Dr. Orna Gurlanik: Struggling to Communicate With Your Partner? THIS One Habit Could Slowly Be Destroying Your Relationship! (Here’s How to Catch It Before It’s Too Late!)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Couples come in basically saying, doctor, can you change my partner?
I think you guys should just break up and stop
torturing each other, or I'm just not the right person
for you.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Doctor Ornigerolnik is a clinical psychologist, psychoanalyst, and a writer.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
The star of the groundbreaking show Couple's Therapy.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
She explores the depths of human relationships in trauma. Everyone
feels like they've dated a narcissist? How accurate?

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Are one hundred percent accurate?

Speaker 2 (00:25):
When you find couples coming with financial issues, is it
really about money?

Speaker 1 (00:29):
They want to feel like no, money doesn't matter, but
it matters to everyone.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Do more people want more intimacy or more sex? What's
the first hard question you should ask yourself in a relationship?

Speaker 1 (00:42):
Can I give?

Speaker 2 (00:43):
What about when someone feels I've given them too many
chances and they're just not shifting?

Speaker 1 (00:48):
That would have been a situation where I would say
that the pain of divorce is worth it.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
How do you know your relationship is strong enough? I
would say The number one health and wellness podcast Jay Sendi, Jay,
Shenny Only Jetty. Hey, everyone, welcome back to on Purpose,
the place you come to become the happier, healthier, and
more healed. Today's guest is doctor Horna Gerolnick, a clinical

(01:17):
psychologist and psychoanalyst, best known as the therapist on Showtime
series Couples Therapy, where she guides real life couples with
transformative conversations and breakthroughs. With her expertise in relationship dynamics, trauma,
and creating healthy habits, doctor Garolnick has started making couples
ask the hard questions. Welcome to on Purpose, Doctor Horna,

(01:42):
Girlnick Honor, thank you, j thank you for being here.
As I said to you, this is my favorite topic.
I believe it's one of the most important parts of
our lives. Agree and it's the area of our life
that seems to hold so much power in our happiness.
Yet we have zero training, zero education, and zero focus

(02:08):
on being good at it. So having you here is amazing.
You're such a phenomenal expend this space, and I want
to start off by asking you what would you say
are the top three things you hear when someone first
comes in to your office.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
I often joke about it that most couples come in
saying that they have problems in communication. Now I understand
that it looks like a problem in communication because the
way couples interact with each other is mostly by talking,
although there's a lot of nonverbal talking through one's feet.

(02:45):
But where whatever's going on between them manifest is going
to be in their communication. So couples typically think, if
only we could communicate better, our problems would be solved.
So that's the number one thing that people come in with.
Then there are particular kind of we could say content

(03:06):
areas that couples come complaining about, depending on where they
are in their life cycle. Very common one is division
of labor, it's not fair who's doing what. More questions
around intimacy, whether it's sex or spending time together or connecting.
Then there are ways in which their early childhood manifests

(03:33):
in their couple's life. But I'd say those are like
the key areas.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
So it sounded like when you were saying, people come
in and they think communications the issue. Yeah, the look
on your face was, that's not really the issue, right,
So what is the issue? Right?

Speaker 1 (03:49):
Well, there are many issues, but the thing is when
you when you guide people into how to communicate better
and how to really speak and listen to each other
and get to the heart of the issue. Usually they're
real issues that are underlying the issues of communication, and
often people make communication difficult because it's hard for them

(04:12):
to touch the real issues, so they defensively create problems
in communication. So when you're asking what are the real issues?
At least from my perspective, I think if I had
to summarize it in the most succinct way, I would
say the real issue that couples face is that they're

(04:36):
building a relationship or living with another person who's different
from them, and that is really hard. It's very exciting.
It's a source of growth, it's a source of desire,
it's a source of lots of good things. But it's
also incredibly difficult and annoying. Whether it's like the small

(04:58):
habits of another person or or the deepest core of
who they are and their values and their politics. There
are many ways in which the otherness of your partner
infringes on you and puts you in all sorts of
like difficult positions.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
Yeah, I mean, I'm thinking back to it. I remember
when my wife and I when we were just dating
and when we lived together for a brief amount of time.
That was when I was like, oh, I think we
could be good together because it was it felt easy
to go to work, be in the same space. We
kind of had a good distribution of household responsibilities. We

(05:37):
felt like we had a flow. It's really interesting to
me because when I look earlier in my dating life
and when I speak to so many people myself, sometimes
you can be such good partners when your boyfriend and
girlfriend or whatever your makeup may be, but then when
you move in together, you're not as good roommates. Yeah,
and it feels like that transition is where so much

(05:59):
of this is discovered.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
Yes, that is probably the first round in which things
are discovered, like the living together. And you can think
of it as compatibility. Some people just have similar habits
or you know, they like the dishwasher loaded a particular
way similarly, or and it makes it easy. But if

(06:23):
you go kind of deeper under I think part of
it is how do you respond to otherness? How do
you respond to someone who's different from you in the
smallest way and in the biggest way. And for some
of us, differentness poses a lot of issues, a lot
of problems. It feels intrusive, It makes you question your

(06:45):
own beliefs, it's you immediately get into questioning who's right,
who's wrong, who's top, who's bottom. Otherness can trigger a
lot of stuff, whatever the otherness is, And for some
people it's more easy going. It's easier to just accept
the fact that people have different habits. Part of it

(07:06):
is compatibility, and part of it is like, can you
really are you ready to tolerate another person and to
adjust to another person and change in response to letting
someone else into your life.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
I'm really appreciating the language with it you're explaining this,
because I genuinely don't believe I've heard it that simply
before and that well. And I say that because I
think we often make it about do we have compatibility,
do we have chemistry? Do we have connection? And really,
you're so right that it's feeling othered or otherness that

(07:43):
really causes all of our conflict. And when Radi and
I first started living together, we found that we had
very a very small example, we had very different routines
in how we liked to host and entertain. So if
we had friends over, we both want to have dinner
with them, But then after having dinner, I want to
hang out on the couch. I want to talk to them.

(08:03):
I want to relax. I want to spend time with them.
Radi wants to get into the kitchen and clean while
everyone's there and then go to hanging And I want
to hang out with everyone, and then I want to
go and clean when everyone's left.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
Totally get it.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
And mine comes from how I was raised, So that's
what we did in my house, and hers comes from
how she was raised. Now, I don't think there's a
better or worse. I think it's a preference. But what
I found was that when I would hang out straight
after eating and I wouldn't clean up, there were times
when Radi would see that as me not valuing her responsibility,

(08:40):
shaking responsibility, or you expect me to do everything. And
that's not how I felt, But that's how it came across.
That's why what you're saying resonates with me so strongly,
because the otherness of activity also leads to the otherness
of emotion, and all of a sudden, now you're filling
in the gaps of that space of being others. So

(09:01):
to her it became I'm disrespected, I'm not valued, you're
shirking responsibility, you're lazy, whatever it may have been for me,
it became well, I'm just trying to hang out, what's
wrong with you? Why can't you just have fun? You know?
Why do you have to be so fixated on cleaning up?
Like why you whatever? It may be? Right?

Speaker 1 (09:20):
So now perfect?

Speaker 2 (09:21):
Yeah, can I of course borrow this from please my book? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (09:24):
Please? That's it's like a perfect example. And just the
way you said it also that that's exactly it. That
there's a space of difference and you don't understand why
you're different, and you immediately start building theories that are
basically meant to answer the question how am I right?

(09:46):
And what's wrong with you?

Speaker 2 (09:48):
Right?

Speaker 1 (09:48):
Because difference we can't just it's very hard for us
to just let difference sit there and just say we're
just different, and how are we gonna move with this difference?
What's the best way to move with it? Immediately start
like involving I don't know what it is, it's like
our ego or something about who we are that's at

(10:09):
question with difference. And that's where a lot of the
trouble starts coming in, Like you build theories like she's
building a theory that you're like shirking responsibility or Oh,
here's another guy just wanting the woman in the kitchen,
and you're like, oh, here is a wife that doesn't
want to have fun. She's just going to be like
nagging me to do this, that and the other. I mean,

(10:31):
we know the theories. It's very easy to kind of
inject theories in there. But part of what happens in
couple's work, and you don't have to do it through therapy,
but part of what happens is you start tracking the
automatic way that you assign all these scripts to your
partner to avoid just dealing with the discomfort of otherness.

(10:57):
I think if it's sometimes like a thorn, like a
thorn that gets stuck in you, that disrupts your way
of thinking about things, like suddenly there's another way of
doing things, and you're like, wait a minute, do I
have to think about how I'm doing things at all?
Do I have to question what I'm doing and how
am I going to respond to that provocation?

Speaker 2 (11:16):
And what's the difference between Like I feel like for
a lot of people, they maybe in the beginning they'll
just fold and do what their partner wants because it's easier, right,
And then maybe many years later they'll be like I
changed for you, I did that for you, I did
all these things for you, but you didn't value me
and you know you haven't changed, or whatever it may be. Totally,

(11:36):
there's a lot of different versions of that. That's one version.
What's the right balance between looking for the right solution
and looking for I'm not a fan of the word compromise.
What are your thoughts on the word compromise?

Speaker 1 (11:51):
Could you say a little bit more just yeah, sure,
that's interesting.

Speaker 2 (11:54):
I don't love so For example, for me, I don't
believe I think compromise is us both saying well, okay,
well i'll do a little bit of this for you
if you do a little bit of this for me,
Whereas to me, it's like, well, can we work together
to figure out what makes the most sense and what
is actually the most practical, best effective solution where everyone's happier,

(12:16):
And I don't think that means something. For example, with
this situation, we have now believed that it is nicer
to host as long as Radley has the peace of
mind that everything will be cleaned that evening. We've come
to a conclusion which I don't think is a compromise
for either of us. It's a feeling that we both
found a solution together. Yeah, and compromise, to me makes

(12:37):
me feel like I gave up something, or I lost
out on something, or she did, And I don't want
her to give up something for me that's important. If
she said to me, Jay, it is so important to
me that we clean up right away, I would value
that and I would do it. I don't want to
do it because I feel forced to her I have to.
That's my issue with it.

