Lori Gottlieb: 7 Answers to Dating Questions You’re Afraid to Ask & How to Break Free from Relationship Timelines

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey everyone, it's Jay here. My wife and I have
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(00:24):
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Speaker 2 (00:42):
We have this saying we're burying our unfinished business. We
date our unfinished business too. If you're not doing the work,
you're going to be behind. Therapist's best selling author Loory Gotlief.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
What would you say to someone who's saying, I have
to kind of compromise and make sure this is the
one because I have to get to that point, because
I want to be in a relationship. I'm going to
get the pick of the bunch because I'm thirty five
years old and I haven't found someone.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
If you are not in a place where you want
to be with a relationship, you have to understand why.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
Am I behind for being single? At twenty eight, the
number one health and wellness podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Jay Sheidy, Jay Sheddy See Only Ja Sheet.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
Hey everyone, Welcome back to you on purpose. I am
so grateful that you're here with me today. Thank you
for lending me your ears and guys for the next
few moments as we dive into how you can become happier, healthier,
and more healed. Today's guest is one of your favorites.
You absolutely love it whenever she's on the show. We've
obviously reached out already to you for your questions for

(01:47):
her as well. I'm talking about your favorite therapist, Laurie Guttlieb,
saga therapist and New York Times best selling author of
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, which has sold nearly
two million copies and is currently being adapted as a
television series. In addition to a clinical practice, she's the
co host of the popular Dear Therapist podcast. If you're

(02:08):
not subscribed already, make sure you go and do that.
Welcome back to on Purpose, Lurie Cutleeve. Laurie, it's great
to have you back.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
It's so great to be here, Jake.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
Honestly, every time you come in here and we have
these conversations, they just go crazy viral online. People love
your advice, they love your insight. They always want you back,
And I'm so thankful to you that you always choose
to come back. So it means a lot to me
that you're back here with me.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
Well, thank you so much for having me back.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
We've done what we did last time because people loved
it so much. We've gone out to our audience, gone
out to our community. I've even reached out to some
friends and I've crowdsourced all of their challenges, all of
their issues, all of their real life experiences that they're
going through. And some of these people don't have access
to therapists. Some of these people maybe can't afford it.

(02:54):
Some of these people maybe even have therapists but are
still struggling trying to figure it out. And so I
love the fact that we can use you as our
community therapist and learn from you. So I want to
dive straight in.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
Sure.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
One of the biggest questions I'm hearing and getting from
people in my community and audience. Is am I behind
for being single at twenty eight?

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Hmmm? You know, it's so interesting because I think that
we tend to compare ourselves so much to other people,
especially with social media. You know, we look at you know,
what is everybody else doing at my age? Is what
is the right thing? And you are exactly where you
need to be if you are doing the work. If
you're not doing the work, you're going to be behind.

(03:37):
And what I mean by doing the work is if
you are not in a place where you want to
be with a relationship, you have to understand why. So
are you examining what has not worked yet? Why if
I am single and I don't want to be single,
what can I be doing differently? And so I think
that's the important work. So you're not behind at all.
In fact, you're probably ahead of people who are in

(03:58):
relationships who have not and the work and maybe aren't
in the right relationship or are in a relationship that's
not going to last or isn't going well.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
I feel like that's such a hard thing to face,
right because we think the problem is external to us,
and what you're saying is well, actually the work needs
to be done internally, and so often we're trying to
solve and shift and construct what's happening around of us
rather than looking inward. Why do you think that is?
Why is it that we struggle to actually do the work?

(04:28):
What does that look like?

