This Is Why Your Relationship Won’t Last [MASTERCLASS] EP 1314
2 Sept 2022 · 61 min
Faith Harper, a relationship expert, discusses why marriages fail and how couples can prepare better. The conversation covers premarital counseling, compatibility issues, and the practical skills that keep long-term partnerships together.
Chapters
Everybody wants to be loved in a different way and it may change over time. So you're constantly evolving and a part of your job as a good partner is to find out how does this person want to be loved?
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The UPS Store. Visit a store today. Welcome to this special masterclass. We've brought some of the top experts in the world to help you unlock the power of your life through this specific theme today. It's going to be powerful. So let's go ahead and dive in. What about the subtle red flags that you maybe you saw over time, but you didn't take action on and you realized, oh, that was actually a much bigger flag than but it was it was subtle. Like I let it kind of slip. What are those subtle red flags that people should be looking out for?
If you tell me you're a vegan.
And you eat meat.
And I see you on Snapchat eating some wings. You may think that's a small lie. Interesting. But what does it say about that person? It's saying that for some reason they feel that they need to, they can't be their true selves with you.
Interesting.
They're trying to project someone who they think may impress you and it's not really who they are. So when you see those subtle things that you don't understand, well, why didn't this person just be true and honest with me about this? This was a small thing. How do you think they're gonna handle the big things? So I actually look at those little things. What kind of digital footprint are people leaving online?
Yeah.
On their social media? What do they think is funny? I remember once someone wanted to set me up on a blind date with an actor here in LA and I looked at him, I'm sure he had no shortage of women, opportunities to date him. And he'd reached out to a person who he knew was a mutual friend and said, I'd like to meet Faith, would you set me up with her? Well, I went and looked on his social media. And he had a joke that he put on his social media that I thought was really crude and that I didn't think was funny, but he thought it was funny. But in that moment, I said, I'm not going to go out on a date with him. Some people may think, wow, you didn't even give him a chance. You didn't even, again, I know myself now. I know myself and I know that when I date somebody, even what they put out publicly on their social media, that's a reflection of me. That's a reflection of our relationship. That's a reflection of all those things. You may think that joke was small, but to me it represented a bigger picture of what I thought would be incompatibility.
How important is compatibility versus connection and chemistry? Of the three, connection, chemistry and compatibility, which one is most important in your mind?
You need all three. When I think about compatibility, I think about not just making a decision about where you are now in your life. Because over time, when you get into a relationship, as time goes on, people are going to change. When you lose a job or you get a new job, you have children, you don't have children, you go through certain stressful situations with your family, your health, All of these things in life, they continue to change us and shape us into who we are. So when I think about compatibility, I think about a person who is committed to a certain level of growth. You are not just going together in the future, you are growing together.
Ooh, yes.
And so that love has to be about being committed to the same commitment and a certain level of growth.
When someone wants to continue growing and developing himself and the other person doesn't want to, what happens in a relationship or a marriage when they're different there?
It's easy to fall in love, I think. I think it takes work to stay there. And so one example, I had a couple come into divorce court and the wife said, you know, initially, Our marriage was great, like most marriages, but over time, he started saying things to me that would really hurt my feelings. I gained weight. I gained 15, 20 pounds over the last couple of years, and he would comment on my weight. And we were initially committed to just building each other up. And even when we had criticism to share with each other, we were always constructive. And we always thought, How can I say this in the most loving way? And so she said, She continued to grow in that area But he didn't. And I turned to him and I said, so what happened? He said, well, I'm just speaking the truth. I said, Would you ever say to a stranger the things that you're saying to your wife? This is supposed to be your best friend. He worked in a restaurant. I said, Would you ever say those things to a patron in your restaurant? The things that you're saying to your wife? He said, I don't believe in divorce. We're Christians. We don't get divorced. I said, Really? What does God say about love? You're a Christian. What does God say about love? Love is kind. Love is patient. Love doesn't envy. Love certainly doesn't try to tear the other person down. So the commitment to that growth, it really shows up in the long term, in the longevity of the relationship.
Absolutely.
And if someone's not committed, Again, you have to protect your peace. I would never advise staying in a relationship where you are being emotionally abused and disrespected, because I'm going to tell you what happens. It breaks my heart to see people come in and they've been in these relationships for so long where they have been repeatedly dishonored. You know why? Because over time, When people have been repeatedly disrespected and dishonored, it becomes normal to them. It becomes a part familiar. And they in turn start to think they've been dishonored so much that they are not indeed worthy of honor because they've been dishonored repeatedly. Pain will subside over in time after you leave if you do the work, but it will always be there if you stay in that type of situation.
What would you say are the main causes of divorce? Is it cheating? Is it disrespect? Is it a lack of growth? Is it foul play, emotional abuse? What are the main causes you see?
People not being committed to the same commitment. And that is the growth, the love, the respect, finding out how your partner wants to be loved, because everybody wants to be loved in a different way, and it may change over time. So you're constantly evolving. and a part of your job as a good partner is to find out how does this person want to be loved? If you stop doing all of those things, it's like if you're, if you maintain and you take care of your yard, what are the things you do to take care of your yard? You have to mow the lawn, fertilize it, take care of the grass, fertilize it, pull out the weeds, all of those things to keep the yard looking great, to keep it growing. There are going to be seasons. They're going to be seasons. It may be dry one season. It may, it may be a rainy season. You're going to go through the but just like in life, the seasons are gonna change, but what are you doing to maintain throughout all of those things? Being committed to doing the work to maintain the relationship throughout the seasons is what speaks to success. And I see the opposite end of that. Because at no point can you just think that being on autopilot is It's gonna keep moving forward.
