Therapist REVEALS Why Finding Love Is SO HARD...| Lori Gottlieb & Lewis Howes
Therapist Lori Gottlieb explains why relationships fail: we expect partners to make us happy, we kill attraction with constant monitoring, and online dating trains us to chase instant fireworks instead of building connection. Trust means feeling safe with the unknown. Weekly check-ins focused on appreciation, not complaints, help couples actually talk.
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You see, it's kind of like they are giving you their owner's manual. 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. And if you ignore the operating instructions.
I think you gotta have a dream.
The School of Greatness.
Really?
Yeah.
Please welcome Lewis Howes. I wanted to ask you about why you think it's so hard for people to find a partner today. In this climate, it seems like it's hard for people to find a great partner. And then why is it hard to stay in a healthy, thriving relationship when it just seems 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?
But then why? How do you repair it?
Is there a way to get into a relationship without hurting each other?
No, because people are human. 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. Hurting could be something much more you know, deleterious, right? It could be awful. Right, so there's something, those are very different things. 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's a lot of tension between them. And the woman said to her husband, she said, you, know what? Three words I really wanna 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 where 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. It just 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. 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 God.
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?
Man, you really gotta 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 you their owner's manual. They are giving you the operating instructions. But if you don't read it, then you're going to 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 going to keep getting into accidents.
What if the operating instructions is completely against who you are? Like your, 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 an 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 crazy. It's too draining for me to make the effort to show you love in the way that makes you feel feel good. Right.
Yeah, it sounds.
That's, you know, 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 have this mother and daughter on. And the mother, this was during COVID And the mother brought over, she said, 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. 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 their relationship. of 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 wanna make this work. She said, okay, I wanna figure out how to accept this apology and forgive and move on as well.
I wanna 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 and 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.
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. In other words, I was lonely too, but I didn't cheat. I'm a better person. 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- I think 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. 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. Yeah, I'm lonely too, but I didn't cheat. 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?
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. They'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, right? 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 You know, the crimes of her father in her mind are now the crimes of her husband.
Oh, man.
And they're very different people. You know, her husband was a very different person from her father, but she could not separate the two of them.
Right, right. What is the, what's 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, 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 want to 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 say, 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.
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, 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. -Or it doesn't 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. Emotional connection.
Yeah, 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. 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. And 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... This isn't anything yet.
Whatever you might be thinking. Yeah, don't be trying anything.
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. 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?
Yeah, then you wouldn't want to talk about that person anymore, because 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 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, you know, 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 up for not turning it in.
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, yes, 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, it's like, or, 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 this idea of cheating. It really cuts to the core in a way that the other people can be awful to another person. You can scream at someone and say horrible things, which I think is just psychological betrayal right there.
It's trauma.
It's trauma. It really is. It really is, 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, 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, right? 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. 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. And I feel like the psychological things are harder to get out of than someone 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 good things, look at all the other things. And so, it's hard for people to reconcile. You see this with 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 the 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.
Yeah.
Any other signs that people should look out for if they're starting to date someone? They're like, huh, this seems very narcissistic.
I think that Jekyll and Hyde quality, that 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 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 moving too close to me, so I'm going to 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 want to get to know their heart, that's when they start to do other things or what happens then?
You get too close, you get too intimate. You get too intimate. 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, but I can use it against you later.
I don't want to 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 vulnerabilities. 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 needs 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 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.
You take on their traits because that 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 what?
I don't like to hear it.
I'm not like my parents and-- 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.
Yeah, the 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.
Was like so much resistance.
I was just like, Right. And so in that case, I'm not saying you were all narcissists, but it was like, no, no, no. So I'm not even talking about, so I, Well, let me differentiate. So there's, if, you know, 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 like how flexible are they with their story, right? Because everybody's coming in with their story, both people, both perspectives. Their perspective, yeah. 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, 'cause no one else 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. 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, sure. 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 want to 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 and 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. 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 their 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 will happen if I don't is they're going to come in and they're going to 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, you know, 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 gonna 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.
And what if, what if someone says, I'm gonna, I'm gonna improve all the, you know, 3, 5, 10 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 gonna 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 it. 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. Yeah, you're both in pain. 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 going to 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 Insight therapy takes place outside of the therapy room, meaning what happens in between sessions. So we came in, we talked about this. You learn something new about yourself, you learn something new about your partner, and then we always say insight is the booby prize of therapy. 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. Like why are you wasting your time and your money coming in here every week? -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 don't do this. My friends don't do this. Nobody tells us 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 to 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 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.
-All the messiness of you. -All the stuff in your past.
-As long as you're kind.
-All 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. 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? 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 masterful skill. Especially if your parents did not know.
How to regulate themselves emotionally. People are screaming and reacting or passive-aggressive.
And yeah slamming up doors. Right or the opposite where there was just they couldn't regulate it all so they numbed out.
So you guys said nothing.
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 school that you knew, I don't, my parents are not going to know how to talk about that with me. They're going to or they're going to try to talk me out of my feelings. -You're fine. It's okay. -It's 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, I think 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 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 you?
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. Oh my gosh. 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, 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, it's like someone, it's like a seesaw, right? 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 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, or 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? Yeah.
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 gonna see you in the 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 like, you,'re always this. Well, no, you're 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 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're 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, 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 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 don't need to beat myself up or hold a grudge anymore, but I don't want to forgive. Is there a way to not hurt yourself and still not forgive?
But why is so much of my emotional real estate going in that direction? It's like we only have so much emotional real estate. How much time are you thinking of this other person? We have this again, I keep talking about the podcast, because these are such common issues that on the Dear Therapist podcast, we had 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 there. They know that there's 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 talking 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. 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 gonna choose a partner who is exactly like that person who didn't meet my needs. We don't do that consciously. 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 of 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 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 a safe territory, but you've never been in a safe territory before, so they speak a different language and they draw 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 peaceful. 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's 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. And 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 you're like, you don't feel it.
But it's just different. It's just like, 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 say, 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... And blow it up.
Yeah, it's weird. I don't know, it's just really weird.
There's a word, cherophobia, which means fear of joy. So, cherophobia 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, they think, oh, the other shoe's gonna drop. Consistently.
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 is. It really is.
It 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 peacetime. The war is over.
Oh my gosh.
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 yell at or exploded on or whatever.
I'm gonna step on a bomb. 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 feel 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 see how we repair things together. Let's see how we work as a team. Yeah, that's powerful. What would you say If 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 growing 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 talk 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 difficults 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, 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. so 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.
A maze 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 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 if it did, it would be so easy.
Awareness isn't good for me, but I'm not gonna change though, yeah.
Well, people, it's like this is why New Year's resolutions don't work too, because it's not like you just, the Nike thing, 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 me think about the 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 a.m. of a 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 doing it. 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 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, 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 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 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?
So if you feel like you're a good team, you got the character qualities of they show up for you, they're reliable, you feel like you can trust them, they have emotional generosity, flexibility, similar lifestyle, and the quality on a daily basis is good, then that's a pretty good mess. what I'm hearing you say.