Speaker 2 (04:29):
I think it's so much easier when we talk to
our friends, and you know, I've talked about the difference
between idiot compassion and why is compassion before idiot compassion
is you say to your friend, look what happened on
this date, or look what happened with this person and
they say, yeah, you're right, they're wrong, and we never
learn or grow from that right because yes, there might
be something that the other person did, but also what

(04:51):
was your role in that interaction? A relationship is all
about relating, So what was your role in the dance
that you're doing with this person? And what you get
in therapy is you get wise compassion where we hold
up a mirror to you and we help you to
see something about what your role is, maybe something you
haven't been willing or able to see, but that's so

(05:12):
important so you don't repeat these situations where you're in
this pattern and then you wonder, why do I keep
ending up with a person who doesn't listen to me,
or a person where I don't feel seen, or where
I can't be myself, or where we have a lot
of volatility, or where this person's really avoidant. Why am
I always with people who avoid or what makes me avoid?

(05:33):
And I don't talk to the person about what I
want or what I need. So that's the work that's
really important. So you're not behind if you're single at
twenty eight. It's part of the process. If you're doing
the work, you're much closer than you've ever been to
finding the person that you want to be with.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
I'm so glad you said that. I remember talking about
it in my book that I wrote called Eight Rules
of Love, and it was this idea of relationship karma,
and I was using the concept of karma from the
East in tradition to understand that karma is every action
has a reaction, and it was can you pinpoint what
action you've taken in order to end up in the

(06:09):
same experience with a different person. So as you were
saying that whether you keep attracting an avoidant person, you
keep attracting someone who doesn't listen to you. You keep
attracting someone who is interested for a month, but then
disconnect or whatever it may be, and it's like, where,
what action have you taken in your choice, in your
curation of this individual, in your approach to this individual

(06:32):
that has potentially led to that.

Speaker 2 (06:34):
Absolutely, that's so spot on. We know we have this
saying we bury our unfinished business. We date our unfinished
business too. So if you, let's say, earlier in your life,
you were around someone who you know was neglectful, somebody
who drank too much, somebody who lost their temper, somebody
who wasn't honest, somebody who wasn't reliable. We think when

(06:56):
we're dating as adults, like I want the opposite of that.
I want someone where I feel safe, secure, there's trust.
But what happens is unconsciously, Again, if we haven't done
the work our unfinished business, we actually are unconsciousness. Oh
you look familiar, come closer. So on the surface, they
don't look like that person, but then when you get

(07:16):
to know them, you're a month in, you're three months in,
you're six months in, you think, wow, that person reminds
me of someone. This person feels so familiar, And that's
why I was drawn to this person. It turns out
this person is very much like what I grew up with,
is very much like the person who hurt me growing up.
So if you do the work, you're able to see, oh,

(07:38):
that person, I see why I'm drawn to them, but
I'm not drawn to them in a healthy way. And
then if you do even more work, you're not even
drawn to those people anymore. Now you're drawn to healthy people,
stable people, flexible people, emotionally generous people, people whose values
align with yours. That's who you're drawn to. So you
have to do the work.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
Yeah. Absolutely, I'm so glad that you've made that the
reminder because I think often we validate and make people
feel like it's okay that they're single, and I think
you are doing that, But I think this is a
step further, which is like you are behind if you're
not actually learning from the experiences that got you here
and you're not actually refining it. Another pressure that I
feel that mounts on people as time goes on. It's

(08:20):
so fascinating to me that we're in twenty twenty four.
We hope that we're living in a society that is
letting go of timelines. That's letting go of gender roles,
that's letting go of these boundaries and limits that are
placed on us because of what age we are and
what gender we are and everything else. But I find
that internally, we all actually still carry a lot of

(08:42):
those pressures. And another big question for our community was
if I do get into a relationship in my early thirties,
do I now have to rush things like do I? Often?
What I heard was people were saying, I feel like
I have to feel like this person is the one
because I'm running out of time, and I have this
fear that the pool is getting so much smaller as

(09:05):
I get into my early thirties that I'm going to
have the worst pick because no good people are going
to be left. Now, we know that all of these
things are not factually true, they're not data backed, like
these are ideas, but these are the kind of thoughts
that I'm hearing from people who are entering that space.
What would you say to someone who's saying, Laurie, I
feel I have to rush things. I have to kind

(09:27):
of compromise and make sure this is the one because
I have to get to that point because I want
to be in a relationship, and actually I fear that
I'm going to get the worst pick of the bunch
because I'm thirty five years old and i haven't found someone.