Right. There's a book obviously called, I think it's the Five Love Languages.
Yes, I love that book.
And I think it's such a powerful place to even just have a conversation with a partner in when you're dating and to take the love language test to see, do I like giving love in the way this person likes receiving love? I did this test with my girlfriend and I did it at the same time. I wish I would have done this in previous relationships. This isn't the end all be all. This isn't like if you have this in a perfect alignment, your relationship's gonna work out. But I think it's a great indicator of minimizing stress when you learn these things. And I realize that we have the exact same order of how we like to receive love based on the test we took. So we both like receiving love the same way, which means we both like giving love in the same way. Whereas in previous relationships, I didn't ask them, how do you really like to receive love? And they didn't ask me. We both didn't really do the test and go through that process. And over time, I remember feeling like, oh, they really like when I do certain things that I'm not comfortable doing, or it's not my natural go-to. It's more of a strain and it's harder for me to think of and remember to do certain things, and vice versa. They didn't like doing certain things that I like to be. I like being touched and told nice things and they wanted to keep their hands to themselves. Whatever it was. And I was like, man, just like if people couldn't get in alignment on that, at least in a couple areas, I think it would make it much smoother in the process. And there's a lot of different things out there that people can do about that. But how important is that, do you think, figuring out the love language of your partner before you get married?
It's a part of the service.
Yeah.
That comes with being in a relationship and being in a marriage. Big part of marriage is service.
Yes.
And sacrifice. And a part of the service is how am I going to serve my partner? I remember when my husband and I went through our premarital counseling, and we did pre-engagement counseling even.
So before you got engaged, you did counseling.
Yes.
To see Is it worth getting engaged? And then when you're engaged, you got.
Counseling to see, like, let's go.
Absolutely.
See, that's how serious I was about it. I think that's, I remember before my current girlfriend, I remember thinking to myself, gosh, I would love to get into a relationship and start therapy. Like when everything's good. And see, are we in alignment and like defuse some of the things that could be challenges in the future. And we've been doing that in our own way. Like she's got her own therapist, I've got mine and we're starting to do stuff together. and it's uncomfortable to have certain conversations, but it's so freeing at the same time. So anyways, you did this because you were so serious about it. And what did you learn about doing counseling pre-engagement, engagement before marriage as well?
Well, I thought if I get engaged and then I go to premarital counseling, I've already made the decision to get married.
Yes.
So I wanted to know, because remember, you're talking about I talked about the fear of the unknown. So I wanted to minimize the unknown. So I thought, I have all these questions and I think I'm asking the right questions, but I want to know, is there something that I'm not asking? Is there another area that we need to explore? Is there something else we need to talk about before we got engaged? Because we were talking about at that point, getting married. You know, so often when people get engaged and they announce it and they share with the world and the invitations are going out and then, oh wait, wait, we need to do our premarital counseling. And you may find out something that you don't like and are you gonna-- oh, whoopsie, it's too late.
What are you gonna do?
A lot of people feel the pressure.
I've heard so many stories of people getting divorced. I'm sure you've heard this too, where the woman or the man said, I knew on my wedding day this wasn't the right fit. It wasn't the right fit. Have you heard that before?
Yes, they knew.
And they still go through with it. I'm like, why do you put yourself through this?
They don't want to be embarrassed.
But then two, five years later, you went through just pain and sadness, and you settled for something that wasn't the right thing.
People think-- and I'm not judging people.
Here, because I've made a ton of my own mistakes, but it's like-- We've.
All made those mistakes. We had to learn the hard way. Some people, you know, you have to learn the hard way, and all opportunities for you to grow.
But you can minimize that based on-.
You can minimize it.
And maybe you go through all the premarital counseling and the pre-engagement and it still doesn't work out for whatever reason.
But at least you hopefully have a good- you- did your due diligence. Yes. You did your due diligence so you.
Can go in with a little more confidence because of your due diligence. And if something would have came up in one of these conversations that you're like, that's completely out of alignment with what I want, you could have figured.
Out, is there a solution to this? If not, then maybe you wouldn't have gotten married.
Well, there are two things about what.
You just said, which is great, because Some people think that by getting married, it's going to change something or change a person or things will be different.
It's not, yeah.
The only thing a wedding will change is maybe your last name.
Right.
Weddings will break the bank, but they will not break bad habits.
That's true.
Right.
So you can expect when you get married, you've won the pie-eating contest. What is the prize for winning the pie eating contest? More pie. You won this person. What is the prize? You get more of them. So you better be happy with your choice.
Yeah.
And you can't change someone.
Not because of pressure. Yeah, or nagging or crying or any of those things. It has to be something within. You come from within.
Yeah, each person has to want to change. And I really don't think you can date or marry based on potential personally. And I hear a lot of women saying, well, he's got so much potential. He could become this man, but then he never becomes it.
That's why I wrote this book.
That's why I wrote that book. So you date or marry based on potential, but then you're really settling because who you're dating and who you're marrying is who they are. Maybe they grow into something greater based on what they want, but you can't expect them to be on a timeline you want.
You are dating their reality, you want to marry their potential. Those two things should be aligned. Right. We went to pre-marriage counseling.
Engagement.
Engagement counseling. Because I wanted to make sure that we were asking each other the right questions. And we were getting to know each other the best we possibly could before even making the decision to get married.
To get engaged. And then you had time to ask more questions once you're engaged. So what were the three conversations or questions that were the most challenging? for you to have the courage to talk about or just navigate. What were the three most uncomfortable conversations in pre-engagement counseling?
