a sex and love addicts room once 'cause a friend 13 stepped me there, like sent me there, told me there, and was like, I think you need this. And I went in and I was like, Yeah, these people are really sick and it's depressing, and I feel bad for them, and I'm gonna be a spectator and then I'm gonna leave. And then I went out and found another person to blow my life up with. And then I was like, maybe I should go back.

From the group?

No, no, no. I was gonna say, but just from the general population. And then I went back humbled. And the first time I really showed up in that room and said, hi, my name is Lizzie. I'm a sex and love addict. was the beginning of the end of a 50-year attempt to find somebody, anybody, who would take that pain away.

Oh, my gosh.

And to have a whole bunch of people in the room who don't look like me, who aren't my age, who aren't from my background, be like, yeah, we super get it. And to hear my story being told again and again and again through other people's mouths. I remember hearing this woman say, I took one look at that guy from across the bar, and I was like, I would follow that man to hell. And then I did. And I was like, okay, I know that story. Like I've been in that story, I've been in that story, I've been on all the sides of these stories. And sort of find a community of people who are like, we understand why you're like this, you know, and we'll be your family as you move through this.

What are the main symptoms of a sex addict or a love addict then? There's different programs for sex addiction.

There's different programs for love addiction. I identify as a sex and love addict. A lot of women don't wanna use the word sex addict 'cause it sounds gnarly and shameful. And it is gnarly. Super gnarly because you're sort of pimping yourself out to trade whatever you have to trade physically to try to get that love connection, right? It's not pretty, but it's what I've done. It also means constantly objectifying yourself, objectifying other people. But if you just Google 12 Characteristics of Sex and Love Addicts, when I heard those, I was like, oh, that's a 12 for 12. That's a hard identification with each and every one of these. I've done every single one of these things on the regular. But it essentially comes down to this idea that somebody else is going to be able to fix this on the inside of me and returning to unhealthy relationships again and again, abandoning your care by attaching to people who are unavailable. There's a whole list of that.

Sure, sure. How do you then, let's say you go through, you accept that you're a love addict, right? And maybe someone watching or listening is like, maybe I have some of these tendencies, right? And I've heard you talk about in the beginning of this conversation about how, you know, there's this love that you're connecting with every single day and asking it, what would you want of me?

What's, what would you have me know today?

Would you have me know today? Yeah. And you have this new relationship with love, but a lot of people feel undeserving of receiving love.

Yeah.

So if you don't feel like you're deserving of having love or being loved or receiving it, how do you have a new relationship with it where you can let it into your life?

For me, it's been about, in the same way that those inner children and inner teenagers that we spoke about needed to gradually learn to trust me and needed to gradually learn to see that I do have them and I am prioritizing them and I'm not going to abandon them and I am here and I am gonna say no and I am going to risk not pleasing people in order to make sure that they're okay. It's almost like I've had to develop, I'll just speak for myself because I think it's probably different for other people. And now I am going to introduce the word God. I've had to have that same relationship build very slowly with the God of my own understanding of believing that I am being loved and not judged, believing that I'm not in trouble. I've spent my entire life terrified of being in trouble. Like, what did I do wrong? I'm in trouble. I'm dead now. Like, believing that I haven't done anything that has caused God to not love me, and believing that I can turn to that source and be fed. and be held and be guided. And I always say this, like, I always loved God, and I didn't even grow up in a religious family. Maybe that's why, because I had my own independent feeling of a God presence when I was a kid that was very organic and natural. Like, I loved the word God. I loved the whole idea. I loved everything about it. I didn't really know what it meant, but I loved it. I've always believed in God. I've always loved God. I have never trusted God. Really? Because that's a whole 'nother layer. It's like, wait, I have to trust you? Because, I mean, like many of us, because of things that happened to us when we were kids, we don't trust anybody.

Or you just see bad things in the world and you say, how could this be? If God is all love, how do these bad things happen? You'll question that.

Right, exactly. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why did all these terrible things happen to me? Why is there injustice? I mean, we can get trapped forever in that. I have found when I communicate with God, I've said this many times and I find it to be true, why is not a spiritual question and it does not bring a spiritual answer, ever. Like I can shout why into the cosmos and I'm never gonna get an answer. No one is. But I can ask other questions like, what do you want me to do? And I will get an answer. Who do you want me to become? I will get an answer. Who do you want me to be around? Who are the people who you want me to be around? What do you want me to do next? How do you want me to comport myself through this? I'll get answers to that if I ask God, but I won't get answers to why. I mean, I think that's just the general humility of knowing that my mind can't know. We're not allowed to know why. Sometimes you kind of get a glimpse later where you're like, oh, I see why that might have happened. I see why we couldn't have gotten here. Without that. But I even try to stay away from that. I try to stay out of the why. I have surrendered the why.

It's funny, I still ask my mom why questions and she says she stopped answering why questions. I'm like, why'd you do this, Mom? And she goes, I stopped answering your why questions.

I'm not accepting your question.

I thought it asked me a different question.

Yeah.

Come back with a better question.

Exactly.

Sometimes God will say that to me. Come back with a better question.

Interesting. What is the best thing you've heard from God over the last four years?

There's a couple things. One thing is, I love this. I hear this from God a lot when I'm sort of unsure about what I'm supposed to do, because that's a thing that I can get really panicky about. Like, what am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? I will often hear God say, When I've got something for you to do, you'll be notified.

Don't try to rush it or try.

To know right now.

Like for instance, I had a couple.

Years there where I didn't have any ideas for a book or creativity or anything to write. And every day in my journal I would say, Am I supposed to be writing something right now? Am I supposed to be working on something? And that universal cosmic voice would say, When we've got something for you to do, you'll be notified. And then I would say, well, what am I supposed to do in the meantime? And the answer would come, Hang out.

Just be. Hang out.

And I'm like, well, that's extremely uncomfortable. I would rather that you gave me an assignment. I'm a border collie. I do better with an assignment. Yeah, like, I mean, and, but we'll let you know. That's one of my favorites. The other thing I've heard is actually very similar when I've said to God, am I supposed to be dating anybody? Am I supposed to be, now that I've gotten well, now that I've gotten emotional sobriety, now that I've been in 12-step recovery for sex and love addiction, Now that I've learned how to take care of myself and been celibate for five years, which is the greatest gift I've ever given myself.

Five years.

Wow. And the first time since like way too young an age that somebody hasn't been like on me, you know, like it's been so important for me to like reclaim this body and just be like mine, right? My body. This isn't like a tool for anyone else. This isn't a tool for manipulation. This is like, hours, like to find that and to learn how to self-comfort, to learn how to regulate my own nervous system. Like, so now that I've done all that, I'm like, am I supposed to be looking for somebody to be with? And my favorite thing that God has ever said to me is the response to that, which is LOL, no.

Wow.

Hard no, absolutely not. Like, absolutely not. and I love that answer and I trust that answer. And then God says, if I want you with somebody, I will let you know the idea won't be yours, it'll be mine. I will let you know, I will let you know who it is. You don't have to go hunting, you don't have to go searching, I don't.

Want you chasing anything.

Again, I mean, to me so much of what all sobriety is, is the end of chasing. Like you're not chasing a feeling anymore, you're not chasing a high, you're not chasing an escape, you're not chasing a person, you're not trying to replicate a way you felt once. Like that's a big thing for sex and love addicts. Like stop chasing a feeling. Feeling, right? It's a feeling you want to have and all that feeling of, I can get it, I can get it met, but it just leads to craving because.