Speaker 1 (12:53):
I'm thinking about how I work it out with couples
when first of all, couples need to abandoned the idea
that one of them is completely right and one of
them is wrong.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
Right.

Speaker 1 (13:06):
You want to approach the difference with the idea that
you're equal partners, that you each have a valid point
of view, even if it's different. And that's actually not
an easy thing to get to.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
It's so hard, so hard, right, I see that being
the biggest challenge for you.

Speaker 1 (13:22):
Yes, And it would be interesting to think about, like
why is it's so hard for us? But it's very hard.
But once you approach a difference in terms of it
simply being two equal partners struggling with difference then you
want to create a space. And I agree with you
that to simply compromise is sometimes just a quick fix,
and it kind of it's like a band aid that

(13:43):
underneath it can breed resentments and you can eventually somehow
go back to the idea that it's not fair I
compromise more than you. But to do what you're suggesting doing,
which is to really put both minds to it and
arrive at a conclusion. To get it's actually really hard.
You have to overcome both a lot of your own

(14:05):
convictions selfish needs, and really work for the good of
the relationship of the total the total good. That's why
I often say that couples form between them like a
political system. It's like the first political system of how
do you resolve difference? Are you going to be like
autocratic or democratic in terms of how you resolve a difference?

(14:26):
That sometimes I go back to reminding people of how
when you have two kids playing and wanting to play
with the same toy, Like, how do you coach kids
on what to do in that case? Do you take turns?
Do you give both kids the same toy? Do you
just remove the kids from the situation and say, oh,

(14:47):
they can't play well together. Do you leave one kid
crying having to compromise in a way that was just
really depriving for them and they were not ready for
all this. To say that the solution that you're suggesting,
which is to really put your minds together and figure
out a solution that is good for everyone, is hard.
I do think it's the best one, but I think

(15:08):
it requires a certain kind of honesty and willing to
give up a certain kind of investment, selfish investment in
the thing that you believe in. You have to like
relax your convictions.

Speaker 2 (15:25):
It made so much sense to me because I feel
like most issues are this, and most people are not
solving this. Yeah, I'm a lost trying to solve some
other puzzle. Ye. And I couldn't agree with you more
that whether I'm talking to a family member, a friend,
a coaching client, or I'm watching something on TV or

(15:46):
hearing from someone about something, this is the problem, yep.
And this is the root of it. That we don't
want to accept that someone else may be right and
we may be wrong, ye, That someone else may have
a better idea than ours and ours may be worse,
and that the way their parents did things might actually
supersede the way our parents did things, and we don't

(16:07):
like that because it makes us feel almost disloyal to
our own upbringing. There's like a feeling of I'm betraying
what my parents did, I'm betraying tradition. There's an ego
conflict thereof But this is my identity, this is who
I am, and by telling me there's another way, a

(16:29):
better way, you're almost making me feel like my identity
is becoming more and more insignificant day.

Speaker 1 (16:35):
By day, and I'm losing something that grounds me. What's
going to happen to me if I don't have this
identity exactly? And the loyalty can be to parents, it
can be to a particular group that you're associated with.
It could be to your religion, and it can be
to an ideology or a belief system that you feel

(16:57):
like yourself kind of depends.

Speaker 2 (16:59):
On how do you open up to the idea that
someone else's value may be helpful without devaluing yourself almost
how do you open up to the idea that someone
else and you can build something together without feeling like
you're losing and merging yourself? Because I think what's interesting

(17:20):
here is the person often with the better idea is
also not doing it to find a common solution. They
also just want you to go their way, and so
we're also not being led perfectly. If that's right.

Speaker 1 (17:33):
You know, ideally you want to create conditions where it
stops being about who's right who's wrong, but again it's
for the good of everyone. Like the ideally you want
kind of the questions of the ego to kind of
drop to the background and to really get into the

(17:53):
state of mind where both participants feel acknowledged, safe, and
they don't have to worry about their identity or their
ego or their personal investment, and they have a feeling
that they're going to gain something for the good of
the couple or the family or the unit, that there's

(18:14):
something that exceeds them that will benefit from this. And
to get there, there are many ways to get there,
but I know what I try to do in my
practice is to create first of all, a sense of
you know what people call now in popular language like
a safe space, and what does that mean. It means

(18:36):
a space in which what matters to you in a
deep way is heard, is respected. You may not necessarily
get exactly your way, but you feel on a basic
human level that your dignity, the things you care about
that really matter to you are seen and respected, and

(18:58):
that whoever's negotiating with you will take that into account,
not just kind of you know, bulldoze over you. And
when people feel cared for in this way by the
therapist or eventually by their partner, they're willing to do
a lot. I think people were all mostly we have
like an incredibly generous creative spirit within us that if

(19:23):
we stop feeling threatened, we want to operate from there
for the better of everyone. And I think when you
get to a solution where one person feels, oh, I
got my way and the other one didn't, it never
ultimately feels good. It might feel good in the moment,
like you got a momentary win, but you're left with

(19:44):
this kind of churning, uncomfortable feeling that you took something
that you shouldn't have taken from someone.

Speaker 2 (19:49):
Yeah. I think the challenge that people experience is like,
let's say it's the holidays and I'm saying to you,
I'm like, I know we're going to your families for Christmas.
I just want you to know that I really feel
uncomfortable around your parents because I feel like they're always,

(20:10):
you know, picking up my career, or they're always making
me feel a bit insecure about something like this, or
maybe they're somewhat downplaying some of my achievements or whatever.
I just want you to know that sometimes I feel triggered. Like,
let's say I said that to my partner. Yes, very
untrue for my life, but actually it's a very common
thing for us, and your partner doesn't have. What I

(20:32):
find today is people don't have the capability to validate
you without feeling like they're invalidating themselves. Yeah. So the
person responding to that goes, how can you say that
about my parents? They love you? I mean they love you,
Like what are you talking about? Like, yeah, oh my god,
they've got an amazing gift, Like it's a surprise, like
you don't even know, like you know, oh my god,
they were just asking about you yesterday. And you're like, no,

(20:54):
I get that. I'm not saying they're not loving, but
I just feel like I get really triggered because of
this this and they're like, look, you're just crazy, Like
just you know, don't worry about it, Like just just
it's not a big deal, And it's not that that
person is met. Your partner's not being mean, but they
don't realize because they're so scared, or they'll say something
to you like I can't believe you can say that
about my parents. My parents are loving, wonderful people, and

(21:17):
now you feel really hurt and pushed away. Yeah, because
you're like, well wait a minute. So I find that
often when people share how they actually feel, the person
on the receiving side doesn't know how to receive that
totally because they're scared that if they accept that, then
then they have to accept that their parents are the
worst people on the planet or whatever else comes with
that criticism. How do we kind of wrap ahead around.

Speaker 1 (21:39):
Yeah, you're capturing something very significant. I think, first of all,
just to understand why is that kind of moment so
difficult before even trying to think of the solution. I
think one of the things it brings up for people,
Let's say, to go with the example you're raising, it
brings up both conflicting loyalties what you were saying earlier,

(22:01):
loyalty to your family of origin, loyalty to your culture,
loyalty to yourself, your sense of goodness versus your loyalty
to taking care of your partner and caring about their feelings.
That's a real inner conflict that that kind of predicament
puts the receiving partner in. They're conflicted between these loyalties.

(22:22):
Just to underline something here, To be in a state
of inner conflict is difficult. It's difficult for all of us.
We like simple solutions. We like right or wrong, we
like good or bad. We don't like I love my parents,
They're awesome, They've taken such good care of me, but
they're also hurting my partner. It's very uncomfortable for all

(22:44):
of us to be an inner conflict. So to understand
that putting your partner in that position is already asking
them to sit in a difficult position for themselves. So
what to do in that case? I think what I
do when I work with couples when they're in that
kind of predicament is I help both of them understand

(23:07):
the difficulties they're going through in having the conversation. Not
the solution, but why is the conversation difficult. Let's say
the receiving partner whose parents are criticized, I might slow
them down and first of all, ask them to talk
about what kind of position that puts them in, like

(23:30):
to try to describe the inner conflict that puts them in,
like their love for their parents. And I ask the
partner to understand that they're asking their partner to position
themselves away from their parents, and that's a hard thing
to do. And I'm asking the receiving partner to understand

(23:52):
that the person who's let's say, criticizing their parents or
talking about being triggered, is also a complex person who's
talking about having multiple kinds of feelings. They can both
appreciate the parents, appreciate their connection to the parents, and
have another kind of feeling. We're talking about kind of
expanding the spectrum of what people can hear and feel,

(24:15):
hear from each other, feel in themselves, and calm down
about it. It's okay to have conflicting, multiple feelings and
nothing has to be like an immediate resolution. Okay, that
means I'm never coming to Thanksgiving with your parents or
I'm going to be a jerk and not talk to
your father. It's okay to have all these feelings and

(24:36):
sit and eat the turkey.

Speaker 2 (24:38):
Yeah, a lot of I feel like a lot of
men feel caught in between their mom and their wife
if they're in an absolutely heterosexual relationship, Like, yeah, there's
this conflict of oh my gosh, I've got to choose
between my mom and my wife, yeah, or my girlfriend
or whatever.

Speaker 1 (24:56):
Which is true?

Speaker 2 (24:57):
Which is true, It's true.

Speaker 1 (24:58):
You have to make a tr transition when you get
involved with a significant other, you're making a transition. I mean,
I love the fact that you brought up the idea
of loyalties, which is so powerful for all of us.
Loyalties to family, loyalties to ideas. There is an element
of making a transition from belonging to one group to

(25:20):
belonging to a new family or new group, and that
is hard. It's hard for the person, and it's hard
for the mother, and it's hard for everyone.

Speaker 2 (25:31):
Let's talk about that because I think culturally and different
cultures have different expectations too. So for example, in the
Indian culture, yeah, it's generally seen that the woman becomes
a part of the man's family. Now that's a very
traditional idea. I was very fortunate to grow up in
a home that was far more broad minded than that.
And we don't, I don't subscribe to what generation, are you,

(25:52):
I'm like first generation in first generation in England. Yeah,
first generation in England. I definitely don't subscrip to that idea.
To me, it's dehumanizing of the individual who kind of
becomes like, oh you.

