"This KEEPS 99% of People Single!" - FIX THIS TO FIND LOVE | Abby Medcalf

Whenever couples come to me, you know, or anybody, individuals, and they say, oh, I'm struggling. And they always say it's communication. Every time they're like, oh, we're not communicating. We need to work on communication. And most people have had lots of help with communication, right? They've learned tools, they've done all the things and it's still not working. It's because it's like treating the symptoms and not the cancer. You have to treat the cancer. And the cancer in most relationships that I find is that people are coming from a fear perspective, not a love perspective, which shows up most often, especially in a love relationship, but also at work as competition.

Hey guys. Welcome back everybody. You're in for a special treat. Dr. Abby Metcalfe is a relationship expert, PhD, thought leader and a whole lot more. One of the best things you're gonna love is. Yes, we actually get into talking about sex life and everything else. So if you have children that are pretty young, some of the content might be sensitive. We don't use bad words, but we do use sensitive content and sensitive concepts. So make sure you adjust your audio listening or verbal or video listening or video watching accordingly. She's a speaker who could teach you about the tools to be feel ultimately connected, confident and fulfilled in all relationships. She's got over 30 years of experience, has helped thousands of people create actual real connections and happiness in the relationship. And she combines a one on one latest research and proven systems to transform any relationship and a communication into a communication machine. Guys, please help me welcome the one, the only Dr. Abby Medkiff. What's going on?

What's so wonderful is to set some goals as a couple every year, you know, sit down, maybe on your anniversary or whatever, or every January 1st, right. And like, what do we like to do this year? And don't have 50 of them, just have one or two. Like, here's things we want to aspire to and that feels really good. And try to have them. I always tell people, you want the goal to be around an emotion, not a thing. So it's not. I want us to double our income this year. That's not a goal to me. For a couple, that can be a goal, but that's not what I'm talking about. And you can have that as your third goal. The first goal is something to feel. Okay, I want to feel really inspired this year. I want to have a lot of fun this year. I want us to feel. I want to feel super connected to you. Do you see the difference? And it doesn't mean that working towards a money goal together couldn't get you there. But if you're working towards a money goal, and you know how this is especially money, right. Where one person has one idea of what it means and another person has another idea. But if the goal is that we feel connected, then as we're working towards earning more money together, what does that mean? And how much money is enough? Because, oh, we get disconnected when we get to a certain point of earning or too many businesses or too many houses to flip. I just had this with a couple. I said to them, we do this a lot where we think, well, more money's better, let me make more money. And more money's great, but not at the expense of this. Right. And as we know, you don't have to work harder to make more money. So start to be thoughtful about how you're earning that money so that your other goal of connection or fun or whatever that is, takes the top goal. So always do that. Have an emotional goal first, and then you can have other goals and it'll keep you so on track with the rest of them. So the, the biggest issue I see is that people can, like, whenever couples come to me, you know, or anybody, individuals, and they say, oh, I'm struggling. And they always say it's communication. Every time they're like, oh, we're not communicating. We need to work on communication. But the reason. And most people have had lots of help with communication, right? They've learned tools, they've done all the things, and it's still not working. It's because it's like treating the symptoms and not the cancer. Like you have to treat the cancer. And the cancer in most relationships that I find is that people are coming from a fe fear perspective, not a love perspective, which shows up most often, especially in a love relationship, but also at work as competition.

Yeah.

So when, especially once you have kids, like, that's when it gets really crazy. But even before we. It's like, oh, I'm going out with my friends on Friday, so, you know, you can go out with your friends on Saturday. Or you spent so much money on a watch. So now I get to spend so much money on whatever I want. Right. It's this tit for tat thing all the time. And, you know, I took Sophie to baseball ball on Monday, so you have to take Jack to piano on Thursday. We do all this divide and conquer stuff, but we do all this keeping score.

Yeah.