Then I want more of it.

And sadness. And then I'm like, okay, now what do I have to do to get that, right? So God has been really clear with me, like, I don't want you chasing anybody. I don't want you chasing anything. you're so good right now, what's the big hurry to, like, why are you out there looking for ways to make your life unmanageable again? Wow. Like, I can sleep through the night without medication. I don't need to be on antidepressants anymore. I'm not on anti-anxiety pills anymore. My body is healthier. My work, I've like written three books in the last six years. My friendships have bloomed. All of my family relationships have changed due to these new radical boundaries. Like, I'm prospering. and God's like, what's the hurry to tip the apple cart over again?

That's fascinating. When I decided, because it was a choice to get into a relationship with Martha. And when we got into a relationship, I told her kind of like a lot of these things that we're talking about where I was just like, listen, I've never made good decisions in previous relationships. And then I didn't have the courage to get out of them because I was afraid and I didn't want to hurt someone. so I stayed in things that weren't good for me and, you know, it was just never good. And it doesn't mean they were bad people. We just weren't the right people together. And so I told her, like, I want to take our time if we're going to do this. We're not going to sleep together, you know, which is not something I'd done in the past. It was, like, kind of quick to rush to that. And that was one of the best things I did for, like, the kids in me.

Yeah.

Was not sleeping with someone that I was dating, but trying my best to get to know all the parts of her. Her family life, her when she's happy, her when she's going through a challenge, traveling together, all these different things as opposed to rushing into chemical bonding.

Right, because once the internal pharmacy gets activated, it's like in Midsummer Night's Dream when they put magic powder on the person who then falls in love with a donkey, it's like those hormones will make me fall in love with A kitchen cabinet. Anything. You know, like, it's like, I know. And, and as somebody with a really dysregulated nervous system, you know, with it, with a process addiction, like, I mean, I experienced those hormones. It's estimated that people like us who have that experience those hormones at like 10 times the rate of other people. So like someone else might feel pleasant experiences with romance and love and connection and sex. I get wasted, you know, I get wasted and I shouldn't be operating heavy machinery. I shouldn't be making decisions about my bank I shouldn't be moved. I go insane, right? So it's really important, like what you've done is a really gracious thing for both of you actually.

Yeah, of course.

To slow that entire process down and try not to go chemical before you find intimacy.

Exactly. And I remember, you know, unless we're only three and a half years into this, so it's like we've got a long time ahead with our relationship with hopefully it's all good and it's all like smooth, but there's gonna be challenges that we have to face. But I wanted to set myself up for the most harmony possible, knowing that life is going to throw challenges at us individually and together. How can we create a relationship of harmony and peace where we both have nervous systems that are calm, nervous systems that are okay, independent of each other and stronger together, hopefully. But I'm not reliant on her for my happiness, which I think I never had before. I was always reliant on the other people to like me or accept me and people pleasing them. and it feels so freeing to experience for the first time after 20 years of painful relationships, peace and freedom in a relationship. Like I didn't even, I didn't think it was possible. I didn't know it was possible. And it feels amazing to, at least up in this point, have experienced this for a number of years. So I'm very grateful for that.

I'm so happy for you.

Thank you. Thank you. But I remember thinking to myself, I don't need to be in a relationship. Like, I'm not going to jump in a relationship until I feel that consistently from a dating phase without sexual intimacy.

Yeah. And that was.

It's hard. I mean, I'm like, you know, my young guy, it's like, it's hard to say no to those things, but by creating that boundary for me, it's like I built respect for myself and about trust within my nervous system and the parts of me. And it has allowed me to trust myself in the relationship more than ever before. Oh, it's wonderful. And I feel like it sounds like that's what you've been doing the last five years is reclaiming within yourself that you're not gonna abandon yourself. And when you do get into another relationship, you're not going to abandon or people please who you are. And it doesn't even mean you're gonna be avoidant either. Like you're gonna be securely connected to the person because you're securely connected to you. That's what it sounds like you're building.

That's the thing. And also for me, as somebody who's now become God-centered instead of self-centered, You know, and my wants, my wants have driven me over cliffs many times. My wants, my needs, my desires, my ideas. -JEN: -big feelings, yeah. -DEB: -big ideas. Like, I get some big ideas, and then it's like cut to six months later, oh my God, what did you just do to your life? You just drove into another brick wall. So for me, I think you mentioned the word manifesting very early in this conversation. And I'm a good manifester. You're a good manifester too. Like, we're like, we're disciplined, we're resolved. We vision board our way into, like, we're like, I'm gonna I'm gonna get this, I'm gonna make this, I'm gonna get this many, you know, like, I'm less in the realm of romantic and intimate connection. I've manifested, like, I've gotten what I wanted, I've gotten who I wanted at times. And it's almost killed me.

It didn't work.

Right? So it's not, I'm not that interested anymore in the question of what do I want? But I'm really interested in the question of like, what's God's will for my life?

Man, I love this.

And how can I live in alignment with that?

I love this.

And so I don't even worry about, like, will I ever be with someone again? It's not up to me. I don't really care. Like, I trust when God says you'll be notified if that's supposed to happen. Like, great, I don't have to think about it.

Wow. When did you bring God in your life?

Really, I mean, really seriously when I came into 12-step recovery. Which was five years ago. Five and a half years ago.

Is God in 12-step recovery or is.

It more- oh yeah, how- I mean, how- High power is. It's a spiritual program because addiction is a spiritual sickness and it's a deep spiritual emptiness. And addicts like me are people who have such a profound emptiness that we will use anything or anybody to fill it.

And you don't have God in your life as like the faith or the trust or the knowingness of it. Then you find everything else to be your God, I guess, or to fill that void.

I've heard addiction referred to as false worship. It's like, I'm gonna worship this thing, I'm gonna worship this substance, I'm gonna worship this person, I'm gonna worship money, I'm gonna worship success, I'm gonna worship food, I'm gonna worship cigarettes. You know, like it's, it's, there's this line in the, I mean, there's a line in the Bible about false idols, about not worshiping false idols. And it says that people who worship false idols, and they describe them as like, you know, wooden, like kind of wooden creatures with lifeless eyes, it's like sort of what an idol is. Like you worship that and then you become that. You become sort of wooden and lifeless. And I mean, I'm not a fundamentalist Bible reader, but I think that's a really accurate description of what addicts become. You become sort of wooden and lifeless and the god-sized hole is what it's referred to. can only be filled with God.

Wow.

Do you feel a lot more peace now with God in your life?

Yeah.

I mean, it is my life. And I had this great experience in step three, which is made a decision to turn our will and our life over to the God of our own understanding. The beautiful, generous thing about that language is the God of your own understanding. It doesn't necessarily mean the God that you were raised with or threatened with. And I had a sponsor who said to me, write down what you're looking for in a God. Nobody will ever surrender their life over to a God who was forced upon them. So write down the qualities that a deity would have to have for you to surrender your life completely, happily over to them. And I was like, you get to do that? And she's like, of course you get to do that, because why would a loving God not appear in whatever form you need? Right? Like, of course. And it was such a fun assignment, because I was like, the very first thing was like, my God has to have a sense of humor. My God has to have a sense of humor and think that I'm adorable and funny, and that my failures are adorable and funny. I can't have a judgmental God. I can't have a punishing God. I have to have an incredibly patient God. I have to have a God who doesn't have anywhere better Mm-. than sitting with me in the middle of the night, present and comforting. Like, I need a God who doesn't have office hours. Um, I need a God who doesn't stand on ceremony and need me to prostrate in a certain particular way. I don't want, I can't have an insecure God. Like, I can't have a God who's like, if you don't, like, pray to me in this certain way, I'm, I'm not gonna feel right. You know, like, I, I need to have, like, an abundant God, a generous God. A loving God who knows me and who likes me. I wish I could remember who said this, but somebody said that the true feeling of being one with God is relaxing completely in the presence of somebody who you know is deeply fond of you. And if people had been taught that in childhood that that's what God presence feels like, relaxing completely in the presence of somebody who you know is very fond of you.