Speaker 1 (26:06):
Were You're like an object.

Speaker 2 (26:07):
Yeah, you're like an object that's not been placed over. Now.
Do I believe that we're a part of each other's families,
of course, but I think for me it was very
clear that we were now building something together. Yeah, and
that became the priority. And the buildings that we both
came from were homes that we could always visit and
be a part of, but we had to be very
careful in curating the home. And I would explain this

(26:31):
the way like couples to think about it, because I
know a lot of people who when I say this
to them, they get robbed the wrong way because they're like,
what about culture, what about tradition? What about my family values?
Going back to loyalty? And I like people to think
about it like designing a home. And we were talking
about that earlier. So you grew up in a certain
home and your partner grew up in a certain home,

(26:51):
and I'm guessing when you move into a home or
you've rent an apartment, or whatever it is that you
both decide to do together, you design it to your
tastes together. It would be very rare for you to
say I want this to look exactly like my mom's home,
and be very rare for that person to say, I
want this to look exactly like my dad's home. Chances
are you're both going to come together and you maybe
one of the partners takes the lead because the other

(27:13):
person doesn't have much interest or talent or skill, and
you end up creating this space. But the point was
you knew you were creating something together, right, And so
I like to think about it like that, where it's like, Okay,
well we're designing something together, and that doesn't mean we
don't take influence and inspiration from the homes we came from,
but we're not trying to mirror those homes perfectly, no

(27:33):
matter how amazing they were. How do we open up
our minds to that? Because I think so many people
just go, well, no, this is how it's done, and
this is how it's meant to be.

Speaker 1 (27:42):
People come into relationships, probably with your idea that they're
going to create something together. And that's their kind of
conscious mind. But then as the relationship starts to kind
of take shape, all sorts of unconscious loyalties so to
creep in, and then and might believe that they're creating
this new home, but they suddenly feel like to use

(28:06):
it metaphorically, but the foyer has to look a certain
way and they don't even know why, but it's coming
from their family of origin a certain kind of It
makes me think also of queer couples that were raised
by straight parents. They have to really rebrand everything and

(28:27):
recreate They can't rely on the old model, but they
don't have another model to rely on yet, So it
creates like all these like confusions like weight, are we
trying to build kind of a straight like relationship or
are we creating something totally new? And it's hard to
create new. I mean, it's there's something that's easy when

(28:47):
you rely on like an old model that was handed
down to you, and you don't have to like reinvent things,
and you don't have to think and wonder what's right,
what's wrong. You're just kind of repeating something that was done. Yeah,
it comes up again around questions of raising children. That's
like then it starts all over again, like what's the

(29:08):
right way to raise children? And you know, I don't
know sleep training or.

Speaker 2 (29:12):
Yeah, this is just yeah, And then both your parents
have ideas and how you should raise the kids too,
and now you're fighting about what your parents think. Yeah,
is the right way to raise kids? Yeah, Like, well,
my mom raised me and she did a great job.
And then well my mom raised me and she did
a great job. Right, and now it's like, my mom's
better than your mom, and it's but' that is what
people are That's all the conversations people are having. Yeah, right,

(29:34):
that's what you're hearing too.

Speaker 1 (29:35):
Yes, I'm hearing that a lot. When people have the
experience of letting go of the right wrong either or
when they work through problems in a different way, they
it does get internalized and people get the hang of
it and the good feeling of oh my god, it's
not my ego doesn't have to be at stake with

(29:58):
every discussion or right wrong is not the only way
to think about things. There are like so vast other
ways to think about difference, and when you get into
the groove of that, the world opens up.

Speaker 2 (30:13):
Yeah. I think we need to give people a vocabulary
for that. Yeah, and it's really hard when we've lived
in a very logical, rational world where you learned math
and there was something there was a right answer and
there was a wrong answer.

Speaker 1 (30:28):
Although even in math it's not true there's any ways
to get to a solution.

Speaker 2 (30:32):
But the way we were taught in school, yes, there
was always a right and wrong answers. So we don't
really have the ability. And I keep coming to art
as a way of talking about it. It's like art
just doesn't have a lot of right and wrong. Yeah,
it's just taste. Yeah, And taste is not good or bad.
It's just taste. It's just like you could put a

(30:54):
color that doesn't make sense next to another color and
it could work and it could not work, but you're
not looking at it in a binary way. You have
a reason for why it's placed there. Yeah. And I
think we've in trying to get to right and wrong,
we've lost our reasoning power. Yeah, Like why am I
doing this? Why are we doing this? How are we behaving? Yeah?

(31:15):
But first, here's a quick word from the brands that
support the show. All right, thank you to our sponsors.
Now let's dive back in how quickly do you know
when you meet someone whether they're going to make it.

Speaker 1 (31:27):
Or not a couple, Yeah, you know, I don't make
quick judgments. I really refrain from that because I think
humans to me, I mean, I've been working as a
psychologist and analyst for many years, but humans to me remain,
in principle, remain a certain kind of mystery. There's something

(31:50):
about humans that is like ever surprising to me. And
when a couple walks in, they might look like they
have like the most intense kind of hair raising problems.
My general approach is I want the mystery of why
they're together and what they're trying to have with each

(32:10):
other reveal itself, and I want to line up with
that part of them. So I try really trying not
to rush to any kind of judgment. Oh, these guys
are never going to make it. I mean, there are
certain things that, let's say, bother me when with couples.
I mean, when they're very committed to a certain stance

(32:34):
of let's say, contempt or put downs or if you want,
you can call it abuse, although abuse is a complicated
word nowadays, but there's a certain kind of pleasure in
sadism that some couples develop that they get hooked on
a certain kind of sato mesochistic dynamic that I'm not into.

(33:00):
And if I can't convince a couple, most couples want
to get out of that. They don't enjoy it. I'm
not talking about kink. I'm talking about like a pernicious
kind of mutually destructive way of engaging. And if I
can't convince a couple to move out of that mode,
if there's something that is too tempting for them, then

(33:23):
either I think you guys should just break up and
stop torturing each other, or I'm just not the right
person for you. I don't want to be in the
presence of that. But that mostly people are not into that.
They might get stuck in that kind of pattern, then
they look for me to help them. But most people
want to get out of that, and they go for
the honey, you know, they go for the good if

(33:44):
you just help them figure out.

Speaker 2 (33:46):
How If a couple stuck in the blame game, like lord,
this is only your fault, and then the other person's like, well,
I've been trying my best, you know, but it's really
what you've been doing. How do you start rewiring that conversation.
What does it take? What are the steps to getting
out of the blame game which seems to be such
a commonplace.

Speaker 1 (34:05):
Right, it's big, There's no there's no one way because
people get stuck in that blame game, which is pernicious
for different reasons. My job and when people are in
that kind of pattern is to convince each of them
to kind of release the grip they have, Like be

(34:29):
a little less convinced and sure about their own narrative.
Just get a little less stubborn about your narrative and
start getting curious about other ways to see things, and
then start getting curious about yourself rather than hyper focus
on your partner and put everything outside, Like try to

(34:54):
pull back from that hyper focus and start asking yourself questions,
why does this thing bother me so much? What is
the thing that is like making me crazy? Like if
we went back to like the example of like the
dinner parties, Like why is it so important to clean
right after? What's the fear if the if the dishes

(35:15):
sit there for another two hours, what's the issue? Like
look back at yourself, don't focus on your partner. What's
he doing not doing? What's getting stirred up in you,
and usually you find really interesting things there, Like when
people are really willing to like pull away from their
partner and look into themselves, they're like, oh, this is

(35:35):
really interesting. This is kind of reminding me of blah
blah blah. And suddenly it's less about the partner and
there's a whole world to discover about yourself, and the
whole intensity of blame goes down, and then people get
curious about each other, you know, and you're going to
be like, oh, yeah, I noticed that your mom is

(35:56):
like so fastidious and she's so afraid of germs and
what happened to her when she was a kid, And
like a whole world opens and the whole blame thing
becomes less interesting.

Speaker 2 (36:06):
Yeah. I remember doing that for myself and realizing I
thought I'd been tolerant on my partner, and then realize
my wife's actually been so tolerant of me. Like you
have that kind of one to eighty degree view where
you just got to wait a minute. I thought I
was the one like doing everything. Yeah, but that's because
I never kept score on her scorecard. Yeah right. It

(36:27):
was very easy for you to always look at things
through your lens totally. You can always count the amount
of overtime hours you did. Yes, it's the same at work.
You can always count the amount of effort you've put in,
but you never see anyone else's effort. You never see
And we also missed the like when our partner lets
us off with bad behavior or a bad mood, you
don't take note of that. No, But then when your partner,

(36:50):
when you you know, react to your partner's bad mood
or whatever, you're like, oh my god, look I held
back and yeah, I wis why aren't doing that for me? Yeah?
Why are you doing that for me? But when.

Speaker 1 (37:02):
You're describing this change in you, the thing that is
interesting to me and I often try to bring couple's
attention to that, is I would assume that when you
had that change, it actually felt really good.

Speaker 2 (37:17):
Oh for sure. Right.

Speaker 1 (37:19):
People are so afraid that they're going to lose something,
but they gain something when they go through that change.
That's what I was talking about earlier, Like the world
opens and good feelings come in, like oh, we're both
in it together, or we're not like oh she's bad,
I'm good, and like she's to blame and it's suddenly like, oh,
we're both human together, we're both flawed, we're both awesome.

Speaker 2 (37:44):
What happens when objectively someone is being genuinely taken advantage of.
So it's like they're doing all the chores, they're contributing
fifty percent financially. Yeah, their feelings are not heard or seen. Yeah,
they're never validated. The person does actually have an expectation

(38:05):
that you're meant to do all this. This is who
you are, this is your role in life. Yeah, how
does someone think through that when they still feel the
person's a good person.

Speaker 1 (38:13):
And first of all, I have to say it's more
rare than you'd think.

Speaker 2 (38:18):
It's interesting.