Again, there's those intangible qualities, but if all of that is there and that's going on, yeah, yeah, look at the Goodwill Bank. How's the Goodwill Bank going? Yes. If you did the assignment that we gave this person, Elena, on our podcast, to really keep that log of the day to day, what does it look like? And you have to think, people think when they first meet someone, they're thinking so much in the present instead of, they're like, yeah, well, this person doesn't really call when they say they will, or yeah, this or that. but it's okay because there are all these other great things and they're obsessed with that person. And I always say to people, is this the marriage you want? Is this what you want 15 years from now? Do you want to worry about why this person isn't calling me or are they going to be there or they forgot to do this or they said they were going to pick up the toilet paper but they didn't every time? They always have an excuse. They lie about the little things. There are those people who are like, They won't just tell you, yeah, you know what? I forgot to do that. I had this experience with this couple where he was always coming up with excuses because he didn't want to take responsibility for the things. And they were just little lies. And she's like, why would you lie about these tiny little things? He said I want to be responsible. Instead of just, right. And so there was this one time where he was supposed to go to the market, and she was always, they had kids, and she wanted him to get organic strawberries because she was worried about the pesticides. and the little kids. And he bought the regular ones. And he used to lie about it, be like, oh, they were out of organic. And this time, he said, you, know what? It totally slipped my mind. It totally slipped my mind. I should have bought the organic ones, and I didn't do it. And she started crying. She said, you, told me the truth. Wow. Like, all I wanted was the truth. I just wanted you to own it and acknowledge it and take responsibility. He's like, I'll go back and I'll go exchange them right now. She's like, no, no, no, it's fine. Like, you told me the truth. You forgot. Please don't forget next time. He never forgot again.
Wow.
But do you see how these little things in relationships can change a dynamic?
Yes.
In a big way. He never forgot again and she trusted him.
Yeah. What would you say are the biggest red flags then women should look for when entering a relationship?
Well, I think it's not a gender thing. People, you know, I think people, I think you look for just How do I feel around this person? Do I feel on edge? Is there something, I think even when people are ignoring the problems, there's a place of knowing that we all have inside of us that gets drowned out by all the noise out there. The bigger voice is like, I really want this to work out, or look at how great on paper this person is, or I feel really good about myself because this person's a catch, you know, or whatever it is. Or I'm this age and I really feel like, yeah, you know, what happens if I don't, if I give this up? What if I don't find somebody? Those are those really loud voices. There might be this really quiet voice that says, I don't think this person is the right person for me. Or, I don't really trust this person. Or this person isn't really as stable as I would like. Or this person drinks too much. Or this person doesn't really emotionally regulate. Or this person says mean things to me and I don't like that. And yeah, they were drunk, but I don't like it. Right.
And be aware of that.
Yes.
If they continue doing this, which they probably will or may, are you okay with that?
Right. Well, if you talk to them about it, and what does that look, again, the repair, and then do they change their behavior as a result of that? Right.
If they don't change the behavior, then.
You know what you're saying. Right. You can justify it any way you want, but you're not listening to that voice inside of you. So, I think we all have this place of knowing it's not your friend's opinions. Like, you know, it's always like, I think your friends have all these opinions.
And then we try to like crowdsource. Oh, this guy's amazing. You're so lucky to have this guy in your life.
He's a catch. Like what a great guy. You don't have to live that life. And I think the same thing, by the way, going back to affairs, like people say, like leave the guy. Like he's trash. Leave him. And it's like, you don't have to live this person's life. And this person might have really good reasons why the affair didn't break their marriage. You know, so when someone had an affair, like, don't go telling 12 of your friends, like, right away. Like, you need to process this. Maybe go to a therapist, process this. But don't go telling, like, 12 people and don't broadcast it. Don't go on social media about this because you might actually find that you love this person and want to stay with this person and that this person really is the right person for you and they will never do this again and they will not, you know, like they understand what happened. But telling the world and your family.
And your friends, they're never gonna support that person in your life again. It's good. Every time you go around for the next years, you're gonna make it uncomfortable. Right. And that's gonna be rupturing the relationship in the future. Right, and what feels really good in the moment is to blame your partner.
Now, yes, they're responsible for having the affair, but they're not necessarily not necessarily responsible for all the other factors that are going into this.
Yes. Interesting. What are the, what are some unrealistic expectations that people should stop having?
How long do you have while entering a relationship?
Because I feel like people, not just women on men, men are women, but people have an expectation that their partner should be kind of like everything, you know, and should be perfect and All these things. What are some things that they could have a standard? You know, I want my relationship to have this standard, but this expectation is unrealistic.
If you ask people if they have unrealistic expectations about certain things, nobody thinks they do. So people will say, no, no, no, no, no. I know that they don't have to be like, you know, the hottest person or the most this person or they make the most money or they're the most charming or funny or entertaining or whatever it is. I know that, but that's not what their behavior says. You'll find. So people with unrealistic expectations are often the people who don't realize that they have them. People who actually have realistic expectations sometimes think they don't have realistic expectations. It's interesting. There's a sort of a lack of self-awareness there.
That's funny.
The unrealistic expectations have to do with, you know, maybe it's like, you know, it could be around appearance, It could be around what the other person is going to do for them. When somebody isn't satisfied in their own life, they somehow think it's the other person's responsibility to make them happy, to fill the hole, to fill the gap. You know, when they're having a hard time in their life, suddenly they're bored in the relationship, right? It's like, I don't feel good about myself and, oh, look, I wonder if maybe I'm with the wrong partner. I wonder if she's the problem. I wonder if he's the problem. I'm feeling stuck in my life. Oh, maybe I need a new relationship. As opposed to maybe there are other things that are making you feel stuck in your life. And this idea that I think that some of us have that we would never articulate, but that your partner is there to save you. Save me from my damaged childhood. Save me from the other hurts in my life. Save me from these wounds. And when there's misattunement in the relationship, and there always will be, so again, I'm very suspicious of couples who say, oh, no, we agree on everything. There will be misattunement because somebody's tired one day, somebody had a bad day, or you're just different people and you see the world differently. So when there's misattunement, suddenly that person becomes, oh, you don't understand me. As opposed to, Wait, you didn't understand that. Let me explain it again. Let me help you understand me. Because you thought this, but actually what I'm trying to say is this. Right. Right. But then people don't do that, so they think, oh, they just sit with it and they go, My partner never understands me. Every time I say something, my partner thinks this. But I've never tried to help them to understand me. They're supposed to magically, intuitively be telepathic.
Read my mind.
Read my mind and understand me in exactly the way that I need to be heard and seen and felt. Now, in therapy, we have this expression, feeling felt, that that's what you want. You want to feel felt. and it's such a great feeling when it happens. But even therapists will get it wrong. You know, sometimes I will misunderstand someone, but the person doesn't like yell at me about it, or they don't think like, I need a new therapist, because we'll repair it right there in the moment. But they don't do it with their partner. They'll go home and their partner will make the same mistake I did, and they will say, oh, I don't know if I should be with this partner. He doesn't understand me. And the partner's like bewildered. Like, I didn't even know that I didn't understand because you never told me I didn't understand.
