00:00:00
when the sex Falls away it can become a serious problem and the largest study done on the quality of sex with 70,000
00:00:07
people in 24 countries found the differences between people who say they have a great sex life have an awful sex
00:00:12
life has to do with really that's right DRS John and Julie Gutman are
00:00:18
world-renowned psychologists and researchers who have studied over 40,000 couples written over 50 books and helped
00:00:24
millions of people find and stay in love for over 50 years people don't know how to have good relationships so I've got
00:00:31
so many questions I'll start from the top what are we getting wrong well first of all most people are living under the
00:00:36
myth that you have to be compatible with a partner which is absolutely wrong and
00:00:42
this is really interesting there t-shirt that where women smell t-shirts that have been worn by men for at least 2
00:00:48
days and selected the ones they thought smelled the best and they found they were selecting the men that were his
00:00:53
most Divergent from them genetically rather than people who are like them cuz we're not really turned on by our Al and
00:01:00
there isn't a one looking for the one is a big mistake what about how do I become
00:01:05
the most attractive version of me if I'm looking for a partner yeah that's a great question and this is what you do
00:01:11
this is a difficult question to ask but have you ever seen cheating help a relationship oh very very often really
00:01:18
when there's recovery but can it be treated 75% so far in our research how we
00:01:25
developed a model and here's what it involves first
00:01:32
this is a sentence I never thought I'd say in my life um we've just hit 7 million subscribers on YouTube and I
00:01:37
want to say a huge thank you to all of you that show up here every Monday and Thursday to watch our conversations um
00:01:44
from the bottom of my heart but also on behalf of my team who you don't always get to meet there's almost 50 people now
00:01:49
behind the dire of a CEO that work to put this together so from all of us thank you so much um we did a raffle
00:01:55
last month and we gave away prizes for people that subscribed to the show up until 7 million subscribers and you guys
00:02:01
love that raffle so much that we're going to continue it so every single month we're giving away money can't buy
00:02:06
prizes including meetings with me invites to our events and ,000 gift vouchers to anyone that subscribes to
00:02:13
the DI Co there's now more than 7 million of you so if you make the decision to subscribe today you can be one of those lucky people thank you from
00:02:19
the bottom of my heart let's get to the conversation John
00:02:27
Julie why do you both do what you do I love that question one has to
00:02:35
Define what we do and there are many things that we do first of all I love to write that's great I've been helping
00:02:42
people since I was eight years old for some odd reason uh and I love love love
00:02:51
connecting with people and loving them through their pain that's why I do what I do and would
00:02:58
you CL yourself as a clinical psychologist is that your official title yes okay John could you answer the same
00:03:03
question which is why do you do what you do and I guess what do you do well to me it's really an interesting puzzle to try
00:03:12
to understand what makes relationships work and what makes groups work what
00:03:17
what makes people be cooperative versus competitive selfish and mean what makes
00:03:25
them be altruistic and empathetic what makes what makes relationships become
00:03:31
sources of longevity and health versus illness and loneliness and despair so
00:03:38
for me it's a puzzle and it's fun to work on a puzzle and what do you do I measure
00:03:46
things accurately and reliably and you know then really just
00:03:52
kind of see where the data fall out so um it's really applying statistics and
00:03:58
measurement and good math to try to understand processes that are going on
00:04:04
between people with this really ultimate question of what what makes
00:04:10
relationships work and what makes groups work what makes humans cooperative and
00:04:16
magnificent at their best versus selfish uh greedy and functioning at their worst
00:04:23
so it's curiosity that drives me that's all and collectively how many people do
00:04:30
you think you've studied researched treated worked with in your practice
00:04:37
over the last however many decades well we've done research on 40,000 couples
00:04:43
about the start couple therapy uh using questionnaires and then more intensely
00:04:49
using physiology and and objective rating of emotional Behavior about 3,000
00:04:55
couples follow it over time as long as 20 years and how many books have you
00:05:01
collectively written Julie I think we're on 51 but I'm not sure I've
00:05:09
lost I amum where I wanted to start with this conversation is is really with I
00:05:15
guess the subje of relationships but how we find and form them in the modern society because when you look at the
00:05:21
stats despite the incredible work you've done over the last couple of decades it doesn't seem that we're better at
00:05:27
finding and keeping relationship than ever before if you especially if you look at non-romantic relationships you
00:05:33
know loneliness and isolation are absolute alltime highs and the technology that was invented over the
00:05:39
last couple of decades came with a promise which was that it was going to connect us but it doesn't seem to have
00:05:44
succeeded so I really want to start by answering this question about how people
00:05:50
find love and form those relationships in the modern world and like what the data says and what what our psychology
00:05:56
says about where we're going wrong I had some independent research that I found
00:06:01
uh that says according to the US Census Bureau nearly 50% of the US population are currently single according to the
00:06:08
2023 survey by pe research about 33% of men reported being single followed by
00:06:15
28% of women the average first marriage for men is 30 years old for women it's about 28 um we're having less sex
00:06:22
however before um we're getting in relationships later than ever before marriages still seem to break down
00:06:29
almost half of them and you probably know those numbers better than me and almost half of people are using dating
00:06:36
apps but I think if you speak to anybody that uses a dating app they feel like they're all having a bad time when we
00:06:43
think about finding someone to love us or that we love how much of our effort
00:06:49
should be about actively going out there and putting ourselves out there buying a new dress whatever it is putting
00:06:54
ourselves out in the market versus the internal work of building ourselves into
00:07:00
someone that is a magnet instead of a door to-door salesman you know what I mean beautiful beautiful yes um I love
00:07:10
your uh thought about developing ourselves internally because that's what
00:07:15
goes wrong that makes dating app so terrible many many people suffer from
00:07:21
terrible insecurity right they feel shame they may have been criticized a
00:07:26
lot as a kid or in their work and as a result they hide out they hide and what
00:07:32
they present to the world either through dating apps this is very common or just
00:07:38
even meeting people at a party is something they're not it's something
00:07:43
that they believe is the ideal but where are they getting their information
00:07:48
they're getting it from TV from Hollywood from idealized Heroes and
00:07:54
heroins that are not real also they're living under the myth
00:08:00
that you have to be compatible with a partner which is
00:08:05
absolutely wrong as will talk about um in other words you have to have the same
00:08:11
interests the same values uh maybe the same background the same uh class you
00:08:17
were raised in and so on all of that is wrong interestingly enough so when you
00:08:25
talk about building that internal World basically what you're saying
00:08:31
is trust your own intuition trust who you are people will come to you if you
00:08:38
are genuinely yourself and if you're not um then people may mistake you for
00:08:45
somebody else have an expectation of who you are and you're in inevitably going
00:08:51
to fail that expectation which then gives you a negative
00:08:56
experience uh because you feel like this other person person is rejecting you and doesn't like you but the reality is
00:09:03
they're not rejecting you they're rejecting this idealized portrait that
00:09:08
you tried to present to them which isn't real I guess a lot of people would think
00:09:15
when they hear that but Julie if I show up as myself no one's going to love me
00:09:20
yeah that's right especially on a first date that's right that's right that's you know that's the sadness people don't
00:09:28
believe because of all that criticism in the society that they're worthy of Love they
00:09:36
don't believe it they have to you know be uh I don't know what Bruce Willis or
00:09:42
something in order to uh have somebody attracted to them
00:09:47
have somebody really want to get to know them which isn't true at all in fact
00:09:53
it's the opposite what do you think to that John yeah I've been thinking a lot about this
00:09:58
question of you know how do we find true love um and you know part of the problem
00:10:07
I think is that um as you mentioned loneliness is a very serious thing and
00:10:14
um and so many people are lonely and part of what they haven't done is to is
00:10:20
build a friendship Network that can support them friends are just so
00:10:26
important as a precondition for finding the love of your life because you know
00:10:32
the the research that's been done on Strangers now shows that people think that
00:10:39
97% of strangers if they talk to them will be
00:10:45
rejecting and will feel like they're invading their privacy but the data shows that just the opposite is true
00:10:52
that when you approach a stranger almost 97% of the time they're quite delighted
00:10:58
to become contacted and they and they meet an initial contact with interest
00:11:05
enthusiasm and so talking to strangers turns out to be really a very important
00:11:10
thing and turning a stranger into a friend turning your social networks into
00:11:16
places that are not alienating that are you know places where you actually can
00:11:22
enjoy human and Company uh is an important pre prerequisite to dating so
00:11:29
I would say you need to build that friendship Network first and once you're not lonely you're not desperate and then
00:11:36
you can find somebody much more easily I think this is a really interesting point which is you you finish there by saying
00:11:43
if you're not lonely you're not desperate and I was I was thinking as you're talking about what the most
00:11:49
attractive version of me is to the world if I'm looking to find a partner whether I'm a man or a woman um it doesn't sound
00:11:57
like a desperate version of me is a very attractive version of me right so on this point of Attraction we'll start with you John and
00:12:04
then we'll go because we started with Julie last time what do we know about what makes people attracted to each
00:12:09
other like how do I become the most attractive version of me to the world if I'm looking for a partner I think
00:12:15
everyone is really interesting and attractive as long as you know they're with somebody who's curious about them
00:12:22
so uh if you're with somebody who's really snobby and uh you know
00:12:28
condescending Superior nobody's at their best you know but when you're with
00:12:33
somebody who's really interested in you then you can really emerge and just
00:12:38
about everybody is really interesting their thoughts are unique and their background is interesting and their
00:12:44
their goals and their their struggles are really fascinating so um I think
00:12:51
it's the social context that makes the difference rather than the individual so
00:12:58
the problem with dating I think is that they create this very artificial situation in which everyone's
00:13:05
being evaluated and assessed and they're swiping left you know all the time well
00:13:11
my person's not quite right not quite right not quite right not quite right the research of Eli fle shows that
00:13:17
there's nothing you can measure in two individuals that will predict whether
00:13:23
they like each other there's nothing you can measure nothing you can measure in fact you can actually ask people exactly
00:13:31
what they're looking for in a partner and find that exact person in a large
00:13:37
database and it's very unlikely that they'll like that person when they meet
00:13:43
them yet if you randomly pair them with strangers 22% of people like each other
00:13:49
when they first meet I wonder about the role that
00:13:54
self-esteem plays in attraction it's kind of what we're talking about with like being desperate maybe they feel
00:14:00
like a similar thing and I wonder if there's any like data that supports this idea that self-esteem or your
00:14:06
self-perception is this invisible force that makes you attractive or not attractive I've actually seen it in some of my friends who I won't know who
00:14:13
started going to the gym and just because they started working on themselves it's almost like they grew
00:14:19
six Ines like they just were like different people yeah so yeah a lot of
00:14:24
Attraction we think like go get the blow dry I'll go get a better outfit but this goes back to point about how much of it
00:14:30
is actually like do the internal work what do you think I think there's a lot to be said
00:14:36
for that yeah if you have a group of friends you know who really like you and
00:14:42
you really like them then it's easier to emerge and you know this this dating
00:14:49
situation is so artificial that people are so terrified
00:14:54
you know when they meet somebody and instead of approaching them with curiosity about them they're worried
00:15:02
that they won't make a good impression and they're so self-conscious of themselves rather than being curious and
00:15:10
interested in the other person and because if they're curious and interested in the other person you know
00:15:15
it doesn't matter what happens right I mean uh you meet somebody new and you
00:15:20
learn about them and it's an interesting experience and maybe they're interested in you too so the dating experience is
00:15:27
just kind of fun you know it's about exploring two people exploring one another and then there's no objective
00:15:35
there's no there's no real goal there and then it's much less artificial and
00:15:41
then when you meet somebody you really click with that's a wonderful experience
00:15:46
and especially when you meet an outlier like I met Julie I dated 60 women before
00:15:53
I met Julie she's number 61 I had a database so I knew
00:15:59