Speaker 2 (09:41):
We literally just had someone like this on the podcast,
and she felt like, I have to decide right away
if this is the person, and if there's any issues here,
I have to leave right away, as opposed to understanding
that if she doesn't understand what these issues are about,
she will just repeat that in the next relationship. I mean,

(10:01):
these were not you know, there's certain kinds of issues
that are red flags. These were not red flag issues.
These were normal relational types of things, communication types of things.
And what we told her was, you need to slow
down in order to save time. And it sounds counterintuitive
because people think, wait a minute, I need to hurry
up in order to save time. I don't want to
waste time. But you need to slow down so that

(10:22):
you can say what is right in front of me
right now. If I put that kind of pressure on myself,
I'm going to make decisions for all kinds of the
wrong reasons. So I'm going to make them because you know,
we talk about the difference sort of the head and
the heart you're going to make head decisions instead of
heart decisions. You need both. My son taught me this. Actually,
he was saying, I've been making too many head decisions

(10:43):
and I need to make more heart decisions. And it's
about how do you find the balance between those two things.
So what we told her, this woman on the podcast,
was we said, why don't the two of you go
to therapy for let's say you put a time limit
on it. We're going to go for six months. And
she said six months. I don't have six months to waste.

(11:03):
And I said, it's not going to be a waste.
No matter whether you stay in this relationship or you
go to a different relationship, you're going to learn so
much about yourself in relationship that you can't learn if
you're not in a relationship, because you need to be
able to have these interactions to understand what they trigger
in you, what they bring up in you, and you
can't do that in isolation. So many people say I

(11:24):
need to completely understand myself before I can go and date,
and I say, you're going to learn so much about yourself.
You want the best tutorial on who you are and
your operating instructions and what makes you tick. Get in
a relationship with somebody, you will be pushed and challenged
in ways that you aren't challenged when it's just you
sitting there thinking. So we said to her, go to

(11:44):
couple's therapy for six months, and then you will learn
so much about yourself and you will know so much
more about whether you two are the right combination, are
the right couple. And so we do follow ups. We
do your follow ups. Since she came back a year later,
and she said, I was going to leave this person,
and I am so glad that I didn't because I
learned that some of this was me and I didn't

(12:07):
have the maturity. I didn't understand a lot of things,
and I grew so much, and I am so in
love with this person. And I would have left because
I was panicked. Now it could have ended up the
other way too, that she left, which would have also
been good if it wasn't the right person, and then
she would have found the right person because of the
work that she did. So I would say to these
people who feel like I have to hurry, I have

(12:27):
to know right away. Relax, slow down, give yourself a timeline.
Don't stay in that relationship for five years and be
ambivalent about what you want to do, but slow down,
give yourself a year of doing the work with this person,
and then you will know so much more about yourself.

Speaker 1 (12:49):
Okay, I am so excited about this because we've got
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(13:11):
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jshetdyshop dot com. That's Jshettishop dot com. And remember, one

(13:32):
hundred percent of the proceeds go to NAMI. Some people
are good for you now and some people may become
good for you forever. But this idea that if someone's
good for me now and they're not forever, then I
don't want them now isn't the healthiest idea, because the
growth you might make with this person who may not

(13:53):
be your forever person, could be so powerful and useful
in your forever relationship, and you won't know that until
you're actually getting to know them. I had a friend
recently who went through that scenario where they felt that
this individual they were with was helping them grow, helping
them understand themselves. They were doing the same back, and
they realized during the course of that relationship that this

(14:15):
wasn't the one that was going to be the marriage
and the long term commitment. But they feel like they
both grew so much as individuals. And you constantly in
this conversation so far, you've talked about doing the deep
work on your own, You've talked about working with that person.
What's really interesting is that after all this time, and
no matter how many books we read, and no matter