Yes.
So I just assumed that I understood you.
When do you know that your partner understands you, even if they completely disagree with you? When should someone know, like, okay, they disagree with everything I just said, but I feel felt and they understand me at least.
Yeah, because we say that expression feeling felt because you feel it. So it's not up here, it's in here.
It's probably just, oh, you're good. It's an emotional feeling. I feel, okay, my partner disagrees with everything I just said, but they understand where I could be coming from if they stepped in my shoes.
I think it has to do with respect, right? You feel respected in that moment. You feel like, and you feel loved and cared for. Like you and I see this very differently, but I love you, I care for you. I don't agree with you. But I respect you as a human. Like I respect you as a person.
Yes.
I'm not gonna like cast aspersions on your character because of this.
Right, right, right.
Like I can accept and acknowledge the separateness of us as two different human beings. And when people get really enmeshed, they have a real problem with that. Like someone will say, My friend did this, can you believe that my friend did this? and her partner will say, like, yeah, well, but I can kind of see, because you also did this, and she's like, How can you take her side? I'm not taking her side. I'm just giving you a perspective. I see it a little bit differently. I can see why you felt the way you did. I can see why you feel hurt. I can see both and. And if you can't accept the both and about yourself and your partner, then you're going to end up feeling very alone.
So, it's almost like you need to be flexible and their communication as well and them not siding with you on everything, but saying, okay, I understand where you come from and I see this perspective. I just see it differently. Yeah. So having the flexibility to be okay with that also.
I can hold both. Yeah. You can hold both and I can hold both. And we care deeply about each other and we have each other's backs, which doesn't necessarily mean we agree. We have the same perspective on every single thing.
Yeah. The beginning of this year, I had I started seeing a therapist in a previous relationship. And the therapist had me just working on my own healing stuff. That's like healing stuff that I was going through. She had me put a photo of myself around five or six years old on my phone. So I see it. So I still have this up where I just constantly remind myself, like, you're safe, you're okay, I got your back. We're, you know, we're healing together, things like that. It's been a beautiful journey for me to, like, work on inner child healing and just kind of the memories of the past.
And.
I'm curious about just like the consistency of healing in a relationship. And because I heard you say that like it's hard to fully heal alone. We almost need a mirror to be able to practice and integrate this is what I think I heard you say, right? It's like you need to have someone where you can practice it coming up. If you're in a vacuum, you're not going to be triggered. Right. It's like, can you show up differently in the future and not repeat the past? What is the thing people usually need to heal? Is it something from childhood? Is it something from previous relationship? Is it their whole life?
It can be anything from, you know, there's different, we use the word trauma a lot and people say, oh, you know, trauma is, trauma is something big, like someone died in a car crash or you were in the war or, systemic racism, all traumas that people accept as trauma. Think about though the daily trauma. The little Ts. The little Ts, but they're big Ts because the trauma might have happened to you once like you got in this bad accident and you're traumatized by that or whatever it might be. The dailiness of a parent saying, you,'re stupid. What's wrong with you? You're so stupid. Right? We had someone on our podcast like that. And he, you know, we really like got him through that in that hour of going through a way to think about it differently. And he needed to understand like this was real trauma. And he knew that, right? He knew that, but he kind of felt almost like, nah, it's not really that bad.
Silly or something.
Right, right, right. you know, just like you're worthless, you're stupid, what's wrong with you? All those things. And think about the number of times that that happened if you add all those up. I mean, that's trauma.
That's a lot, yeah.
When you talk about the inner child, and I love what your therapist had you do, it's really important that we are able now, we weren't then, able to be that adult for our inner child, but now we are. So don't expect your partner that you have to be that for yourself. And then your partner is there because you're not in that toxic environment anymore. So it makes it safe for you. It makes it safe for you as the adult. It makes it safe for you as the child. And at any given moment, by the way, a different age of us will be exposed. So like, you know, you go home for Thanksgiving, you're 12, you know, with your siblings or whatever it is, right? You know, something happens with your partner that that just feels very similar to you of some feeling you had when you were five. You're five. You're gonna act like you're five. There are times when you act your age. So you don't know, like, so I always say to people, like, when couples are getting at it in couples therapy, I'm like, how old are you right now? I will say that to them. And they'll step back for a second and go, oh, I know exactly how old I am. I'm eight. I'm 16.
So, you mean how old are you emotionally reacting?
Yes, yes, yes. Right now.
Right now.
Not physically, but- Yes, that's what I meant. So, they're doing something, something's happening for them and they're not able to kind of, I can see them regressing and their partner's getting really frustrated and you're watching this happen and I just say to them, How old are you right now? And if they can just step back and they have so much compassion for that kid that they are at eight or 12 or 16 or whatever they are, and so does their partner, by the way, when their partner says, oh, you look like a grown man. But you're acting like a seven-year-old. I look like a seven-year-old. But that eight-year-old, and they don't mean it in a pejorative way. They don't mean it. They're not judging their partner. They become really compassionate, like, oh, that eight-year-old. And they move toward their partner. Like, I can see that. So the partner isn't healing the eight-year-old, but the partner is creating this environment that lets the eight-year-old do the work for the eight-year-old there.
What should the adult be saying or doing for the younger version of themselves that is having an emotional human experience that is not their age in this moment? What's the conversation or the...
It's exactly what they wished at age eight that someone would have said to them. We all know what that is. We all know what we wanted to hear because As a kid, you fantasize about it. You look at other people's parents and you say, oh, that interaction. You know, like you can see what it, what you would like it to look like. -My parents were like that, you know?
-Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. -So, saying that out loud internally to your 8, 12, 16 year old self.
-Right, right. You're really kind. -Wow. -Have you ever noticed how unkind we.
Can be to ourselves? -Uh huh.
-Have you ever noticed that? -My entire childhood was pretty much unkind. Right.
To myself.
Right, and but we carry that into our adulthoods. And so I had this patient who was like so self-critical and she did not realize it. And you have to realize, I said to her this, that the person we talk to most in the course of our lives is ourselves. And what we say to ourselves isn't always kind or true or useful. I say that all the time to people. I will say that till I'm blue in the face because people don't get it until they try this exercise. which is what I had her do. I said, I want you to write down everything you say to yourself over the course of a few days. And then when you come back next week, we're gonna talk about it. And so she did the assignment. She was very skeptical. She's like, I'm not that.
I'm not that.
I'm not, like, not that. Like every thought that comes to you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like everything. Like when you hear, it's like this radio station that's playing in the background that you think you're not hearing because it's just like playing in the background. Or like a TV show that you have on in the background, right? And you're like, I'm not really paying attention to it. I'm doing other things. But no, you hear it. And so she came back and she starts to read this and she said, I can't even read this. I am such a bully to myself.
And they were little things she would.