How have you healed from your past?
Gosh, healing is so key. It's so key.
Okay.
Because we both had past relationships that didn't work out for one reason or another. And I think we both wanted to know if there were going to be triggers that would bring out something from the past in our current relationship. There's always gonna be residue.
We're human.
You were talking about before we started that marriage is a technology. Now, what does that mean? What is the technology of marriage?
I think anything that's designed to solve a problem is a technology, right? So, I mean, this mug is a technology, you know? And what is the problem to which this technology is a solution? Well, it's the problem of I can't hold hot tea in my hands. It's a problem of I don't want to use, and kudos to you for using non-disposable ones, that zero waste, you listen to her. And the truth is, is that it's designed to solve a problem. So the next question is who has that problem? Well, you know, anyone who wants to drink a beverage has that problem, you know. And the next question, and I think the most important question is what problems does it unintentionally create? Okay, so every technology is a Faustian bargain in the sense that it solves a problem and it creates a problem.
You gotta clean it, you gotta use.
Water, you gotta store it. Exactly, you have to find stylish ones. I mean, you went, you know, classic plain, but you gotta find ones with witty sayings on them and it can break and now my favorite mug was broken and how am I gonna replace it? I mean, again, some of these problems are silly little problems in exchange for really great benefits. But, Most people never ask themselves the question, the technology of marriage, which is a man-made technology, a human-made technology. We got together and said, Hey, let's create this legal contract.
Governed by a state.
Right, governed by the state. Let's come up with something that let's turn a lover into a relative. You know, let's find a way to turn this into a legally binding contract. And people just go and sign up for this technology and they spend more time thinking about what cake they should serve at the ceremony, then thinking about what did I just sign on for and why did I sign on for it and what are some problems it might create for me in exchange for the things that it solves for me. And by the way, will it even solve the problem that I'm trying to have it solve? And one of the things I talk about in the book is, you know, if you got married to solve the problem of being alone, you might be alone still in your marriage. Like, if you got married because you want to have sex, you want to have more sex, you know, being married is no more a guarantee of getting sex than living near a restaurant is a guarantee of getting fed. You know, it doesn't mean just because you're in it, you're going to receive the benefit that you think you're going to receive of it. And how many couples before they get married really sit down and say, hey, we're going to sign up for this technology. What do you want to get from it? What should I be wanting to get from it? How will it change over the years? That just doesn't happen. So if that doesn't happen, how are we then surprised that it doesn't work? 53% of the time.
53% is now the standard.
Is the divorce rate.
The divorce rate, then more probably still don't work, but they're in it.
Exactly. So that's the part, and it's funny that you go there because that's where I go with it. So 53% is already terrifying, right? If I said to you there's a 53% chance when you when you walk out of this room, you get hit.
In the head with a bowling ball.
Yeah, you're probably not going to go out. Or you're going to wear a helmet at a minimum.
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53% end in divorce.
That's U.S. or global? U.S. U.S. only. Okay? Now think about how what percent stay.
Together from the kids that should get divorced, but stay together.
Can't stand each other.
They stay together.
They stay together because they don't upset the kids or they don't want to give away their stuff.
I would say another 75% stay together even though they want to get divorced.
Okay, so let's say 20, so another 25% of married people, let's say. So now we've got a technology with a failure rate over 75%. Okay, so now what percentage stay together for religious reasons. Probably a declining percentage over the years, but let's say more, you know, five percent.
That might be the same as kids and, you know, might be the same.
Yeah.
So if I say there's a technology with a failure rate of 80, Toyota had a 0.0001% brake failure.
Nice save.
On their, a 0.001% brake failure on one of their vehicles, and they recalled All of them.
All of them.
So if I said to you 80% of technology, you-- We still use it.
Yes.
Not only do we use it, we celebrate its use.
Yeah, it's part of our culture. And we're shamed if we're not married on that.
Absolutely. Well, because it's considered a sign that you're not mature and forward thinking.
Mm-. And we're shamed if we're divorced.
Right.
But now we're being celebrated to get.
Out of marriages if it's not what we want or if we're not getting what we want.
That's a trend that's definitely starting to change.
So, I think-- Like leave him, divorce.
Him, or whatever, you know.
Right.
Well, I think his self-actualization, you know, became more of a thing. And after the 1970s, you know, people started thinking about, like, you know, themselves and their happiness. It wasn't just about the unit anymore. It was about, you know, finding yourself. Then, yeah, it became more acceptable to be self-interested. I'm not gonna say selfish, because not all self-interested behaviors are selfish. But it became more acceptable to say, I'm not happy. You know, I married this person when I was 20.
Yeah.
And now I'm 40. And shockingly, I'm not the same person at 40 that I was when I was 20. And now I'm a different person and it's no longer a good fit. You know, I mean, the analogy I tell people is, if I said to you right now, you can have any car you want, what car would you have?
Well, I just got a Tesla.
I have a Tesla, too.
I actually don't care about cars. I'm not a big car guy either. But I got one for tax reasons, actually. Okay, cool. And I had a 1991, I still have a 1991 Cadillac El Dorado.
Okay.
That had like 60,000 miles on it. Okay. I Uber everywhere. I don't really use a car. Yeah. So you have any car you want? But I like the Tesla. I like the Tesla. Okay.
Because it's fuel efficient. It's, you know, I just wish I had a bigger battery. You're a pragmatic guy. You asked most people that question.
They're gonna go Ferrari.
Ferrari Lamborghini. I want a Maserati.
Okay, yeah.