(14:36):
how many podcasts we listen to, there's still this belief
that when we meet the person, it will be easy,
it'll be simple, and everything will just make sense. I
feel like a lot of people also who found love
in a magical way, will say things like when you know,
you know, and you just feel it, and then people
feel like they're have to find that feeling and that

(14:59):
love should be easy and simple and flow. I'm assuming
from what you're saying so far that it's not really
the only way. It can require work. It does require work.
I've been with my wife for eleven years now, and
I can honestly say that some parts have been really
easy and some parts have required work. And I believe
we work on it consistently and that's why it becomes

(15:22):
easier than it would become harder. But I feel like
there's this Disney magic belief we still all carry so
deep rooted in us that love should be easy. What
would you say to someone who is carrying that experience
or that vision of love in their heart and mind? Right?

Speaker 2 (15:38):
Well, first of all, you know, when we look at
attachment styles, if you have a secure attachment, sometimes it
is easier for you to know whether this person is
going to be someone you want to pursue long term.
But even then things will come up. But also many
of us are not securely attached, meaning that we had
inconsistent caregivers or we had you know, parents do their best,

(16:01):
but parents are also imperfect. Parents have their own parents,
and they have their own histories which makes them parent
in a certain way. So there are certain ways in
which we didn't get parented the way we wanted to
get parented, and we come into relationships maybe we don't
trust and then we think, oh, I can't trust that person,
But it's really not about the other person. They're completely trustworthy,

(16:22):
but you just don't trust the world, you don't trust
the universe, you don't even maybe trust yourself. So those
people maybe feel like, well, this is really hard because
I don't really trust this person, but they're not looking
at Maybe it's hard because you are bringing something into
this right, so the magic might come, might be there,

(16:42):
but you have to be able to learn how to trust,
and maybe at the beginning of that relationship it's going
to be a little bit hard for you. So it's
not going to look like the Disney the romantic comedies
that we all see. But I think the other thing
is there's a study that I love that I think
more people should know about, which is that they did
this longitudinal study, so that means they followed people over
twenty years and they checked in every five years, and

(17:03):
they started with the first date. When you met this person,
you write down your impressions. And some people said, you know, oh,
this person there's so much magic, there's so much chemistry.
And some people said it was fine, yeah, I'd probably
see this person again, but nothing great, right, And then
they followed them every five years, and what they found
after twenty years was that the people who were happily

(17:24):
married to each other did change their story. So at
the time they had said like, yeah, I'm not really sure,
nice person, no butterflies, no spark, they said, oh, I
knew right away. They changed the story because now the
story is filtered through the way their marriage is. Now
people who were unhappy, who got divorced or were still

(17:46):
married but were unhappy, you know, said things like, oh,
there was no chemistry. There was never any chemistry, no
right away, even though at the time they said magic, right,
that's so good. So I think it's so important for
people to realize that don't listen to what your friends
say about how they met, because it's going to be
filtered through how they feel about each other. Right now.

Speaker 1 (18:05):
I'm so glad you raised that. That is such. That's
such a great insight, and I wish if everyone's listening
right now, please please please, like, let that deeply connect
with your heart and head, because I think that's one
of the reasons we will make mistakes. We're either forcing
ourselves to look for the perfection in the moment, and
like you said, some of the best relationships start by

(18:26):
it's fine, it's okay, I'm not sure. And also to
not over amplify that first meeting. I think we put
so much pressure on the first date, the first kiss,
you know, the first time I'm being intimate with someone,
the first the first of everything is like such.

Speaker 2 (18:41):
A so weighted, so weighted, right, yes, unfairly yes, yes.
And what happens is people will go on a date,
and so I see this in therapy all the time.
People will come in and they'll say, I went on
the date with this person, nice person. I don't know,
I just didn't feel that intensity. I just didn't I
don't know, I didn't feel this romantic connection with this person.
And I'll say, how did you feel about yourself on

(19:03):
this date? I felt good, I felt really comfortable, I
felt like myself. Right. Did you have a good time?

Speaker 1 (19:09):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (19:09):
Did you feel like this was a fun person to
be around?