Do in the course of a day, like she was typing an email and she made a typo and the voice in her head said, you,'re so stupid. Like it was spontaneous. And she would not have paid attention to that before. Like she didn't know she was saying that. Or she passed her reflection in a mirror and she said, God, you look terrible. Now, if your friend or someone you cared about made that typo or looked however she looked that day, you would not truly think that person is stupid or that they look terrible. You think like, oh, you know, they made a typo. It's like there's no emotional generosity toward oneself.
Yes. So what should we be doing instead?
And so it's starting to notice how do you talk to yourself? You know, like whose voice is that? It's not yours. We are not born with that voice. So that voice came from people who raised you, it came from the culture, it came from the people around you, it came from whatever we're being told. It's external is the point. It's external to you. It is not of you. So we need to listen to that voice inside of us that is of us. And we will be so much kinder not only to ourselves but to other people because as we always know, like the biggest bullies are twice as mean to themselves. Right?
Yeah. So when you think about like the.
Environment, I talked about the biosphere before, like the ecosystem in your relationship, that's the ecosystem in your home. We saw during COVID right, where everybody was like in the same contained space and we were all worried about the contagion of the virus. And I said to people, I want you to look at the contagion of mood. Look at the contagion of anxiety. If someone is anxious or someone's in a crabby mood or someone is being unkind, everybody's gonna be crabby or anxious or unkind.
Yes. Right?
Because it's so contagious.
So when a partner is coming from that space of angry, upset or negative mood, what should be done in order to try to shift that energy without rushing them along, but without allowing it to be going on for so long that it's just like sucking up all the air and the energy of the atmosphere. what should happen next.
Right. I mean, it depends what they're going through. If they're going through something that's kind of like they're grieving something or there's a loss, the worst thing you can do is rush their wellness. We call that actually rushed wellness, where you are trying to kind of, oh, well, it's been a year. Shouldn't you be over this? It's like, but the person's still dead. It's like, what does that even mean? So how are they grieving? What is their grieving process? look like? What kind of support are they getting? Are they able to talk about it? Do they have a therapist? Do they have a grief group? You know, what are they doing in their lives to go through this process? How can you support them in it? So there's that. But I think if, you know, if people are just being crabby or they're just being unkind because they're worried about a promotion at work or, you know, someone their brother said something mean to them or whatever happened, and they take it out on you. That's when you've got to say, wait a minute, what's going on here? Let's talk about what you're upset about. Before it gets to that point. And if someone's really anxious all the time, it's like, what are you doing to... Let's talk about the anxiety in the household because it's really contagious. I can support you. in certain ways, but you might need to get a different kind of support. Maybe it's medication, maybe it's a therapist, maybe it's, you know, why don't you explore some options? Sure.
If someone is bringing in this contagious energy from a previous relationship, you know, they're recalling events from the previous relationship, they're talking about the previous relationship, they're in fear from things that happen, they don't want it to reoccur in this current relationship, How important is it to let the past be in the past and not bring it up? Or how do we not ruin the current relationship by talking about the past relationships? What is that balance? It's like, well, here's what has happened in my previous relationships, but not talking about it all the time.
Right. So that's called punishing the new... Punishing your partner for the crimes of some... for someone else's crimes. Yeah. You don't want to punish your partner for someone else's crime. So your other partner, previous partner, treated you a certain way and then you don't trust your partner. You're like, why are you looking through my phone? Oh, well, because in my last relationship this happened. And so I wanna make sure it's not gonna happen to me again. But I didn't do that to you, right? And I don't like people looking through my phone. If there's a difference between secrecy and privacy, we all need privacy in relationships. We all need privacy. so secrecy is something like, you know, Carl Jung called secrets, it was like emotional poison or something like that. It was, you know, it's a poison when you keep secrets. That's different from privacy. Privacy is we're allowed to think things and feel things. We don't need to share every thought or feeling that comes across our frontal lobes. We don't, you know, or anywhere in our brain or in our heart. We don't need to to share everything, right? So it's not like you have an x-ray of the other person. So what I was in this relationship that I'm talking about, she was like, but you know that I have these trust issues. And he said, But I'm not breaking your trust. I didn't, but I'm not doing anything to break your trust. And, you know, and by the way, let's redefine trust. So a really good redefinition of trust is that you are okay with what you don't that you feel safe with what you don't know. Then you really trust someone. If you can feel safe with what you don't know, that's trust. What she was confusing was she was saying, I will trust you if I know everything. No, no, no, no. Trust is going to be if you don't know everything and you feel safe.
Yes. How does someone get to that place where they have no reason to mistrust someone? You know, everything they say they're doing, they're backing up, you know, Maybe you checked their phone because you thought something and then you didn't see it and everything was fine. How do you get to a place of just accepting their word and trusting them? Right.
So it's within reason. So if someone says, you know what, I have a sensitivity around if I text you and I don't hear back for five hours, then I get upset. And I know and you're in town and you're at work and things are normal or whatever. Right.
And your phone is near you.
Yeah. Yeah, and I know you keep your phone by your all the time, that's going to make, that's going to trigger me. And so then you want to make sure that you respond to the person in a timely manner, but that doesn't mean like you have 30 seconds. So it has to be reasonable, right? You have 30 seconds or else I'm going to like, you know, I'm off to the races. You know, those kinds of things. What does it mean? What do you mutually agree on? Like how often do we need to be in contact? What does it mean to be in contact? And what feels good to both of us? Because it's not going to work if it doesn't feel good for both of you.
Both. If it's only feels good for one and the other person feels like, ugh.
I'm constantly having to do something I don't want to do, that's not good. Right. And then what the person does is they become untrustworthy because they don't want to report in, and so then they start hiding things just because they weren't given enough space. It's kind of like I use this analogy with parenting, but I think it works in relationships too, which is the aquarium. So it's like you don't want to be so confined that you feel like you're in a fishbowl, But you don't want the boundaries to be so loose that you're like in the ocean. You want to be in an aquarium with your partner, which is that like we're in a safe contained space, but.
We both have enough room to swim around. I've got some darkness over here.
I can just chill and I can.
Go in the- yeah, exactly. I can like- I'm still in the bubble, but you know, let me just be alone for a minute.
Yeah. Yeah.
So the difference between secrecy and privacy in a relationship, What do we need? And should everyone have access to someone's passwords and phones and at all the time or is that not necessary?
I think that people have to agree again. But I think this idea that.
You.
Can look at my phone whenever you want will feel very intru-- well, but it feels very intru-- I don't even, I'm saying I don't think that that's, I don't think that person has the definition of trust that I'm talking about, which again is that I feel safe with what I don't know. Meaning I know that you're not doing anything to betray me, so I don't need to look. If someone gives you reason to look, that's a completely different thing. If someone gives you any kind of reason, that's like a completely different kind of conversation that you have. But if this person has been trustworthy to your knowledge, You know, this idea that we need to know everything about each other. By the way, you want to kill sex in a relationship? Know every single thing about each other. You will kill the erotic energy in the relationship.
You need some mystery, right?
You need some separateness. You need some differentiation between you are you and I am I. And we are different people. And if you know every single thing about that person, there's no gap to bridge. What happens with the erotic energy is we want to bridge this gap. We want connection, right? We've been a part. We want to connect. If you've been fused, it's kind of like, oh wait, actually I want space. Right.