Now if I then said to them, okay, you get one car though, whatever car you pick, that's the car you're gonna have for the rest of your life. Suddenly, a Lamborghini is a terrible idea because you can't put a car seat in it for a kid. And you can't, you know, when you're 80 years old, get into that car, right? you are only allowed to have one car, you gotta find a car that not only makes sense when you're 20 and 30 and 40, but when you're 70. And when you have kids. And when the kids have gone away. So again, like a minivan that might make sense when you got three kids, when the kids go off to college, that minivan no longer makes sense. Well, marriage is a technology where you're signing on with one person and saying for the rest of my life, I'm gonna be with this person. And that's a very challenging thing. But here's the thing, I actually think people give more thought to the car they're buying than they do really to the technology of marriage and what about it specifically they like or don't like.
What training or information do you think do you wish every couple would go through before signing up for the technology of marriage?
That's a great question. I think, you know, if you buy A house, you get a lead paint disclosure, you get a HUD disclosure that talks about the loan, you get all kinds of disclosures, right? You sign a will, there's all these pages that explain to you in great detail what's happening when you sign that will. You get married, you don't even get a pamphlet. You don't even get like a one-page brochure that says this is what it is. This is the most legally significant thing other than dying that you will ever do legally. and you don't get any information about what just happened. So the first thing I would say is I think everybody who's gonna get married should have an hour consultation with a divorce lawyer. Absolutely.
So they should go into your office.
Yes, for a different reason. For a different reason, prophylactically. Yes, they should come in proactively and learn about what's about to happen legally, what's about to happen to my rights, you know, what's about to change in terms of how I own property, the financial obligations I'll have to this person. I would also say one of the best things they could do is talk to someone candidly who's been married for an extended period of time. You know, that's not something we do. We're not encouraged to be honest about our relationships. We're not. I mean, one of the things you talk about masculinity that I loved is about particularly for men, but I think it's true for women too. We don't share candidly what's really going on. in our lives. We're in a very curated society where you put up on social media the best picture and the best vacation photos and the best of everything we're doing and we don't share with each other the challenges, we don't share with each other even really relevant information. Like when I meet a couple who's been together for 20 years, you know, I want to know, I mean I love the story of how did you meet? You know, how many times a to have sex? Who initiates it? Do you ask the shiz? Do you always do the same stuff? Because you've been together for 20 years and you know what each other like? Or do you call an audible every once in a while and just do some wacky thing? What is it really like, the day to day of your relationship? And so many people, I mean, you've been in relationships, I've been in relationships. So many people just don't talk honestly. Even when I'm with my guy friends, do we really talk honestly? about the day to day of our relationships, the way we talk to the women in our lives, like the nickname they have for us or the nickname we have for them. Again, it's private to some degree information, but if we could share that stuff a little more, we'd have a lot more accurate of a perception of where our relationship stands in the scheme of things and how we're doing, you know, because I really think there's this perception that people have of, you know, oh, we're only having sex this many times a week. It's like, well, okay, is that a lot? Is that too little? Like, you have nothing to compare it to. Right, right. You know, so in marriage, there's no way to know if you're doing well in it. Because you can't say, well, you know, we have fights every now and then. Well, okay, people have fights every now and then. But if you have a fight every week, that might be a lot. But how would you know? What would you compare it to? So I would say one of the best things you can do to people who are considering getting married is put them in a room with people who've been good at that technology, who've managed to not only endure marriage, but endure it and still like it. And thrive.
Right.
And thrive.
Right.
And still say, you know what? I'd sign on for this again. Like in a room full of people.
I'd still pick this person.
Yeah, that's cool. And how many of those opportunities do we really get to talk to people that way about the relationship?
Not many, yeah. And maybe also talk to someone who's been through divorce and ask them what didn't work and why didn't it work.
And where did it break down? Exactly. See, one of the principles that inspired me to write the book was the idea that, you know, again, I hate using car metaphors because I'm not a car guy. But it's the best analogy I can think of in the sense that if when you bought a car, you did every bit of preventative maintenance that a mechanic told you to do.
You changed the oil every... Everything. Two months or whatever.
Yeah, my dentist, you know, She always says to me, By the time your tooth hurts, you're screwed.
Prevent it. Loss every day, not after you have any problems.
If you have all the stuff she tells you to do when you go see her, your teeth are gonna do well. So it's for me, who knows more about how a car breaks down than a mechanic, right? So I know what, I know people are in my office and I get a very candid view of them and I get to talk to them and I have been very blessed that people trust me with tremendously personal information. And so what I wanted to do with that information is just find a way to leverage that into some kind of wisdom that people could use and say, you know what? Just don't do what they did. When we were talking about titles for the book, you know, it was a hilarious escapade because, you know, one of the first ideas was, well, we'll call it Everyone Screwing Everyone. Because it was about how people just abuse use each other in the process of divorce and how they're really taking advantage of each other. And then we said, well, no, that's too pessimistic. And we said, well, maybe we can just call it vows and talk about the promises that people make. But it's not really the promises that are interesting. It's the way that people go in with good intentions with those promises and they just can't keep it together. So I really think that for me, The best thing we can do with anybody is to show them a model of success, right? And show them a model of failure. And look, you've said it a million times on this show that you learn just as much from your successes as your failures. You might learn more from your failures to some degree. So we don't have those role models. We don't have relationship role models. And one of the things you talked about masculine masculinity when you're talking about Neil Strauss and his marriage and how he says, look, it was my stuff. It wasn't like I said, oh, I don't like marriage because I don't like this about it. I don't like that it would force me to do this and force me to do that. And really what it was is he just didn't want to look at his own stuff. And he felt like to have a good marriage, you'd have to look at his own stuff, which is absolutely true.