I met an outlier for me she was an outlier because I just loved interacting
00:16:04
with her it was just so much fun and uh she was Head and Shoulders above any
00:16:11
person I'd met before do you know what's interesting though when people look at you too and when they look at other relationships they'll go okay John I get
00:16:18
it so you got to make a database you got to wait till the you find the one right and this is often the cause of
00:16:25
much procrastination as it relates to love everyone's looking for the Julie you know there isn't a one you know that's one of
00:16:31
the the other myths there isn't a one and it's funny because we've seen this
00:16:37
in our research on the opposite end of it and here's what I mean every pairing
00:16:42
of people uh no matter how wonderful they are no matter how much you love
00:16:48
them the two of you will always have Perpetual problems between you and those
00:16:54
are based on either lifestyle preference differences personality differences
00:17:00
always and at some point those conflict and so you know what we saw in our
00:17:06
research was you know something like 69% of the conflicts that couples suffer
00:17:12
from or have are Perpetual problems they never go away so you know when I have
00:17:19
somebody coming into my office that says I want to find my soulmate my soulmate
00:17:26
it's like huh what's a soulmate you know I mean there you out of out of whatever
00:17:32
in the US we have what 350 million people there's
00:17:37
probably 500,000 of them that you would find wonderful and attractive right so
00:17:45
looking for the one is a big mistake because inevitably they snore at night
00:17:52
or you know they eat with their mouth open or you know something that drives you crazy so okay so you're not looking
00:18:00
for the perfect person you're not the perfect person and that's what I was referring to earlier as you know let's
00:18:07
see each other as human beings there is no Perfection we are all flawed we all
00:18:14
have cracks in us and those can be seen as beautiful too we don't have to be
00:18:22
perfect to be loved right y
00:18:29
right it's interesting because that marries to something that I was reading about in your books where you talk about how often attracted to people who are
00:18:36
very different from ourselves and just the very nature that they're different from us means that there's going to be that pretty much constant conflict why
00:18:42
is it the case that we're attracted to people that are different from ourselves is that true um because it doesn't seem
00:18:48
to make sense on the surface you'd think I would be attracted to someone that likes Manchester United and you know
00:18:54
like my favorite food and my favorite stuff because then we'll get on like a house on fire but you're telling me that we're attracted
00:19:00
to people that like yeah the research of class wakin is so interesting uh this
00:19:06
t-shirt study that he did uh where women smell t-shirts that have been worn by
00:19:12
men for at least two days and selected the ones they thought smelled the best
00:19:17
uh they actually were selecting what wakin found was they were selecting t-shirts of men those pheromones were
00:19:26
attractive the men were as most Divergent from them
00:19:31
genetically just in the genes of the immune system wa very Divergent kinds of people
00:19:39
smelled really attractive to these women rather than people who were like them
00:19:44
and actually the experiment was done it showed they actually like those men better than other men they might have
00:19:51
met so genetically different genetically different in terms of the immune system so here's this uh evolutionary explan
00:19:59
of why people are searching for somebody who's really different cuz we're not really turned on by our clone we're not
00:20:07
turned on be by people who are just like us Julie and I are vastly different
00:20:12
she's you know this uh Adventurer you know this Outdoors person she loves the
00:20:18
trees and Hiking you know up Mountain Trails I'm an endorsement I like sitting
00:20:24
in my chair and reading books on mathematics and quantum mechanics and general relativity Theory he's a
00:20:30
consumate indoorsman so we're very different you know but what's the EV Sher reason then do you think for why we
00:20:37
like people that are different oh the genetic immunity so um remember it's all
00:20:43
about reprodu reproduction right so if you've got two very Divergent sets of
00:20:50
genetics in terms of the immune system that child is going to have a broader uh
00:20:58
genetic base as their immune system as opposed to two identical or close to it
00:21:06
where they'd have a very narrow genetic base for immune immunity is there
00:21:12
anything else that if if you were advising me if I was a single man and I was saying okay how do I find a partner
00:21:18
um what should I be doing or looking for should I make a list of things that I'm looking for um should I be I don't know
00:21:25
you said earlier about being my authentic self as much as I can be because that you don't want people to be attracted to your mask but should I be
00:21:32
making a list like what what should I be going for is there qualities that are enduring as it relates to success in
00:21:39
Romance that everyone should be looking for should I lower my expectations it's
00:21:44
not about qualities it's about well I hate to say it but it's more about
00:21:49
Behavior so for example um and I have so many particularly women who've been
00:21:56
divorced and now they're dating and they ask that question and here are several
00:22:01
of the things that I always tell them one is uh does the person male or female
00:22:08
ask you questions about yourself or do they broadcast did they just tell you
00:22:14
who they are oh my God my boss just gave me a promotion oh my you know aren't I
00:22:20
cool or I just won this athletic competition no are they asking you
00:22:25
questions about yourself and not only that but listening to the answers right
00:22:31
and taking in the answers and oh that's interesting that's one another is you
00:22:39
know our society is very striated right so how do they treat
00:22:46
people who have let's say less social status than they do how do they treat
00:22:54
the waitress who comes to their table do they treat them with disdain or scorn or
00:23:00
you know the stake is terrible take it back or are they kind do they treat them
00:23:06
like human beings that's another thing do they treat people equally or uh do
00:23:14
they only treat a certain group with respect and the others not that's number
00:23:20
two number three is are they reliable do they do what they say they're going to
00:23:28
do if they say they're going to call you do they call you if they say I'll pick you up at 8 are they there at 8 so
00:23:36
reliability is a big deal and of course nobody can be perfectly reliable you
00:23:42
know life happens but do they call you to let you know oh I ran into heavy traffic so I'll be 20 minutes late so
00:23:50
you know there's a consideration there of your time of your
00:23:56
energy curiosity as John pointed out uh as to who you are and also
00:24:05
um there are so many people who as you have been talking about are so terribly
00:24:13
lonely watch out for this watch out for people saying in the first date oh my
00:24:19
God you're it you're the answer oh my God you're fantastic I
00:24:24
think I love you you know that kind of um rush into let's have an intimate
00:24:33
relationship right now I want to marry you and I'm going to ask you tomorrow no you know they people need to
00:24:41
take their time to get to know one another and peel away the layers slowly
00:24:48
and carefully to build trust do you think that speed to rush into a
00:24:54
relationship is a sign of something else further up like further Upstream maybe incity you bet needy there and I don't
00:25:02
like the word needy um because everybody has needs we're pack animals you know we
00:25:07
need each other we depend on each other but um somebody who can
00:25:14
contain themselves as you were pointing out with or without you energy that's right and have done that internal work
00:25:22
so that they're not looking to you to answer every problem they have M you
00:25:29
know I would give different advice to to a male who's who's dating I I would say
00:25:34
you know just have fun you know me people like when I was creating my database you know I I met a woman who
00:25:41
was a survivalist he had a 38 Magnum pistol right by her by her bedside and
00:25:48
she spent thousands of dollars on gowns to go to Opera cuz she loved Opera and I
00:25:53
remember sitting there in her house and saying you know God this is really interesting you know I I don't know if I
00:26:00
like this person or I could be with this person but she's fascinating you know it's kind of fun getting to know her and
00:26:07
then at a certain point there's somebody you meet like I met Julie and everything
00:26:14
feels right the world just kind of opens up when you talk and your heart opens
00:26:20
and it's very different it's not just interesting it's really there's
00:26:26
potential there that you don't feel with anybody else were you desperate when you met Julie though I don't think I was oh
00:26:33
I don't think I was desperate I I've been divorced for about seven years I was looking to meet somebody my you know
00:26:40
close to my age who you know was an interesting person and uh I met a lot of
00:26:46
interesting people but she was different I also this question impart because I I
00:26:51
wonder if someone's ever done a study where they take a group of people who are looking to find someone and then
00:26:57
they take a group of people who who aren't really looking and they see who has the most success and when I say
00:27:02
looking I mean some people are literally looking for a husband and they they feel
00:27:07
like they need to find one within six months because you know biological clocks and goals they might have for
00:27:13
their lives and all these kinds of things versus a group of people that are just open to it and I wonder who's more
00:27:20
attractive I think either one can work right you know I I don't think there has to be a magic formula so I think I think
00:27:28
if you approach the whole situation with curiosity and wonder you know and just
00:27:34
kind of see who we meet and see what happens but but that see sounds more like this group here you know that's
00:27:41
right I agree with you what you're describing is that being confident in yourself and
00:27:49
just being curious as opposed to I really have to find somebody I need to
00:27:54
find somebody good um very very very
00:27:59
different I think about this in part in the context of business as well because as an investor you get an energy from
00:28:06
the entrepreneur that's trying to get investment from you as to whether they need you or whether you're an option and
00:28:14
it's so remarkable how much more likely you are to invest in a Founder who makes
00:28:22
you feel like an option and I think because and then you have these other Founders when I can literally think of one example that popped to my mind from
00:28:29
the last couple of weeks where they were so desperate that it was almost
00:28:34
rude wow how did that manifest as in the way that they sent their emails and the
00:28:41
way that they were like demanding and how urgent they wanted to speak to you and all these kinds of things and how like
00:28:47
loky um expectant they were from you made me feel like their business wasn't
00:28:54
doing well whereas F and I think about this in the context of relationships whereas the
00:28:59
founders and entrepreneurs that message me where they're kind of more patient they you know they're kind of maybe a
00:29:05
little bit busier the ones that have that like it's I'll keep going back to that phrase like with or without you energy where you're an option to them
00:29:11
you're much more likely to invest you feel like it's a privilege to invest and I think about this from the context of the question I just asked if someone's
00:29:17
like I need a husband now versus someone's like I'm open I'm curious I'm willing to go on the date and see yeah
00:29:24
right if we're right because I realize that me saying yes to you is a huge investment so I need to take
00:29:30
my time to figure out if that investment is going to be worthwhile because I respect myself right yeah maybe you're right
00:29:36
right maybe it's better if you're just kind of confident and not so desperate
00:29:42
any fake confidence Julie this is the problem no you know as a matter of fact when people try to fake
00:29:49
confidence they often um overstep it right and uh golly I know I'll never
00:29:57
forget that his fellow in high school he would brag about himself without knowing
00:30:03
that he was bragging he would boast and boast and boast and boast and I realized
00:30:09
oh my God I cannot stand this you know because it was so
00:30:14
fake but important thing I realized that
00:30:19
the extremity of my negative attitude towards him was because there was a part
00:30:25
of me that was just like them that felt insecure that wanted to present you know
00:30:31
this Perfect Image to people that I wasn't uh which is what he was trying to
00:30:37
do and so then it's like oh I've got a little work to do on myself well you
00:30:44
know one thing one thing about this dating situation that's interesting is even though there's nothing you can
00:30:50
measure in individuals that will predict that they like each other once they get
00:30:55
together and start interacting our lab can measure if that interaction has
00:31:02
promise or not wow really we measure openness uh the emotional connection the
00:31:10
fact that people are either connecting with one another communicating with one another or not we
00:31:17
measure tension versus relaxation or we measure uh curiosity
00:31:23
and interest and all those things yeah so can you give me really specifically exactly how a couple would show up
00:31:31
really specifically if they were if they had promised to last and be successful together so if you watch their videotape
00:31:39
and they had promise you'd find them laughing together uh you know mirroring
00:31:46
each other smiling uh asking questions being open uh wondering about things and
00:31:53
you'd have this real sense of exploration and open openness
00:31:58
and um curiosity and interest in one another whereas in in a couple that
00:32:05
wasn't doing very well you youd sense this tension uh sarcasm a lot of you
00:32:12
know negativity uh bragging about themselves
00:32:17
talking about themselves rather than being interested in the other person body language body language the ratio of
00:32:24
positive to negative emotion in in those couple would be much less than one
00:32:30
whereas it would be 3 to one or 5 to one among couples who are really getting
00:32:35