Speaker 1 (19:12):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (19:13):
Well why not go on a second date? Why not
spend another hour with this person just to see what
it feels like to sit with this person again. And
what happens is sometimes not always, Sometimes you sit with
this person enough and then all of a sudden you're like, Oh,
they're really cute. I didn't see that before, or they're
really funny. They were kind of nervous on the first
date because it's a first date. It's like a job interview, right,

(19:37):
So people are performing. It's a very performative action going
on a first date. But when people feel more comfortable
and they can be more themselves, you feel like you
can be more yourself. They feel like they can and
you see the real person and they can become very
attractive to you. So this doesn't always happen, but it
happens enough that I think that what happens is we

(19:58):
feel like there's this abundance that because of dating apps,
we feel like if I don't feel like this person
is fabulous a ten everything that I've imagined on that
first forty five minutes or an hour that I'm meeting
them in this weird coffee place, in this weird environment.
Because we're strangers, we're both nervous, we're both trying to
impress each other. We both have these fantasies that we're

(20:18):
bringing in the other person's letting down my fantasy. You know,
what a weird way to meet someone. And then they think, Okay, well,
there's ten other people on this app that I can
swipe on and they'll meet my fantasy. Except they probably
won't either, or they might. Here's the danger. They might
on that first date, but then they're locking into some

(20:39):
fantasy that you have. But then when you really get
to know them, you find out, oh, I don't really
connect with this person, or this person's kind of superficial,
or this person's great at first dates. Because people who
are great at first dates can be really charming. But
that doesn't mean that that's what you want in a partner.
You want someone who's real. You want someone who's authentic,

(20:59):
who's annuine, And maybe the person who's a great first
dater is not a great partner.

Speaker 1 (21:05):
Absolutely. I mean, Laurie, you just did this genius therapy
question thing there that I want people to notice. I
think you're so right that after a first day, the
number one thing we focus on is how did I
feel about them? And our friends will ask us what
did you think of them? And you just shifted that
question that you asked one of your patients, the question

(21:27):
being how did you feel about yourself? Yeah, And I
think that's so powerful because you're so right that if
you're only looking at the other person and making your
assumptions and judgments on whether they're interesting, whether they're exciting,
whether there's someone who can entertain you, rather than going
how did I feel about myself? And it was so interesting.
I was just saying to one of my friends. I
was saying that when do you feel peaceful around someone?

(21:50):
And I was saying, peaceful around someone usually isn't exciting,
it's usually not exhilarating, but you feel listen to cart
when you're around them, they kind of relax your no
system a little bit. And so when you ask the
question how did I feel about myself? And you're like,
I felt natural, I felt comfortable. I actually felt really
good all of a sudden, like oh, I didn't feel butterflies,

(22:10):
and I wasn't constantly nervous and I wasn't trying to
impress them. So this is actually a much healthier space
to live in. So I love that reframe of after
a first date, not asking yourself what did I think
of them? Are they interesting? Are they the one? How
did I feel about myself? I think that's a brilliant,
brilliant note.

Speaker 2 (22:27):
Yeah, and how we feel about ourselves often comes from
the person on that date is really listening to you
and is really interested. So the person who can entertain
you on a first date might be really fun. But
I don't think that you want an entertainer. I think
what you want is you want someone you can actually
have some kind of connection with, and someone who knows
how to listen, and someone who's genuinely curious about you

(22:49):
and not just trying to impress you is going to
make a much better long term partner.

Speaker 1 (22:53):
Hey everyone, it's Jay Shatty and I'm throwed to announce
my podcast tour. For the first time ever. You can
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(23:17):
designed to inspire growth, spark learning, and build real connections.
I can't wait to see you there. Tickets are on
cell now. Head to Jayshetty dot me and get yours today.
I think, Laurie, we're uncovering something really interesting here. It's like,
I feel like we don't know what human connection is, right,
I feel like we don't know what human love is like,

(23:39):
like what we're getting to here, it's like because it
is so hard to define, I guess, but there's a
sense of we don't know what healthy connection communication looks
like because chances are we haven't seen it at home,
we haven't seen it around us, we haven't seen it
in the media. So there's a sense of not being

(24:00):
able to mirror or not being able to reflect something
that embodies that deep, profound experience of love. So when
you're saying you're not looking at someone who's giving you
the ability to feel listen heard seeing what is from
all of your experience and everything you've read. You've done
this for decades now, Like, what have you seen? Are

(24:23):
the core values of human connection that we should be
aspiring for in a healthy relationship? Can we even define those?