Yeah.
And most of what my book is about is about, yeah, you got to look at your stuff. If you want to be successful in this technology, you gotta look at it, own it, and share it with this person. And be aware and be honest with.
The person about who you are and what you want, what you don't want. Now you were married for how long? I was married for 12 years. 12 years. Got divorced.
Yeah, got divorced.
While you were a divorce attorney. Yes, while I was a divorce attorney. So you're hearing these stories every day. And going through it. Going through your marriage.
But you know my, yeah, my marriage I think benefited from my experience as a divorce lawyer.
Because you knew the cues of what not to do or what was gonna work.
But it was hurt by the fact that I love what I do for a living and was so consumed with it that I worked constantly. You know, my ex-wife who is one of my dearest friends to this day, she's remarried to an amazing guy who's who's a great stepdad to my sons who are now older, they're both in college. But I'm very blessed. I mean, I've had an experience of divorce where I'm still close friends with her, I'm friends with her husband, you know, and I'm very lucky for that. Because I look at it like there's a lot of people I love that I wouldn't want to be married to.
Sure.
And she's one of them. She's someone I love, she's someone I appreciate who I think is just an amazing person. We don't have the exact ingredients that you need to be successful in marriage. Because we met when we were 17. And what we wanted when we were 17, 18, 19, 22, when we got married, 24 when we had kids, when we turned around and we're in our 30s, we went, you know, we don't actually have that much in common. And so either I'm gonna have to stop being who I actually I am. Like, I love to travel. You don't love to travel. You love, you know, I mean, from silly things. You love shabby chic furniture, and I like very zen aesthetics. You know, like, you love this kind of movie, and I love this kind of movie. And you reach a point where you kind of go, well, do we white knuckle it now because we don't want to quit something that isn't working? Or do we say, you know what? Let's call this. Let's call this, and let's find someone who feeds us in the right way and see if, or just be alone for the right reasons. And I'm very blessed that the person who I was married to was mature enough to see it the same way and to have that painful but really wonderful conversation that so few people can have. And that is to say, look, this thing was successful. We both are leaving this better people than we were when we came into it. And we're leaving it with two kids that are the exact chemistry of the two of us and they're made up of the two of us. But we're gonna kind of take our different paths now and let's still love each other. Let's still respect each other.
It's not just uncoupling.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean that's the term that's been handed to it. But you know the truth is, is I think people have been doing it for years. You just don't hear about it. It's not that my divorce is the least interesting thing about me.
It really is.
Like if I said to you, tell me 10 things about yourself, the fact that I'm divorced wouldn't make a list because the fact that I tried to marry someone and stay with them forever and it didn't work out isn't that interesting. It's not that unique. You know what you hear about the people who talk about their divorces incessantly are people who were wounded by them. And now they've be victimized by their divorce. And so it becomes a tremendous part of their identity.
And they hold on to it for a while and they talk about it and here's what happens.
And so, you know, they're the silent, you know, there's a huge number of people that had divorces like mine where the marriage just ended. It ended in a friendly fashion. They continue to co-parent successfully together and they both live their lives.
There's not this pain and resentment for years.
And no, and I I can tell you as a divorce lawyer, as a practicing divorce lawyer, a huge, I would say more than 50% of the people that I represent, it's that kind of transaction. It really is that it's just two people that their time is done and now we just have to figure out how to divide up the things they have and work out the schedules with the kids.
That's good to know. 50%.
Yeah, I would say at least 50%.
That's good.
But the thing is the other 50% are louder. Are so much more interesting. I mean, so much. It's like, 'cause really, who wants to hear about, like, oh, I talked to my ex-wife yesterday. She's lovely. She's moving to Rochester soon. Like, that's her life.
It's the drama on the train.
She threw a bat at me. She set my car on fire. Like, it's way more interesting.
Oh, man. Do you feel like, you know, marriage, I hear this all the time, it's something that's not gonna be easy.
Right.
There's gonna be challenges. There's gonna be fights or arguments and there's gonna be some things that you're not gonna agree on. Sure. If you ground everything awesome, but it doesn't sound like there's many marriages that are always perfect and always smooth. After 10, 20, 30 years, there's gonna be some conflict. So does that mean, in your opinion, that we should just be like, you know what? Let's just throw in the towel when it gets too challenging or, you know, it's getting challenging. That's when we got to dive in deeper and, like, come together as a marriage 'cause we signed up for this?
It's a great question. I would say the following. I think one of the most common things people will say to you about marriage is, marriage is hard. Marriage is hard. I don't know that that's true. I think if you consider paying attention hard, then marriage is hard.
Right.