along very very well where is this potential this openness and potential
00:32:40
what's the difference in body language Let me let me demonstrate it so somebody who's overconfident pretend he's not
00:32:47
sitting here is just going to be doing so that for people that aren't
00:32:52
watching laying back on laying back your arm you know stretch out over the top of
00:32:58
the chair next to you you're leaning back you know which is to me come to me
00:33:07
you know it's all me um it's all about me and I'm so cool and somebody who is
00:33:14
really engaged is going to be more kind of leaning forward and making eye
00:33:21
contact being fairly relaxed you know not not hunching their shoulders inward
00:33:28
which shows they're probably depressed they're insecure they're hiding out but
00:33:35
you know just relaxed their shoulders are you know not up to their
00:33:40
ears um they're allowing their eye gaze to
00:33:46
look away as they think about something and then they look right at you and they
00:33:51
answer the question all of those indicators that ratio of I to other I Me
00:34:01
Mine you know predominates uh conversations where there's all this tension say that again
00:34:08
sir is where you know the conversation is really about just myself I'm sort of
00:34:15
putting myself in the center versus being interested in you being interested in us being interested in we and and
00:34:23
that emerges that openness emerges in language as well there's also a
00:34:29
reciprocity uh in the sense that um let's say you and I are meeting um you
00:34:36
asked me some questions about myself I'll answer those questions but then I'll ask you I'll come back and ask you
00:34:44
questions about yourself as opposed to go ahead ask me more questions and more
00:34:49
questions and more um so I'm only happy when I'm talking about myself right right so
00:34:58
you know you're going back and forth exhibiting that Curiosity as opposed to
00:35:04
uh just adoring somebody being curious about you but not reciprocating by being
00:35:11
curious about them I um it's funny because you're talking about body language a second ago and many people
00:35:19
will click on episodes on YouTube or podcasts that try and teach us body language but I I think okay you can
00:35:26
learn some of the things but really again I think body language is a symptom of what's going on inside how do you
00:35:32
build confidence is really the question you know especially when you
00:35:37
begin uh let's say in a family or with caretakers who are critical and
00:35:43
contemptuous of you and when you have that from practically the ground up as I
00:35:51
did uh you internalize that and you believe
00:35:57
you're worthless because you were treated as worthless so how do you build the confidence right so either through
00:36:06
maybe therapy through looking at yourself in the mirror and saying all right this is who
00:36:15
I am this is who I am this is who I am you know
00:36:20
one I I used to like almost every single woman no matter how beautiful you are
00:36:27
you will always measure yourself as inferior to somebody else always as a woman I mean you've seen already 6
00:36:35
million images of idealized women by the time you're 18 think about that so how
00:36:43
do you build confidence in what you look like go to a locker room where women are
00:36:50
undressing and look at their real bodies and notice the variety notice you you
00:36:58
know the the whatever woman that's larger than the standard thinner than
00:37:04
the standard women come in all shapes and sizes so do men and just seeing the
00:37:13
reality the reality as opposed to the photosho you know that's the thing that
00:37:19
is so difficult about technology is that these days you know especially with
00:37:25
dating apps and so on people people are photoshopping their images or they're taking an image of themselves 30 years
00:37:32
ago and they here is what I am and I actually still have hair it's the
00:37:38
reality that it's not really about the appearance it's not even about you know
00:37:45
the IQ or whatever or the education it's really about the well here we go it's
00:37:51
it's about the heart it's about the heart is this a kind person is this a
00:37:57
caring person is this a person who exhibits compassion who treats people equally and
00:38:03
so on a dating that wouldn't work on that basis would it no and most people are lying on taking too that's right is
00:38:13
there a difference in what men and women look for in a partner as it relates to
00:38:18
attraction when they first meet well you know that's an interesting question because uh I remember reading this paper
00:38:25
by Eli fle he says in the introduction you know generally uh the dating research
00:38:32
suggests that men are looking for physical Beauty and women are looking for occupational competence and wealth
00:38:41
and but actually when he did this really elaborate speed dating study none of
00:38:47
that actually manifested in people's preferences uh the preferences were all
00:38:53
in terms of what it felt like to be together and both men and women were really
00:38:59
similar so when you interact with somebody for you're going to interact with them for 5 minutes and the speed
00:39:05
dating uh situation what made the difference was how much fun it was to interact with them for five minutes how
00:39:12
enjoyable it was and men and women were the same so the the the social context
00:39:19
of dating is so important um because if it's this very tense you know evaluative
00:39:26
context nothing is going to work but if it's this relaxed sort of interested curious
00:39:33
context almost everything's going to work now a lot of dating happens these days with alcohol in a nightclub or with
00:39:41
alcohol at maybe dinner or at a bar is there a better place to conduct a first
00:39:48
date and if so why well first of all alcohol distorts everything drugs
00:39:54
distort everything you know there's a reason they say intoxicated toxic alcohol is toxic so it
00:40:03
shuts down certain parts of the brain shuts down to some degree uh your
00:40:09
ability to judge your ability to sense your reflexes your intuition um all that stuff is shut down
00:40:17
to some degree and so wow she's really
00:40:22
hot I'm going to go for her you know you're not picking up that you know she's wearing a wedding ring she's
00:40:28
sitting with a man who has a match in wedding you know you're not picking up all that stuff so probably a coffee shop
00:40:36
is nice where we met yeah well I think it needs to be a context that is not
00:40:44
evaluative um you know I think it has to be some kind of relaxed context where
00:40:49
you're just kind of getting to know one another uh yeah and seeing what it's
00:40:54
like to meet this person so it's the Judgment that makes it tense and
00:41:00
uncomfortable and so people need alcohol to get relaxed and of course then
00:41:06
they're you know where they get high and they're laughing at everything and nothing and there's no there's no
00:41:13
connection there's no real connection uh so the evaluative context is the is kind
00:41:19
of like um the an the antidote to love
00:41:25
you have an evaluative context you know you're trying to be your at your best the other person is trying to be at their best but you know there's no real
00:41:33
interest in one another when you say evaluative context it means that we're evaluating each other it's really really
00:41:38
AAR Jud it's like an interview basically yeah it's like it's like a job interview interesting never going to
00:41:46
work is there a certain age where if you get together with someone you're more
00:41:51
likely to be successful I was talking to my friend about this actually this weekend because he is um approaching 40
00:41:58
and his partner is significantly younger um it's my friend that lives in uh America in New York and he was telling
00:42:05
me that because she's sort of 23 he's struggling a little bit because he wants to settle down and he wants to think
00:42:11
about kids now and she's still trying to figure out life so it made me wonder if maybe he should be aiming at people that
00:42:16
are at least that that sort of 30 age where you start right you know I don't know if there's any research to you know
00:42:22
I I don't know about the research but what I've seen clinically is that people
00:42:28
who date uh others that are very very different in age from them have a
00:42:33
problem typically because first of all their um the social history in which
00:42:40
they were raised is different right so for example John and I uh though we're
00:42:46
not the same age we're about nine years apart but we both went through Vietnam
00:42:52
we both went through all the assassinations in the US Civil Right the Civil Rights movement you know I got
00:42:58
arrested he didn't I was unlucky you know in the protesting stuff but but
00:43:05
that context you know understanding uh a period of history
00:43:12
that you grew up in is really important and also internally in the sense that
00:43:18
there are really phases of development that you go through as you get older and
00:43:23
you're absolutely right Stephen in that a 40y old old who wants to now settle
00:43:28
down create a home create a family and a 23y old are incredibly different
00:43:35
developmentally so their goals will be different their values will be different
00:43:40
if you will their maturity will be different um their interests Also may be
00:43:47
strikingly different there may be a real difference in valuing commitment you
00:43:52
know and so on uh so I've seen relationships work with that kind of
00:43:59
desperate age but typically um that can happen more easily
00:44:04
when you're older when you've already created your identity you've already identified what what profession or line
00:44:12
of work you want to do uh whether or not you want to have kids or if you've already had kids and so
00:44:19
on so like a 40-year-old and a 50y old or 55y old would be very different than
00:44:26
a 40y old and a 23y old um good enough
00:44:32
relationships should I be looking for because this goes back to what I was saying earlier about you know looking
00:44:37
for the one looking for your Julie or should I be looking for a relationship that is good enough um and then try and
00:44:44
build it to be a great relationship because there's a lot of people that are maybe over 30 years old over 40 years
00:44:50
old you are single um struggling to find someone that's great and so they their
00:44:57
friends or their Partners or you know the people around them are saying just you know that person's good enough that
00:45:03
person's good enough just you know give them a chance and go on the date and yeah I think I think there's a lot to
00:45:09
that point of view uh because when you know when you're
00:45:15
looking for the perfect relationship that's good in every Dimension uh you're going to be
00:45:22
disappointed and uh I think I think it makes some sense to look for what's good
00:45:28
enough and so you know what's good enough for one person is not the same as
00:45:34
what's good enough for another person I know you know what's good enough for me is having somebody you can really trust
00:45:42
and really feel a sense of commitment toward and those two dimensions are absolutely critical is that what did you
00:45:49
have non-negotiables both of you I were there was there anything on your list of things that were mandatory in finding
00:45:57
your partner yeah for me it was wanting children so that's the non-negotiable
00:46:02
for you yes was there anything else that was non-negotiable uh monogamy okay yeah for
00:46:10
me yeah sense of humor was really
00:46:16
important I think another thing too is do you get bored talking to them or not
00:46:25
or are they continually in interesting to you um but I think one of the most
00:46:32
important things is how do they make you feel about yourself not just you know you're
00:46:39
attracted to them or whatever but how do they make you feel about yourself if they make you
00:46:45
feel uh dumb or unkind or too needy or
00:46:53
whatever not cool on the other hand if they make you feel like the most
00:46:59
gorgeous thing in the world and the most brilliant person in the world Etc and
00:47:05
you know you're not that's not it either you know so do they recognize you
00:47:11
it's almost like that do they recognize you in your fullness of humanity and you
00:47:18
know that takes time of course you have to get to know one another
00:47:24
um but let's see you nebl I know very quickly um I think we
00:47:31
both realized that whatever we spend time together
00:47:36
it's always interesting and fun that's true talking over anything it's really that's true and everything
00:47:43
that you said everything that came out of your mouth was so fraking fascinating
00:47:49
I knew I would be learning from him the rest of my life yeah I felt the same way about you you know and Road a road trip
00:47:56
trip was an opportunity it was really you know a time to talk about our dreams and our hopes about the world and
00:48:05
yeah what about sex and the role that plays in attraction I asked this question because I had a relationship
00:48:12
when I used to live in New York and I really really liked this person we got on all the things you described the road
00:48:18
trips everything was fun and then when it came to the point where we had sexual
00:48:24
intimacy it just wasn't there yeah and it was it was crushing for me because
00:48:30
this person was perfect in every conceivable way smart kind fun
00:48:35
everything I just and then the minute we moved to the the next stage it just wasn't there I just wasn't sexually
00:48:42
attracted had that experience too and so it made me add to my list of non-negotiables a third thing at the
00:48:48
time there was two things on that list the first was they kind of helped me become a better version of myself and however I want to Define that the second
00:48:54
was this intellectual stimulation the ability to conversate and be interested in them and them interested in me and
00:48:59
the third became not about appearance at all it was purely a sexual
00:49:04
connection because yeah and so I just wonder the role that sexual intimacy and
00:49:11
sexual attraction plays in having a a good relationship with someone yeah you know I think that really varies Stephen
00:49:18
because um there's a huge range of the importance sexuality plays in
00:49:25
individuals you know some people are practically asexual MH other people you
00:49:31
know it's been a really long time if they hadn't had sex in four hours so and
00:49:36
everything in between so I think to some degree that's an individual in a choice
00:49:45
as to how important is sexuality to you and having a wonderful sexual
00:49:51
connection as opposed to who cares you know I just want to have cup coffee and
00:49:57
a pastry you know it so every individual needs to decide that
00:50:04