You need space.
You need space, yeah.
It's the mystery that brought you together in the first place that made you attracted to each other. You know, it's like if you know everything all the time, it's hard to keep that going. You need that space. How much space do you feel like you need in a relationship to make it like still feel that sexual attraction and chemistry?
It's everybody's different, you know, but I think you know it. I think when one person feels like, wait a minute, this feels intrusive, that's their body is telling them something. You feel all these things in your body. So a lot of people say, how will I know? Like as if it's an intellectual thing. And I always say your body will tell you. You know when you recoil from that person. You know when you feel like, oh, I hear their voice and they've just walked in the door, and I'm not ready for this. You know, it's not even like something that goes, it's like you feel it in your body. Did you just tense up? Did you feel it in your stomach? Like, what just happened? Did your breathing change? Right.
What should you do in that space where you're not like, I want to leave this relationship, but I just need space and create a conversation where it's safe to say that?
I think it's all about audience and presentation. So choose your audience well. Do you have a partner who can hear hear what you're saying and not hear it as a rejection. Take it personally or... Because a lot of what people call complaints are actually compliments. And what I mean is, and I talk about this and maybe you should talk to someone, is that when someone is complaining about something, they're basically saying, I want to get, I want to have a better relationship. They're not saying to you, I want to break up with you. They would just say, I want to break up with you. So, when they're saying like, Hey, I want to come to you with this. Like, I need more space. I'm saying that because I want to be in this relationship. I value this relationship. I love you, I care about you, and what's not working for me is that sometimes I need some space after work, or I need some time to myself on the weekends. I don't want to do every activity together, or I need to go out with my friends, or whatever it is. And that's what's going to help me in this relationship, because I want to be with you. I won't be able to be with you if I don't have some kind of, if we don't work out something around the space.
Right, some arrangement around the space.
So it's a compliment, it's like, I love you enough, I care about this relationship enough to bring this relationship enough to bring this up with you. If I didn't care, I wouldn't bring it up, I'd just leave.
And how toxic is it, in your opinion, to think that the partner is supposed to make you happy?
The thing is, even if you don't call it toxic, It's just dangerous.
Okay, why?
Because they can't. They can't make you fundamentally happy. They can bring you joy. It's a great joy to be with someone whose company you really enjoy, of course. But they can't heal those wounds for you. They can't take away the hurts. They can't repair everything that happened for you in your life. They can't do that. you're going to have to do that for yourself. Again, they can provide that sort of containing, warm, holding environment in which you feel safe enough to do that. But they can't do it for you. And when you depend on someone else, you were talking about expectations earlier. When you depend on someone else to do that for you, they will inevitably fail because human. Because they are human. They can't do that.
So don't have an expectation that You meet this guy or this girl or whatever and they're gonna make me happy. They should be able to add to my joy.
They're gonna be additive. Yes, they're gonna, your quality of life will be greatly enhanced if you have a good relationship.
But you gotta focus on your own happiness.
But in terms of, you know, those things where they're gonna be misattuned to you sometimes, they're going to upset you sometimes, they're gonna do things that you think, how could the person I love me make that choice? Right? You know, they're not going to be some magical fairy person. Yes.
And what about the online world? How have you seen this as a therapist, the online world supported or hurt relationships? You know, is online dating overall, have you seen it to be a positive thing and also is just social media hurtful or helpful? when in a relationship with someone.
And I would say to both social media and online dating, both and...
Yes.
I think that online dating makes it possible for people to meet who ordinarily would not meet. But that's really all it does. So it's not like, you know, it's like we used to meet people in a much more organic way, but we don't do that anymore. So now you can meet people and it makes it a lot easier. The downside of that is that there's this illusion with online dating and apps that you go out on a date. I hear this all the time from people. They went out on a date, they had a good time, no butterflies, but they had a really good time. They spent three hours there. They had a pretty good time. But yeah, no, I don't know, I just didn't feel like the chemistry or I don't know or whatever it was. But there's this other guy, whatever, so then they keep going going through the apps, as opposed to why wouldn't you go on a second date with that person that you just had a pretty good three hours with? Like spend another two or three hours with that person. Even spend one hour and you do coffee so you can get out easily.
If you want to.
But you had a pretty good time. And I think people think that it's got to all be there right away. And actually they did these studies where they followed couples over 20 years. this longitudinal study. And what they did was they didn't do reporting where you look back and you say, what was your first date like? They actually did reporting at the time. So they got all of these reports, you know, they followed them every five years and they would interview them. And the people who were happy 20 years later, when they recalled their first date, they would say, oh yeah, I was so into him. I was so into her. It was amazing, right? In those reports, often they would find what they reported at the time was Really nice person. You know like yeah, no I had a good time. Like there wasn't like this magnetic attraction. --There was a version of the butterflies. --Sometimes there was, but in more cases than not there wasn't. --Really? --And then when you looked at people who were like divorced or really unhappy but still married, and you asked them about their --Chemistry was --I didn't really like him that much. --Really? --They've revised the story. But when you go back to what they actually said at the at the time they were like, you know, lots of chemistry. So in other words, our opinions about people change the more we get to know them. And so if you go out with somebody once, twice, three times, right, and you had a pretty good time that first time, go out with them again. Like, why wouldn't you go out with them twice or three times? And see what happens. People won't do that and they keep like cycling and juggling all these different people. Like maybe the next person will be, you know, like I'll feel more attraction to, but maybe that person you don't have as much kind of emotional chemistry with. You know, so then that person's ruled out. You don't have enough in common or whatever it is. Sure. So like at what point are it's like musical chairs. Like at what point are you gonna sit down? Because the chairs are gonna get filled.
Well, I think you hear people say you know don't settle, but it's like how do you know when you've not settled? And you found a great match, But.
It'S well, so so the thing is you do you never want to feel like you're with a person where you settled and you don't want to feel settled for But I think again going back to defining things what does settling mean? So so there was this there was a study that was in one of my earlier books where men and women were asked, you know, what would it what would it take to get a second date? Like what what qualities would a person need to have? So men named three things that a person would have to have for them to want to go on a second date with that person. And they said she has to be attractive enough and they did not mean like she has to look like a supermodel. They meant like, I think she's cute. That's all. I think she's cute. Like they know, you know, they know that they're not like a supermodel themselves. She has to be easy to talk to and she has to be kind. Like she can't be like, oh, you know, mean to the waiter or, you know, like kind of entitled or whatever. You know, just like she has to seem like a really nice person. Sure. Okay, that person gets a second date. Women named 100 things. So from three to 100, 100 things that would not get a guy a second date. And they were, you know, these like really, really picky things.
He was this, he was that.
He was this or that or the other thing. Like, you know, oh he wore khakis and, you know, like just really ridiculous or he didn't like, like, you know, or his hairstyle. His hairstyle or he did this like really like, you know, by the way, People are nervous on first dates.
Yeah, they're sweaty.