Speaker 1 (38:19):
Yeah, it sometimes looks like that. Like one person could
be like you know, like you're saying, doing all the
work and the other person is like mooching off them.
But when you look at the relationship, often what you
find is that they're contributing in some other very subtle way.
It could be not something you can really put your

(38:40):
finger on, but they're like the let's say they're loyal
to the couplehood. They're holding like the the whatever that
thing of the boat is called the keel of the boat.
They're like the most romantic and holding on to the
deepest idea of what the couple is despite all the fighting.

Speaker 2 (39:02):
Or they might be.

Speaker 1 (39:03):
Contributing in ways that are hard to account for, and
it's important to unearth that and give each person a
sense of what their contribution really is. Some of the
work that I have to do with couples is make
people aware and accountable for where they are being selfish,

(39:25):
because we all have an inclination to, as you said earlier,
to only see our own work and only see our
own point of view, and we're selfish, and we're not
even selfish, we're self centered. We've got, like you know,
the our perceptive field and we don't really see the other.
And working through that and getting to a more humble

(39:49):
place where you understand that you've been more selfish and
than in certain ways you are exploiting your partner. It's
an important piece of the work I have to go
about it. It's hard for all of us to acknowledge that,
so I have to go about it gingerly and sensitively
with people and give a lot of reinforcement for being

(40:10):
willing to take on that less pretty part of ourselves.
But ultimately, like you were, saying earlier. It's a gratifying process.
That's why it sounds almost like Pollyannish or Cornea, especially nowadays.
But I do believe in the goodness of people. We

(40:32):
ultimately want what's good for our partner.

Speaker 2 (40:36):
Yeah, it's just that we want what's good for our partner,
but maybe we don't know what's good for them. Yeah, right,
And we often think we know what's good for our
partner or right for our partner, and that's sometimes our
greatest mistake, Yeah, because we're not really listening to them

(40:56):
or taking in from them what they're saying, right, and feeling.

Speaker 1 (41:01):
We're self centered, we're narcissistic in many ways. There's a
way in which our worldview is limited by being, you know,
the way, especially the way we're raised. I actually wonder
what you'd think about this, because I think it's it's
very different in Western versus other cultures, but we're raised
with such a focus on the self. I mean, there's

(41:23):
a certain kind of narcissism built into our culture that
makes it harder for us to be in deep relationships.

Speaker 2 (41:34):
Do you have thoughts on this, Yeah, definitely, Yeah, I
feel that to me, relationships have to be about growth
and service, and I think we think that they're about
pleasure and ease. Yeah, and self and self, And that's
my pleasure. Pleasures always the self is always linked to
pleasure and ease and comfort. And it's funny because growth

(41:57):
and service are the exact opposite. So earth is the
opposite of ease and comfort, and service is the opposite
of self centeredness. I've thought about it so often. I've
grown so much more. And what I mean grown, I
mean like challenged to grow by being in a relationship
with my wife in a healthy way. Then I have

(42:18):
just had fun. So we have lots of fun. Things great,
But I've become a better human because of this relationship
on so many levels. I've become more self aware. I've
become less egotistical, I've become more conscious of my flaws,
and it's happened all in a less judgmental way. And
I think that's the part that I think people get wrong,

(42:40):
is that we say this is the person that we
want to love forever, but they end up becoming the
person we judge forever, and they become the person that
we criticize forever. And they've become the person that we
complain about forever, and the person you said you wanted
to love forever becomes the person who actually gets the
least loving part of you. And so when I say
grow both and service, I don't mean subservience when I

(43:03):
say service, and I don't mean judgment when I say growth,
because I think a lot of people think, oh, well,
if I'm going to point out all my partner's flaws
so that they can grow, and I look, I'm helping them,
And I'm like, well, no, that does you know Raley's
never done that to me. And I think that's one
of the reasons why we have a healthy relationship because
we both don't do that. We both feel like we're

(43:24):
guiding and coaching each other on things we both opt
in and say we want to work on.

Speaker 1 (43:29):
What would you say if you had to characterize each
of your basic stances towards each other, how would you
describe it?

Speaker 2 (43:38):
Oh, that's interesting. I don't know if I've even had
the vocabulary for that. It's a great question. I would say,
I am completely in awe of my wife. I love her.
I find it to be the most adorable, wonderful human being.
I could like, look at you know, a video or
a picture of it, and I just we've been together
for eleven years and I'll just feel this like overarching

(43:58):
feeling of love towards her, And that's her stance. I
would have to ask her for this question. I think.
I think if she was answering this in a question
to you or when I wasn't in the room, I
think she'd say that she has a deep sense of respect.
And I don't want to use the word adoration of context,

(44:22):
but like there's a if if she's sharing how she
feels with me in private or in a in a
special moment, or through a friend who said something to me,
it would be that I think she just she trusts
me deeply. She has a very positive feeling towards me
as a human, let alone just as a partner.

Speaker 1 (44:41):
Yeah, that's amazing and I don't yeah, and.

Speaker 2 (44:44):
You know sometimes I have to get that out of Yeah, but.

Speaker 1 (44:47):
That but that's what you're describing, what you're It's like
the space that you're creating for each other right to
live in that kind of basic stance, Like when you
were asking earlier, like what what are couples that will
not make it? I mean, that's that's what you want,
you want the couple to create that kind of space

(45:09):
between them to live in that you're creating the world
in which you're living.

Speaker 2 (45:14):
How do you encourage them to do that when they're
saying to you, you know, but when I look in
my partner, he's like, I know he's a good guy
at hat. I know, I know he's I know he
means well, but he just you know, all he does
is watch football all weekend, and like he always forgets
my birthday, and you know, it's just like it's always

(45:36):
about like spending time with his family, and like, you know,
I don't even think even he never wants to talk
about his feelings. Like, you know, if that's what you're hearing,
it's very different I do here, I do exactly. How
do you encourage them to heal that well?

Speaker 1 (45:50):
Hopefully, you know, to have that kind of stance that
you describe so beautifully, like that you each kind of
provide for each other. First of all, you have to
have that capacity inside you, right, meaning it speaks to
some way that you come into the relationship with a
capacity to love, right, like a capacity to experience those

(46:12):
kind of feelings towards another person.

Speaker 2 (46:15):
And then.

Speaker 1 (46:17):
Which is great, and I believe most of us have that.
I mean, most of us have enough good inside us
that we have that. It's just now, how do you
create the conditions where that is the thing that can
come out? And couples come into treatment Basically I often
joke about the fact that couples come in basically saying doctor,

(46:42):
can you change my partner? That's like, they won't say it,
but that's really why couples come into my office. Can
you please change my partner? Everything will be okay if
you just change her. But when you get people less
invested in what we were saying earlier, like the blame, blame, blame,
and he did this, she did that, and get them

(47:05):
back into this feeling of awe about another person, this
feeling like but actually, look at them. They're just so
wonderful in some elemental way, in some way that I
know I know their goodness. Remember that feeling, like, approach
them from that place. You're creating the conditions for that

(47:28):
person to thrive. Right when when your wife looks at
you with adoration, that's when your best self will come out.
When your wife looks at you like ugh, st up again,
for sure, you're just like I don't care anymore. I'm
going to go play video games, Like who needs that?

Speaker 2 (47:47):
Right?

Speaker 1 (47:48):
So you're by the way you're looking at your partner,
you're inviting certain parts of themselves out, and I remind
people of that. We respond to each other, we respond
to the gay, to the music we're sending each other,
and it invites different parts of us out.

Speaker 2 (48:06):
What about when someone feels I've given them too many chances,
I've given them that lens for too long and they're
just not shifting. But they've not done anything terrible where
I need to leave them, but they're also not making
any progress on this path. Then I kept looking at
them with a loving lens, with the compassionate lens, but
I just keep running out of patience.

Speaker 1 (48:28):
In that case, I would need to hear from the
partner what's going on? I mean some people, I mean
it's the partner depressed. I don't know what's going on there.
Like if really a lot is on is being offered
and the partner can't pick up on those nutrients, what's
going on? Are maybe they're going through something. Maybe there's

(48:52):
something completely different going on on their end, some kind
of grudge or something that they haven't had a chance
to write to really articulate. I mean, that would be
interesting for me if that happens. That's not the typical
thing that happens between people interesting. I mean typically if
you put good out, good will come back.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
And I like that idea of when you look at
your partner in a certain way, it's what they feel
and it's what you feel. And I think it goes
back to that human need we all have as wanting
someone to believe in us. Yeah, there's such a feeling,
like I believe everyone has that at the core, of course,
like everyone, but there's very few people who believe in you,
or at least you make you feel that way.

Speaker 1 (49:33):
Yeah, it starts obviously, you know, you know, I'm a psychoanalyst.
I'm eventually gonna go back to childhood. But it starts
with the way whoever raised you looked at you, Like,
what was the you know, it doesn't have to be
the mother, but what was the look in your mother's
eye when she saw you. Did the mother's eyes ultimately

(49:55):
sparkle and like, oh my baby? Or did the mother
always say you're always disappointing? Right, There's like this basic
way in which we're invited into the world or not
that stays with us, and that's a powerful kind of
early platform from which we operate.

Speaker 2 (50:17):
What's the first hard question you should ask yourself in
a relationship?

Speaker 1 (50:23):
I would say, maybe, am I ready to let someone
else in with their otherness, with the challenge to my narcissism?

(50:46):
Am I ready for that? This is sort of following
everything we've been saying.

Speaker 2 (50:51):
That's a great question. Can I give yeah? Can I
give yeah? Yeah? And can I hold space for someone
else to have to go through their transformation? Yeah? Because
chances are they're not going to come fully formed right
And even if they're perfect on my wedding day or
right now, chances are they're going to go through stuff. Yeah.

(51:15):
And being honest with myself because I think sometimes we
feel guilty. I know a lot of people who say
to me, Jay, I would have stayed with him, Like
there's someone that they're dating, they're not married, they're not
in a committed relationship. They're like, I would have stayed
with them, But I don't think I can for what
he has to go through and grow through. Wow, you know,

(51:36):
he's not ambitious. He needs to figure out his career
he's struggling with his mental health. Like, I don't know
if I want to be the person to go through it.