for themselves how important it is and then you know if it if it is important
00:50:10
even of average importance it's really important yeah but the other thing too
00:50:17
that's interesting I mean we're talking about dating but I've also seen relationships that have been together
00:50:22
for a long time and uh the sex Falls away
00:50:28
mhm but it's much more important to one person than the other and they
00:50:34
diverged and it becomes you know a pretty serious problem uh it didn't
00:50:40
start off that way but it can become that way and what happens in those
00:50:46
scenarios well you know typically it's really interesting um of course in
00:50:52
second well second marriages or relationships at let's say over 40 or so
00:50:59
um women uh especially women going through per menopause you know finishing
00:51:05
with menopause um sex hormones go way down
00:51:11
they go way down and so are they still interested in having sex
00:51:18
well they may not be so interested in it that they want to initiate sex but we
00:51:26
all hardwired in particular ways um so you touch there you lick there you know you
00:51:33
stimulate here and that wiring is going to kick in and the sexuality will kick
00:51:41
in again and the sexual responsiveness will kick in so um you can work on that
00:51:50
angle number one but number two often times there have been big emotional
00:51:56
injuries IES that have broken trust that have broken emotional
00:52:01
connection and okay so two theories
00:52:07
one most men in Western culture are not
00:52:13
uh they don't accept themselves if they just want to cuddle that's not
00:52:20
masculine right so everybody needs touch but for many many men who bought into
00:52:28
that the only way they can get touch is through sex they can't just say will you
00:52:33
please just hold me women can because women are considered you know more
00:52:40
vulnerable and uh softer and it's okay for them you know to ask to just be held
00:52:48
but not for men so you know sex becomes a difficult thing there too especially
00:52:55
with an ultra m Uline man where he's just come back from war he wants to just
00:53:02
be held but he can't ask for that he's got to be tough and strong and sexy
00:53:08
therefore he'll go for sex any thoughts on that John I I I
00:53:17
think I agree with you I it it's it's not negotiable you know it's it's one of
00:53:22
these intangible things that you know if it's not there it's not going to work
00:53:28
very well in the beginning if it's not there right I mean
00:53:34
it's yeah I think it needs to be there because it goes on a journey all
00:53:39
relationships it's funny because from doing this podcast and speaking to a lot of sort of sex therapists or Coupes
00:53:45
therapists this one of them said something to me one day or maybe two of them said the same point I think two or
00:53:50
three of them so the same point which is much of what makes sex so you know
00:53:57
arousing is the spontaneity and the novess the newness of it the excitement of it all these kinds of things and they
00:54:03
said to me that love is in many respects the opposite of that it's the opposite of spontaneity and love is like security
00:54:10
and trust and dependability and it's you know knowing someone so I I've spoken to
00:54:19
a few of my friends in fact about this Balancing Act between like I really love this person I know them and I'm there for them and we we know everything about
00:54:25
each other and then like having to fight to also create this excitement like how do I how
00:54:33
do I love you like we've known each other for 10 years and you can trust me and depend on me but then how do I have
00:54:39
sex with you like like we've just met it's this so we call it the coolage
00:54:47
effect have you heard of this uh Kelvin coolage uh was President of the United
00:54:52
States and he and his wife were visiting visiting a farm and uh and as the
00:55:00
president uh was led past these uh chickens and roosters the farmer said oh
00:55:07
uh this rooster has sex 17 times a day
00:55:13
and Mrs kulage wanted me to point that out to you Mr President when she came by
00:55:18
here because we pointed out that rooster as sex 17 times a day and Calvin Coan
00:55:24
said with the same head and the farmer said no always a
00:55:29
different H he said and president said tell that to Mrs kulage so the coolage effect is that it
00:55:38
has to be novel it has to be exciting to be eronic right and familiarity you know
00:55:44
which creates security and relaxation and openness is antithetical to the
00:55:51
novelty that creates sexual excitement but the truth is actually not so simple
00:55:58
uh because eroticism often really results from really creating an erotic
00:56:06
situation together and making it an erotic situation and for women especially feeling safe and feeling
00:56:13
emotionally connected is a prerequisite for feeling really attracted and feeling
00:56:21
that this is an erotic situation that emotional connection is necessary for many women because women have such a
00:56:30
strange relationship to safety and fear compared to men the world is so much
00:56:35
more dangerous place for women than it is for men women really need that
00:56:40
emotional safety and connection in order to feel that the situation is erotic at all it's important for your your
00:56:47
audience to realize that the largest study done on the quality of sex with
00:56:54
70,000 people in 24 countries found that the differences between people who say
00:57:00
they have a great sex life and people say they have an awful sex life has to do with affection and emotional
00:57:06
connection that people have a great sex life say I love you every day and mean it kiss each other passionately for no
00:57:14
reason at all cuddle they're affectionate even in public they have
00:57:19
romantic dates so affection and emotional connection for most people all
00:57:24
over the planet Are connected rather than there being this dichotomy between
00:57:30
if you're close and if your friendship is good sex is going to be terrible and
00:57:36
if you're distant and you know and it's novel sex is going to be great just not
00:57:44
true that's right and is there a certain amount of because a lot of couples fall
00:57:49
into this trap of sort of fake comparison whether it's social media or movies where we think okay if we're not
00:57:54
having sex three times a week something's wrong I need to raise it we need to argue about it we need to fix
00:57:59
it is there any Merit to the quantity resulting in you know happiness
00:58:07
no no relationship between quantity and happiness quality yes well with the
00:58:16
caveat with the caveat that if you have two people paired together one who is
00:58:24
extremely sexual MH and you know really does need sex frequently and the other
00:58:31
one uh the opposite sexual who is more asexual and you know could take it or
00:58:37
leave it want sex maybe once a month that's not going to work that's not going to
00:58:42
work one of the things me and my friends have been deliberating about is the
00:58:47
importance of what we call Desire management which is if someone is like
00:58:53
around too much and they're there every second of every day in the house when I
00:58:58
get home you know everywhere does that not to some degree start to kill the desire a little bit one of the best
00:59:04
things that I I think I found in my relationship is that my partner is always working away then I'm working away and so when we see each other it
00:59:10
feels special and interesting but I personally don't know
00:59:15
that if we were both in the house seven days a week and I worked from home with her whether the desire would be the same
00:59:24
I don't know you know I I I think that for example John and I are around each
00:59:29
other 7 days a week and we have been for you know most of our marriage but it
00:59:34
doesn't matter um is that because of my attachment style maybe because you know
00:59:40
I wondered if yeah yeah could be could be I need a lot of
00:59:46
solitude yeah but you all around each other yeah but you're around each other most of the time you well we are but but
00:59:53
you know in a house where there's enough space in the house to not be in visual
01:00:01
contact with the other person all the time right you see so he's downstairs I
01:00:06
may be upstairs something like that or I can maybe hear him maybe not he can hear
01:00:12
me maybe not you know so
01:00:18
um I think there is something wonderful about being a part and then coming
01:00:23
together that reunion after you've been a part for a while is really quite delicious you know what though this is
01:00:30
so interesting I I am working with an individual right now uh and they're both
01:00:37
artists they both travel a whole bunch all the time and whenever they reunite
01:00:45
after one of them is gone nothing there's nothing for about two or three days and then they have to
01:00:52
get into the same rhythm again someone said to me on this podcast they said you have to spend 90 minutes a week
01:01:00
talking to your partner and if you don't and the person actually said to me if you don't get that into your dumb skull you'll be spending much more time with
01:01:06
them in divorce court oh and wow I know it was a it was a Brash thing to say but
01:01:12
I reflected on it and it really helped me because I think I don't know I'm I'm
01:01:18
speaking as a man so I can't speak for all men I can't speak for women but speaking for as a man myself and also on
01:01:23
behalf of my friends with my own attachment Stu I think that's important to add I struggle with naturally with
01:01:32
conflict resolution because conflict resolution to me sounds like blame so if my when my partner says we need to talk
01:01:39
I'm like oh my [ __ ] god what have I done now that's right what have I done
01:01:45
now and I sit there like a you know I feel like it's a a kid in school being told off by their like the Headmaster or
01:01:51
the a child being told of by their mother I'm like go on tell me all the ways that I'm inadequate but the phase of this idea of you're going to have to
01:01:57
spend 90 minutes a week sitting with each other and talking regardless help me because he he then went on to say
01:02:03
because if you do that then you can get to play well I think here's here's my invention I have a notebook in my back
01:02:10
pocket oh yeah interesting and it's just designed for when Julie says we need to talk and I take out the notebook and a
01:02:17
pen and I say okay talk to me I'm taking notes I want to know what's going on and
01:02:24
she'll tell me I'm disappointed you or angry you know I mean whatever says you
01:02:30
know I write it down and reflect it back and see if I understand what you're
01:02:36
saying yeah and so I think I think it's not just 90 minutes it's 90 minutes when
01:02:42
you're willing to listen non-defensively which is not easy that's not easy that's
01:02:49
really the work in relationships is being non-defensive but that's why we wrote
01:02:54
fight right yeah you know and when we gave you know talk uh it's it's
01:03:02
really so important to not do that you you you you blaming thing that blaming
01:03:09
it's you know I feel about what what's the situation not you know the way you
01:03:19
fail me it's the situation Julie is it is it more often men or women that are
01:03:24
saying that I feel are you kidding men are catching up but
01:03:29
it's hard it's hard for men to do that women I mean you go to mental health
01:03:37
expertise and all the characteristics of uh a man that are considered mentally
01:03:45
healthy autonomy Independence uh strength resilience
01:03:51
resilience you know all the stuff that's autonomous for women
01:03:57
vulnerability sensitivity empath empathy expressing emotion so you know there's
01:04:04
only one emotion that men are allowed to really openly Express
01:04:10
anger right can they express fear oh my God I'm so scared of going in there
01:04:16
tomorrow or sadness or you know the more vulnerable
01:04:22
emotions it's God think about it it's seen as
01:04:29
effeminate and that's supposed to be bad why is that bad because women are
01:04:36
second class citizens right so to be allegedly like a
01:04:43
woman and express vulnerable emotions is a bad thing because you shouldn't be
01:04:50
like a woman why not you know I mean so
01:04:56
expressing vulnerable emotions I think men are starting to catch up you know
01:05:01
don't women like strength yes and no they like strength
01:05:07
but the problem is is that they also want to be
01:05:13
empathetic too they want to be you know nourishing to their partner and if their
01:05:20
partner is always presenting this facade of strength they can't get close to them
01:05:25
it's like the of connection yeah but you know we we observed 8-year-olds in
01:05:31
playgrounds uh and if you if you look at eight-year-old boys they'll do run and
01:05:37
chase games over a very large distance and if an emotional event happens if
01:05:43
somebody gets upset you know say what's the matter Brian says the leader of the group say I never get the ball okay toss
01:05:51
the ball to Brian Brian gets the ball and they're of and running they keep the game in Play
01:05:56
manage conflict quickly look at two look at girls they're playing in groups of
01:06:02
two or three close to the school building and they're talking about their feelings over and over again you know
01:06:11
you said that I was a baby you know cuz I had those barrettes that really hurt my feelings yeah well I you know I I
01:06:18
only wear barrettes when when I was little and now I don't wear them you know but that hurt my feelings when you
01:06:24
said that so I didn't mean to hurt your feels they're talking about emotions constantly and it's like the Hopscotch
01:06:32
or whatever game they're playing is just an excuse for talking about emotions for the boys the most important thing is
01:06:39
keeping the ball in play and conflict gets in the way of that they resolve it quickly they socialized so
01:06:47
differently is this part the reason why it feels for many men that they are being held off all the time because it
01:06:54
actually what's happening is the their wife is just expressing their emotions and the man never really expresses it you know that old sort of slightly
01:07:00
problematic phrase which is happy wife happy life that's right the reason why that phrase exists I would assume is
01:07:07
because the man thinks as long as I can keep her from expressing more problems to me then I'm happy he like thinks of
01:07:13
his responsibility is just like yeah ask a man how he's feeling he says well I'm not hungry I'm not horny uh I'm
01:07:21
okay ask a woman how she's feeling she says well I don't know know there's there's you know the children and
01:07:28
there's this and the house and you know and there's this tangle of questions
01:07:33
that really she has to address when you ask her how she's feeling there's so many things and for a guy it's so much