They're nervous. They might be like, maybe they were a little bit overly animated because they were trying to impress you. Maybe they were just like trying to entertain you and it was a little too much. But overall, you had a good time and overall there was enough there that maybe you'd go on a second date. And if they're that way on the second date, then no, don't go on the third date. Right. Gotcha. But I think we have to kind of remember that it's a process. And so many people want immediate gratification. They want that story of we met, it was immediate.
Explosive and chemistry. And so when someone feels this instant attraction and explosive chemistry and finishing of each other's sentences or whatever this is, these butterflies the whole time, I couldn't stop thinking about them all week. It's what I'm hearing you say is that sometimes, or most of the time, 20 years later, those don't work out.
No, they can work out. But sometimes, and again, it depends where you are in your own healing. Sometimes what your unconscious is doing is saying, oh, you look familiar.
It's familiar.
Come closer. You look familiar. It's like this, and his unconscious and her unconscious, and them, whoever you're dating, right? This works in this is not gendered at all. This works no matter who your partner is and who you are, right? That if something feels familiar to you in this very, you know, unconscious way, and you haven't worked that stuff out, the unfinished business, you're gonna be like, yeah, this feels really familiar, but it feels so good, right? Come closer, it feels so familiar to me.
If something feels unfamiliar, but it feels good. Is that a sign that-- that's you and your girlfriend. Is it like, oh, maybe you're like, You're choosing something different and you're experiencing something different. Is that something that people should keep exploring or what do you think?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. If it feels better, right? It feels good. Again, keep that journal. Look at the bank account that you guys are creating together. Your joint bank account. Are there five deposits for one withdrawal? Right. You're experiencing that right now. It's unfamiliar, but it feels healthy.
It feels good.
Yeah.
Man, what else do you see right now that people are really struggling with when you're doing therapy with them or just the emails, the calls coming in for the podcast you guys are doing? What's kind of the common theme of right now?
I would say connection.
People are lacking the connection.
People are lacking connection or they want to learn how to better connect. So they have someone that they want to connect with, but they're bungling it up in all kinds of ways. That's sort of what happens on our podcast every week.
They're bungling it up.
They're bungling it, yeah.
What does that mean?
You know, it's like they want to have this healthy relationship, and they're afraid to have the conversations, they don't know how to have the conversations, they're doing things they know they shouldn't be doing, They don't see their own role in it, you know, all of those things. But again, I think that it's so relatable because we all act this way. We all have our blind spots. We all think that we're extremely self-aware. And you can't see what you don't know. It's like you don't know what you don't know.
Right. What's something we should do on a weekly basis to check in with our partner? to make sure we're cultivating that connection. Is it a question we should, Hey, every Sunday we're gonna have this 10-minute conversation. What should we talk about?
Or I notice as a therapist that people talk more about what they don't want than what they do want with their partners. So they'll say like, I don't like it when you do this or I wish you wouldn't do this as opposed to, I really like when you do that. I felt great when happened. I want more of that or I like that. Just appreciating that, right? If you're always telling people what you don't like about them, it's hard for them to see what you do like about them. So I think that people need to spend more time telling the other person what they do want. You know, when we talk about complaints as compliments, you can say to somebody, say you feel like your partner isn't being affectionate enough with you. Right? You could say, you never kiss me when you come in the door, or you don't hug me enough, or you can say, I really love it when you come in the door.
Yeah.
Or you kiss me.
As opposed to being like, as opposed to making them defensive by saying, you,'re not doing this enough. And they're like, what do you mean? I was just doing this earlier and I did this before and you're not appreciating it. But when you show, like you said, appreciation, I really appreciate it when you do this.
Right. It's gonna make you wanna hopefully do it more. Right. and also not arguing with people's feelings. Like I can see the other side of that where someone says to someone, you know, I really like it when you hug me, when you come in, and then maybe it's a guy who says to her, like, but I do, I hug you all the time. Right? And she's just like, okay, now we're gonna fight over the content, which is like, how many times do you actually hug me? And when was the last time you hugged me? Which is different, which is just like, oh, oh, you know, to register for yourself. she feels like I don't hug her enough. So it doesn't matter whether I do or I don't. The point is she feels like I don't. So I'm gonna make a conscious effort to make sure that maybe when we're watching TV together, I'm gonna put my arm around her. Right. Right. Instead of arguing about, but I just hugged you yesterday, you know, when I came home and I hugged you the day before, and I'm sure that I.
Hug you every day. Don't argue about it. Just be like, oh, noted. All right. We'll give you a hug later.
Yeah. Yeah.
What would you say? You know, obviously you're, you work with a lot of couples that are experiencing some type of problems.
Right.
Most of them don't come into you and say, everything's amazing. We're just here to, like, just make sure it's still amazing, you know, which I think it's actually, I think it'd be healthy for relationships to, you know, get into therapy sooner when things are actually good for, like, just a checkup every now and then and say, hey, how can we keep cultivating this? But I'm curious from the relationships you've seen that have been thriving. Like, it's pretty healthy, happy, thriving, like it seems really good. What would you say those key things that they all have in common?
Kindness.
Kindness.
Yeah. You can't take back the unkindnesses. They're there. They live there. You know, people will remember, by the way. Always.
I remember three years ago when you did this thing.
Yeah, I remember when you said that thing. I remember how it felt in my body. So kindness is especially important. And I would also say there are all these cultural norms that we have to get rid of. Like I had this couple where it was a heterosexual couple and she said to her husband, I just, I feel, I want to get closer to you. I feel like I want to know what's going on with you. I wish you would share more with me about your inner life. I feel like there's this distance between us. And he was like this guy's guy, right? And finally, finally, he opens up to her and he gets a little tear. And I see her body, I'm watching her and she's sort of, she's there with him, right? And then he starts crying. He starts talking about something really difficult. He has been holding in for a really long time. And she, on the one hand, feels so much compassion for him. and on the other hand, she's terrified because she kind of looks at me like, what do I do now? And so it was this interesting thing in our culture about safety with men and vulnerability because on the one hand, she's saying to him, I don't feel safe when you don't share with me. I feel distanced from you. I feel separated from you. I feel disconnected from you. I don't feel safe in our relationship when you're over there and I'm over here and we are not meeting. But on the other hand, If you start crying in front of me like that, you really are vulnerable and you let down your guard like that, I also don't feel safe, not because of anything you did wrong, but because I've been told by society that you are weak when you do that. Right? Like I feel like you are that now not my rock and you are not strong for me. And I didn't even realize I had those perceptions. I didn't realize that that's how I grew up. But that's what society has been telling me, that when a man cries like that in front of me that he's weak and now I don't feel safe and that somehow as a woman, I'm weak if I don't have a man to be strong for me. So we have to talk about all of these, all of these ideas that have been, you know, we've been brainwashed. And so then we have to like do the unbrainwashing and then they can actually come closer to each other and he didn't have to be the rock all the time and she didn't have to feel like you have to save me all the time.