Speaker 1 (51:45):
With him, right, Although I would also say in that
case you're ready, you're not ready. And no one wants
to be in a relationship where their partner is just
waiting for them to change for the relationship to really start.
You want to feel like your relationship is your home,
not the future home you're going to have if you change. Yeah,

(52:08):
there's a certain level of acceptance that has to happen.
Of course, we want to change and get better and
grow with each other, but you can't really be in
a conditional relationship. I'm going to love you when you change.
I'm going to be generous with you when you change.

Speaker 2 (52:24):
That's not the real that is what people want.

Speaker 1 (52:28):
That's that's not going to work.

Speaker 2 (52:31):
I literally feel like we find someone that we find
attractive and that we enjoy our time with, and then
we want to change everything else about them. True, Like,
that's literally what we're looking for, because you meet people
who like they'll find the person who actually has everything
set up for the future, but we're not attracted to
them and we don't like hanging out with them. And
so we're like, oh, I can't be with you obviously,
But then we the opposite, We're like, oh, yeah, you're

(52:53):
my person. I'm attracted to you. We love hanging out
and having drinks, and we have good banter and we
can you know, we can spa verbally. Yeah, and you
must be the perfect person for me, even though I
don't like anything about your actual life, well, like you're
not ambitious, you don't have a good career, you don't
make it up, like all the stuff that we think
is important, right.

Speaker 1 (53:13):
I would probably frame it differently, please. I would say,
the person that you really kind of get hooked onto
and feel like you are the person I want to
be with probably has in them components of things that
are really important for you to revisit and work on

(53:35):
that are not easy.

Speaker 2 (53:38):
But you don't know that.

Speaker 1 (53:39):
You don't know that. You're just in your gut you're
terribly attracted to that person. And no matter all the
other good partners that seem to have all the good
qualities are not sticking. And then that one partner, that
one person you keep going back to because there's something there.
Then the preoccupation with wanting to check change that partner

(54:02):
is typically some way that you're working through something deep
within yourself, because you know, ultimately, I mean, even when
people talk about ambition or it's like it's not about that,
Like why do you need your partner to be so ambitious?
You go be ambitious if you want ambition. It's usually
you're working through something. There was a couple on the
show that were a great example of that, where the

(54:27):
woman started off with like really intense complaints about her
husband that he's not ambitious, and ultimately we learned that
a lot of it had to do with like her
mom and father, like a repeat of some kind of
old story that never got resolved between her parents, and

(54:48):
she was totally working it out through her husband. And
once she got focused on the parents and on her
early history, she was suddenly back to like the best
friendship in the world with her husband. Were just like
so adorable together. You know, it's often something else that
creates this kind of you got to change.

Speaker 2 (55:08):
For me, Yeah, yeah, because it reminds us of something
from me.

Speaker 1 (55:12):
It reminds us of something that we haven't resolved, or
that your parents haven't resolved, or it could be like
I mean, I don't know if we want to get
into that. But it could be like something like politically
that wasn't resolved. I'll just say in general, that couldn't
resolve a certain issue of passports between them that had

(55:32):
to do with one of them being Palestinian and like
not having like statehood and would fight with their partner
about passports. But it had nothing to do with the partner.
It didn't even have to do with their own families.
It had to do with Palestinian identity. All sorts of
things make their way into what seems like an issue

(55:53):
between the partners that come from really other places.

Speaker 2 (55:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:57):
Yeah, so when people start like blaming their partner for stuff,
for me, it's like a riddle, Yeah, what is this
really about?

Speaker 2 (56:06):
And those are the kind of questions that if we
reflect on it ourselves too, it can help us so much.
I mean, are you do you find that are women
more prone to be the fixes?

Speaker 1 (56:18):
First of all, I think things are changing as far
as genders, so it's a little hard to make real
statements about like women and men. But if I had
to kind of say something general, I'd say women are
they're raised to be more kind of tuned into the

(56:41):
ins and out of a relationship and kind of take
care of the relationship in a certain way in terms
of like talking more bringing feelings to the table, and
men are more tuned into like the frame around their
relationship and a certain kind of loyalty. Over time, they

(57:05):
add a certain rudder to the relationship. So it's different
ways of tending to the relationship. But even that it
changes a lot, And of course it then looks very
different in queer relationships. But that's kind of my crue
generalization about women and men.

Speaker 2 (57:24):
How have you helped men who struggle to open up
about their emotions open up? Because I think sometimes there's
a lot of pressure for men to show up emotionally,
but he may never have had that training or that
vocabulary or that safe space his whole life.

Speaker 1 (57:45):
Well, he probably has anti training, right men are I
mean again, it's different nowadays, but typically men are raised
to disavow their feelings, focus on power protection, I mean
important functions, not to minimize that there's a lot of

(58:07):
value in those, but they're raised to turn away from
their feelings. And what I do in my work with
men is I, in a way teach them to pay
attention to small hints about their emotional world, and they're

(58:34):
always their stomach ache, the tightness in the chest, a
habit that is not good for them. And to follow
those beginning hints and clues and try to get curious
about what else can they tell me about their emotions,
And when they start getting in touch with feelings, it's

(58:54):
usually it's very gratifying. It's good to get in touch
with your feelings. It feels good, you feel more round it,
your world gets richer, and your relationships get better. So
it's really starting from the little clues and developing curiosity
and then kind of developing a menu, like a vocabulary

(59:15):
for all these little things that happen in you, Like
from having like three words for feelings like I'm angry,
I'm bored, I'm happy, you know, you can start expanding
to twelve words and then eventually to like seventy words,
and then you know, it gets it gets interesting.

Speaker 2 (59:37):
Yeah, And I feel like people have to be patient
before we dive into the next moment. Let's hear from
our sponsors and back to our episode. That's what I
found in relationships the most, that a lot of us
are waiting for everything to change at the next therapy session. Yeah,
the next twenty four hours, Yeah, the next argument, or

(59:59):
we just learned that it should be solved now, right.
And I'm like, you realize they've been practicing that habit.

Speaker 1 (01:00:05):
For like twas generations Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:08):
And generations even more than twenty nine years, And so
I just feel like we've lost our ability to be
patient because there's so much choice. Yeah, and there's a
feeling that, well, someone must be able to do all
these things. Yeah, what do we do when we think
that way?

Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
I'm a big advocate for you know, slowness. I mean,
psychoanalysis is a slow process. We spend like several times
a week and over years, like slowly attending to things.
I think when people are offered the experience of going
through things slowly, they suddenly remember, oh, this is actually

(01:00:50):
good for me. I mean, rather than scrolling through like
a million quick videos or snippets of things, or like
just the headlines of news to sync into something is
actually gratifying, Right, it feels good. Yeah, you just have
to be guided. You have to offer people a frame,

(01:01:11):
like the analytic frame. Like people sit in my office,
A couple sits for an hour without looking at their phones,
and we're slowly working through things, and then it feels
good and things really happen. So it's just having the experience.

Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
Yeah, I want to focus on a different life cycle
part of relationships. When people are starting to date, all
the things that they can look for that show the
sign of someone being a strong partner for them or
a week partner.

Speaker 1 (01:01:41):
You know that so much happens early on when we
just meet people that is unconscious. So much is unconscious,
like years later, you'll be able to analyze why you
really like this person or what went wrong. So it's
hard to make people really fully aware of what's moving them.

(01:02:04):
I would say listen to your gut. Your gut is
telling you important things, and it might be telling you
important things about yourself, about your own history. It might
be telling you to keep repeating the same mistakes, or
it might be telling you something really worth listening to
about the other person that is good. Don't be afraid,

(01:02:26):
so listen to your gut. I would also say listen
to what the other person is telling you. People often
disclose a lot about themselves right at the beginning, and
we often don't listen. I know that from when patients
come into my practice and I'm having first sessions with people.
Often people tell me everything right at the beginning, even

(01:02:49):
in the way they they're like ate to a session
and the way they explain it, they might be telling
me a lot about their whole life history, just just
in the very beginning. So listen. Don't ignore information that's
right in front of you. Like Hillary was actually telling
me that a friend of hers dated someone who I

(01:03:17):
think on their first date told her I have a
suitcase of unpaid bills under my bed, and she thought
it's funny and ignored that. Of course, only later later
or later to find out. I mean, this person was
like a mess.

Speaker 2 (01:03:35):
It sounded funny.

Speaker 1 (01:03:36):
On the it sounded funny, but they're telling you real information.
So listen. Listen to what people are telling you. Listen
is generally a good piece of advice.

Speaker 2 (01:03:48):
If someone tells you that they have a bad relationship
with their parents, are there certain things to expect or
is that too general?

Speaker 1 (01:03:57):
First of all, that's an interesting piece of information. Talking
about listening, I would immediately get curious, like what is
the person telling me? Is the person telling me something
about early trauma? And I'd want to know what happened

(01:04:19):
and how did this person. What does it mean to
not have a good relationship with a parent after trauma?
So I'd want to know what happened And is the
person you're getting to know are they did something bad
happen to them with their family of origin and they

(01:04:41):
have developed a certain kind of wisdom where they know
how to separate themselves from from earlier traumatic experiences are
not good experiences and they've kind of formed their own
personhood in a way that you can trust. Or is
this so I mean, to the other end of things,

(01:05:02):
is someone in a way stuck in something that they
kind of have not found a way to work their
way out of, and they're going to be forever stuck
in a certain old pattern that they really need to
be doing the work to move out of. So you know,
I mean, I'm giving two extremes, Like one is I've

(01:05:27):
had like something bad happened to me, or that this
was not good and I've just worked my way out
of it and I'm separate from this family of origin.
Or on the other extreme is yeah, I hold a
grudge and I'm forever grudging these parents And really I'm
going to be repeating that in this relationship too, because

(01:05:50):
this is my life story, grudge.

Speaker 2 (01:05:52):
It's so hard because it seems like long term relationships,
which is what we all want, require three types of healing,
Like that person needs to heal, You need to heal,
and then you need to heal together, and you need
to make space for them to heal, They need to spay,
make space for you to heal. You need to make
space for yourself to heal. And then there's so much

(01:06:13):
healing required, and it requires so much patience, compassion, empathy,
like almost endless to some degree. Again, I'm not talking
about abusive or you know, violent relationships. We're talking about
a relationship that's not abusive or violent. There's like endless
amounts because you know, it's like things were great and

(01:06:36):
then you had a child, and then the childed challenges
and then you went through that together. And I've had
so many friends this year go through a miscarriage and
like that created new things in their relationship that they
didn't have before because they both dealt with grief differently.