01:07:39
easier but John as man I think we can both agree that although well I'm
01:07:44
speaking for myself here but although in the moment going through that conflict resolution the 90 minutes a week getting
01:07:49
out your notepad listening is annoying in the moment when we zoom out we realize that
01:07:56
if they didn't raise these issues if they didn't Express these issues this relationship wouldn't be so good that's
01:08:02
right and would' be in serious that's right they're the managers of intimacy yeah we need
01:08:08
them yes we need them to say stepen we need to
01:08:14
talk yeah did you see Steven's face that was so cutie oh it's true I realize it I
01:08:22
realize that this is serving a purpose which is helping me you know us right so I sit there and I'll listen
01:08:28
to you know the things that um the things that aren't right but you're right my brain is just like me and my
01:08:35
friends can sit in silence for8 hours sat right next to each other and we'll meet each other sit in silence for eight
01:08:41
hours leave great evening great evening great we both we both like doing our own
01:08:46
thing but it's just I think men are such simple creatures most of the time oh you are not that is so not true you know one
01:08:55
of of the things that I've certainly seen in my my work you know I've been doing clinical work for 50 years and
01:09:02
what I see is that men have exactly the same emotions they do they just try to
01:09:09
bury them because it's not okay for them to express them so they just try to
01:09:15
shove it down but open a little door crack and up it comes lion old Tiger who
01:09:21
studied men's friendships and women's friendships said with alcohol men get
01:09:28
together they're very physical and they talk about their feelings an enormous amount takes a little alcohol to make it
01:09:36
happen two women said to me last night that I was speaking to um on uh WhatsApp
01:09:42
um people that I work with in a different company they were saying to me that their Partners often express how they're feeling by just sending songs
01:09:48
out of the blue sending songs sending songs out of the blue i' never heard of
01:09:54
it because one of them said it and and the other woman said oh my God my partner does that too which is instead of like telling me how he feels he'll
01:10:01
send me a song which just which is basically how he feels yeah um and some
01:10:06
of those songs are very romantic and it's like I love you you're the best person I've ever found but instead they he they can't he can't vocalize it to
01:10:11
her so he has to send her a Spotify link and say listen listen to this but it's the same thing right it's
01:10:18
the that's right inability to to vocalize which is yep difficult for men
01:10:24
keep working on it I am yeah I'm like progressively getting better but sometimes I have little relapses if you if I am very busy in my
01:10:33
mind and then I have to have one of those we need to talk chat so I think you're right there needs to be a bit of a ritual around like is this a good
01:10:41
time that's right yeah will I have your attention or you know even being in a different environment like well you can
01:10:46
make you know make a date to have a talk like that when we are giving couples workshops at the very end of it we
01:10:53
always uh give recommendations for ways of preserving the changes you're making
01:10:59
in the relationship the improvements and one of them is called the state of the union meeting right where you start with
01:11:08
five appreciations of each other you know things you haven't said before that you've noticed that your partner is
01:11:15
doing right and express your gratitude or thanks or your
01:11:20
admiration then you go into okay so what
01:11:26
do we need to change what do we need to improve right and then you finish up
01:11:32
with this beautiful question I just love this question how can I make you feel
01:11:37
loved this week and that's
01:11:43
closure you mentioned the word there gratitude yes why is gratitude so
01:11:51
important being grateful for them and expressing that it's something that you two both du to each other I think I I
01:11:57
think it's indicative of a habit of mind that's that's really much more important
01:12:02
a habit of Mind where you're noticing what's going right and feeling appreciative for it and I I know I wake
01:12:10
up every morning lying next to Julian and think I'm one lucky guy you know
01:12:16
I've got this wonderful woman and you know life is good I go through my
01:12:22
checklist everybody's okay all all the people I love her all right and I'm with
01:12:28
her and I get to see my grandson you know and my daughter life is
01:12:36
good yeah yeah you know I think gratitude brings you into the moment
01:12:42
brings you into the moment you know so and as John pointed out uh you're not
01:12:47
just looking for what's wrong you know or what your partner is doing wrong
01:12:52
you're looking for what your partner is doing right um you know there's been studies who was
01:12:59
it chrysson Robinson I guess um who looked at unhappy couples versus happy
01:13:04
couples and unhappy it wasn't that they weren't doing things for one another but
01:13:10
unhappy couples only saw 50% of what their Partners were doing
01:13:17
the positivity of the positivity right whereas happy couples were seeing it all
01:13:22
the time it's like they're wearing different sunglasses or something a different fil different filters well and
01:13:28
the negative habit of mind you know really puts you in a state of being kind of irritable and grumpy all the time you
01:13:36
know you're noticing other people are driving badly and you know and being
01:13:41
careless and making mistakes all the time and that's all that's all you see because gratitude puts you on a
01:13:49
different frame of mind so you notice actually all the good stuff that's going on right let me draw ACC let me draw a
01:13:57
parallel one of the things that uh I've done in my private practice I still do
01:14:02
is treat cancer patients in their families and cancer patients of course
01:14:08
often are facing the possibility of death
01:14:14
so one of the questions uh and oftentimes I mean the ones who deal with
01:14:21
their diagnosis best are people who say okay I don't have that long to live I'm going
01:14:27
to repr prioritize my life I'm going to really think about what's most important
01:14:33
to me for the six months I have left so one of the things that I do in my
01:14:39
practice with couples um who are just racing through
01:14:45
life together on Parallel tracks not connecting at all
01:14:50
uh is to ask them okay you know if you had 6 months left to
01:14:58
live how would you want to spend it who would be the most important people that
01:15:05
you would want to draw close to who would you not value as much how
01:15:11
would you want to spend that six months and I I first kind of take people into a
01:15:18
very relax state so their minds are really free to imagine uh and and what's what's that
01:15:25
doing is it helping to crystallize whether they should be with this person uh clarify sometimes but it's more that
01:15:34
oh my God you know I'm wasting my life trying to make more money why am I doing that when I've got
01:15:41
this love right here what's more important to me making more money or
01:15:47
creating more love between us that's what it comes down to often times
01:15:55
when do you know how do you know when to quit a relationship how do I know if the relationship I'm in is bad is not good
01:16:03
because relationships are incredibly tempting they tempt us back they offer Comfort which sometimes necessarily
01:16:09
isn't healthy Comfort but they're very hard to leave and I actually had a conversation with one of my friends
01:16:15
recently I always talk about my friends because it's the only way I know to draw on case studies so instead of me just hypothetical coming with something
01:16:21
hypothetical I think about the the challenges my friends face and got friend who's been in a relationship for many many years seven eight years um
01:16:29
relationship is broken broken down and he naturally because the relationship is
01:16:35
broken down is like jumping to repair but I wonder if he should even repair because
01:16:43
they've broken up six times they've gone through this cycle six times so I'm like are they just rushing back together for
01:16:50
the comfort of the relationship or um should do they you
01:16:55
know take a moment to say is this even right but this also the answer here applies to people that are in relationships that have those thoughts
01:17:02
in their mind is this the right one how do you know how do you know if this is a problem we can solve and should solve or
01:17:08
this is just the wrong person therapy helps M has your friend
01:17:14
gone to therapy good therapy not with their partner no then they don't know
01:17:20
you know in other words a lot of people um don't know how to deal with Conflict for
01:17:27
example nobody's taking relationships oneone in high school right to learn how
01:17:33
to deal with conflict or to learn how to be more vulnerable to somebody else and
01:17:39
be more open and so on so people don't know how to have good relationships
01:17:44
that's part of what drives the work that John and I do people just don't know how
01:17:50
to do it and if they did know they could change those patter patterns and so you
01:17:57
know with your friend for example often times you know when people have been together for over you know a couple of
01:18:04
years they create patterns that are like dark holes you know they're like black
01:18:10
holes that have this tremendous gravitational pole and so they keep
01:18:16
sinking down in the same patterns over and over and over and over again right that's well exactly what Happ your but
01:18:25
you can change those patterns once you know and practice what the alternatives
01:18:33
are oh okay well I think it's I think it's not the partner the pattern an
01:18:38
alternative pattern yes I think when that fund us and admiration system you know the system of affection and respect
01:18:45
love and respect is gone and gets replaced by denigration belittling
01:18:52
contempt that's a ton to bail and you've seen this in your work oh yeah this is like much of what you guys you know are
01:18:59
known for is this and whenever I hear people talking about the goans they're always talking to me about the idea of contempt and The Four Horsemen
01:19:06
right see those things can change too those things can change too that often
01:19:13
is what constitutes the bad pattern or there's been so much of that that now
01:19:19
they avoid each other all together and there's huge emotional distance what are
01:19:24
the four Horsemen and before we talk about how we would go about changing if possible these things for anyone that
01:19:29
doesn't know and how you found these four horsemen uh well Bob Lon and I when we
01:19:36
doing our research we first the first thing we looked at was what's the ratio of positive to negative emotion in a
01:19:43
conversation so how did you conduct this experiment really just observing couples
01:19:48
talking about how their day went wait wait wait bring them into the lab first of all what's the lab uh the
01:19:56
lab was a room where they sat facing one another there were video cameras here
01:20:04
and there that were focused on each individual and their faces and
01:20:11
their body language um there was what was called a jigal ometer how much they moved in their chairs you know how much
01:20:18
the chairs move physiological measures what was happening to their heart rate
01:20:23
you know as well velocity respiration respiration conductance and all of that
01:20:30
all of that data that was pulled from those measures was all synchronized you
01:20:35
know hundredth of a second by hundredth of a second and they would talk for
01:20:40
let's say 15 minutes about the events of the day and then they were asked to talk
01:20:46
about a problem they hadn't solved and to try and solve it or talk about it so
01:20:52
that you know ends up being conflict and then a positive topic and then a
01:20:57
positive topic or in in the apartment lab they just hung out for you know 12
01:21:03
hours before they went to sleep and the cameras just rolled while we collected physiological data so that raal SPI on
01:21:11
them you really SPI spied on them right except they knew they were be for 12 hours you watch them just sort
01:21:17
of chill and hang out together couple that's right how many couples have you 130 and how many couples have been in
01:21:22
the lab in total 3,000 3,00 000 and they were followed you know so then they'd be
01:21:28
brought back every couple of years right uh to see how the relationship changed
01:21:35
right so the procedures would be repeated every couple of years for as long as 20 years and what did you find
01:21:42
happen so that the initially that ratio of positive to negative interaction even
01:21:49
talking about how their day went or especially during Conflict for people who were in happy stable relationship it
01:21:56
average five positives for every negative positives about the other person or about no just positive emotion
01:22:03
like let's describe positives so a positive can be nodding your head it can
01:22:09
be smiling it can be asking a question humor validation showing interest
01:22:15
interest in the other person uh negative would be anger irritability
01:22:20
disappointment hurt disgust contempt uh shared humor was another big positive
01:22:28
that turned out to be very important that so that ratio of positive to negative averaged five to one in
01:22:35
relationships that were stable and happy during conflict during conflict and point8 to one in relationships that were
01:22:43
headed for disaster either splitting up or being together unhappily uh but certain negatives were
01:22:50
much more predictive of relationship demise and they were criticism
01:22:56
defensiveness contempt and stonewalling so let's define what those
01:23:02
are so criticism means blaming a problem on a personality flaw of your partner
01:23:09
like you're so lazy you'd never think to clean up the kitchen wouldn't you or God
01:23:14
you're thoughtless you didn't even call me when you were going to be late you know thoughtless lazy inconsiderate
01:23:21
selfish okay making about personality and their character that's right that's
01:23:27
a criticism contempt is the worst that's sulfuric acid for a
01:23:33
relationship um where you're looking down your nose with disgust as well as criticism of the
01:23:40
partner superiority so give me an example of that you're such an idiot you
01:23:46
know you just never get things right you know it's just you're just not like me
01:23:52
you know I I'm thoughtful and cons consider it and you're just you're just you're stupid you're a narcissist right
01:23:59