If you don't consider paying attention hard, then I don't think marriage has to be hard. I think that it's again, not to use the metaphor again, but losing weight is harder than maintaining your weight. And I really think, look, you're gonna have challenges. You're not necessarily gonna have fights, you're gonna have challenges. Life is gonna throw challenges in your way. adversity, career issues, you know, day-to-day miscommunications with each other. If you're not paying attention, those things get huge. And then the big, big things happen. So people come in and they go, I'm getting divorced because he's sleeping with his secretary. You are. That's a great reason to get divorced, and that's a legit thing. He's not, he's sleeping with his secretary because there's something wrong in the marriage. Yeah. You know, and you if you don't want to look at that because you have some culpability in that. And it's easier to just go, oh, this harlot came and took him away. And it's a lot easier to say that. But the truth is, you know, you stopped paying attention, you know? And this is the question I find myself when I have a minute, you know, with a client who I've been some miles with. And we're sitting outside of the, you know, the courtroom waiting for the case to be called, and I have Enough of a rapport with them and we've been enough of a distance together that I feel like I can be candid with them. I'll say to them, was there a moment where you realized your marriage was over? What was that moment? And you would be amazed at the insight if people think about that question that they give to you. I had a woman who said to me, and it was to me a very powerful example, I discussed a little bit in the book. She said there was a kind of granola that she liked. and you could only get it at like a certain store, like a Whole Foods or something like that. And her husband used to always buy it. He used to always buy it whenever she was running low, she would just open the cabinet and there'd be another bag of it there. And she loved that because he didn't say like, oh look honey, I bought your granola, like I get credit for that. You know, like he just would do it. He just saw that this was something that he was paying attention. He just saw that there was this little thing, it was this little kindness that he showed her that let her know she was important to him. He was still kind of trying to woo her without being obvious about it, and he was still paying attention. And she said then one day she just ran out of the granola and it wasn't there. So she thought, oh, well, maybe he's, like, busy and he just didn't notice. So she kind of left the bag out. And, you know, sure enough, he still didn't replace the granola. And she said she had a tangible memory. It was about a year before the sexual divorce. But she had a tangible memory where.
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Over.
You know, this thing is over now. And I think that that's the thing. That's kind of, if you boiled my book down, one of the things I say to people is there's this thing in every relationship, some little thing that you did for your partner or some little that you just had to tell them, that at some point you just stopped telling them.
Yeah.
You know, I don't know if it's just in the morning saying like, God, you're so pretty when she walks by, or if it's her saying to you like, you know, I love your strong arms or whatever it might be. Like there's just those little things like we just want someone cheering for us. We just want, why do we get together? We want connection. We just want connection. Like there's no other reason to get married. Other than wanting connection.
So people come in because they're in pain and they want the pain to go away.
Yeah.
And they've tried, maybe they've tried something else that didn't work and you're like, talk medicine, right? Without having to take a pill, how can I relieve this pain, this suffering, this problem? But the problem, what I'm hearing you say is never about another person, it's always with them.
Well, not always. I think that relationally a lot of people don't realize that even if the other person is problematic, So when I was training, one of my clinical supervisors once said, before diagnosing someone with depression, make sure they aren't surrounded by assholes. Right.
Right?
So it's not like there aren't problematic people out there. Their environment. Right, but then what is your response to that? And I think that people don't realize how much agency they have. They don't realize that they can choose their response to their circumstances. They can choose their response to the people around them. And I'm not saying that there aren't incredibly daunting circumstances right now in the world, for example. But then how do you respond? What are you going to do about it? And I think that's where people get stuck.
I love your TED Talk because you talk about rewriting your story from the past. And I believe that we hold onto our stories and we probably continue to write them in a more powerful way that keeps us trapped or traumatized. Is that fair to say that something happens in our past we hold onto the story daily or whenever we're triggered and it amplifies the story in our minds.
Well, it does. And the problem is that often whatever that version of the story is, we carry with us and we never revise it. And so you create a story when you're younger, for example, about something that happened in your life. And then as an adult, you've never looked at that story through the adult lens. You're still looking at it through the childhood lens. And so that's why I say that when people come in that we're all unreliable narrators. Yes. That we all tell a story through, you know, this lens. And the thing is these are usually faulty narratives. So there's a broader version of the story that people haven't looked at. And so I feel like in a lot of ways what I do as a therapist is I act as an editor and have, of course, a writing background. And so I help people to revise their stories. Because the reason they can't move forward in the story, the reason they can't get to the next chapter is because of something is wrong with the story. They are stuck. And so it's almost like I'm helping them with writer's block.
I mean, for me, life is an interpretation.
Yes. Right?
There's an instance that happens and we can interpret it as good or bad, or we can interpret it as this is a neutral event and I'm gonna make the most of this. Is that fair to say?
Yeah, absolutely. And also how we attribute other people's parts of the story, right? So who are the villains and the heroes in the story? You know, I talk in the book about the difference between idiot compassion and wise compassion. And idiot compassion is what our friends do. They back up our story, no matter what. We say, this happened. This happened with my boss. This happened with my partner. This happened with my parent, right? This happened with my best friend. And we say, yeah, that was terrible. Screw them. They're a jerk. You know, that's awful. You're right, they're wrong. Don't let anyone treat you that way. That's what we do. And if you listen to your friend's stories, you start to realize over time that even though the situation and the names might be different, the kind of story they're telling is similar. It's kind of like if a fight breaks out in every bar you're going to, maybe it's you. Yeah, exactly. We don't say that.
That's idiot compassion. Idiot compassion is where we as friends say, yeah, you're the best person in the world. This person's horrible.
Yeah.
Leave them or let them go. Forget about them. They're so bad at what they did. There's always two sides to every story.
Well, right. And so the value of therapy is that we offer wise compassion. We hold up a mirror to you and help you to see yourself in a way that maybe you haven't been willing or able to do. And that's where the other version of the story comes in.
So how do we have wise compassion for our friends when they're like, he cheated on me, he left me, they had an affair, whatever. How do we change our story and also show compassion that we're there for our friend, not making, when they're in a vulnerable place, not making the other person right or wrong, but being there for them and also kind of giving them some tough love, I guess?
I wouldn't call it tough love, I would just call it-- Reality. Love.
Love.
It's love, it's much more loving to be truthful in a compassionate way. So I sometimes call them compassionate truth bombs because we need to hear them. But how do we do it? It has to do with timing and dosage. So the timing is when they're really raw, when something just happened. Now's not the time to say, you know, this has happened with your last three boyfriends.