And we're constantly looking at what other people are doing and comparing it to what we're doing and deciding that we do more right. We always win. And that's the thing when you keep score. Someone has to win and someone has to lose and you can't. That's fear based. So obviously if I'm in a relate, let's say a love relationship and I want to win, that means I want you to lose. It's just a crazy. People don't realize they're doing it, but that's just it. They're saying they want it to be fair, but fair is so crazy. And like, what is that? I don't even know what that's fear based. It's, it's so, it's bringing things down into such a small little packet because we all have different beautiful things we bring to a relationship. And if you start dividing things by how many things you do or how long it takes, you're getting so deconstructed that you're losing the whole thing. My wonderful Gary does things all the time that make my life easier and fill me up. That might not take him much time. Filling the air in my tires takes him two seconds. But it's like he split the atom. Every time he did it, I'm like, oh my God, thank you so much. You know, I, I don't know about car. I don't know what to, you know, people ask me what kind of car I drive. I say, silver. I, I don't have any connection to cars. So when he does it. But it doesn't matter that it takes him two. And so when we start doing that thing, we really lose track of what's important. And we also start focusing on things that don't matter. So we start bitching and moaning about, right, complaining, oh, he doesn't pick up his socks. She, you know, she didn't say she appreciates how hard I work. They don't. Whatever. And what happens is you start focusing. You know, anyone who's getting divorced because there's like peanut butter in the jelly. You know that fight you have where all of a sudden it's become like a divorce worthy topic and it's such a small thing. It's because the, then you're focusing on the small thing instead of the real thing, which is, I don't feel safe, I don't feel cherished. I don't feel like I have your full attention or whatever it is. And again, the competition. So all the communication tools in the world don't work when you, when you have that cancer eating at your relationship. A lot of this Stuff has to do with what marriage researcher John Gottman calls bids. You know, where our partners. Whenever your partner says that there's anything that's important to them, so let's even say it is the peanut butter and the jelly, right? It's a bid. It's saying. But to me, it's a bid of something deeper. Like, I don't think you care about the things I care about. I don't think you pay attention to things that are important to me. So it shows up as the peanut butter and the jelly, right. Instead of where it really needs to show up. So the thing you really want to pay attention to in your relationship is whenever your partner makes a. And a bid means any call to your attention to something that they think is important. So I always use the example. I'm seeing your Spartan helmet in the back. You know, my Gary does the Spartan races. He loves those things. He's done, you know, triathlon, all that stuff. He loves, loves that I. My stilettos get stuck in the mud. Like, I don't know what to say. Like, this is not, you know, where we have anything in. But he'll say things like, we'll be sitting, you know, I don't know, hanging out together. And maybe he'll be on his phone or computer and he'll say, oh, my God, this guy is doing this obstacle. He's watching some obstacle course race. Like, wow, he's doing it this other way. That's a bid. That's a bit. This. This is something. That's my physical fitness. The Spartan rate are something that's really important to me. And so I can choose to. What we call lean into the bit, or I can lean out, or I can be hostile. Why are you talking about. Why are you bugging me? I'm doing some work, right? Even the worst thing you can do. Yeah, I. Early on in my. In my relationship, we'd gotten in an. I mean, early on, like, we were together a few months, and he had said something. He thought I, like, threw him under the bus in front of some other people is really what it was. And he was really angry about it, and he was giving me the kind of the cold shoulder. And he was really acting in a way. I'm like. I'm like. I'm like, you know, Jewish girl, like, I need to get in it. Right? And so. And I just said to him, you know, here's the thing you have to understand about me. I am always your biggest. Yes. And if there's ever a time you think I'm not. You're mistaken. Like, or we have to talk about it. Or there's something I did that was completely out of my, you know, self awareness.

Yeah.