you know right so there there's the criticism but it's making yourself
01:24:04
Superior to that other person MH and there's a little disgust in it you know
01:24:10
s kind of stuff sarcasm is a good example mockery you know especially in
01:24:17
front of people yeah right awful so the person says well I really care how you
01:24:22
feel you really care how I feel you
01:24:27
know so that's contempt Stow malling is really emotional with don't forget
01:24:33
defensiv and defensiveness yeah so every defensiveness is the one we all have
01:24:39
it's so hard to get over which is you know you either kind of whine like an innocent victim you know I did too pay
01:24:47
the bills on time what do you mean I'm thoughtful I'm thoughtful I am thoughtful don't you remember blah blah
01:24:53
blah or it's Counterattack oh yeah you're so perfect huh you never clean up
01:24:59
the kitchen you know it's that Counterattack do you find that insecure people are more defensive sure I have
01:25:06
this like theory that if your self-esteem and your self- perception of yourself is fragile then anyone poking
01:25:12
at it at all causes such extreme pain right that you like you live in a this
01:25:17
state of like I have never done anything wrong I can't I've do anything wrong and if someone points out something you've done wrong it's so painful if you're
01:25:24
insecure right walking on anything yeah exact it's like a playing with like an open wound yeah it's like you're a
01:25:31
walking burn victim yeah you know the way I describe it um because I've been
01:25:36
there I know what that's like is you know the the Earth if you take uh a
01:25:43
picture of the Earth and the Earth has this very thin crust on it and then you
01:25:48
go down some layers and in the center is this boiling hot lava you know
01:25:54
uh that burns you to death well somebody says to you why didn't you pay the bills
01:26:00
on time and the Earth opens up you fall through that crack and straight down
01:26:07
into that hot lava of self loathing that is Agony absolutely and you feel like
01:26:15
you're getting burned to death so you can't allow yourself to step into that
01:26:21
crack and say oh God you're right right I didn't so you defend you defend oh yeah
01:26:30
well I'm the one who does all the bill paying what are you doing you know it's defensiveness well in that case it
01:26:36
sounds like that's fundamentally linked to some kind of trauma because paying the you didn't pay the bills to the average person would be yeah I know
01:26:42
sorry my bad but if that's linked to maybe I don't know your childhood where your your father or your mother or the
01:26:47
bullies on the playground told you that you always you're so forgetful Steve or Julie you're the most forgetful person
01:26:53
ever in the and they punched you you could get to you know 40 can't be yeah can be can be and then
01:27:00
stonewalling this was one that was so fascinating because you could have you
01:27:07
know a pair of people sitting just like this looking perfectly normal but you
01:27:14
notice that one is completely shutting down not showing anything on their face
01:27:21
in their body maybe looking away or just glaz Ed you know looking and not saying
01:27:27
a word and that's not for seconds it's for minutes and what's actually going on
01:27:33
because these guys you know John and his colleagues measured physiology is that they feel so attacked
01:27:41
that their heart rates are zooming up above 100 beats a minute which just
01:27:47
sitting here secting cortisol and adrenaline massively and so they're
01:27:53
shutting down yeah it's a terribly it's going into fight ORF flight only you're
01:27:58
not facing a
01:28:04
[Music]
01:28:24
whatever issue they keep smashing into right um but much of why I think from
01:28:32
what I've heard or at least a symptom of their relationship is stonewalling but it it's
01:28:37
not minutes one of the one of them it's month I think I think basically I only
01:28:43
know this because I was showing some text messages and I looked at the text messages and I was like oh my God there's like whenever you talk about
01:28:49
something that might be a little bit challenging or whatever or um you even ask how do you think the relationship's
01:28:55
going the other partner is like vacant like like vacant nothing it's like
01:29:01
they're not expressing their needs they're not saying what they feel they're spiraling in their own mind and
01:29:07
then they're just breaking up with you wow you know it's kind of I don't know whether that's Stone Walling but it's also what you were saying about lacking
01:29:12
the tools that was at the heart of the relationship is one partner spirals independently and then without you even
01:29:19
knowing it you thought everything was okay breaks up with you to to give more context this is a homosexual
01:29:25
relationship yeah between two men yeah so you know we talked earlier on about the the woman's sometimes the instigator
01:29:31
of expression of needs yeah it's just right you know oh that's so sad you know
01:29:37
so it sounds like both of them have terrible difficulty making themselves
01:29:43
vulnerable to the other and saying what they feel and it may be that uh when the
01:29:52
if they tried that early on in the relationship the other one said
01:29:58
something very negative to them back that felt punishing in terms of
01:30:04
expressing their emotion and so they made a choice oh God
01:30:10
I can't make myself vulnerable I'm going to get hurt if I do that so they shut down but this point about um men not
01:30:17
being very good at expressing their feelings do we you know with that in mind and with the ackn knowledge that
01:30:23
expression feelings are good for building connection how come homosexual
01:30:28
relationships with men work and I don't know is there any data to show that they they last less longer than a
01:30:35
relationship where a woman is um stereotypically more likely to you know talk about the the challenges and the
01:30:41
issues and Bridge the connection someone's got to done the research on this subject well we you
01:30:47
know we've studied gay and lesbian couples and compared them to heterosexual couples as well and years
01:30:55
generally they're less defensive uh they have a better sense of humor and they're uh they're much much
01:31:03
more gentle in the way they bring up an issue with one another men or women in
01:31:08
those homosexual relationship and women together gay men and lesbians are better
01:31:15
than heterosexuals and they're much less possessive and domineering as well um
01:31:21
much more of a sense of equality in their relationships well especially you know pre well so do we wait pause
01:31:32
pread you know men gave each other much more autonomy to have sex outside the
01:31:39
relationship right but then AIDS kicked in and a lot of that shut down now it's
01:31:44
opening up again so they're giving themselves sexual Freedom as long as
01:31:51
there isn't a lot of emotional connection and falling in love with the third party women don't do that nearly
01:31:58
as much they're uh they tend to feel very
01:32:07
insecure around polygamy let's say or polyamory uh and so they really are more
01:32:16
wanting monogamy with their Partners so am I right in thinking John that
01:32:22
you're saying that h sexual relationships are better than heterosexual relationships are they are
01:32:28
better in general they're better do you know if they last longer I don't know that there's data on
01:32:35
that I don't think there are differences and how long that last is that right I don't think there's any
01:32:41
differences you know there's there's another thing too I mean again it depends on what period of History you're
01:32:47
talking about but because um being homosexual has been so stigmatized in
01:32:54
the past you know and there's so much prejudice against homosexuality um there's first of all
01:33:02
there's more of a sense of community amongst gay men and gay women you know
01:33:08
they've they've uh connected with one another not just as couples but as
01:33:13
community in order to survive the kind of prejudice they endure out in the
01:33:18
heterosexual Society right so uh and
01:33:24
it's been shown actually the research has shown this that when the community really supports the
01:33:29
relationship the relationship does better so if you've got a community
01:33:35
around you uh that's a consistent Community that's really supporting the
01:33:40
relationship that's really going to help you sustain that relationship and on these um these four
01:33:46
horsemen a word you didn't mention but I wondered if it fit in there somewhere is the word gaslighting which has become
01:33:52
quite popular in society what is gaslighting how does that show up so in in in physically violent
01:34:00
relationships um that are characterologically violent whether it's a perpetrator and a victim those kinds
01:34:07
of domestic violence quite often the the perpetrator is communicating to the
01:34:14
victim that everything about the reality is is wrong they never they never raised
01:34:21
their hand against this person you know it's just all imagined they're basically
01:34:27
doing you know what happened to in GRE Bergman in that movie guas light where
01:34:32
she's married to this where she's married to this guy who who can tries to
01:34:38
convince her that she's mentally ill that her whole sense of reality is wrong
01:34:43
so he does things like um change the order of the
01:34:49
pictures and you know in the home uh
01:34:54
steel um jewelry that he's given her that you know that he says comes from
01:35:00
his mother and grandmother he steals it and then he says you know where is it
01:35:06
you know you lost it you're so forgetful and he's constantly sort of uh making
01:35:12
her feel like she's going crazy there never was a painting there what are you talking about there's never a painting
01:35:18
there and she know and he's actually removed it or he's changed the order of
01:35:23
the pictures he's trying to make her think she's crazy and even her sense of reality needs him to determine what's
01:35:32
real and what's not real and that's what gas light comes from let me mention something because that word you're right
01:35:38
it's really being bandied about commonly and people have got it wrong speaking of gasoline um so people
01:35:49
for example who have a conflict and they have totally different points point of view about what happened during the
01:35:56
conflict who remembers it better you know and one will say well you said this
01:36:03
no I didn't I never said that that they're calling gaslighting
01:36:09
and it's not that is not gaslighting so it's being misused in the culture all
01:36:15
the time because people always have two points of view about different
01:36:21
perceptions and any who situation that's right they have you know everybody has
01:36:26
their own individual filters and so they're going to hear some things not hear other things and distort things and
01:36:33
so on memory isn't perfect and so they're always going to have two points of view and uh people can get locked
01:36:42
into struggles over no this is the absolute reality of what happened no it
01:36:48
isn't this is and there is no absolute reality it's all about perception so
01:36:54
people are calling that gaslighting and that's not and it isn't that's not what
01:37:00
gaslighting is at what point does it become gaslighting is that when you're intentionally trying to make the other
01:37:05
person crazy okay believe that they're crazy so they don't trust themselves and these violent relationships that you
01:37:11
know the man will slap the woman across the face and says God damn it you just
01:37:16
hit me I never hit you I never touched you yeah I I spoke to a domestic violence victim once who told me that
01:37:23
her partner when after like love bombing her so immediately like you know throwing all all this affection onto her
01:37:30
and you know very very quickly he would then start like hiding her stuff so he'd put her car keys in the fridge oh and
01:37:36
he'd be like I didn't why did you put your car keys in the fridge gaslighting yeah that's gaslighting perfect
01:37:42
description then she thinks she's going crazy so he goes well I'm going to have to take your car keys often and then she can't she's lost that car that's right
01:37:48
often done in the service of extreme jealousy yeah and and socially isolating
01:37:54
the victim yeah we've treated domestic violence um a lot and uh God I'll never
01:38:02
forget this one guy who had put a mark on the tire and a mark on the
01:38:08
driveway that matched up that lined up and at the end of the day if those marks
01:38:15
didn't line up he'd beat her up even if she just went to the grocery store it
01:38:21
didn't matter who did you [ __ ] today right where'd you go nowhere oh yeah right you liar you
01:38:29
roar you yeah this is the typical and
01:38:35
naive question people ask when they hear a story like that their head goes I would never stay with someone that did
01:38:42
that to me blah blah blah but it not true yeah not true you know first of all
01:38:48
it doesn't happen all secondly uh often times the victim
01:38:54
usually you know in a het a row it's a it's a woman um has her confidence
01:39:00
beaten down so it's not just physical it's also mental abuse god you're an
01:39:07
idiot man are you stupid and she starts doubting her own judgment her own
01:39:13
intuition plus you know I don't think you could survive out there nobody else
01:39:18
is going to want you and she starts to believe it start
01:39:23
to believe it um and she also has a dream that he's going to change yeah
01:39:29
because he's so rewardful of what he did to her he promises he'll never happen
01:39:35
again and he loves her and he's going to get this under control is he a narcissist or is it possible that
01:39:43
someone who isn't a narcissist can perform that behavior or is the word narcissist in other word that's just
01:39:48
thrown around too much very good A+ yeah yeah I thought so another word you know
01:39:55
everybody is narcissistic Stephen everybody is you know narcissism
01:40:02
basically comes from the Instinct for self-preservation you know you're you're thinking about okay me what do I need
01:40:10
what do I need how am I going to get it and so on I've got to really you know
01:40:15
think about taking care of myself sometimes I mean they call that a narcissist but the way it really is me
01:40:24
uh is shorthand for a narcissistic personality disorder which is
01:40:31
Extreme narcissism where there is no empathy whatsoever the person has no
01:40:39
conscience whatsoever they can hurt you they can do
01:40:44
everything uh that damages you and um
01:40:50
they take absolutely no responsibility for it and blame you for it blame the
01:40:56
victim so uh somebody who you know says I didn't fail you made
01:41:05