Maybe you're the problem here.
Have you noticed that going through people's phones is not working well for you? We are not going to say that maybe in that moment. so that's timing. And then the dosage is how much are you going to say in a particular moment and in a particular conversation? It doesn't all have to happen in one conversation. So I think that that has to do with being a good listener. And a lot of us don't know how to listen. And I think it's really helpful. I see a lot of couples in my practice too. And if you can say to the person when they come to you with something, how can I be helpful in this conversation right now? I know you're really hurting. Do you wanna just vent? Do you wanna hug? Do you want me to help problem solve with you? Do you want my honest opinion or do you want me to hold off and we can have that conversation another time? Let them tell you what they want so you can give them something that is helpful to them in that moment and then in another conversation, you might be able to offer them something more.
When they're not completely raw or broken.
Yes.
And hurt.
Yes.
So what is that specific question when anyone's coming to you with a challenge or a complaint or a hurt What's the question you should ask them?
How can I be helpful to you right now? I know you're really hurting.
What does that do for the person who's hurting when they hear that?
It helps them to reflect on, oh wait, what do I need?
Right?
Am I just gonna download all of this stuff and then I'm not gonna feel any different at the end? Or is there something else that I want right now? And maybe downloading it will make them feel different. Just make them feel seen and understood and heard. which is important, or maybe they want something else, but let them tell you. And I think the other thing is these three words that are really helpful when they're talking to you are tell me more. So instead of saying, you know, when they say like, oh, here's what's going on, and we say, oh, well, we try to cheer them up. Like, you know, here's what you can do. We try to fix it. We try to cheer them up. We try to make it seem like it's not so bad, whatever we do. Instead, just say, Tell me more. We do this with our kids. I can say as a parent, we do this all the time, right? So your kid comes to you and says, I'm really sad about this, or I'm really worried about this. We say, oh, don't worry. No, it's not a problem. We say, oh, don't be sad. Right? Go have ice cream. Right, exactly. But the thing is that then you get the message as a kid that like, oh wait, I'm not supposed to feel this. And really what it is is we get uncomfortable as parents with our kids' feelings. Why is that? Because we can't, we are uncomfortable with feelings. We grew up in a way where feelings were messy, feelings were uncomfortable, feelings were something that, you know, they were gonna be trouble. Yeah. As opposed to- Stop crying, stop crying. Yeah, as opposed to just, you know, feelings are actually a great thing. People say, oh, there are these negative feelings like sadness, anxiety, anger, whatever. Even envy. I always say feelings are like a compass. They tell us what direction to go in. So with envy, for example, I say, follow your envy. It tells you what you want. If you are feeling envy, that's great because it says, what do I desire? It puts you in touch with your desire. What is it that I desire? And what steps can I take to get something like that in my own life? If you're feeling sad, if you're feeling anxious, what is not working right now that you can look at if you stuff down that feeling? if you pretend it's not there, it just gets bigger and here's what happens. It doesn't go away. It comes out in too much food, alcohol, drugs, insomnia, a short temperedness, inability to function, distractibility, that mindless scrolling we all do through the internet. A colleague of mine said that the internet was like the most effective short term non-prescription pain killer out there. And so what happens is your feelings are still there, but you're not dealing with them.
What happens when we never deal with our emotions or feelings?
Well, you first of all get sick. Physically sick, emotionally sick, mentally sick. Everything, everything. So we have, just like we have a physical immune system, we have a psychological immune system. And we have to take care of our psychological immune system. So it's just like What do you do to keep healthy with your body? You're gonna eat right, you're gonna exercise, you're gonna do all the things that you wanna do to take care of yourself, you're gonna get enough sleep. Those things also help your psychological immune system. They're not totally separate, the mind-body connection is profound. But at the same time, are you going to be around people who don't nourish you? That's going to hurt your psychological immune system. That's gonna make you sick. Are you gonna stuff down your feelings? that's going to make you sick. And so how do we take care of ourselves? And part of it is instead of trying to numb out your feelings because numbness isn't the absence of feelings. Numbness is a state of being overwhelmed.
By too many feelings.
And then not only do you not experience the feelings that you don't want to experience, but you don't experience the other feelings. You mute one feeling, you mute the others. You mute the pain, you mute the joy. So you're living in this state where you don't actually get to feel the range of feelings that make us human.
What is that state called?
I was gonna say dead. I mean, I feel like you can be alive but not living. And that's what happens to people, is that they're alive. They're going through the motions. They wake up every day, but they're not really living their lives.
What's an assessment we could take for ourselves, if someone's listening or watching, to ask themselves, how alive or how dead they are. And if the people in their life closest are actually good for them or are hurting their psychological states. Is there a questionnaire we could take just off the cuff? Is there an assessment? Is there a few things we could ask ourselves?
Yeah, I mean, I think that it has to do with a sense of vitality, right? Which of course, like vitality, the word life is right in there. When you wake up in the morning, Are you excited about what you're doing? Is there meaning in what you're doing? Do you feel connected to how you're spending your days? Because at the end of your life, are you gonna look back and say, what did I do that was meaningful? You know, and maybe you should talk to someone in my book. There's a woman that I treat, she's this young woman who goes on her honeymoon, she's newly married, she comes back, and she has cancer. And she says to me at one point, she says, why do we need a terminal diagnosis To have a wake-up call. Why do we need a terminal diagnosis to live our lives with intention? Why do we need that to really pay attention? And I think that if we can keep the awareness of death sitting on one's shoulder, and I don't mean in a morbid way or in a creepy way, it's not depressing. It's actually, again, going back to vitality, it helps us feel alive because life has 100% mortality rate and that's not for other people. We like to believe that. Right? And so the thing is that if we know that we have a limited time here, I think we would pay more attention to what we're actually doing every day.