Speaker 2 (24:32):
We forget that love is not some kind of airy feeling, right,
love is you know, people say that people in love
are actually like people on drugs. It's the same dopamine
reaction and so you're not really thinking straight. So that
might feel like infatuation. That feels really good, and yes,
that's a component of feeling really connected and feeling love.

(24:55):
But love in the day to day is a verb.
How can I be loved to another person? How is
someone being loving as a verb to me? And so
I remember this struck me so much when I had
a couple and the woman and the couple said to
her husband, you know what three words I really want
to hear and he immediately said, I love you. You

(25:17):
want to hear I love you more? And she said, no,
I know you love me. I want to hear I
understand you. And that to her was love right. I
know that you say you love me. I want you
to show me you love me because I want to
feel understood by you and I want to understand you.
And I think so much what we don't do in

(25:39):
a loving relationship is we don't take the time to
either understand ourselves and communicate that or understand the other person.
It really takes an act of love.

Speaker 1 (25:50):
It's such a great point. And even hearing you say
that I like it resonates so strongly with how I
see love and how much I see the conflicts that
exist and relationships being because people love each other but
they don't understand each other.

Speaker 2 (26:04):
They don't and they're not curious, right, so they feel like,
if you don't understand me, then you know you don't
love me. If you they do this, if you loved me,
you would X as opposed to let me tell you
how I'm feeling right now, let me explain this to you,
because the truth is, if they understood you, they would

(26:26):
do X, probably, but it's not if they love you.
It has nothing to do with if they love you,
they would do X.

Speaker 1 (26:32):
Yeah. That's so powerful, that's so true. It's resonating so
strongly with me too. And that idea of we think
that if I say I love you, that means I
understand you. Yes, But the person on the other side
is saying, no, I get that you love me, but
you're not understanding me. You're not hearing me, you're not
seeing me. And I often think that we think love

(26:55):
makes up for a lack of understanding, but love can't.
Love can't can't complete a lack of understanding. Love can't
complete the fact that you haven't really listened to what
the other person is saying, because love can often be
this overarching emotion as opposed to what you're saying, this
active verb that's being expressed. And so I think that's

(27:16):
a great takeaway for people. Is is someone actually trying
to understand you? And I think we have this intuitive
feeling that if someone completes our sentences on the first date,
or they like the same things we like, then they
must understand us. Right If we're talking about our favorite
foods and we both agree that Italian cuisine is our

(27:37):
favorite food, or we both agree that we love comedy
movies and we love we almost we feel understood. And
I feel like both people in that moment of feeling
understood stop trying to understand and be understood. Does that
make sense?

Speaker 2 (27:51):
What you're talking about is having things in common which
is very different from what you're coming into the relationship with.
So you can have a lot of interest in common.
You might both like sushi and rollerblading and these kinds
of movies and these kinds of TV shows and this
kind of cuisine. Right, and you say we have so
much in common. We love the same music, we you know,

(28:11):
we read the same things. That's what you have in common.
That doesn't mean that you understand the person's operating instructions.
And what I mean by that is when you get
anything a new car, you know it comes with a
manual and it says like, this is how this car operates,
and it's different from your last car. So just because
it's a car doesn't mean it operates in the same way.