I'm so happy you said this, Lori, because I wrote a book about this a few years back, the Mask of Masculinity, and I went on tour. I don't know if I told you this before, but I went on tour to talk about this. And the rooms were typically 50 50 men and women who are in the rooms. And I would say this exact thing that like women would say, well, I wish my, my partner or my husband were, were more sensitive or emotional or vulnerable and open up. and I'd say, well, you've got to learn to be there and be able to handle it. Because I've talked to so many men who say, you, know what? My wife keeps telling me they want to do this and I finally do it. And then they're like, well, I need you to be strong. Now, I don't feel safe. Exactly what you said. I was like, I'm so glad you said this from a therapist's point of view and not just a guy saying this, but I'm so glad that you're saying this and that you've witnessed this with your couples that have come in and you've actually seen this. Well, it's because I feel like it's It's so hard for men to want to express their vulnerabilities. And if they don't fit, and I had a previous girlfriend that I would cry in front of, that I would show, you know, my vulnerabilities. And it was freely doing it. I never held back because I was comfortable doing it myself in certain moments. You know, when I'd see something on TV or a movie or a sensitive thing, I would show emotion. And it's like she couldn't handle it. It's like she could not handle it. And she was like, Crying is weakness and she didn't cry in front of me and I was just like, Man, you're never gonna have respect for me if you think I'm weak for showing vulnerabilities. And then why would I want to be vulnerable around you if you're gonna disrespect me? I'm gonna want to gain your respect and I'm gonna want to get harder and have a wall, which luckily I.
Didn'T do, but I feel like in general a lot of men do that. Well, what you're doing is you're being really courageous, right? So I think it takes an incredible act of bravery to say to somebody, this is who I am. And so, and she's saying, oh, that makes you weak. No, it makes you strong. That's what I say all the time. It's like you are so okay with yourself.
Yeah, I don't care if you make.
Fun of me, I'm still gonna do it. Yeah, if this is me, and I'm gonna show up, and I'm gonna share with you, and I'm gonna be in this relationship. It's so interesting that you say that. So I'm raising a boy, and I noticed this because during COVID you know, everyone was saying, Talk to your teenagers. Talk to your kids about what they're experiencing. A lot of them are anxious and depressed. and all these things are happening. And my son one day said to me, he said, you know, that's really easy for people to say, but boys don't talk about this stuff. And I said, and I said, yeah, what do you think makes it so hard? And we had a little chat about it. And we actually put it on Instagram because I thought it was really important. And all these people responded to it.
So he started-- Didn't he write an.
Article I saw you send me? Yeah, he wrote an article for Time Magazine, but he started this thing called Talk with Zach on Instagram. He saw us, yeah. And he just wants to model that like for boys and men that like you can talk about what you're feeling, you can be vulnerable. In fact, not only can you, but you should because you want to be a whole human being. And I think that it's been really interesting because it's opened up the eyes of women and girls. -Yes, that's beautiful.
-You know, it's like, it's like I.
Have so many men who come to me for therapy and they say, I can talk to my guy friends. People think that your guy friends will make fun of you. of you if you open up to them, they won't actually. The people who are who I'm most afraid to talk to they'll say-- Girlfriend. Is my girlfriend, my wife, right? Like my sister. Like these are the people who like but your girlfriend or your wife especially because they depend on you in this way.
Absolutely. They tend to be the rock because they may not be the emotionally stable person majority of the time. Maybe they are or not.
The problem is though like so John in my book, he's one of of these people who would like hold it all in, right? And then there's this tragic thing that happens in his marriage. And he and his wife are both grieving. And he says, I had to be the rock. Like I couldn't cry. And he's the one who has insomnia, he's having nightmares, but he can't talk about any of it. She's the one who always cries all the time. And I said, maybe she's crying for both of you. And it just stopped him in his tracks. Maybe she's crying for both of you. And when he was able to start talking about what had happened and this loss that they'd had in their marriage and in their family, their marriage completely changed. It transformed, right? Because he didn't have to be, he thought, she didn't tell him, you, have to be the strong one for me. It was something that he just took in from the culture. And when he was able to share in the grief and the loss and they were able to kind of do this together, it was, a game changer.
What I feel like society needs in general is more men to be courageous enough to be vulnerable in sensitive moments and more women to be strong enough to be there when their male partner is being vulnerable and sensitive.
Yes.
And not making them wrong or laughing at them or feeling unsafe in those moments. I truly believe that when men can learn to have a safe environment to communicate effectively and vulnerably in appropriate times, there are going to be a lot happier people in general. There's going to be a lot less stress in the world. It's going to be a lot less fighting, arguing, power struggles, political struggles, you know, wars. I just feel like when men can learn the process of being able to express themselves and being accepted for it, they won't need to put up these walls and try to like protect themselves all the time.
Right, and what happens is they don't deal with what they're experiencing. So you'll have so many women come into therapy and say, oh, I think I might be struggling with depression or anxiety or whatever, a relational difficulty, and men just never talk about it. And you can see what happens. It affects their physical health. Right, it affects their health. And it comes out in other ways, right?
The anger, the stoicism, yeah.
Too much food, too much alcohol, drugs, just short-temperedness in relationships. Pornography, whatever it is. Any kind of distraction from the pain. It's really their self-medicate. They're really trying to medicate themselves. They're saying, I am really in distress, but I don't know where to go with it.
So how can, I mean, what needs to happen first? Men should start being more vulnerable and intimate in their relationships. You know, even if their partners are not willing to accept that, women should start saying, Hey, I want this like your couple came to therapy and said, I wish he would do this, but then when he started to open up, she's like, I don't know how to handle this.
Here's what I to couples about that now. I say, you,'re going to need a disclaimer because there's nothing they can do at that point if you've given the disclaimer that doesn't keep them aware. So you can say to your girlfriend, your wife, you can say, you know, I, you ask, you want me to be closer with you, you want me to open up to you. I really want to do that. I think it would be really good for us. I'm worried that if I do that you're, you know, there are all these stereotypes in our culture that you're gonna, you're gonna feel really uncomfortable, that it's gonna make you uncomfortable. And I'm asking you that if I do this, that you are able to sit with your discomfort and be present with me. Now, that's a lot of words, right? That's a lot of words. Not a lot of people will say.
I have the ability to say that.
But, but you you can say something like it, like, I wanna be able to do this, but I need you to be able to be there and not judge me. Because the last thing, if you judge me, if I feel like you think I'm weak or you think anything like that, you can bet that we're not gonna be having conversations like this.
Yes. I think this should be a highly encouraged video or audio to listen to. So if you're one person listening to this, You should have your partner listen to this with you and listen to this last part specifically and say, Hey, listen, let's try this if you feel this way. So you're both on the same page. So I encourage you listening to this with your partner or watching this with your partner.
Yes. You know how men will often say, oh, when she's crying, I just want her to stop crying.
Yes.
Right? And yet, when a man is crying, it's not, so, How will a man help a woman to stop crying? He'll usually go and hug her and comfort her. What does a woman do to get a man to stop crying? She just freezes. She really does. Or she'll use words like, It's okay, it's gonna be okay. No, really, it's not that bad. She generally won't go and hug him because she's so uncomfortable.