Why is it so hard for people to pay attention?
Fear.
But they feel like they're stuck sometimes for years.
Yes.
It's like I stay stuck in a relationship that I know is not right for me for years. I stay in a depressed state for years. I stay in a job that I hate for years. It's all based on fear.
Well, I think it is fear. You know, I think it's fear of uncertainty. This is going to sound strange, but change is really hard because we cling to something that's familiar to us. So even though we may know, oh, this would help me. This would be a good change for me. We don't do it because it's unfamiliar. And so if you grew up with a lot of chaos, if you grew up feeling sad all the time or anxious all the time, That feels like home to you, even if it's unpleasant or even miserable. She'll keep finding chaotic environments.
Right. And recreating it.
Yeah, and so, you know, it was funny, 'cause my own therapist gave me this great analogy. He said to me, he said, you remind me of this cartoon, and it's of a prisoner shaking the bars, desperately trying to get out. But on the right and the left, it's open, right? No bars. So basically, the prisoner is not in jail. And that's what so many of us are like. We feel trapped. We're not in jail. We're not in jail. We can change. We can just walk around the bars. But why don't we? Because with freedom, the freedom to walk around the bars, comes responsibility. And if we're responsible for our own lives, that scares us. We feel like, oh, I don't know if I can do that. I don't know if I'm competent enough to do that. Or now I'm to blame if things don't go right.
I can't blame it on everything else. Is this one of the reasons why inmates after a long time being in prison who get out go back into prison because they feel like they need to be back in that environment? Are there other reasons?
I think there are other reasons. I think we don't give people the support when they come out. You know, the mental health issues that they needed to be treated for were never, you know, they never got that support. Then they come out and they're back in the same situation where they don't have that community support.
Why is it so hard for us to take responsibility for our own happiness?
I think that if you grew up in a household where you were seen and heard and understood, those are the people who do take responsibility for their own happiness. I think for people who felt like they were ripped off in their childhoods, there's a part of them that's still in a fight. There's a part of them that still wants that redo. And so it's kind of like they're not aware of this. But what they're saying is basically, I will not change mom and dad until you give me the things that I did not get in childhood.
So they'll go find a partner that emulates their environment from mom and dad and try to change them so they- well, right.
This is the irony of relationship, right, for those people who have not sort of worked through it. This is so common. And I think all of us have this peace in us, right, because nobody had a perfect your childhood. So what happens is people say, okay, when I'm an adult, I'm gonna pick a partner who really makes me feel nourished, who really gives me all those things that I did not get growing up. But what they don't realize is unconsciously they have this radar for the people who look very different from their parents on the surface. But then once they get into that relationship, it's kind of like, -oh, this feels familiar, right? And so what they did was they're unconscious. said when they were picking their partner, hey, you look familiar, come closer. Even though consciously they thought, oh, you're totally different from my parents, this is gonna work out great. But no, they have radar for that if they haven't worked out the stuff that's sort of their unfinished business. There's this saying, we marry our unfinished business. We actually do marry our unfinished business. So that is why it is so important as an adult to take responsibility and say, you know what, I am going to have to grieve this loss. of what I didn't get and I'm going to have to work through this and assess where I am as an adult so that I pick people and surround myself with people who are healthy for me.
What if you've chosen someone that you love deeply but it's unconsciously your unfinished business? Is that the wrong person for you once you realize, oh, they're never going to change or is that a point for us to reflect back and say, actually, I need to heal the past, accept this person for who they are, and be willing to flow within this relationship.
Well, what happens is, so you married your unfinished business, but so did they. And so if you can both recognize that, if you realize, hey, wait, we have a lot of conflict in our relationship, or we're really avoidant in our relationship, or we don't feel connected in the way we wanna feel connected, that's a great opportunity for both of you to work out your unfinished business.
To heal together.
To heal together, right?
And so that relationship could thrive.
If you both are willing to look in the mirror at yourselves and do the work, yes, that could be a really beautiful relationship. And it could be very healing for both of you, in fact.
It could potentially be the strongest bond ever if you both were able to go through that. But if you're unwilling to go through that, then what?
You're going to be in- Both people.
Have to be willing. Well, both people have to be willing. thing. So it's like you may wake up one day and say, oh wait a minute, I have all this unfinished business. And then your partner says, yeah, it's all you. You're the problem in the relationship. You know, it's kind of like in couples therapy so often I'll see something like someone will say like, you never listen to me. And I will say, how well do.
You listen to them? Right.
Right.
It's always like...
If you're just yelling at someone all day, they're gonna wanna listen to you. Right, right. So, you know, there's this dance that we do in relationship. And what happens is People are doing these dance steps and people become very, they become very ingrained. It's like, oh, here we go. You can script out people's arguments.
You know exactly what they're gonna look like.
Starts with one thing and then it goes back into many different things where you're like, oh, okay. And you know exactly how it's gonna go and who's gonna feel what and who's gonna accuse the other person of what. And that's the dance. And so if one person changes their dance steps, the other person either is.
Going to fall flat on the dance floor or they're gonna have to change their steps too.
They want to keep dancing.
Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's show with all the important links. And also make sure to share this with a friend and subscribe over on Apple Podcasts as well. I really love hearing feedback from you guys, so share a review over on Apple and let me know what part of this episode resonated with you the most. And if no one's told you lately, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.
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