Yeah. But it is never my intention, ever. I am always your biggest. Yes. And you. If you can't accept that, like, moving forward as a premise of the relationship, we're done. I just said we're done. Done. Like, I was very clear. I was like, we. I say with love, we can part ways. And literally that day, everything changed. Like, literally. It just because he got that philosophy that that's who I am in this. And I'm not perfect, but I'm never gonna ever. I'm always on your team. Like, we're always a team. That's how I approach everything. And it really is. Yeah. So, you know, having those things out front, I will say. And you want to catch them early. I think what happens is that people early in the relationship get kind of. They want to put on, you know, I call it the wonder bra phase. You. You're just like, oh, everything's beautiful and perfect. You know, like. Like, let's have it all out there. And it's really the time to be very loving and upfront, but to remember. And this is the biggie, is that I say it a lot. You have to connect to correct. And so people often have something they don't like, and they say it at the time when you guys are kind of broken. Right. When things aren't working. And so you need to wait until there's a connection if there's something you want to see changed, if you don't want to see the socks on the floor or something El else, you don't bring it up when you're angry about the sock on the floor. You bring it up when you guys are doing well, you're having some fun, maybe. And then you say, can I talk to you about something? I'm curious. And then my biggest thing is to never make a statement and to always ask a question. So the other thing I say a lot is don't sack your relationship. Don't offer suggestions, give advice, or criticize. And when you think of that, because it's critical to say you left your sock on the floor. I know you think you're right, but it doesn't. Would you rather be correct or effective? Right. And when we talk about intimacy, I don't want to confuse that with emotional close. That's emotional closeness. Sex can have intimacy in it or not. You know, it doesn't matter. And as we know, it's been said a lot. You know, men tend to want to have sex to feel emotionally close, and women want to feel emotionally close to have sex. Right. So how heterosexual relationships ever work is kind of a miracle. But.

So there's a few very strategic tips that work kind of all the ways. And I always take my stuff, by the way, from the research showing what works. I use it with my clients and then I apply it in my own life. And when those things all hit, that's the things I talk about. Like, I'm like, oh, this works for everybody. Not just like me and my perfect world or whatever. It's not perfect. So number one is if you, when you talk about sex and talking about. If it's sex itself, we're talking about my favorite question, number one, bar none is, you know, and again, get in a good place. You know, be in a. Be in a. Connect to. Correct. Right. So be in a good place and then say, hey, can I ask you something? I'm. It's been on my mind. Yeah. And you say, what would you like to see more of in our sex life? What would you like to see more of in our intimate life? That will be your money question forever. It's not attacking. It's not saying there's anything wrong. Now the person might respond with like, oh, we don't have enough sex. It's like, no, no, no. I really want to know. You have to be curious. It has to be real. It can't be manipulative. What would you like to see more of? And then would you like to ask me what I would like to see more of? So, right. So boom. So that's a great way. Do not ever say we're not having enough sex or having too much, because again, it's a preference how much sex you want to have. It's a preference. It's a preference. So that's number one. No right or wrong. The other thing is to really, we know that, you know, the limerence that happens, we call it in the first. We get that for about the first three years. There's different.

Helen Fisher, famous biological anthropologist, great TEDx, TED talk, she talks about this a lot and in all her research and books. But basically there's kind of three levels to the. The hormones and neurotransmitters that get released in the three kind of levels of love, you know, and that initial limerence phase, which lasts two years up to three is when all the, you know, that's all the good stuff. Right? When we can't keep our Hands off each other. And it's all happening and it's actually kind of easy. The problem is that those same chemicals, dopamine for example, which helps us really focus, which helps us crave what's. When we crave something, we want it, we can't stop thinking about that person. Right. What happens is that makes our attention focus in such a way that we actually don't even see the other stuff. Which ends up becoming problems. When you move out of limerence and into familiarity, which is the death knell of a lot of relationships. Right. We're so friggin familiar that, you know, and people confuse that, I think, with comfort being comfortable. I want you to be comfortable with your partner, but I don't want you to be overly familiar with your partner. And so I would really encourage men especially. Like Gary knows don't fart in the room. Like, no, like don't fart in front of me.

It's not how that would detract from, from an intimate.

It, it really does. Don't leave the bathroom door open. Like really, like all the time we spend together, we can't close the door. Like if I'm going down on you and I'm thinking of you taking a dump, do you really think I'm gonna wanna do that? Like, no, it's not. They don't go together. For women, I just wanna say that men, I think, can compartmentalize a little better. So. But you know what I'm saying, like really think of your boundaries. Even when I'm getting undressed at night, like I, I take a minute.