me fail this is what you did that set me up you know blah blah blah so every
01:41:11
everybody around them is a reflection of
01:41:16
who they are themselves and so they only see people other people in two
01:41:22
dimensions how' you go about you said you spoke to couples and women who had been through
01:41:28
domestic abuse and you know how do you go about helping
01:41:33
them okay there's two types of domestic violence John mentioned
01:41:39
characterological domestic violence that's when there's a clear perpetrator clear victim nothing the victim can
01:41:46
do uh will change violence there's major
01:41:51
injury so so what has to happen there is the victim has got to get out of the
01:41:59
relationship because she could be killed easier said than done right it is that
01:42:05
is correct it is very very hard it has to be secretive it you know she's got to
01:42:11
plan it especially if there are kids and so on but there's also that's only
01:42:17
20% of the domestic violence out there only 20% 80% % of the domestic violence
01:42:25
is what we call situational domestic violence and in that kind both people
01:42:31
tend to be violent both the violence is not uh seriously
01:42:40
injuring of the other person it's a slap it's a push uh it's a holding you know
01:42:47
holding them from moving you know that kind of thing pushing them down breaking
01:42:53
breaking things throwing things them and so on and that results from moving into
01:43:01
that flooded State we described earlier where you're in Conflict your heart rate
01:43:07
is jumping up over 100 beats a minute you're going to fight or flight and when
01:43:13
you do that you lose access to your ability to problem solve your ability to
01:43:21
listen actually to um really take in
01:43:26
what the other person is saying you hear attack attack attack no matter what the
01:43:32
person is saying because it's like your frontal cortex your prefrontal cortex is
01:43:39
offline so both people typically are getting flooded during conflict so those
01:43:45
people we can really really help so we've done a randomized clinical trial treating those people right and even a
01:43:51
year and a half after has ended when they when they discuss a conflict on
01:43:57
videotape in their home and we measure physiology physiology stays low so the
01:44:03
therapy is really effective compared to a control group as an entrepreneur I'm
01:44:08
always looking for ways to connect and to create and that's why I decided to launch the conversation cards I turned
01:44:14
to Shopify who also sponsored this podcast and Shopify made it so easy to
01:44:19
set up an online store and reach all of you no matter where are in the world I remember the challenges we faced when we
01:44:26
first launched the D Co conversation cards managing inventory ensuring a seamless checkout process and reaching
01:44:31
our audience Shopify stepped in and made everything so straightforward and efficient it was like having an entire
01:44:37
team of experts by our side allowing us to focus on creating content and connecting with you what I love about
01:44:43
Shopify is no matter how big you intend to grow your business they give you everything you need to take control and
01:44:49
take your business to the next level and to say thank you for listening to this podcast we giving you a trial which is just $11 a month and you can sign up by
01:44:56
going to shopify.com Bartlet the link is in the description below is is this part of the reason why
01:45:03
you're in the UK at the moment you you talked about your trauma oh it's trauma it's trauma at Oxford yeah we're talking
01:45:10
about drama and also Affairs Affairs talking about Affairs you're talking
01:45:15
about treating Affairs right right that's right so I've never really heard the the phrase treating Affairs as if
01:45:22
it's a you know a condition per se but your if if there has been an affair or
01:45:27
some form of infidelity can it be treated
01:45:34
75% so far in our research cure rate and
01:45:39
when you say Affair what are you throwing in that bucket in terms of the definition of an affair is that a text
01:45:44
or is that it can be an emotional affair as well as a affair a physical Affair a
01:45:50
physical Affair usually so it can be emotionally you know falling in love
01:45:56
with somebody else without physical consummation
01:46:02
or physical consummation uh with somebody that you've fallen in love with or just
01:46:10
having sex outside the relationship not an emotional connection but just having sex when the agreement is
01:46:18
monogamy so almost almost always involves deception right always it
01:46:24
always does yeah that's that's a big part of it is the deception and broken
01:46:30
trust you know it what Affairs do is they turn you know the hurt partner's
01:46:37
world upside down everything they believed about the partner is
01:46:42
wrong everything that they thought they shared in terms of values is
01:46:49
wrong um so you know you can trust the what the
01:46:55
person says no you can't because they weren't staying at work late they were
01:47:00
going to so and so's apartment it's like I didn't know this person I didn't know this yeah who are
01:47:06
you right who are you and you know relationships are really often times you
01:47:12
know especially committed ones are the foundation for our whole life you know
01:47:17
we build everything around that often times our sense of family even our sense of work sometimes what work we choose
01:47:25
how we live our lives purpose purpose and meaning that we give our lives
01:47:30
together and when there's betrayal like that and the person that you thought
01:47:35
your partner was isn't then that whole thing cracks and
01:47:42
falls to the ground it shatters and how many people how many
01:47:47
couples cheat in any of those definitions that you've described
01:47:53
well we don't really know yeah you know but you know probably around 30% of all
01:48:01
couples is you think it's a conservative estimate conservative really I've heard
01:48:08
15% of men and women and the thing that's interesting is that the the stat
01:48:14
for women having Affairs has pretty much caught up to men now but here's why when
01:48:23
before the' 70s and women's the women's Liberation movement women were stuck at
01:48:29
home they weren't out in the world working they didn't have access to
01:48:37
other the Milkman and the uh the plumber was and the mailman maybe you know they
01:48:44
so you know they were stuck at home having coffee around their you know kitchen table with their neighbor woman
01:48:51
you know whoever but once they entered the workforce then they had access to a
01:48:57
whole field our potential people out there and
01:49:02
so you know it's interesting as you say that Julia I was I was thinking through all the implications of what would
01:49:09
happen in a woman's life when she she went out to work and one of the other things is she would become more
01:49:15
independent in every sense yeah exactly that's right she doesn't have to stay in the marriage she can support herself
01:49:23
financially so how did you treat an affair so we developed a model uh based
01:49:29
on our research called uh the a tone a tune attach a a a
01:49:36
model and here's what in a nutshell here's what it involves again it has to
01:49:42
be done in therapy you really can't do this stuff at home it's it's too intense
01:49:47
first the person who did the betraying uh needs to resp respond
01:49:53
totally transparently to every question the hurt partner asks them however the
01:50:01
hurt partner uh shouldn't probably ask about
01:50:07
the kind of sex they had and here's why I mean it's it's an important thing
01:50:13
almost every person who suffered through an affair has PTSD from it post-traumatic stress disorder and part
01:50:21
of post-traumatic stress disorder is having these images or flashbacks if you
01:50:28
will come into your mind unbidden you don't want them there but they come in
01:50:34
anyway and traumatic memory is different than uh regular memory regular memory
01:50:42
you have a few little fragments something said and so on traumatic memory everything comes up at one time
01:50:49
the images the smells the the sounds the uh adrenaline cortisol and so on so
01:50:58
when uh a woman asks questions about sex and then gets the answers guess what you
01:51:04
know so her images now are like flooding her mind with the kind of sex they had
01:51:13
you know the partner and the affair partner uh that plague her to an even
01:51:19
greater degree and it's horrible so
01:51:24
aone answering the questions and then saying I'm sorry a thousand times
01:51:32
and really meaning it really really meaning it I've had
01:51:38
many uh both men and women who've cheated on their Partners or had affairs
01:51:43
who end up crying during that phase even the strongest of men will cry when they
01:51:49
realize how hurt the woman is or the man the other thing that they uh that the
01:51:56
betraying partner needs to do is to listen to the other partner's feelings
01:52:03
without defensiveness just listen but in the therapy you know a lot
01:52:09
of times what happens um is that the therapist has to help shape the hurt
01:52:17
partner's expression of emotion to take it out of criticism and out of contempt
01:52:24
into I feel destroyed I feel like my you know my world has fallen apart I feel so
01:52:31
empty so abandoned so rejected so she has to describe or he has to
01:52:37
describe their own feelings not how bad the partner was
01:52:42
which is typically what happens at home so that's the atonement phase a tune and
01:52:49
this has to come after atonement not as the first thing they start looking at
01:52:54
the actual marriage or relationship itself and what was wrong with it and a
01:53:01
lot of times what you see uh are couples who at first might have had terrible
01:53:07
conflict it was so bad they started avoiding conflict once they avoided
01:53:12
conflict they got more emotionally distant and the person who did the betraying got lonely got lonely so
01:53:22
often times the Affairs are not about just getting more sex they're about
01:53:28
loneliness and beginning to talk to somebody else about how unhappy they are
01:53:34
and then the third phase is attachment so it's like reattaching to your partner
01:53:41
that second phase is really rebuilding trust and the third phase is
01:53:49
recommitting to the relationship and in many this is not always true I've seen
01:53:54
the opposite but in many cases the sexual relationship doesn't
01:54:00
resume until phase three especially if the woman is the one
01:54:06
who's been betrayed but there there are some where the woman will kind of throw
01:54:13
herself at the man sexually to compete with the affair partner and be better than the the
01:54:20
affair partner so you know it can be both it's um I mean I've got so many questions that so the first phase was
01:54:26
the atonement atunement and then attachment um so many questions at different phases in that I mean so many
01:54:33
of them um I'll start from the top which was how many times do you apologize a
01:54:38
thousand because is it true that at some point you've you've got to kind of move on you have to know you have to know
01:54:45
what you're apologizing for well that that's important but here's why and you
01:54:52
know probably some of your audience especially therapists May disagree with this but I've treated it for 50 years
01:55:00
PTSD doesn't disappear it doesn't disappear right it
01:55:06
can get episodes of getting triggered can be much less frequent over time or
01:55:15
maybe not as intense but it never disappears so for example you may
01:55:20
apologize a lot during the therapy things get better better better better better and then you know a couple months
01:55:27
later after you leave therapy the man is late home from work and doesn't call
01:55:33
well guess what happens boom she goes into fullblown
01:55:39
PTSD uh reenactment basically where it's gotten triggered again and oh my God
01:55:44
he's doing it again you see that's why you can't stop apologizing and just put
01:55:51
it behind you you don't put PTSD behind you you see
01:55:59
interesting I guess that's the cost of cheating is the person it really is never be the same again it's a high cost
01:56:05
a very high cost that's right yeah I wrote insecurity as you were talking as a as a note and I think what I meant
01:56:11
when I wrote that is being cheated on must create a huge amount of like lasting insecurity and it kind of links
01:56:18
to the second thing I was writing down which is this whole question of like why did you Che on me and it must be for a
01:56:25
lot of people difficult to answer that question because if it's and also I was thinking some people don't even know
01:56:31
yeah they don't actually so they might try and Hazard a guess and do even more harm right well I think it's because you
01:56:37
gained some weight or I think well uh you uh I think you um you smell or you
01:56:43
know what I mean when actually it's something much deeper so like that's right you know so is that a useful
01:56:48
question to even ask in that setting it is but again in the setting of therapy
01:56:55
in the setting of therapy you need the safety hopefully with a good therapist
01:57:00
you need the safety that the therapist provides um where you know why did she
01:57:08
cheat well because you're an [ __ ] you know no that's not going to work you
01:57:14
know so I once treated a couple where he had had 57 Affairs and they'd only been
01:57:23
they had three children under the age of 10 and he'd had 57 Affairs and three of
01:57:32
them he actually fell in love with okay so you know you can you can
01:57:39
easily say oh because the guy has a sexual addiction or blah blah blah no
01:57:45
not true the real reason was that he had
01:57:51
been raped as a kid and he feared oh my God maybe I'm a latent
01:57:58
homosexual which in his culture was the worst in the world you
01:58:04
know in the worst way so he had to keep proving to himself that he was heterosexual heterosexual heterosexual
01:58:11
over and over and over again and as soon as he you know we put that together cuz
01:58:20
he just completely blocked it out for for the most part Boom the affair
01:58:25
stopped wow it just goes to show how complex it can be that's right yeah that's
01:58:33
right yeah and it's atonement not not forgiveness big difference there because
01:58:40
when when carapus emphasized forgiveness in this aair uh situation they would
01:58:48
blame the Betrayed partner for not forgiving is it acceptance importance
01:58:54
acceptance of what the situation you find yourself in no no that's bad
01:59:01
just because you're accepting something that's
01:59:06
hurtful that's terribly hurtful the reason I asked that particular question is because I was thinking about my friend who's going through this breakup
01:59:12
and um much of the agony that I see himself in it's because he's like refusing to accept the situation it