Yeah, not being afraid. afraid constantly.

Oh my God, instead of what James Joyce called the hangman god, you know, the judge, the executioner. You know, this is like, of course I created you, I love you. You know, like, I made you the way you are.

This is fascinating. How many relationships do you feel like you've been in in the past, like intimate relationships, whether it be like dating or sexual or.

Oh, like 40.

40. Okay.

You know, like 45, maybe 45. I'm trying to remember because I had to inventory it when I was. It's part of, like, the sex and love atic recovery.

So 40 45 kind of intimate, loving relationships. Sure.

Deeply into 45 deeply intimate relationships. Yeah.

How many. How many of these relationships?

Myself.

Yeah. No judgment here.

I mean, no, I don't feel.

How many of the relationships you've been in had God at the core of the center?

None.

How many, are we gonna, in the future, do you feel like God will be in the relationship in some way?

If God's not in the relationship, it's not a relationship.

Wow.

You know, and I heard a prayer recently in one of the 12-step rooms, and this is about every relationship. Not just sexual and intimate, but somebody said, Dear God, please only bring me relationships where you can be first and I can be me.

Oh, man, that is good. Say that one more time, so I can remember.

Dear God, please only bring me relationships where you can be first and I can be me.

Man, that gives me the chills.

I know it is not going to happen.

Imagine every relationship in your life like that. Friends, family, you know, intimate relationships. Yeah, that's, that's a beautiful life, isn't it? With every relationship like that, because then you're not feeling judged or you don't have to people please. You don't have to impress, you know, obviously you got to create boundaries and you have to communicate and you have to, you know, stand up for yourself, but you don't have to worry about what happens when God is at the center.

Yeah, God is going to have your.

Back no matter what.

And they're back.

Yeah.

Right.

I mean, to know that they also have their own higher power. Of course.

Right.

I mean, I got super high off of becoming other people's higher as much as I got super high off making somebody my higher power. It's like, oh, let me be the thing you worship. That's a rush.

Big rush. Until you crash.

Until you get de-pedestalized and then you don't even want to be in the room when that happens. I mean, that's such a terrible crash for everybody. The terrible disappointment of that. I say this to my sponsees. A lot, like if they idealize me at all, you know, I'm like, okay, I just want to point out that like that language sounds a little bit idealizing. Please don't do that to me or you. Because when you inevitably discover that I am not this ideal, I don't even want to be in the room when that statue comes crashing down. Right? Like that's gonna be really bad for both of us. So like, just don't don't do that. Let's not do that.

Wow, this is fascinating. When do we make a decision that I'm going to choose to love this person?

We don't make a decision.

We don't decide.

Because if you decided, you could actually decide to fall in love. And there's so many people who would love to fall in love, maybe even with the person that they're actually with already, but struggle to do that, or people who have fallen out of love would like to fall in love. to fall back in love or the person that's trying to woo them is perfect for them in every way. Why can't they just love them? That would be great. I just don't. So we can't quite make ourselves fall in love. But you know what happens is that people fall in love, it's very psychological because it's with an incredible absence of information. It happens quite quickly.

You don't know the person.

You don't. You have a few data points and you're connecting them to create a Mona Lisa. with five data points.

Out of a flawed human being.

Potentially flawed, you have no even idea where, and you know, you have the rose-colored glasses. Everything is cute. Those things that are gonna become incredibly annoying later on are still cute to you, and you just fill in the gaps with optimism, with hope, with, oh, they're probably like this. And so you really don't know the person you've fallen in love with. most of the time. Because I said, if you need to know the person, you have to wait until you have your first fight. If you don't know how they fight, you don't know how ugly it gets, you don't know how ugly they get, and that can make a big difference. But that doesn't usually happen before you fall in love. It happens after. You don't know how they fight. You don't know how they travel. You know, maybe you love to travel and they are such an anxious mess in an airport that you really want to just, oh, I'm not with this person at all. You know, like you don't know that. You don't know how they are with their parents, your parents, with, you know, the holidays, whether they are a mess, they're fun, like they're so much you don't know.

What would you say are three or four things that individuals could do today to enter a relationship in the best way possible to give them a chance for happy, healthy, long-term love?

How much time do we have? But I'm gonna start with this. I think the thing we get wrong most about relationships is that we are absolutely clueless about how critical the first steps are. Those first dates, those first months, what you are doing is you are creating an unspoken contract with that person about what our couplehood is going to look like. Who's going to be responsible for what? What the dynamic is going to be, what the vibe is going to be, who's going to be pursuing, who's going to be the pursued. Everything you do is a precedent.

Wow.

But you don't realize that you're setting a precedent. So you're just like, oh, this part's okay, this part I didn't love as much, but fine. No, it's not fine. I mean, maybe it's not a big deal, But if that's what's going on, that's what the other person is expecting would be cool to go on. Forever. Yeah, yeah. In that relationship, you are setting, if somebody tends to be 10, 15 minutes late to all the dates, and you're like, It's only 10 minutes, I'm not gonna be, you know, I'm not gonna, then you are signing up for the fact that you get to be late, and if suddenly 10 dates in, you're like, you know, it's really not cool that you're late. They'll be like, Where have you been for 10 days? So it's not a new thing. You know what I mean? There's literally that expectation the other person has that if this is what goes on, this is what goes on. But if you're not aware that you're writing this unspoken contract and signing it and agreeing to all these precedents, then you're setting yourself up for a relationship that a lot of people are like, oh, I'll fix this later.

I'll fix it in post.

And like, yeah, right. This isn't a movie. Here's why I'll say this last part about this.

Piece.

Relationship dynamics are like cement. You can mold it when it's wet, when it's fresh, but you can't, it's much more difficult to do when it's dry and it dries very quickly. So you have to be aware of that.

Yeah, and if you want to jackhammer it two years in the future, because you don't like the way it's laid down, that's gonna cause real damage. And it's hard to mend that. It's not like, well, I've got the Japanese saying where, like, they break a bowl and it's, like, golden. It's like, oh, it's not that. It's not that. This is like you're breaking a. A road. Yes. And you're breaking a path, and you have to almost create a bridge. Right. Once you break it two years later. Right.

And that person has to want to.

Go over that bridge.

Right.

Every time.

And that's for each thing. Yeah. Yeah.

Not for each thing you want to fix or change or tweak.

This is interesting.