Yeah.

You know, like I don't want it to be so overly familiar being naked, you know, around him. And I'm not being shy, I'm anything but shy. But I'm think I'm thoughtful about it and maybe that could be a little fun. Right. So think of all the familiarity and don't confuse it with comfortableness. I want you to be comfortable but not overly familiar that comfort talking about sex is what we know is highly correlated with a good sex life. So getting comfortable talking about. That's why I love the question, what would you like to see more of and to help people sort of what would you, you know, what can we do and to even think together. I've sent couples to all kinds of things, you know, to, to experience all kinds of things. The easiest thing I often tell couples to do is to get some of the. They call them sex dice or you know, couples dice because it's so much fun, because it's Not. You're not really having penetrative sex.

Yeah.

Right. So the dice will say like a verb and a. And a body part. You know what I mean?

Yeah. You know, and you get that. And you're just. The idea is really just to be comfortable with being Nate, you know, and being naked. And women have a lot more issues with being naked, you know, than men do in general. Again, I'm doing broad sweeps here. So having that comfort in their own bodies, you know, I always say to women is. Is our job. And, yes, men can compliment us or whatever, but most women don't believe it when men compliment them, which is. Yeah, it's really sad. They. I'll say this to men. The thing you could do to help that is that because if I ask you, how are you feeling? And you say, fine, everything's fine, and it's clearly not, you're lying to me, so I don't believe you. So now when you tell me I look beautiful, why would I believe that? So men kind of bring this on themselves a bit with not being honest with what's really going on a lot, because a little hard time with emotions. But I will also say the thing to do is to increase physical contact. So one of the things that's happened, and we have this with a lot of the research lately, is that because people are on their phones or electronics so much, we're not touching as much. So even when we're sitting in the room together, there was some research done. University of Miami. I forget her. Helen Field Fields is her last name. But she did all this research showing looking at people in airports and where people used to be kind of laying on each other or talking or talking to strangers. Everyone's alone on their phone now. There's no touching. And we know that how important touching is, right? It's so important. And so again, and it builds oxytocin and, you know, the bonding hormones and all that good stuff. So when you think about your partner during the day, I really do want you to have literal touch points. And I've shared a lot that Gary and I have a thing about greeting each other at the door. You know, and the joke is to be like a golden retriever, because you're not how golden retrievers are at the door. They are just so excited to see you. So you. I tell everybody, get your ass up. Go to the door. Be at the door waiting. Don't wait till they come in. Don't let them come find you. How was your day? Fine. You know, none of that crap Go. It takes two seconds. Just take the food off the burner or stop doing your work in your office or whatever you were doing. You can hear when they're coming, usually the dog is barking or something else, the garage door, whatever your signal is and go right to the front door. And so I'm like, like if it's me home for I'm waiting for him at the door. I'm all like, you know again like a golden. And we real and it's like, welcome home, I'm so happy to see you. And he does it for me in the same way. He'll jump up and he's six four, he's a large man. He'll jump up and down and pick me up and you know, there's an energy. We've been doing that for over a decade. Like we've been doing that for a really long time. And it's one of for us like the basis. So it does not need to. We don't make out for an hour at the door. We don't. Sometimes we do, but not usually, you know, we. It's kind of fun, you know, a little makeout session or whatever. But it doesn't have to be this huge put upon thing and you can really think about all day. Where are those touch points? Where are those times that you're bringing energy to your partner and that will change your sex life? That sizzle very quickly. The three things that make up trust. Here's what we know. It's three things that make up trust. And people think it's I trust or I don't and it's not. The first is integrity. That's the honesty. Do I believe what you say? Do you? Do you say it? The second is competence. If you say you're going to meet me for at a restaurant at 7, do you show up? Do you tell me you forgot your wallet and you got there late and right you're not competent. And the third is goodwill. Do you have my best interests at heart? Do I believe you have them at heart? And those three, that's the triad. So what happens is sometimes you're good in one of them. You know, your partner's very honest but you don't feel like they have your back. Yeah, like so it's good because you can kind of work on each piece, which I like. You know, you can kind of separate it out. Instead of like I don't trust you and you're thinking, what do you mean you don't trust me? I'm the most faithful guy there Is.