What should women do in that moment?
Go and hug him. Hug him. I'm here. I'm here. Tell me more. Tell me more. Say more. I'm here. Let's talk about it.
Wow, that's beautiful.
I really want to hear this.
Imagine all the men listening. Imagine your partner doing that. It probably feel like freedom, peace, like finally this feeling. So for all the ladies listening, if you have a male partner who's been resistant to being vulnerable, listen to what Lori's saying about this because this could really heal your relationship in a big way and help but thrive in that process. I think that's a big part of the repair process from what I'm hearing you say is like, you know, obviously when a woman feels safe to be vulnerable, they're going to feel like they can trust their male partner more. And when a man feels safe to be vulnerable, he'll be willing to do that and trust you more with that emotional burden as well, that weight that he's feeling.
So you asked me earlier sort of like, what is the secret to success of relationships? this. This is it being able to know that if you go to your partner with something that feels delicate, that they won't smash it, that they won't drop it. It was like what I said before, I felt like he had grabbed his heart and extended it to her and said, I feel lonely. And she said, But I didn't do that.
Right?
Like that if your partner is going to give you something, think of it as something really fragile and delicate. Like, you know, when you mail things, it's just like fragile. Like, be very careful with it. Like, it's really delicate. You have to be really gentle. Be really gentle. When your partner is handing you something delicate, be really, really gentle. Or you can bet that there's going to be a lot of loneliness in that relationship because people are going to go into their own silos.
Man, this is so good. So, the keys to thriving relationship, kindness, being gentle when there's vulnerabilities. Is there anything else you would add there? Or if you can do those two things, that's a pretty good relationship.
And take care of your own healing. Do the work. Don't expect someone else to do it for you. Do the work and bring that work to the relationship.
I love this. I love this. You've got an amazing book. Maybe you should talk to someone. I feel like this is a such a game changer for so many people. So, make sure you guys pick up a copy of this book. You also have a workbook. Same title.
Maybe you should talk to someone workbook. -The workbook. It's called How Changing youg Story Can Change youe Life. And it takes people through the process of rewriting their story and getting a.
Much more accurate version of their story. -Which is a game changer for your.
Healing process to rewrite the story of the past, right? -Yes. And even the faulty narratives that we carry around in the present. We carry around all these faulty narratives. You know, I'm unlovable. I can't trust anyone. Nothing will ever work out for me.
How do you rewrite those narratives?
Yes. Yeah. And so this workbook-- the workbook takes you through a step-by-step process of doing that. It's based on maybe you should talk to someone in the book, but it's also based on my TED Talk, which is about how changing your story can change your life. And, you know, everybody said, well, maybe you should talk to someone. Came out, they said, I learned so much. from the book, but I want to be like, I want a guide to do that. And so I put together this guide for everybody who has been asking for it, and I really wanted to give people the experience of what I do with people in the therapy room, how I help them edit their stories. Yes.
Where can we get that? The workbook.
Wherever you buy Amazon, independent bookstores, wherever you get your books.
It's all there. And where's the podcast? Everything's on your website too.
The podcast is called Dear Therapist. So you could listen on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.
It's a great podcast and Guy is your co-host on there. He's been on the show as well. He's amazing. So you guys have a great banter there. So, Dear Therapist, the workbook. You're also on Instagram. I see you over on Instagram, all your content as well. We'll link up that. Everything in the show notes, the TED Talk, This is amazing. I want people to, you might need to go back to this conversation and take some notes and start really implementing some of these things. So hopefully this has been a helpful resource for people. I appreciate you sharing. How else can we be a support to you? What else can we do to take action on? So let's get the workbook. Get it for you and your partner. Get this book. Listen to the podcast. What else can we do?
Yeah, I would say like the best thing that people can do is to just the most benefit from all of this is to actually use it in their own lives. I feel like, you know, emotional health is not just a thing that happens between you and yourself or you and a partner, but on a societal level. If we could all do these things, we would live in a very different kind of world.
-Absolutely.
-Yeah.
-I love this, Lori. I'm so grateful for you for coming back on and sharing this wisdom. And I acknowledge you for, and just showing up and doing work with people. You're in the work on a consistent basis. You're hearing these stories. You're getting feedback by giving exercises. You're just a wealth of information and knowledge. So I acknowledge you for showing up and making tools for us like the book and the workbook and the podcast. Because this stuff is messy for a lot of people. It's really messy.
It is. And that's why, you know, I feel like in the therapy room, you work with one person or two people or whatever it is. And and I really wanted to make this accessible to everyone. And that's why I'm writing these books and doing the podcast and TED Talk and all of that and having these conversations with you. Because I think that people, you know, nobody did this for people, right? Like growing up, like we don't, that's not what we do. We learn all these subjects in school, but we don't learn about emotional health. And so I really want to make it accessible for people and valuable for people.
I love it, Lori. I asked you this question before but I'm curious again, your three truths. So, imagine it's your last day on earth.
Oh my gosh.
And you've accomplished all of your dreams and written lots of books and created more and more content but for whatever reason, no one has access to your content anymore. It's got to go somewhere else. Your books, this podcast, everything gets all gone for whatever reason. Hypothetical. But you get to leave behind three lessons to the world, or what I call three truths. And this is all we would have to kind of have access to your content. What would you say would be those three truths for you?
Ooh, that's really hard on the spot. I would say the first one is you are enough.
Yes.
I think that people forget that. That you can be messy and fallible and imperfect and all of those things, but you are enough. Your essence is enough. I would say if you, the thing about if a fight breaks out in a bar, in every bar you're going to, maybe it's you. I would say your blind spots are important to shine a light on. It's really important to shine a light on your blind spots.
Yes.
And I would say be kind to yourself. because then you will be kind to others.
Absolutely. I always, I've heard this in the past, I can't remember who, but it's kind of in the personal development talk. It's like what's inside of you comes out. So if you're, you know, if there's whatever you get cut off in the car in front of you, if you're reactive and angry, there's anger inside of you. If you're like, okay, he's probably just having a bad day and smile or she's having a bad day, then there's kindness inside of you. So it's like whatever's inside of you comes out. So be aware of what's coming out of you and how you're reacting to situations.
That could be a blind spot too. Right, and what we were saying before about that biosphere, that if you yell at that person then what are you putting into, what fumes are you putting out into the world that other people are going to be breathing and you're breathing them too?
Absolutely. Final question, what's your definition of greatness?
I think it's very different from our culture's definition of greatness. I think greatness is like a feeling of peace. I think it's a feeling of peace, but not in a kind of a way just for you, but I think like making peace for other people in the world. That you're offering peace, that you're creating a way for people to find peace. That you navigate through the world in a way that that creates peace for other people. You learn to love yourself in the context of your relationships with others. You know, this idea that you go first to work on yourself here and then you prepare this little nice little package and you bring it to relationships that is completely off actually. You need a good amount of self-awareness but you also need to be in relationships because it's people who help you become more aware.
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