I'm so glad you're saying this because. we've known each other for how long? Eight years maybe or something like that? I don't know. Eight, nine years. And, you know, we're not super close talking all the time, but you've seen me go through three different relationships in the last eight years. And you've seen me kind of show up differently in this relationship based on what we've talked about. And there are things that I did differently, I think, because, one, a lot of the wisdom I gained from you and other different therapists and psychologists that came on that I was able to learn from to. I was doing a lot of my own healing work in the practice every week with someone that was helping guide me to heal in my last relationship and going to this new one. And three, because I was just sick and tired of experiencing so much pain and sadness and suffering in relationships, like the pattern that I was choosing that I was like, I need to do something completely different than I've always done. Whether this works out or not, I have to just try something completely different. and I felt like what I've done has really worked well for me. I don't know if it'll work well from everyone, but it sounds like I'm doing what you're saying people should be doing, which is entering a relationship in a way that is going to lay the cement and the foundation for the whole relationship and really doing it early on, not waiting. So a few things that I did with Martha and we did together is when we started dating, I said, listen, I'm gonna be. We're gonna date each other, but I'm not going to have sex with you. Right. That's one of the first things I said. It's not happening where, you know, that wasn't the case in previous relationships. So that's the first thing. I was like, how I want to get to know someone without chemical interference, you know, without sexual chemical interference. That was always blurring me. you know, in the past. That was the first thing. And it's almost like we got to know each other as friends. And you kind of hear people who are married a long time or happy. They're like, yeah, we were friends early on, or, like, we were just in a friendship first, and then it grew into something because we really loved each other.

Right.

You hear that a lot. Not that that's always the case, but that was what we did. And I think that was really helpful for me to see all the parts of her and say, do I accept all parts of her. And maybe I don't have to like all the parts, but can I accept it? Because she's not going to change who she is. Maybe. But this is pretty much who she is. And I was able to see clearly, I accept all the parts of her to get into a committed relationship after a few months, right? Of us spending a lot of time together, traveling together, seeing her family, like all the things we did early on. I was like, I put myself in those situations, friends, family, travel before getting committed. and that was really helpful. It was kind of like a year cycle and a few months. The next thing that I did is I told her the truth about everything. And from my past, what I've done in my past, things I was proud of, not proud of, everything. And I told her my vision for my future. And I said, this is the man I am now. This is the man I'm growing into. And this is the man I want to be in my vision for my life, my career, my family, everything. and I'm not going to change it for one person to make one person happy. You've got to accept this part of me, and I want to know what your vision is for your life and see if we're in alignment. Obviously, things might change and evolve, but if that's what you want, I want to be accepting of your vision for your life and you accepting of mine. And that was really helpful. And then we also did a values exercise. I never created a values exercise in any relation before. It was like, oh, we like each other and. and you're beautiful and you like me and whatever. We're having fun. Let's just be together. But we went on a trip and I said, I want to do a values exercise and get clear on what you really value around family, friendships, money, time, everything. Raising kids, like what are the values in your life that you have? And we wrote them separately and then looked at them together. There wasn't any influence. And we were in alignment on our values. which was helpful. And so having that clarity of kind of like no chemical interference around sexual acts to values to this is a vision of my life. This is my lifestyle. This is what I want to create. Do you accept it? Because if you don't, I'm not changing for you. And we were able to get in alignment. And that doesn't mean it's all going to be perfect. And it's like it's going to work out. But that created the foundation, the pavement you were talking about. where we were like, okay, let's cement this. Let's start to like mold it and start to let it dry now that we are in agreement of these things with each other. And there was one other thing that we did that I'd always wanted to do because I'd always ended every relationship in therapy and then it ended. And I said, I want to start my next relationship in therapy. If that's with you or someone else, like I'm not getting in a relationship unless someone else is willing to agree. to have a session once every six weeks with someone where we can get clarity on agreements because there was never agreements in relationships that were clear and that people stuck to. And I was like, I want agreements so that if there's a disturbance, we can create an agreement quickly so there's less disturbances. And she was like, yeah, sounds great. I'm in. Those things that we created from the beginning have given me so much peace. You asked me, like, how are you feeling before the interview? I was like, I feel pretty peaceful. And it's because I've never been in a relationship where I feel fully accepted for me, and I feel that. So I have the energy to go out in life and tackle what I want. And it's been really beneficial. But I went through, you know, 20 something years of pain and suffering in choosing relationships without having the courage to do these kind of activities. early on. And I don't know if that's something that you would recommend for all people. It took a lot of work. It takes time. It's like you can't rush into something, but it's given me a lot more peace in this relationship.

So, I am so excited to hear that that's how you went about it. I'll tell you why. First of all, that's why you're at peace, because you've done the due diligence. There's not these corners of her that you've never seen, exposed, or don't know about. and like, well, I like what I see, but who knows what I don't. You actually have seen a lot because you've asked a lot of questions. The due diligence you did over there, that investment of, if I'm choosing a life partner, I'm gonna vet this as much as possible. I'm actually gonna put in the work to build a foundation. People always say like, oh, we have a good foundation. Did you build it or did you just, are you just evaluating what actually turned out? Or did you intentionally, deliberately build a foundation? You did. That kind of due diligence is extraordinarily rare. And why it's so such a shame that it is rare is because we give that due diligence to purchases like homes and cars. I know people that spend two hours a day studying car models before they make the commitment on their next car. But they're not gonna spend an hour thinking about their next relationship or what they should do or about whether they should have kids or how they want to raise them or what their values are, or all of those things. To me, like if they're ever gonna put in the work to do the research, do the due diligence, and put in the effort to build something intentionally, deliberately, mindfully, relationships is where it should be. And by the way, not just romantic ones, because all these rules of relationships are true for all. kinds of relationships.

Yeah. I mean, what is the big mistake that people are making today then in relationships by entering the relationship? Is it they haven't healed from the previous one? And can you enter a new relationship while being wounded from the previous one? Or do you need to be on some type of healing Journey to set yourself up for a better opportunity, do you think?

First of all, I think you can get into a relationship in any situation. It just might mean that you will have more work to do and that the relationship will have more work to do if you're coming at it from a wounded place or, you know, something like that. You know, when you said, you know, I told her what the plan was. In other words, you told each other, and this was your individual thing, you're like, this is the ride I want to be on. So that's the, that's what you'll be joining me for. You need to know if you want that ride. And she's saying the same thing to you. This is the ride I want to be on. And you need to know if that's the one that you want to join me on. Now, they're not in conflict. necessarily at all. You know, each person's goals and dreams or how they want to develop or what kind of life they want. But it's very thoughtful and it's very important to say, this is the vision. Are we sharing it? You know, and to ask all these questions, to have these conversations, they're not easy to have. They're not. Because it's, I'm sure it wasn't the case that everything you said, she was like, yeah, me too.

Yeah, me too.

Yeah, me too. Stuff needed to be worked out. And then you're like, is this Is this deal breaking? Is this something that we can manage to accept? You know, you would use that word a lot, it's totally about acceptance. That's correct. That's the question. So you're actually walking into a bit of a marsh when you do that. It's not like all skipping along, but as long as you're willing to do that work, you get off and you get off into dry land.

That's true. Dry, peaceful land. Abundant fertile land that you're just like, ah, Now, it doesn't mean there's not going to be challenges and life's going to throw things at you, but I think if you're in it together and you're able to create agreements early on, then it just doesn't mean you have to have a lot of disturbances within the relationship. There might be things coming at the relationship that you need to handle together, but when we're in disagreement constantly about each other or what's wrong with the other person and what they didn't do or what they didn't do for me, then it's just going to be a weaker foundation, I think, when you don't have agreements.