Yeah.

That's the reactions I get. And when I break down trust men especially can they love that? Sort of like, oh, it's that part. Let me work on that. So I would say to everybody, any man listening for sure. And woman, ask your Partner of these three things, where. Where are we? Scale 1 to 6. Where are we here? Where are we here? Where are we here? And then you can work on that thing. But that's the. That's why this competition is the real devil of relationship. When you are a team, everything's a we. You don't. It's not your turn. I always say it's not your turn to put away the dishes. That's such craziness to me. I can't even go there. This thing, we're taking turns. Like we're in a game. It's insane. So you, you and. And oh, I'm so worried they'll take advantage of me if I'm always putting away the dishes. Like, really, you're building a life with this person you're worried about taking advantage of. Like, there's something very off here. And we know that when you're focusing on that, that's what you'll see more and more. You'll see the problems, you'll see the negative. So you gotta like train the brain to where what you wanna see and to ask for that. So your boundaries are your responsibility, not the other person's. And it's the victim mentality that's part of the problem. That I blame you for trampling my boundaries, but I'm not holding my boundary, so that's number one. Right. So if I say that something's important to me and you know, please don't, you know, like for women sometimes it's something like, please don't talk, comment on my weight or my exercise or my food. Like that's off limits. Right. But then you're out to eat and maybe he says, like, are you sure you need a second serving? Or why don't we go to this place that has like locale food or something? You know what I mean? Like, there's clearly some stuff there. Yeah. The problem becomes. Not that he did that. I mean, yeah, that's not great. But it's not what people think are boundaries are actually just wants. People just have a want. They have like a thing they want and they. The boundary part is when there's teeth on the other side. And by teeth, I never say consequences. It's not supposed to be punishing. It's a response. I'm Going to have to when I've said I need something and you come over it or if I haven't said it yet then now I have to say it. And I always say a boundary should never be said more than once. So you should go right to the thing. If I tell my kids, you know, don't, don't eat before dinner and they eat before dinner. Do you know what I mean? Like I shouldn't have to nag them to not eat before dinner. I just have a response when they do it. Maybe they don't have an allowance that week. Maybe they don't have electronics, maybe they get take their phone away. You just do it. So I talk about boundaries on a continuum of thick to thin. A thick boundary is like if you called your dad sir, right? There's a lot of disconnection. There's a lot of separate lives living a very thin boundary. A too thin boundary is when families are really enmeshed, right? If you knew what your parents mortgage was growing up or something like, you know, information that's not, maybe your parent confided in you about the other parent or something like that's very thin boundaries. What you want is for your, you to have your boundaries somewhere in the middle. They're not an exact middle but somewhere in there. And you want to never change based on how someone else acts. Because here's what happens. I'll say I have a boundary around. I did this with my son not long ago about a curfew and I have a boundary. But then he's being really good in keeping his curfew all the time, right? So he's being good. So I go. Then he asks can I stay out later? And I go sure, because he's been so good. I collapse my boundary. And then what would any self respecting teenager do when they now can be out later? Yeah, really later. And then, right? And then the kid instead of coming home at 2 as they promised, comes home at 4 and maybe even smelling a pot, right? And then what is, what do I do? I slam the door. I go all I got. So I got too thin with my boundaries. This is what's most common for people. Then they go all the way to the other side. You're grounded forever. You know, in another relationship I'm blocking you, I'm unfollowing you on social media. I'm never speaking to you again. We, we put up a wall instead of a boundary and it's all fear based and we, we try to cut them off which of course we don't really stick to generally.

Yeah.