Speaker 1 (01:06:51):
Some Sarah, life is difficult. I mean, life's amazing, but
life is full of I mean, you know, Americans think
that life is about pleasure and happiness. I mean life
is a challenge. I mean, I mean death is embedded
in life. I mean life is full of difficulties. There's

(01:07:12):
always loss, there's always a challenge. It's the stuff of life,
and I welcome that. That's what life is about.

Speaker 2 (01:07:24):
How do you know your relationship is strong enough? How
do you prepare? Not that you can ever prepare for
anything like that, but how do you know you're in
a strong, healthy relationship? Because I think up until now,
the only marker we've had, which I don't agree with,
is we never argue. So a lot of people will
be like, oh, I have a great relations We never argue, right,

(01:07:44):
which is that sounds scary? I agree, but I feel
like that's been our only metric of how we perceive.
If we say someone has a great manure, they never argue.
Have you seen them like it's great?

Speaker 1 (01:07:55):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:07:56):
It's not. We don't have more than that. We don't
have a bigger grading exercise. We do length. So we said, oh,
they've been together for thirty years, they must have a
great marriage. So we use length as a marker of success.
We use not arguing or like they rarely have you know,
disagreements or whatever, maybe as a marker of success and

(01:08:16):
we have oh they have a beautiful family, like if
they have kids in it. Yeah, it feels like we
have very basic markers to assume that someone has a
healthy relationship. How do we make sure we're in a strong,
healthy relationship? What does that look like?

Speaker 1 (01:08:30):
First of all, I would say that what we said earlier,
that kind of stance when you spend time with a couple,
When you spend time with a couple, you have they
have they build a certain there's a way that there's
an atmosphere around them that you can it's palpable. And
if the atmosphere around them is of a certain kind

(01:08:50):
of mutual respect, adoration, a certain kind of acceptance, that
is that is a good relationship. That is a good
world to live in. They've created a world in which
they they're there is space for them to thrive. So
it's sort of the music of a relationship. Is it
a music of like a mutual respect adoration or is

(01:09:14):
it a music of gotcha? This is where you failed,
This is where you messed up. So that's one dimension.
I would say. If a couple is changing together, meaning
is there a room for each of them to change
at their own speed, and together as a couple of

(01:09:37):
do they go through changes in evolutions. That's a really
good quality of the relationship. That it's it's you know
that it doesn't break under pressure, but it changes under pressure.
That's that's a very strong quality. I mean, couples that
don't argue scare me. I don't know how they what

(01:09:58):
what happens there? What do they just not talk or
do they not reveal ways in which they're different? Or
that's scary?

Speaker 2 (01:10:08):
Tell me more on that.

Speaker 1 (01:10:08):
I like that, Like, what how do you not never argue?

Speaker 2 (01:10:13):
Like?

Speaker 1 (01:10:13):
What are you just the same person?

Speaker 2 (01:10:15):
Have you?

Speaker 1 (01:10:16):
Have you become like enmessed with each other and everything
about you that is different? You just repress or dissociate.
Are you so afraid of conflict?

Speaker 2 (01:10:26):
Are you?

Speaker 1 (01:10:28):
Where are you each? Have you vanished? It just seems unreal.
I think the ability to face differences and back to
what we were talking about earlier, find how how have
you faced your differences? How do you work through your differences?

(01:10:48):
Is what's really interesting about a relationship and that's where
it's life is. But can I ask you what would
you say are the markers of like a good relationship?

Speaker 2 (01:10:58):
Appreciate your answer? I think it's unique. I've not heard
those things before, and I appreciate that a lot. I
think one where both people don't expect the other person
to value what they value, but they allow the other
person to have their values and they have their own,

(01:11:21):
and both people respect each other's values, but they don't
want the other person to believe as strongly about theirs
as they do the others, because I just think that
that's pretty difficult if you're honest. It's easy if you're
living at a surface level and a superficial level to
be like, oh, we both value family, and it's like, well,

(01:11:43):
you don't really like maybe it's second on your list,
but first on your list is your career. Let's just
be honest. There's nothing wrong with that, but let's be
honest about it. And hey, for family, it's not really family.
It's specifically your kids, it's not the whole family. So
let's really be let's get really honest about that, and
then we may realize we have different values. That doesn't

(01:12:04):
break our relationship because I respect and we know where
we stand. So I think that's a sign of a
healthy relashue when we could be really That's what I
think honesty is I don't think honesty is I did this,
what did you do? That's a part of honesty, but yeah,
the real honesty is like.

Speaker 1 (01:12:18):
The depth of your what you believe in?

Speaker 2 (01:12:20):
Yeah? What can I really tell you what I believe in? Yeah?
And you're okay with it? Yeah, And of course when
that changes, it can be hard. And I think that's
a sign of a good relationship is how we deal
with new information and change. And that doesn't mean you
have to stay together if the information is not what
you want to hear or isn't right for you. But
I think a strong and healthy relationship is where you

(01:12:43):
are okay with most changes and you're able to flow
rather than saying, well, you're not the same person you were.
I thought you were this right, and they're like, yeah,
we've been together for ten years and so I think
a healthy relationship is one that allows for different iterations
of each other and what that comes with, and rather

(01:13:05):
than trying to hold on to the person you had
on your wedding day, you're open to the idea that
they're actually going to be different every day in every decade.
I would say, I help the relationship is one where
you don't depend on the other person for everything. When
you have other people in your life, your friends, your family,
your parents, you have other people you can turn to

(01:13:27):
as well as turning to your partner. But it isn't
an over dependence on them, or it isn't the opposite,
which is an over reliance and everyone else and no
dependence on them. When it comes to my relationship, I
talk to my partner. When it comes to other stuff,
I have other people to talk about it with, right,
Like that balance of if we're talking about issues in
the relationship, I don't need to talk to someone else.

(01:13:48):
I need to talk to my partner about it. They're
the person I need to go to. But if I
have issues with something that came up today and actually
I love venting with my mom or my brother or whatever,
then that's what I'm going to turn. Yeah, so that's
what comes to mind.

Speaker 1 (01:14:02):
Yeah, And can I go back and ask you. I'm
just curious what you think about, Like what for you
is like a sign of a bad relationship.

Speaker 2 (01:14:11):
I want to ask you too. I have a really
interesting perspective on love and relationships and it comes from
my mom. Like I believe my mom made me believe
that I was lovable and that I feel that in
my core, and so giving love for me feels very

(01:14:34):
easy because I feel like I was showered in it
since I was a kid. And when I say love,
I mean love, I don't mean things. I don't mean stuff,
I don't mean I mean just I think my mom
loves me. And I've always felt that my mom's love
was a shield to early trauma that I did experience
but didn't penetrate the shield, and so I feel very lucky.

(01:14:54):
So I feel like I could love the whole world
and never run out. And it's and it from my mom.
My mom gets the credit for that. And what you
were saying when you're like, does that mom have that
look in her eyes? Yeah, like my mom has that,
Like I could totally resonate. I was like, yeah, that's
my mom, So that's why you can. Yeah. So I
have an unlimited I feel an unlimited And of course
I feel very connected to God, I feel connected to source.

(01:15:17):
So I feel a very unlimited sense of love. It
shows up in different ways. Sometimes setting love is setting
boundaries and not overgiving or compassion fatigue, and you know,
all those things have to be taken into account. But
I think when you asked me what's a sort of
an unhealthy relationship or a bad relationship, I think it's

(01:15:38):
when I feel that we're both only looking at the
other person's mistakes, we're not looking at our own, and
we're looking for all accountability to be taken by the
other person and not ours, and we're not willing to

(01:15:58):
at certain time be potentially the savior of the relationship
when we're thinking, well, they should be doing it too.
And I think a healthy relationship is recognizing some days
you're going to carry me, and some dames, I'm going
to carry you. And yes, it may have looked like
I carried you for the last two years, but you
may carry me for the next two. And I don't

(01:16:21):
want to live in a world where we're counting every
day whether everything is fifty to fifty, because I don't
think it works that way. Like my wife was there
were you know, when we first got married and we
moved to New York and she was away from her family,
and she never once complained to me she missed her
family a lot, and she told me she missed them

(01:16:41):
and in London and she missed her family a lot,
but she didn't complain to me. She didn't nag me,
she didn't tell me like it was all my fault
that she was away from her family, and so I
know she tolerated a lot. And at the same time,
all I wanted was for her to be with her
family because I knew how much that meant to her.
H And I would say that in those early years,

(01:17:01):
she was so patient and so tolerant with the fact
that we'd moved here for my work and my mission
and my purpose and I was living my dream, but
a part of my dream is also seeing her happy.
So my dream wasn't complete either. But I think the
point is she carried me in those years because she
didn't feel like a weight she could have, but she

(01:17:22):
chose not to, even though she was honest about how
she felt. But it wasn't like it was my fault.
It didn't feel projected onto me. And then she's been
through such an evolution in the last couple of years
where her role in our life has changed, her career
has taken off, her purposes blossomed. So much has happened,
and I feel I've been there for her while she's

(01:17:43):
been finding herself and discovering herself and I've been open
to that, and I'm like, but if she was like
looking at it in the early days and it's like
I moved for you, I did all this for you,
what are you doing for me? You're just living your dream.
If she said that to me, I don't know if
we would have survived. And then now when she needed
a partner to give her space to blossom and grow,

(01:18:04):
if she would have left me before for all those
reasons or whatever, then she may not have found a
person who is willing to And I wasn't doing it
because she did it for me. I was doing it
because I love her. Yeah, And I think that's what
it is. You're motivated from a place of it's not
like I'm counting. I'm just doing this because I love you.
I'm not doing this because Yeah, that makes a lot
of sense. Yeah, does that make sense? I don't know.
Sorry I took a windly rotation.

Speaker 1 (01:18:22):
No, no, no. It also ties to a few of
the things we've been talking about. It sort of. It
even ties to like the question of like if someone
says I'm estranged from my family of origin, Like, again,
is it like a stance of like they didn't do
enough for me grudge grudge, grudge or is it a
stance of I'm taking responsibility for myself?