(28:32):
Like this button is going to be over here, and
if you want to control this, it's going to be
over here, and it doesn't like when you do this,
and it likes when you do this, right, That's what
the manual says. We need that for our people. We
need to know what is there, what are their operating instructions,
And we assume that because we have all this in common,
that that person is going to know my operating instructions

(28:53):
and I'm going to know that person's operating instructions. But
we have to share our operating instructions with the other person.
Just because you like to be when you want to
come to me with something and you just want to vent, right,
I actually want feedback. That doesn't mean that we have
the same way of wanting to be listened to. When
you are feeling sad, you do this when i'm feeling sad,

(29:15):
I need this. Those are different things. When I'm angry,
I need to talk about it right away. When you're angry,
you need to walk around the block. Oh that's really
good information. I didn't read your manual. Tell me more.
So we have to be really curious about tell me
you're operating instructions. And we learn that just by experiencing

(29:36):
the other person and seeing that while we have a
lot in common and we connect, they're actually separate and
apart from us, they're a different person. Yeah, and that's
so important. So how can we be loving? What is love?
Love is saying I'm taking the time to understand your
operating instructions.

Speaker 1 (29:53):
That's so well, But and I think we struggle with
that so much because we don't have enough self awareness
of our our own operating instructions. And then we have
this warped view that love means you should be able
to understand and read that bit in between the lines,
and none of us read the operating instructions for our
devices today. So yeah, we're also not reading between the lines.

(30:16):
And the other person sitting there going, well, if you
love me, you'd know all of this. How can you
not know after ten years that I love celebrating my birthday.
R anniversaries are really important to me, and it's fascinating
to me that we don't want to help people help us.

Speaker 2 (30:32):
Right, So what we do using the birthday example is
somebody will say, you know, to their partner, what would
you like to do for your birthday? And they say, oh,
it's no big deal, but they really actually want something,
and they think my partner should know that when I
say it's no big deal, don't worry about it. And
then the partner says, oh, we're just going to do
a quiet dinner when they wanted a big party. That
their partner doesn't get them at all. How did their

(30:55):
partner know that no big deal actually meant I love
big parties? How do you not notice after being together
for three years that I love being at big parties?
So you should have known that my no big deal
meant I love big parties. Yeah, but why can't we
just communicate our desires? Why does that take away from
the magic? We think if I have to explain it,
there's no chemistry between us. You should just know. But

(31:18):
we should be able to say, hey, I would love
a big party. I love celebrating in the company of
all of my people and all of my friends. What
a relief for your partner to know I can please
my partner and give my partner exactly what my partner wants,
because now I know, Yeah, that doesn't take away from
the chemistry or the magic or the connection between you.

(31:39):
That enhances the connection.

Speaker 1 (31:41):
I agree. I agree. A few years ago, me and
my wife, after never knowing what to do for each
other's birthdays and always getting it wrong, we set that
packed with each other where we're like, we're just going
to tell each other three to four months in advance
what we'd like to do for our birthdays. Her birthdays
in July. It just starts you in two day years ago,
and then my birthday is in September, and we're just like,

(32:03):
we're just going to tell each other what we want,
what kind of party we want, what we want. So
this year she was thinking about doing something. She was
like one day and then she's like, no, actually, I
just want to do nothing, and she's generally I over
the years, I always did extravagant things because I like
extravagant things, and realized I was giving her the birthday party.
I wanted yes, and she was giving me the birth
device she wanted, and so that's where we just started

(32:24):
telling each other. And so she said to me, she
was like, I just want to do something really small.
That's what we did. It was beautiful. And then she
was telling me what do you want? I was like,
I just want to someone to do something with just
me and you. I was like, whatever it is, as
long as it's just me and you, I'm open to it.
And I think it's become so much more fun being
able to not have to live in this anxiety and
anticipation of do they understand me? Have I dropped enough hints?

(32:45):
Do they get the magic? And then feeling disappointed or
even feeling like they got it all? But oh, it's
because I gave them all the notes anyway. And so
you're so right that we've removed the magic because we've
shared what we want, right.