And it's because. Again, but my boundary just needs to be the same. Doesn't matter if you're mean to me, if you're kind to me, if it doesn't matter. My boundary is my boundary. Yeah, that's it. But that's where people fail the most. They change their boundary because they want to. People, please. They don't want people not to like them. They. And it's so interesting to me. Or someone else is telling you that you're being selfish by holding your boundary, which is the craziest thing, because so they're saying that they're bound, that what they want is more important. So they're being selfish. And so. But you're going, yeah, okay, that's selfish of me to do this. And in my book, I talk a lot about healthy selfishness. There's lots of research on it and how good it is for us, but it's not. I don't even like using that word, selfish, really? Because it's sort of crazy. It's just what we need to feel safe and okay. And so what. What my book does is just help people really get clear on what a boundary really is. How to make it, how to decide what's your standards? They're from your standards. What's the most important things to you? So it's not a boundary that my husband puts the cap on the toothpaste. That's just something I like. Do you know what I mean? But my boundary might be that I'm shown respect or appreciation, right? And. But you can't think to yourself, oh, leaving the cap off the toothpaste means he thinks I'm his maid and he doesn't respect me. And he. No, no, no, no. So what happens when we're not getting our needs met is that we focus on our wants. And that's what you have to change. You have to figure out what you're. And that's what my book does help you do, is figure out what your needs really are, your standards, your deal breakers, the things you have to have, and focus on those so that when you're not. That's why I keep asking, when you ask those questions, like, what would you like to see more of in our. In our relations, you know, our sexual life, or. Tell me even. You know, you said something earlier about like, you know, when you're having a conversation. Oh, when she says what she'd like, right? And you're like, oh, she doesn't like this. She does like this. But I would Even ask her. Tell me more. Like, when someone leaves their socks around, what does that signal for you? Because that's really what you want to pay attention to. Because, trust me, you'll pick up your socks, but you'll be doing, you know, not taking the garbage out on time. And that'll be the argument. Do you know what I mean? Like, and then you'll feel like, oh, my God, it's the garbage and the thing and this and this. And that's what happens a lot. I notice with them. I work with a lot of men, they feel like the target keeps moving, and then when they reach it, there's a they didn't do it enough. I didn't wipe the counters down enough. You know, I left some scrap, and now I got yelled at for that. Like, I can't do what she wants anyway, so why even try? And that is the death knell right now. We're in big trouble. And again, it's because you're both focusing on frigging, like, staying on the counter. What are the three things I do that make you feel safest? When you feel safe with me, when you feel like, that is my guy and I will never leave him, what am I doing? When you are so excited, like, you want to rip my clothes off, what am I doing? That's a good question to ask. Do you see the difference? So this is what I want you to be doing. And by the way, sometimes women are avoiding this. I don't want to put it all on men, because it's not just men that avoid these more intricate conversations, but when you think to yourself. And men often will have a to do list, and so will women. Like, oh, do this. You know, check, check, check. Right. As opposed to feel this, live this. So think about, you know, instead of, what can I do differently? What can I think differently? Is one of the shifts I always want people to make. Really think about what can I think differently? Oh, how do I be of service to my partner? How do I let them know I love them every day? How do I focus on the things that make them feel safe? How do I express my own needs? Needs with what I need to see? And how do we. Again, it's not. If you say your needs and they don't get met, that's not their problem or your problem. It's our problem. You know, I. I don't even think of it as compromise, by the way. I always, like, I talk a lot with that. Like, I don't want couples to make decisions along a line of negotiation. So instead I tell people, think of decision making in a couple as a triangle. And you're, you know, one is down here at point A, one's down here at point B, and you're looking up, up towards a third solution that neither of you has thought of yet. So let's brainstorm everything. Crazy things should our kid. I want kids to go to private school. I want them to go to public school. That seems very right, black and white, but there's a million. Let's charter a boat and have school on a boat. Let's. Let's start our own school. Let's do religious school. Let's. I like. There's a million things in there. Let's homeschool. There's a million. If you start brainstorming, then you can come together from all that you know and really talk about what's most important. Tell me the three most important things about homeschooling. Tell me the three most important things about private school. Let's talk about what other options there might be for those things or so learn to, you know, go in. Trying to learn something, not prove something, is something I say a lot when we're looking at decision making in a couple.

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We are so terrified to be judged. We shouldn't be looking for anyone else's acceptance except our own. And when we can be right with ourselves, you just end up being right with the world.