What you guys did is for a year or however many months, you actually practiced communication, conflict resolution, negotiation. You practice all these very important couples relationship and communication skills that would have come up a little bit here, a little bit there, but not in that, you know, substantial a way. So you guys developed these muscles to, and these, you know, habits with one another of like, if we have a problem, we know how to talk about it. how to be honest about it and we know how to resolve it. So that's the other part of the peace and the confidence. You've worked all that out. You develop those skills together in the formation. That's why they're going to therapy every few weeks, every six weeks or whatever it was. Great idea. Let's get a little bit of guidance.

On that because it doesn't hurt. It actually helps quite a bit.

And there was nothing wrong in the relationship early on.

It does not have to be to learn good habits. I know it's amazing. But it takes time and investment. I told her, I was like, I don't think I'd have been ready for you 10 years if I met you to you 10 years ago, I wouldn't have been, I wouldn't have seen you the same way. I wouldn't have been, I didn't have the tools or the skills to like deal with my emotions. I was still healing. I was still growing. And I, and, you know, and I was doing my interview show and I had resources. But I think a lot of people don't have the tools or the skills to have the courage to speak up for what they want, to navigate challenges in a relationship when they feel their button is pushed and they're just reactive. They don't know how to respond calmly because they're in fight or flight. I've been there many times in the past. It's a massive problem for people. They don't have the tools. Do you see, I mean, how do you see the younger generation and people in their 20s or 30s being able to get into relationships and have these tools if they've never been trained? It took me a long time. to have a lot of pain to be like, okay, I need to learn something different.

But look how much research you did along the way. You know, this is the third interview we've had. We speak outside of this sometimes, but you are prepared. You do the reading, you do the research. You've learned so much from so many different experts. You were not a layperson coming at it. You practically have an honorary PhD in psychology and relationships already for all the stuff that you've done, the series.

I mean, most people don't have this.

Most people do not. That's my point. In other words, you do have to put in the work. You had put in the work. And I, you know, the books I write and the things I do is to get people to be more thoughtful and more mindful about how they feel and what they want and what they do. Because it's, we can't be on autopilot all the time. And most of us are on autopilot all the time. One quick thing I wanted to touch on, because I think this is something that young people say to me a lot, and it's problematic. They say, one person will say to another, I don't like when you did so and so. And that person will say, well, that's who I am. I'm not going to change, and you shouldn't try and change who I am. And I think it's really important that people distinguish who you are from what you do.

From behaviors, right?

From behavior. They're not asking you to change who you are a lot of the time. I mean, if it's like, oh, you hate skiing, you must come with me on skiing vacations three times a year. It's not gonna happen. But if it's about, I don't like when you say those things to me, well, that's just who I am. No, no, no. That's what you said. It's not who you are. And so people get stubborn and they.

Don'T wanna change things that you actually should change. 100%. And be open to. Yeah, I mean, you can't be disrespectful.

And say, well, this is who I am. Accept me for being disrespectful to you. urban or difficult or whatever it is. Yeah.

And I think it's also, I think it's also important to know, like, hey, before you get into a relationship, make sure you find out if this is the way they are and they're not going to change that. Maybe they're not for you.

What I really find surprising is sometimes somebody will say to me, yeah, the other person, the person they're dating, they just keep telling me what they want and what they like and what they want and what they like. And it's like, it's so annoying. And I'm like, I'm sorry. They're giving you the user manual. They're communicating. For how to be in a relationship with them and you don't think it's.

Important for you to read it?

It's amazing they're communicating that. That should be the best thing ever. Now you like it or you don't like it, but it's not annoying that they're doing it. You should be doing the same. They're giving you the instruction manual on how to be with them.

Exactly. Pay attention. No, I think it's really important. I think I probably over communicated more in the first year, probably out of trauma from the past of like, okay, this is really who I am and this is my truth and I just want to make sure you're okay with this.

Yeah, she's lying on the couch, watching a watch if you're going, I heard.

You the first three times. No, yeah, 20 times. And I'm like, she's like, you were really traumatized in the past. I'm like, I just want to make sure you know who I am. All my flaws, all my past, where I'm at, where I'm going, this is what I want. You sure you're good? It's like kind of mile markers, right? You got a latest cement. It's like every mile marker, okay, you're still on the same path. make sure you're in alignment because it's not worth me being like, all right, I'm invested, and then you want me to change who I am. So I think you got to be willing to accept the person and make sure you figure out all their behaviors or as much as you can within the first six to 12 months before you take the long road with them and say, all right, am I down for this journey? If it's a little bumpy, am I cool with it? Or don't choose the person. If they have bad behavior over and over, like, You don't have to choose them. If they're not going to let the change, you either accept it and that's it. But you had this on your, I think this is on your website as well, a quote from you that said, Mental health is about diagnosable conditions like depression and anxiety. Emotional health is about common experiences like loneliness, failure, and heartbreak, the non-diagnosable stuff. and you also mentioned that you grew up, another quote from you who said, I grew up with my identical twin, which of course made me an expert in spotting favoritism. So when I became a psychologist, I didn't take, it didn't take me long to recognize how much we favor our physical health over our emotional health. For example, if we get a cut on our arm, we can just tell by looking at it whether we need a badge, a stitch or an ambulance. But when we sustain an emotional wound like rejection, failure, we have no idea how to gauge whether the wound is deep or whether it requires emotional first aid. And a few of us would know how to treat it ourselves if we did. And as a psychologist, you find that unacceptable, you said. Our physical health and our emotional health are the twins of our general well-being. And as such, we should treat them equally. How can we start to self-diagnose the emotional wounds that we deal with. And how can we know when we are having a symptom of an emotional wound that is worthy of a deeper look rather than just a quick rub it off or a Band-Aid?

I would use a similar guideline than you do for a physical wound. You might wake up with a little bit of a scratchy throat or a sniffle, but you don't know if it's going to go somewhere. If two days later, you're still sniffling and scratchy, you consider that you have a cold or something worse and you might wanna do something about it, but it might go away. It's the same thing. We get wounded all the time. Every time you check social media and that person didn't like your thing or share your thing or respond to your thing, we feel rejected. And every little swipe that doesn't get swiped back, we feel rejected. There's a lot of rejection in the world today. Because we're tethered to so many people electronically, the opportunities are tremendous. But if it nags you, really nags you, if it's really bothering you, if you're having trouble shaking it, that's when you might want to consider doing a quick exercise or doing something to actually treat the wound rather than just waiting for it to go away.

So for feeling, what would that nagging feeling look like for someone if it's an emotional wound? Is it a physical sensation internally? Is it like their chest is tight or their- It's a preoccupation. Yeah, probably.

And it's a mood.

A rumination of something.

It can be a rumination or just you keep thinking back like, why hasn't she haven't responded? I thought the date was good. Why? Why is it like, she's not responding, I guess. It's like now she's ghosting me.

Like, I don't understand.

And it's four or five days and it was one date.

Right.

And you just don't get over it. Now you don't have to run to therapy for that. But there are certain exercises you can do to just revitalize your Your self-esteem, your mood.

What's a couple, what's an exercise that someone can do if they feel rejected or feel like someone hurt them, whether.