Speaker 2 (01:18:46):
Yeah, And I think it all comes down to the
old wisdom of just what can I do, what can
I control? What can I focus on? It's not about
what I can't control, and yeah, what I don't think about,
or the blame game or the blame game you ask
you about some of more of those things actually, Like,
what are your thoughts on how often do you hear
the word gas lighting in the office? Is it common?

Speaker 1 (01:19:08):
But yeah, there are There are a bunch of words
that I hear a lot now in the office that
I think come from Yeah, yeah, gaslighting, triggers, trauma, love bombing,
love bombing. Yeah, recently there was a lot of love
bombing it.

Speaker 2 (01:19:28):
What are your reactions to this word? So when I
say the word love bombing, yeah, what are you an issue?
What are your instant thoughts?

Speaker 1 (01:19:35):
My instant thoughts are, first of all, I'm old because
I came in with a different vocabulary, and I typically
ask people to or there's another one activated, I'm activated.

(01:19:56):
That's people are using that a lot, triggered and activated.
I typically ask people to I like play dumb, and
I say, tell me what you mean. I don't know
what you mean, because they usually the way people use
these words is they have a feeling about something, but

(01:20:18):
they don't exactly know what that something is, so they
grab a word I guess from TikTok that kind of
supposedly captures it, and then they're done thinking. They stop
investigating themselves. They stop really, they're just like, aha, I
found the culprit gaslighting. That's what's happening to me. I
don't have to think about it anymore. Someone is bad,
you know.

Speaker 2 (01:20:38):
It's usually I love that. I agree with you.

Speaker 1 (01:20:40):
Yeah, it's usually a lot more complicated than I found
the word and someone is bad.

Speaker 2 (01:20:45):
Yeah, it's almost a relief we feel when we find
the word. Yeah, but actually he's a narcissist.

Speaker 1 (01:20:50):
He's a narcissist. He's gaslighting me.

Speaker 2 (01:20:53):
So I feel like the world as everyone feels like
they've dated a narcissist.

Speaker 1 (01:20:59):
You one hundred percent accurate, because we all have parts
of ourselves that are narcissistically oriented, meaning there to protect
our sense of self. Some people move more to the extreme,
and they're really like deeply wounded and have to spend
a lot of energy protecting themselves and working around their ego.

(01:21:22):
But most of us, in certain situations were provoked to
behave in more narcissistic ways, and when we're offered other conditions,
we can be more open and interested in the world.
So it's usually the way it's used in pop language.
It's usually just like a word that covers up a

(01:21:44):
whole other world of things. I think when people talk
about I've dated a narcissist, they're like, that person didn't
give me enough attention, and what's that about?

Speaker 2 (01:21:58):
That?

Speaker 1 (01:21:58):
There could be so much there, like what went on
between the two of you? Why what happened? Where were
you in that it doesn't tell you much.

Speaker 2 (01:22:08):
Yeah, I'm so happy to hear that, because I do
think that the word is a relief and it's not
that it's wrong, it's just that don't stop unpacking it there. Yeah,
So those words are really helpful for you to categorize,
summarize your experience, but don't feel that that's the end
of the investigation, Like there's so much more exactly, and

(01:22:29):
you're actually doing yourself a disservice.

Speaker 1 (01:22:31):
Yeah, and the moment you're thinking about I found a
word that finds all the problem outside of me, you're
deluding yourself.

Speaker 2 (01:22:40):
Before we dive into the next moment, let's hear from
our sponsors. Thanks for taking a moment for that. Now
back to the discussion. When you find couples coming with
financial issues, is it really about money?

Speaker 1 (01:22:53):
Money is a big issue for people. Money is a
big issue for people. You know, the question of money.
One of the questions that people that couples deal with
when they're fighting or debating about money is the deep
question of mine versus ours? What's mine and what are

(01:23:15):
we sharing? And the most concrete version of it is money,
but it's everything. It's time, it's attention, it's airtime, it's sex,
it's so much. Is like mine versus ours, But money
is like, especially in our culture, money is like the
most concrete way to talk about it and to fight

(01:23:36):
about it. Like if you're making more money than your
spouse or than your partner who pays for dinner, Like
what's the vibe between the two of you? Is it
shared money or is it no? We're still going Dutch right.
Fights about money are about the concreteness of money, but
they're also about where do I begin and end? And

(01:24:00):
what's us together. And then there's a whole other thing
with money, which is money is also something to do
with our relationship with reality, right, I mean back to
the idea of someone hiding a suitcase with bills, unpaid
bills under the bed, Like how realistic is your relationship

(01:24:21):
with reality with what you have, with what you're making.
Like when people talk about money, they're talking about reality
in certain ways. I usually ask people, how do you
think money should play out between the two of you?
If you're making more money than your partner, what is
your ideology on this? What do you really think should happen?

(01:24:44):
Does that give you more power? Does that mean you
should be making more of the decisions? Does that mean
your partner should be paying for less? How do you
think about it? Each of you? Just what's your basic ideology?
Which is hard for people to acknowledge.

Speaker 2 (01:25:00):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:25:01):
They want to feel like no, money doesn't matter, but
it matters to everyone in some way or another. They
have an ideology, So are they willing to put it
on the table to be honest with how they think
about it? And then once you compare these ideologies, then
we can have a discussion. It's back to the idea
of like the couple creating their political backdrop, like what

(01:25:25):
is the politics of this relationship? Are you like socialist?
Or are you capitalist?

Speaker 2 (01:25:31):
Or you.

Speaker 1 (01:25:33):
What's your economy?

Speaker 2 (01:25:35):
What if we vote differently, you probably will.

Speaker 1 (01:25:37):
Disagree on some level. You will somewhere you will disagree,
and then it's going to get interesting. It's going to
be like a congress, like right debating what's the right
way to do it? But it's better to have that
debate on the table rather than acted out in those
like what was that film? There was that? Oh my god,
it's a film in which there's a shipwreck. There's this

(01:26:00):
couple that are sitting at the dinner table and they're
looking at each other like who's going to pull out
the credit card?

Speaker 2 (01:26:06):
Oh, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:26:07):
Brilliant scene. Everything about their relationship was in that scene.
I don't know, with her kind of pretending she lost
her card, oh okay, and him but reluctantly pulling out
his credit card, and then there was It was just perfect.

Speaker 2 (01:26:24):
I was thinking of a movie called fair Play. I
did you see that?

Speaker 1 (01:26:28):
I heard about it. I didn't see it.

Speaker 2 (01:26:29):
I think you I don't know if you'd enjoy it.
I don't know. Your taste of movies. But I think
it's pretty interesting. It's a story, but where it's a
movie made about a couple who are competing for the
same job because they work at the same company. But
it's really dark and it really goes into that the
psychology of competition, gender, roles, the pay gap, everything comes

(01:26:52):
to playah and it shows how it affects them from
the bedroom to the boardroom to everywhere else. It's really
well done. Yeah, it's really well done. It just shows
you what's going on inside of our heads that doesn't
often come out, and just how we all feel. And
it's so interesting how society and all of this has

(01:27:14):
such a play on how we feel about our role
and who we are. Today, we have so many more
people to look at and view and see how their
lives are going. I had a friend who his girlfriend
made more money than him, and he did really well
for himself, but she made more money than him, but
she expected him to pay for everything, and she wanted

(01:27:36):
him not only to pay for dinners and rent, and
she wanted him to buy her a car because she
believed that because he's a man, because he's the man,
that's how she should be treated and you know that
was for her.

Speaker 1 (01:27:50):
Imagine them having a conversation. They ended up breaking up,
but what would their conversation sound like? Literally, this, I
detailed this, I'm a queen, I'm a princess.

Speaker 2 (01:28:01):
I'm like this hour should be treated like you think
she said something like she said stuff like this. Yeah, wow,
that's amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:28:09):
Yeah, that's amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:28:11):
And you see a lot of this language on TikTok
and things like that about what a high value man is,
what a high value woman is, and a lot of
the language and vocabulary out there. What is it?

Speaker 1 (01:28:21):
What is meant by a high value man?

Speaker 2 (01:28:23):
I mean, there's lots of different definitions, but generally it's
someone who does has a good career, makes a lot
of money, does well for themselves. And you know that
the obvious definition of it.

Speaker 1 (01:28:34):
Well it's not obvious, yeah no, but.

Speaker 2 (01:28:38):
Yeah, but it's just interesting to hear how these societal
ideas kind of because then we're like, oh, but you're
not with a high value man, you know. And and
it's really interesting because in my world, a high value
man would be someone who has good value.

Speaker 1 (01:28:52):
It's like the good value being like ethics.

Speaker 2 (01:28:55):
Ethics, Yeah, exactly, like character, moral character, strength and bravery
and yes, honesty and right, that's why I would consider
a high value person forget man. Yeah, And it's interesting
how all this language at play kind of cascades ideas quickly,
Like you said, yeah, because it's easier rather than saying
I'm with a good man. It's easy to arm with

(01:29:17):
a high value man. But you know what does that mean? Right? Yeah,
I was going to ask you do more people want
more intimacy or more sex?

Speaker 1 (01:29:27):
I think its first of all, it's it's a complicated
thing to draw the line between intimacy and sex. Oh interesting, okay,
And I think it depends very much on the stage
of the relationship early on. One of the things. I mean,
we all know that one of the things that binds people,
one of the strongest glues is sex, like passion and

(01:29:51):
excitement about each other and like, you know, wanting to
get into bed together.

Speaker 2 (01:29:55):
And then.

Speaker 1 (01:29:57):
At some point people start coming to terms with like differences,
differences in scripts, differences in appetite. I know that the
like the stereotype is that men are more focused on
sex and want more sex, and women want less or
it's less important to them. I don't think that's actually true.

(01:30:20):
I think again, it's very hard to make generalizations, and
it changes between like straight and queer couples. So it's
really not necessarily about the biology. But I think typically
there are different focuses for men and women, and then

(01:30:41):
later in the relationship things change because I think later
in the relationship the line between sex and intimacy gets
very blurry. And I think generally everyone wants both intimacy
and sex. Everyone wants it, and everyone wishes it for
themselves and wants it in large quantities. Everyone needs it,

(01:31:05):
but they focus on different things.