01:59:19
seems and all the resistance situation situation is basically someone's broken up with him oh and so it's this constant
01:59:26
rumination of maybe if I do this I can change it or maybe if I go like almost like thinking back in time to see see if
01:59:31
he could time travel and fix all his mistakes and I was and I was saying to him and this might be bad advice but I saying to him like I think the first
01:59:37
thing is we have to accept that this is a situation you find yourself in and then we'll work from here oh oh oh
01:59:42
that's yeah that's a whole different meaning of acceptance okay yeah um I don't mean except the fact that they
01:59:48
cheated on you and like deal that's that's how I yeah interpreted it at first but yes acceptance you know I
01:59:56
would call that grounding in the reality of what you have right now and then you know really grounding
02:00:05
in it okay I really have made all these mistakes uh and you know if if the
02:00:14
partner maybe maybe you know tiny little teeny weeny spark
02:00:20
left um I call it an ember that in therapy it can be blown on you know to
02:00:27
bring back the fire and the passion and the relationship array but as John was
02:00:33
pointing out sometimes the person is only feeling the
02:00:38
ashes of the past relationship there are no Embers left this is a difficult
02:00:43
question to ask but have you ever seen cheating help a relationship oh every
02:00:50
time really when there's recovery every time not every time but
02:00:57
very very often very often when they get help when they get help if they don't
02:01:03
get help it's not going to you know it's worse but when they get Help The Help
02:01:08
can help them change all the patterns in the
02:01:15
relationship and help them learn who the other person really is what their needs
02:01:22
really are how they want you to turn up in the
02:01:27
relationship that they had no idea of before so it can create more intimacy
02:01:33
different kind of trust of course but more intimacy and more connection
02:01:39
betrayal is always yeah implied prior conflict avoidance instead of talking to
02:01:46
your partner about what's wrong you talk to somebody else about what's wrong with you with the partner
02:01:52
what are some of the um so you're telling me that 74% of the time Affairs can be treated 75% of the time Affairs
02:01:59
can be treated roughly um what are some of the revelations or
02:02:05
realizations that you've had over the all the years of your work about the nature of humans and relationships and
02:02:10
love and dating and all these things that always stick front of mind for you I'm going to ask you first John um from
02:02:16
a research perspective is there any particular research which you would consider to be your favorite research
02:02:21
that was most pivotal for the way you think that you haven't mentioned yet I think that
02:02:29
relationships can be great sources of longevity Health uh great context for
02:02:36
raising children and so they can they can have this wonderful magic that uh is
02:02:44
health-giving longevity giving and it just requires
02:02:50
certain condition to be met and those are the principles that make relationships work is there a particular
02:02:57
piece of research that um you're most fond of and that's he's done or somebody
02:03:04
else has done e both yeah I mean I you know I think this whole field of social
02:03:12
epidemiology is which has emerged in the last 50 years really shows that
02:03:18
relationships are lifegiving and longevity giving uh given today's level
02:03:24
of of medical treatment of chronic illness it's really relationships that
02:03:30
make the difference and really make the difference in raising kids and the last thing I want to talk
02:03:36
to to you about is this idea of bids for connection because it's a very popular topic and there's lots of people online
02:03:41
and on Tik Tok discussing the importance of bids for connection right um what
02:03:46
what are bids for connection well in this in this apartment lab that Julie and I built um
02:03:54
there were three cameras um and at the time um it was only possible to
02:04:02
technologically merge two of them in a split screen so the people in the in the control room uh had to use the cameras
02:04:11
in a particular way so that they had a split screen and they very quickly saw that uh quite often one person was
02:04:18
trying to get the other person's attention or interest and so they would focus on that person who was saying oh
02:04:25
look at that beautiful boat going by and then they focus the other camera on the partner and see the response and so this
02:04:33
you had this uh you know sort of um
02:04:39
two-step interaction one attempting to get the partner's attention making a bid for connection and the other person
02:04:46
either responding or not responding or responding irritably turning toward or
02:04:52
turning away or turning against and it turned out that six years later the
02:04:58
couples who eventually divorced when they looked back six years earlier they had turned toward these bids an average
02:05:05
of 33% of the time whereas the couples who were still married they look back six years later they had turned to their
02:05:12
Partners bids 86% of the time so this huge difference 33% versus 86% you
02:05:20
mentioned three responses to a bid for connection so my partner comes up to me she goes babe look at this you mentioned
02:05:25
they turn toward them which is me turning towards my partner saying what is it babe it's not physical okay mind
02:05:30
you so could be it no what I'm trying to say is that a lot of people interpret
02:05:37
turning toward us oh you turn your body toward your partner no it's not it's
02:05:42
just say it's responding to your partner's uh desire for interest or
02:05:48
attention Okay yeah and then turning away is me not responding resp then turning
02:05:55
against would be an irritable kind of response stop interrupting me I'm working okay yeah so 86% of the couples
02:06:04
that stayed together were those that turned toward I they acknowledge the bid for the couples who stayed married had
02:06:11
turned toward bids and 86% of the time so when their partner Tred to get their
02:06:17
attention probability of them turning toward was 86 okay 86% of the time they it turns
02:06:25
out the other thing that was interesting was that um people who turned toward a
02:06:31
lot tended to have a sense of humor together during conflict which reduced
02:06:36
physiological arousal so how do you get people to laugh together when they're
02:06:42
disagreeing and it turns out that if you increase turning toward people spontaneously develop more of a sense of
02:06:49
humor about themselves during that was a really amazing finding of one
02:06:55
of my graduate students dri you can teach people to turn toward acknowledge
02:07:00
yeah you can you know just increase awareness I've I've struggled with that in my relationships I've not been very
02:07:05
good at turning towards I when my partner makes SPID for connection I've not been great at I often saw it as like
02:07:11
an interruption or you knew I was busy or like but from doing this podcast in
02:07:16
fact and speaking to lots of great people like you guys I've in those moments I go Steve
02:07:21
[ __ ] the laptop just turning mid email hi what's
02:07:27
up what's you know and um helps let me give you a a suggestion you know because
02:07:33
all of us have times when we can't turn towards right because we've got a deadline or we've got something but what
02:07:39
you can do is say honey I would really love to listen to you right now but I've got to finish this project after I do
02:07:47
another hour of work can we then talk yeah you see so so you're putting a
02:07:52
bookmark in there that says I want to talk to you but I've got this competing
02:07:57
that's a nice way of saying goal that I have to finish and but then we'll talk
02:08:04
my pet says to me it's how you say it oh you know so I've just got to be like
02:08:10
actually turn my body language so I'm acknowledging the person not like saying it while without missing a keystroke
02:08:16
yeah turn my body and say it in a way that's loving not just one second I'm just working on something
02:08:22
is not it just you know doesn't do it not GNA work even worse is just at one
02:08:28
good TR you know C miners if um if people want to learn
02:08:35
more about all the work that you do how do they go about finding you uh well couple of things they can go
02:08:43
to uh gottman.com G TT mn.com Internet site uh uh there's a
02:08:52
whole bunch of stuff there or they can go to our books um and the last one especially if
02:08:59
you're dealing with conflict the last one is called fight right um but we also
02:09:05
have one that is uh eight dates um essential conversations for a
02:09:11
lifetime of love and that's a great one too and there's also a website we created called Gutman connect right
02:09:18
where people can actually go and take questionnaires evaluate the strengths and challenges in their own relationship
02:09:25
and the privacy of their homes and then access 37 vi video modules that Julie
02:09:31
and I created for improving how you deal with conflict how you improve intimacy
02:09:37
sexual connection and so on we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest lives leaves a question
02:09:42
for the next I'm going to start with Julie tell us about a paranormal experience you've had okay uh
02:09:51
these always I I have uh Visions now and then and they always happen when I'm
02:09:57
driving for some odd reason so uh I was driving across the Mojave Desert and I
02:10:03
felt a very strong urge to pull over okay I always listen to those pulled
02:10:08
over walked into the desert to whatever felt like the right place sat down
02:10:15
started to meditate and felt myself self inside a huge
02:10:24
Golden Mountain that was just glowing [Music]
02:10:30
and it took the form of a huge Golden Buddha and I was sitting
02:10:38
tiny little being in its hands and it lifted me up off the
02:10:45
ground uh and I heard
02:10:52
many truthful things uh about
02:10:58
reality that form my very Foundation can
02:11:03
you give me one everybody
02:11:09
suffers everybody and so and nobody suffers more than
02:11:17
anybody else everybody has their own suffering and everybody has their own
02:11:24
path to move through that suffering um and to
02:11:30
heal and people do heal but life is full of suffering
02:11:38
that's normal it's it's not a sense of Duality suffering is part of the
02:11:46
Perfection of our existence it really does change your
02:11:52
perspective on yourself and others when you when you hear that that point about suffering um being unavoidable because
02:11:58
then at least you can you don't treat yourself as such a victim to that's right suffering you realize that it's
02:12:04
part of it's It's fundamentally attached to all the things that I love as well you know that's right what about you
02:12:10
John have you ever had a paranormal experience oh when the numbers just came
02:12:15
together perfectly and I I don't know if this is a parent normal experience but I um I was once
02:12:24
driving through the University of Washington ARB burum and I was really
02:12:30
really sick and um and I was I was driving uh toward my office because I
02:12:38
had a client who was suicidal and I I hadn't been able to reach her to cancel
02:12:45
the appointment and I cancel all the other appointments but you know I as sick as I was I just didn't think I
02:12:52
could you know just not show up you know so I had to show up and at least say I'm
02:12:57
really too sick you know physically to see you but I care about you um and as I
02:13:02
was driving through the arinum you know I was I've had a fever and I was
02:13:08
sneezing and coughing uh I felt the presence of my parents in the car and
02:13:16
both both no longer living I felt my mother on this cheek and my father on
02:13:22
this cheek and it was really very sweet I just because of Julie's experiences I
02:13:28
kind of said oh well maybe this is real you know and by the time I got through the Arboretum all my cold symptoms were
02:13:37
gone and it was important for me to be there for that client and I was healthy
02:13:44
enough to actually have a session with her so that I don't know if that
02:13:49
constitutes a paranormal experience but is she it's pretty weird she was okay
02:13:55
yeah thank you so much I've um I've continued to learn so much from your wonderful lovely work and our last
02:14:01
conversation was such a Smash Hit with my audience everywhere I went people would stop me and say oh my God I love that episode with the Gans and I think
02:14:08
it's both your your wisdom um your your knowledge but also the power of you
02:14:14
together forms such a diverse set of perspectives which is useful in sort of taking on some of these problems that
02:14:20
we've discussed today which is really nice because you do have very different perspectives and you come at things differently and I think that
02:14:25
helps complete the whole picture and thank you more broadly for the work that you've done on relationships and love over the last couple of decades because
02:14:31
people cite it everywhere I go not just in the context of love but they cite it in the context of business I used your
02:14:37
work on stage when I did a tour of Australia recently I've heard I've gone to conferences in Colombia and I've heard people talk about your work on the
02:14:43
four horsemen and contempt and all these kinds of things and your your love lab as they call it so you're doing
02:14:49
incredibly important work targets the most important thing which is keeping humans together so thank you for all
02:14:54
that you do and thank you for being here again thank you st and thank you very much for being the again the best
02:15:01
interviewer we've had in 30
02:15:07
years isn't this cool every single conversation I have here on the DI of CEO at the very end of it you'll know I
02:15:14
asked the guest to leave a question in the Diary of a CEO and what we've done
02:15:20
is we've turned every single question written in the Diary of a CEO into these conversation cards that you can play at
02:15:27
home so you've got every guest we've ever had their question and on the back
02:15:32
of it if you scan that QR code you get to watch the person who answered that
02:15:39
question we're finally revealing all of the questions and the people that
02:15:44
answered the question the brand new version two updated conversation cards
02:15:49
are out right now at Theon conversation cards.com theyve sold out twice instantaneously so if you are interested
02:15:56
in getting hold of some limited edition conversation cards I really really recommend acting quickly
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[Music]
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