It was intentional or not? Well, there are two things. Actually, there are many more than two, but I'm going to mention two. One is the don't do. The don't do is the first thing we all do is become very self-critical. In our efforts to understand why it happened, we review everything that might not be great with us to see if that's the reason. Is it because I'm not this, or I am that, or I'm too much here, or I'm too little here, maybe it's because I knew I shouldn't have done that. Like there's this, and this is not, you just got rejected. Not the best time to go through the greatest hits of your insecurities. You know, you wanna be doing the opposite, reviving your self-esteem, not actually reviewing all the wounds that you've sustained in the past. Because when you look at past wounds, you reactivate them emotionally, right? If, you know, you had physical injuries, if you think about them, they're not gonna hurt. But if you think about some of the emotional times about the rejections or about the depressions or about something that got you really upset, you're gonna get upset again, even if it's 20 years later.

Isn't that interesting?

It is, but that's the problem.

When we think about a memory of trauma that we have yet to heal, and we relive that in our mind, is it almost just like we're living that moment all over again?

Yeah, but it's not one that you have yet to heal. It can be one you've healed. If you think about something small and incredibly irritating that happened 15 years ago, and you start literally thinking through the details, you're going to start to feel really irritated. It has zero consequential meaning in the present, none. But that's how we are. I mean, our emotional reflection reactivates these things. And it's important because if that's when, if you're spinning about, oh, I'm not this enough or that enough, and that person reject me, was it for the same reason? Is it this? Like what's going on? You start to question yourself, and that's just doing damage to your self-esteem. If it's after one date and really truly if it's after five, whatever the reason is, it's about chemistry, it's about fit, it's about timing, it's not personal. It's personal in that you might not have been good fit for them, but it doesn't mean you're a bad person or not a great fit for anyone else.

Why do so many people take it personally when they get rejected in a dating situation or relationship?

It's not only that they take it personally and then they generalize it to mean something even bigger than what it does. I never find love.

Really?

She just didn't sway back. I mean, that seems like a leap in inference to make from that, but it's a very natural thing we do. We assume it's us. Now, literally, people do that when they text it with somebody back and forth for a bit, and then that person disappears. You have no idea if you're even talking to a real person. You have no idea. That person might be in the hospital. They might have been chatting with you to piss off the person they're actually living with at the time. They might be going through whatever, we could work. There's a thousand things that can be going on for you to assume that you did something wrong in five texts that were so bad that like it's completely unnecessary, but that's where the mind goes. So let's stop that damage. That's the first thing to not do. But the thing you can do is the opposite. You wanna remind yourself in those moments of what you bring to the table, what you do have to offer. Now, you can't fool yourself. You can't say to yourself, I'm the most gorgeous person in the world if you're not. And if the feedback that you get is that you're not, because your mind won't believe that. You know, we have this automatic way of thinking that will reject things that fall outside the sphere of what it considers believable. And so you can't just like convince yourself of something that's not true. You have to focus on the things that are. So think about your best attributes. I have amazing eyes. I know I'm gonna find someone who'll wanna gaze. into them. I am such a great listener. I'm emotionally available, and I'm always up for doing things. Those are wonderful qualities and characters that somebody will appreciate, et cetera. You actually review what is worthwhile about you and not do the opposite.

It almost sounds like before you start dating or getting into a relationship, one of the best things that you can do for yourself is build your self-esteem. is what it sounds like. Because when you have a quality or high level of self-esteem, you're not going to get into a relationship that's not good for you. You're not going to stay in one where someone's treating you poorly or not respecting your boundaries, or you're not going to take the scraps of something because you're just lonely, right? So building self-esteem sounds like a great foundation for the individual before even getting into a relationship.

It is doing. And the way you do that, is doing what you did in your relationship on an individual level, i.e., you get to know yourself and you get to accept yourself.

All the parts of you.

All the parts of you, because there's no one who's perfect, right? Every good quality you have comes with a downside. It's gonna be true of everyone, right?

Give me an example for yourself.

For me?

Yeah, what's a good quality that comes with a downside?

I can think of several, but okay.

I.

Have a sense of humor. I enjoy my sense of humor. I sometimes deploy it in ways that.

Are maybe not bad timing or something or...

Yes, because if the joke is gonna be funny, I'm gonna say it no matter what, just because I can't pass it up. And I am gonna be upsetting someone by doing so, potentially. I try not to. It leaks out in sessions.

Sometimes when they're like sad and like, yeah, or whatever. Inappropriate moments.

I'll give you a quote, you know, and I'll give you, this is terrible, actually I shouldn't include it, just because.

It makes me sound so bad. Now you have to do it.

You have to do it. Okay, I'm not gonna say anything about the person, but it was a session in which somebody was having an issue in a relationship. And I was challenging them on why they're not, you know, setting more limits with their partner who needed limits set with them. Set boundaries. Right. And they said, yeah, That's how it is. And this person was very successful, you know, and they said, that's how it is. I'm a lion in the boardroom and a pussycat in the bedroom. And I said, I agree with every word except cat. It was funny to me, not funny to the other person. I apologized for it. I apologize again if they happened to be listening, that wasn't. But the point was actually sound.

Yeah, of course.

I didn't need to, but the joke was dangling and I couldn't. And so, Here's a thing that has a downside.

Sure, sure, sure.

Somebody who's very, very, let's say, conscientious about things, that's a wonderful thing that they're conscientious, but it's also a standard that they're probably gonna likely have, that they'll likely want to hold you to as well. So lovely to receive it, but then they're gonna be expecting it. And so that can be a pain, you know, sometimes. I mean, there's always a downside to things. So you just have to learn to accept and to go, this is great. Yes, it comes with that. I'll accept it because I like that.

Yeah, exactly. Why do you think people struggle with emotional regulation, not just in life, but even heightened more in relationships? And how can someone learn to regulate their emotions in a relationship if they've been so used to reacting in fight or flight mode for so what do you think is a process they can start? Have you started, then we'll have you add to Asadiah.

Well, I think the people that trigger us the most are the people that we're closest to. So it's hard to, you know, they, well, they uniquely know how to push our buttons as well. Hopefully they don't do that on purpose, but, you know, they, they have the knowledge to be able to push our buttons, but also just, it's like family, you know, you think you've grown so much and you think you have become so kind of wise and, you've healed and then you go back for Christmas with family or for the holidays and it triggers you. Within two days, something has you feeling like a 14 year old who's mad again. You know, it's those people that are closest to us have this unique ability to impact us. So I think it's really, it's really easy to have patience with a friend, you know, people like, oh, it's so much easier with my friends. Yeah, no, you don't see your friend every night of the week. You see them once every couple of weeks. It's like a little honeymoon every time you get together because you're just excited to see each other. Of course they don't push your buttons the same way, but the person you're with every day is going to. So I think we have to almost step back from it a little bit and go, this isn't necessarily a sign that my partner is so much worse than everybody else. It's a sign that this person is so close to me that it's the easiest place for me to get get triggered. And it's probably the pace I, the place I have the least patience, because I give so much energy everywhere else in my life. I take for granted that this person's going to be there at the end of the day.

Right.

You know, we go to work and we give our best energy, and then we go home and whatever is left, we hand to our partner and, you know, we've reserved our patience for everyone else in our lives. So I think take, taking a step back and going, what would it look like? This is a very hard thing to do, but what would it look like if I gave my partner the kind of grace or patience or understanding that I give to other people in my life? That frankly probably do a lot less for me, that show up a lot less for me. What would it look like if I started showing up for them in, in that way, I think, isn't a, isn't a bad question.

Interesting.

Yeah.

What would you, what would you add to that side? I would say one of the problems with the racial dysregulation is we as human beings tend to select the person.