Speaker 2 (01:31:07):
And no one has energy for.

Speaker 1 (01:31:08):
It, and no one has energy for it, and anyway,
a lot of it is about wanting to feel desire
of some sort.

Speaker 2 (01:31:17):
That's what it is.

Speaker 1 (01:31:18):
That's really what it is, and not necessarily wanting you know,
oh I need to have it three times a week,
or I need this, or I need that. It's a
lot about the experience of desire and being desired. That
is really kind of the the thing we all want
to be living in desire rather than living in a

(01:31:40):
certain kind of deadness. That's ultimately what everyone wants.

Speaker 2 (01:31:45):
That's so powerful because it goes back to what we
were talking about earlier of like we just want someone
to believe in us. It's like we just want that
feeling of yes, I have value, I have something to get.

Speaker 1 (01:31:54):
I'm desired, And people want to feel desire, to feel desired,
so to feel desire for the other.

Speaker 2 (01:32:03):
And it's so interesting because it feels like our partners
are the people that make us feel the least of everything,
because it's like a partner makes us feel the least desired.
A partner makes us feel the least important. We almost
have this worry that if I say too many nice
things to my partner, they'll get a big head, or
if I'm too nice to them, they'll think that they're

(01:32:23):
better than me. Like I feel like there's a subconscious
this isn't something someone would say, but there's this subconscious
belief of that I shouldn't honor my partner too much
because it almost puts me in a week like a
zero sum kind of yeah. Like it almost like a
feeling of like weakness, like if I compliment them too much, yeah,
I'm weaker in this relationship because I'm the one who
needs them more.

Speaker 1 (01:32:44):
It's a fear of vulnerability, of showing that you depend
showing that you need, showing that you desire. It puts
you in a vulnerable place. Yeah, but it's I.

Speaker 2 (01:32:57):
Mean, that's who everything is.

Speaker 1 (01:32:59):
But yeah, people thrive and feeling wanted and appreciated. Anything
that makes people more stingy I think is problematic. I
think stinginess withholding is like destructive. Give more, give, give, give,
give freely, create a good environment around.

Speaker 2 (01:33:21):
You or no. Thank you for your time and energy today.
You've been so gracious and I've genuinely loved talking to you.
I felt like I had I felt like I had
so many new thoughts and ideas today just being in
your presence. And now I'm like, now I know what
it feels like to be in the room with you,
and sweet Honestly, I mean that like I felt like
everything was firing in my mind and I was connecting

(01:33:42):
dots that I haven't before. So yeah, thank you such
a joy for me too.

Speaker 1 (01:33:46):
Jay, It was wonderful questions and I love all the
both the vignettes that you bring in that are immediately like,
oh my god, the whole world is in this vignette,
and the questions you're asking are right at the core.

Speaker 2 (01:33:59):
Thank you so kind. We end every on purpose interview
with the final five. These questions have to be answered
in one word to one sentence maximum.

Speaker 1 (01:34:07):
Okay, so these are.

Speaker 2 (01:34:09):
Your final five?

Speaker 1 (01:34:10):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:34:10):
The first question is what is the best relationship advice
you've ever heard or received?

Speaker 1 (01:34:15):
Stay in your own lane?

Speaker 2 (01:34:17):
The best rest Why? How is the How does it
tell me?

Speaker 1 (01:34:20):
It means don't intrude on someone else's journey, Like, stay
in your own lane, do the thing you're supposed to do,
and live and let live. Yeah, that's that's the best
way to create a good environment for a relationship.

Speaker 2 (01:34:35):
Second question, what is the worst relationship advice you've ever
heard or received?

Speaker 1 (01:34:40):
Don't let him get away with it?

Speaker 2 (01:34:43):
Why is that bad advice?

Speaker 1 (01:34:44):
That's paranoid? It's like a like, be suspicious, be paranoid,
don't give the benefit of the doubt, guard your own
It's not a good attitude because because the way you
the way you're approach, the way you look at a person,
speaking of what we've been, that's what you're going to
get back. If you're paranoid about someone, they're going to

(01:35:08):
be bad.

Speaker 2 (01:35:09):
Yeah, And it steals your energy, and it steals your energy. Right.
Question number three, what's something you used to believe was
true about couples, but now you have a different view
on it.

Speaker 1 (01:35:21):
Maybe I used to believe that compatibility is the most
important thing, and now I think, like I said earlier,
that the capacity to love someone who's different from you
is the best source of growth.

Speaker 2 (01:35:43):
So well said, I love it. I'm sold on that idea. Great,
that's everything Great. We've been spending too much time trying
to find this like perfect match. Yeah, perfect fit. Who's
like it's just like, yeah, there isn't I think about
that With my wife. We are so different. We couldn't
be more friend like in every way in so many ways,

(01:36:03):
and I love being alone. She loves being surrounded by family. Like, yeah,
I'm I'm super driven, focused, ambitious. She's fun, playful, doesn't
take life seriously. It's great, Like it's just but it's
so different. I'm always on time, I like order, I
like structure, I like systems. She believes in fair, spontaneity

(01:36:25):
and completely you know. Yeah, And so that initially did
create so many rifts and challenges, Like it was hard
because it was like I was ready to go on time,
She's not to me.

Speaker 1 (01:36:37):
That's that's hard.

Speaker 2 (01:36:39):
A big issue. I want systems in order. I want
to plan our weekend out, our vacation. And she's like,
let's just go and see how it goes. I'm like,
that's like my worst nightmare is to like turn up
somewhere and see how it goes. Like what if it's booked,
What if the show's booked, what if the scuba diving's
book like whatever. It is, Like, that's like my worst How.

Speaker 1 (01:36:58):
Do you do it? Now? How can we do the
lateness and not lateness?

Speaker 2 (01:37:02):
I realized that a lot of the things I wanted
to be on time for didn't matter. There were things
that were and things that didn't. It was me holding
myself to a standard that wasn't always necessary. It comes
back to her with the plates. It was the same thing.
It was like, sometimes it is important to be on
time like today it was important for me to be
on time for you. Sometimes it's not important for me

(01:37:23):
to be on time because it's casual and it's friends
and everyone's kind of turning up and you've got a
window to turn up in. But I still want to
be there on time because that's just my training. Because
my mum always told me, if you're not early, you're
late and so that comes from that training of just
military discipline, which is what I lived my life. So
I had to learn that for the late thing. And

(01:37:45):
then when it came on the vacations we planned. We
both wanted one day on, one day off. So if
you've got a MA cations for seven days, three or
four of the days are planned and three and four
of the days of content and we actually actually love that. Yeah,
it worked, Whereas I used to do seven days planned,
but that would exhaust me. Yeah, and so now I'm like, ah,
this is actually a healthier solution.

Speaker 1 (01:38:06):
So yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:38:07):
Yeah. Taken from that question number four, what is the
most difficult relationship you've ever had to help or solve?

Speaker 1 (01:38:18):
I have two things that come to mind. One is
a relationship in which I did feel like one one
in the couple was just too My explanation is that
he was just too traumatized and he kept really viciously

(01:38:40):
abusing his wife in my presence. And I really tried everything,
and I believe they really wanted to change. But I
I tried everything, and I had no impact on him,
no impact like he tried. I sent him to read books,
I worked with him. Individual Julie some of the time.

(01:39:01):
I had to like remove them from the room some
of the sessions and do some work. I really put
my heart and soul into helping them get out of
this like extreme form of like blame and abuse, and
I did not make a dent. Aside from the fact

(01:39:22):
that I felt bad that I couldn't help them, it
was also really a toxic situation to be in. Like
the sessions were just awful for me. So that was
probably the worst.

Speaker 2 (01:39:39):
And they didn't they stayed together, or.

Speaker 1 (01:39:41):
They actually stayed together they did. I mean, I think
the work eventually did help them to some degree, but
it was awful.

Speaker 2 (01:39:51):
When do you know divorce is the right choice?

Speaker 1 (01:39:55):
With that couple, I thought divorce was the right choice,
and they chose not to. I just couldn't imagine why
would a family keep going with that level of toxicity.
I wouldn't wish it on anyone. But they chose to
stay together. And that's I mean, people live the way

(01:40:16):
they want to live.

Speaker 2 (01:40:17):
What can I do?

Speaker 1 (01:40:18):
But that would have been a situation where I would
say that the pain of divorce is worth it, because
I don't think it's a good idea to live in
that kind of abusive, blamey environment, day in, day out.
Another difficult situation was a couple that I cared about

(01:40:38):
deeply and I really really understood them. It was an abuse,
but they couldn't They couldn't stop repeating a certain pattern
that was a direct replay of each of their childhood traumas.
It was an abuse. It was just like issues around abandonment,

(01:41:00):
and that was very hard. The common denominator is situations
where I'm doing my best and I can't affect change.
That's hard.

Speaker 2 (01:41:11):
How do you deal with that?

Speaker 1 (01:41:12):
I try hard. I'm like relentless. I mean, I will
work with couples. I will sweat, i will put my
heart into it. I'll think about it later, I'll read,
I'll talk to colleagues. I try. I'm like, if I
take on a couple, I'm like in it. But ultimately,

(01:41:34):
you know, stay in your own lane. People are going
to live their life. I'll bring the horse to the
water if they repeatedly won't drink, it's I've got my
life to live.

Speaker 2 (01:41:46):
Yeah. Fifth and final question. If you could create one
law that everyone in the world had to follow, what
would it be?

Speaker 1 (01:42:00):
Gay? Do no harm, Do no harm?

Speaker 2 (01:42:06):
Beautiful? Yeah, Ernan, Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (01:42:10):
Thank you Jay.

Speaker 2 (01:42:11):
If you love this episode, you're going to love my
conversation with Matthew Hussey on how to get over your
ex and find true love in your relationships. People should
be compassionate to themselves that extend that compassion to your
future self, because truly extending your compassion to your future
self is doing something that gives him or her a

(01:42:33):
shot at a happy and a peaceful life.

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Jay Shetty

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