Who enables the dysregulation rather than the.

Person we want to be with the most. Why do we select that person? Because they tolerate our insufferable behavior a bit more. So sometimes as somebody, and as a woman who's suffered from lots of emotional dysregulation in the past, I would find myself just bit. seeing somebody's tolerance of my insufferable behavior as a signal of love. So sometimes people who can't regulate their emotions will look for the punching bag in their life. They'll look for the person that they can be dysregulated for, and that person remains committed and they see that as a signal of like love, and they connect with the person who actually has weak boundaries. So a combination of emotional dysregulation and selecting somebody who is tolerable. Who accepts the dysregulation? Yeah, it leads to that. dysregulation not being resolved? I think the key question is that with emotional dysregulation, we know if we do that at work, we'll get fired. And we know that if we do that in public, we'll get arrested if we do that in public. But when we pick a partner and we make sure that that partner doesn't actually have a willingness to walk away or that partner just allows it the most, we might just exude all of our dysregulation on that one party. So it's really important when you from emotional dysregulation to select a partner that still, just because they can tolerate doesn't mean they should. And they should still, and you, on the receiving end, still have a threshold of how much you can and can't accept. And only when a partner or a person who's emotionally dysregulated meets somebody that they genuinely love and respect, but also has a very clear threshold of how much they can handle, does a dysregulated partner start to monitor their own reaction. but if they feel like they can get away with it, sometimes they will. So I think this regulation can lead to selection of enablers rather than selections of compatibility.

What is this quote? And I'm sure you both have heard this. If they can't accept me at my worst, they don't deserve me at my best. What do you guys think about that saying in relationships?

I used to be a big banner for that because I was a nightmare myself. So I was like, oh, I love this statement. But I think if you can't respect somebody at your worst, you don't deserve them at your best. And so while you're at your worst, if you totally disrespect that person and totally crush their boundaries, you don't deserve them when they're at their best or you don't deserve them when you're at your best. So instead of expecting somebody to tolerate your behavior, remember you also have a duty of care to them. And you should also say, At my worst, I don't want to put them through so much suffering. At my worst, I want to express myself. I understand I'm not going to be perfect, but does it mean I treat them as an emotional punching bag?

So I can't emotionally punch on them all day long and then say, well.

You have to deal with my emotions. And then you'll get a party on your birthday. It doesn't really work that way. So it's almost like a form of manipulation. And I'm saying that in the worst case scenario because I've been that person that had that kind of mantra. But it's actually how we that we treat our loved ones at our worst is a symbol of how much we respect them. And we need to try and be mindful of that because some people just can't tolerate you at your worst. Doesn't mean they don't love you. It's just that they're not equipped for that level of emotional dysregulation.

Yeah, you should be able to, I mean, your worst as a child, I'm assuming you're going to scream and throw tantrums constantly. But then hopefully you learn how to develop your emotions and navigate your emotions. so that you can be frustrated or have a breakdown, but not trash on someone. Yeah, not punish someone. Not punish someone and say, you,'re doing this to me, right? It's like learning how to, you know, maybe you need to step away or maybe you're gonna get loud for a.

Moment, but you're not going to attack someone. Ask yourself, would you tolerate you at your worst? If at your worst you get abused. Right now, yeah. Yeah, yeah, right now. I mean, I'm good right now, but yeah, in my past, maybe not. In my past, I wouldn't. But right now it's fine, but in the past, if your worst looks like emotional abuse, if it looks like infidelity, if it looks like physical abuse, would you tolerate you at your worst? And if you would, perfect, you're probably in a healthy space. If you wouldn't, what would you suggest to somebody who's going to have to, what would you say to yourself if you had to experience that? And if you would say to yourself.

Oh, just leave, don't tolerate that, then don't expect your partner to tolerate it now. Why is it so hard to leave a relationship? When after many years, when someone treats you poorly or they have dysregulation frequently, let's call it on a weekly basis or every other day, it seems like dysregulation or this type of emotional, I don't know if you want to call it abuse or like... Roller coaster. Roller coaster emotions, lack of respect. Why would you say, Matthew, it's so hard to leave a relationship? the relationship is failing. It's not healthy, but people tend to stay. In your work that you do with a lot of women, why do women stay so long? Maybe there's kids or not kids involved, but why do women stay and how can they start to shift to make it healthier or get out of it in a healthy way?

I think it's, well, it would be, it would be time, the trauma bond. Right, that there's a, there's this behavior that makes life really hard with this person, or it might even make it intolerable, but we tolerate it for as long as we can. And then, you know, if it ever got too, too bad for too long, we would just have to leave, right? If it was, if it was just hell 24/7, no matter what, we would leave. It would be enough, we would reach a certain pain threshold.

But there's doses of moments, right? Good moments.

There's that moment where, you know, someone does something that hints at a different side of them. It hints at the potential for kindness, the potential for understanding. It hints at what the relationship could be.

Or was in the beginning.

Or was in the beginning, and that reels us back in. And we are so elated and so happy to have this moment. that we then say, okay, I'm gonna go back in. And then, of course, the other shoe drops, which it always does. And, you know, I think of it as a broken clock, right? The broken clock is right twice a day. But you don't think it's a good watch for telling the time.

Yeah.

Right.

It's failed in its fundamental function. But when it's right, you go, well, you know, like that kind of relationship you're describing is the broken watch. We're trying to use this thing to tell the time, thinking that, oh, no, it was right a minute ago. Well, maybe it is working after all. And then we have to wait another 12 hours before it's right again. So that you have to ask yourself, am I in that broken watch? watch relationship. And if I am, what's. What's the way to get out of that? Well, I think one of the ways is to properly tune into your feelings, because I think we don't really tune into what our experience is. We are so focused on where it could go or the fact that we think that we will be. We'll never be okay if we lose this. that I will. How will I get by? Can I. Can I deal with the pain of losing this person? If I could just get them and turn them into the thing that I need them to be, then I'll be happy. We're so fixated on that, that we're not fixated on the pain that we are in constantly.

Yeah.

Which is making us miserable. Or if we really paid attention, we look at how this disproportionately makes us miserable. I worked with someone who ended a relationship with a very toxic person. And this person was never around. This person was completely dismissive. Even on the weekends when they were together, this person was just on their laptop paying them absolutely zero attention. And the woman that I was coaching I remember at the end of the relationship, she said, I just don't know how I'm gonna do this, how I'm gonna be on my own. And then I showed her the relation.

Yeah.

Like, if I'm not. I don't know how I'm gonna be on my own. And then I actually showed her the relationship.

You are on your own.

I said, this person's never home. They stay out on the weekends. You're completely alone. Even when you're in the same room, you've spent the last five years learning how to be alone. You're already good at you just have this old association that when I leave, I'm not going to be able to take it, but you already have the tools.

Why is it easier as a girlfriend or a guy friend of a person in a struggling relationship? Why is it easy for them to see, Man, this has been two years you've been in this pattern, this loop of up and down emotional roller coaster, and it doesn't seem healthy when it's so hard for the person in the relationship to realize, man, this is broken. This is not working. But I'm going to keep trying to make it work. I'm going to keep trying to get that clock to hit the right time every minute. Why do why is it so hard for people to understand they're in a broken relationship?

The investment they've placed into it makes it very difficult for them to see objective reality. In their mind, they have a vision of the future. It might involve children, it might involve a home, it might involve any kind of connection. And they they think that vision can only be achieved with the person they've invested the most in. They don't realize that vision is still achievable outside of this relationship. They attribute the ability to achieve all of that to this relationship working out. As a friend or a family member, you can say, well, you're still a great person, you can still find love, you can still have kids, you can still get married, but you can do it outside of this relationship. They don't see the vision outside of the relationship, so they've zoomed into the perspective of only through this person? Can I achieve my end goals? We, as friends and family, can say your goals are separate to this individual. They can still occur, but with somebody who doesn't have the unhealthy traits that make it impossible in this certain situation.

What do you think of the things, you know, we're talking about why relationships fail, but what do you think of the things that people don't do before committing to the relationship that end up causing it to be just a rocky foundation to start with, which is destined to fail? What are things that women do or men do that you think set up a rocky foundation? I'll let you start. They don't communicate what is a deal breaker to them.

They know all the things that they like. I like to go on dinner dates. I like to do this. I like to do that. But they forget that the stability of the relationship depends on the actual deal breakers rather than all the things that you love about the person.

What are some examples of deal breakers that people don't communicate?

It might be lack of availability, emotional availability, might be lack of effort so they might be funny, they might have a great job, they might be beautiful, all of those things. But if they are emotionally unavailable or if they are not considerate or if they're not compassionate as a person, but I haven't realized that that deal breaker is still there causing disruption of peace every single day. But if I realize my deal breakers and I go into it with a mentality that as long as I don't care if you're an angel on paper, but if you've got even one deal breaker, chances are we'll fight about this deal breaker forever. Really? It could just be that, you know, we disagree on a deal breaker might be commitment levels. How much commitment do I want? Or does a deal breaker might be how much time we spend together, quality time? It might be any of the love languages. One of them might be a deal breaker for you. But if that person has even one deal breaker, it will resurface again and again until the relationship slowly starts to corrode. So it's important to express what you think emotionally might be a deal breaker for you.

And what do you think are the biggest deal breakers for people? Would you say sex or topics around sex, money and topics around money, family, kids, religion or something else?

Good.

I suppose it could be anything depending on the person.

Or is it just literally like we could have three things that are right, but if we have two that are off, eventually it's gonna be harder to make it work? What do you think?

I mean, I think if we have a very different vision for how we want to live our lives. You know, those are really hard. You know, if one person wants a family and the other one doesn't, you know, these are, but to the point of communication, those are things that often people turn a blind eye to.

Why is that? Why do we not communicate deal breakers and things that are actually really important because we're committing to the relationship?

We have a scarcity mindset. It's that fear of nothing better is going to come along. Look, I think that in our love lives especially, we really want to meet someone. It's a universal thing. We really want to meet someone. And when we haven't met someone, we can start to get scared as time goes on. And we think there's something wrong with us and I'm broken and I'm never going to find someone. what if it never happens for me? And God, it's so hard to meet someone. And so the most dangerous moment in love and dating is the moment you meet someone you're attracted to. That is the most dangerous moment, because if you meet a person you're attracted to in a place of scarcity and fear, that is precisely the time that you lower your standards and you lose your boundaries. Because the instinct is don't do anything that could mess it up. The instinct is not let me see how right this is. Don't do anything to screw this up. Now, people have different ways of dealing with that fear. But if you take, you know, one example is some people go into, like, anxious fawning.

Right?

I'm scared. I'm just gonna do everything.

I. What?

What kind of category characterizes anxious fawning? I'm gonna.

Anxious fawning.

Fawning. Yeah. I'm gonna like. So I'm anxious. And my instinct when I'm anxious is to try to make you happy, because if I can make you happy, maybe you'll never leave me. So for a lot of people, what that means is. I over give at the same time as under communicating what I really need, which is a really poisonous combination.

Right?

Because it simultaneously means you burn out giving to someone, but also no one knows what you really want.

And you can resent the person for not giving you what you need that you haven't communicated it.

Yeah, you resent them, but you're too afraid to rock the boat because you don't want to lose them. And it's fascinating to me, like you can literally look at different types of people and how they, how they react to that. Like, if you, if you are doing that and you come across an avoidant, someone who's avoidant is going to get pushed away. They're gonna be like, this is a lot. And you're gonna keep giving, even though they've pulled away, because that's what you do. But you're not going to communicate that it's hurt you that you've pulled away. So with an avoidant type, you won't get your needs met because you won't communicate as they pull away. You'll just keep giving, hoping. that they'll come back. If you come across an anxious person and you're anxiously fawning, that person might consume you. Everyone, but most people, not most people, some people have had that experience with a parent where their parent was just trying to get their own needs met and they became the child that gave and gave and gave and gave and gave to try to make the parent happy. But because they had no boundaries around that, they became deeply resentful of this one-sided relationship with their parent. people then go into that in relationships, too, where it's like they just live in service of this other person who's anxiously taking as much as they can. If you come across a secure person and you're anxiously fawning, then that person's going to have a hard time connecting with you because they're not going to know what your preferences are. You're going to say. They're going to say, what do you want for dinner? And you say, what do you want for dinner? And they'll go, I don't know, Chinese food. And you'll. And you'll go, that was me, too. I wanted that. And if you do that three times in a they'll realize they don't know who you are.

Yeah.

They can't connect with you. They don't know how to make you happy. And they can't really trust you because they can't trust that you're ever really saying what you really think. So I say this to highlight the fact that this is how these dynamics get started, is we're coming from a place of fear. And when we're coming from a place of fear, we go to the weapons that we know how to use.

Right?

We all have our weapon of choice. For some people, it's I don't let anyone screw with me, and that's their weapon of choice. And the moment they think they could get hurt, they reject someone before that person can reject them. Other people is my weapon of choice is making trying to do as much as possible for you that I make myself indispensable. It's worth everyone asking, like, what's my weapon of choice? What do I default to? and if I never question what I'm defaulting to, I'm gonna be. I'm gonna always be in the same kinds of relationships. And by the way, that anxious fawning I'm talking about, who does it attract? The toxic person, right? Because that person sees a free lunch.

Of course.

Like, I'm gonna come and take everything from the buffet here, and then when I'm done with it, I'm out. So we then we go, how. Why do I always attract people like this? Or why do I. fall into these patterns is because there is a, a weapon that we are overusing, and at some point we have to, like, it's a very brave thing to go, what weapon am I overusing? And recognize, by the way, that's meeting a need. That there's some need it's meeting.

Right?

If I, if I'm this, if I'm.

Not a healthy need, then I'm not a healthy need.

But if I'm like, if I crack jokes, and make everyone laugh, and I know I can do that, then it meets a need for me. It's control. I know that I can control the room through making people laugh. Now, it also might be a barrier to connection in situations where sincerity is called for, and we never get deep because I'm always making jokes. But if I stop joking and I say, I'm gonna try and create a deeper connection, and that means I'm gonna pull back from the sarcasm, let's say, I. I have taken away my own most practiced, sharpened weapon, and I may not know how to operate in this new territory. I now may find myself almost like a toddler in conversation going, I don't know how to play this game. I don't know how I'm. How to connect with people when I'm not being funny. And it requires us almost to get worse before we get better, to feel like we're taking a step backwards before we take a the step forwards. The step forwards might ultimately be a far healthier relationship or a far better relationship than anything we've ever experienced. But we might have to go almost like go back to like learning how to walk again in an area and give up that power we're used to feeling so that we can have something much more rewarding on the other side of it.

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