Speaker 2 (33:00):
And it's so funny what you said, this whole thing
about if I give them the notes, that somehow it's
not special anymore, as opposed to this person took the
time to understand exactly what I want and to make
my day the magical day that I want it to be.
That's the magic. This person cares enough to give you
exactly what you want, but we don't give them credit

(33:22):
for that. We actually give them demerits.

Speaker 1 (33:24):
Yeah yeah, and we give ourselves credit for yeah yeah, exactly.
Yeah no, And you're so right, Like I think it
comes with so many things that we think asking for
help or telling people what we actually need or having
a request is a weakness. We see it as a
sign of a weak relationship, when actually it's a sign
of strong self awareness and a strong relationship that you

(33:48):
have the ability to share your desires, your needs, your
interests and the other person has the ability to comprehend
and take action on them. That is actually a healthy,
long term relationship. And yeah, I hope that this conversation
can encourage people if you're in a relationship, even if
you're starting out in one, These are great habits to
set early on rather than wasting three to five years

(34:11):
making mistakes, trying to figure it out, carrying that baggage
and then figuring it out right.

Speaker 2 (34:15):
And the setting the early on is the really important part,
because relationships are like cement if you you know, be
in the beginning. Everyone's trying to be the ambassador of themselves,
so they think, oh, I don't want to ask for
too much, or I didn't really like that the person's
always late, but I'll deal with that later. But it
really frustrates you. And so then, you know, six months
a year into the relationship, you just blow up and

(34:37):
you say, how come you're always late? I don't like
it you're always late, and the person's like, this never
bothered you before. I don't understand. Okay, thank you for
telling me, but you're so upset about it at that point,
or the person doesn't call when they say they will,
or whatever it is. It's really important because now the
cement is dried, and now you have to, you know,

(34:57):
get a jackhammer out there and bring up the sm
if you do it when the cement is wet, and
you say, you know, after the first couple times, you
know what, when you're late, I feel like you don't
prioritize us getting together at this time, or you don't
prioritize me. I would really appreciate it if you could
come on time. And now you get to see, as
the cement is drying, can this person respond to that right?

(35:19):
And that's really important to know because why do you
want to spend a long time with this person if
they're never going to be able to respond to it,
or why do you want to be frustrated for all
this time when you could have just told them early on.
And now this person is used to being late, they
don't know it's a problem. It's going to take a
while for them to reverse their pattern. Whereas if they
know in the beginning this is really important, they're going
to reverse their pattern or they're not, and that's good

(35:41):
information for you.

Speaker 1 (35:42):
And totally, I feel like a lot of the reason
why we don't say something in the beginning or in
the early stages is either we want to give the
other person grace, we don't want to be disliked for
giving feedback, and we want to be liked. It can
be well intentioned of maybe the change, maybe they'll notice,
But actually, as you said, all we're doing is the

(36:04):
problems getting bigger and bigger and bigger for us. It's
becoming less and less big for that individual. And so
now the distance between you and that person when you
share that problem is so far and wide because they've
started to devalue being on time, because you don't seem
to care, and you've started overvalue being on time, and
so now you're at two opposite ends of the spectrum,

(36:26):
and now you can't hear each other because you're so
far away from each other. And I find that so
interesting that when you try to avoid problems and the
other person becomes more and more unaware, you just become
further apart, so that then when you raise the problem,
they can't hear you because you're so far away from
each other.

Speaker 2 (36:46):
Right, because then it becomes blame. So if at the
beginning you say, you know, when you come late, I
feel like you're not prioritizing me, that person might because
you said it calmly, that person might say, oh, well,
the reason is I really was prioritizing you. I know
you like to eat early, so I was trying to
leave work early for you. But I see that that's
not working. So what can we do? Because you like

(37:08):
to eat early, it's hard for me to leave work
at that time. So I agree to it. But then
I'm never on time, and then you've got a problem
you can work through together. Oh maybe we can just
meet half an hour later from now on, and now
you're both happy. Yeah, right, But if you do it later,
it's kind of like, well, you never leave work for me, Well,
I didn't know I was leaving early for you know,
it just becomes a fight.

Speaker 1 (37:27):
Yeah. I wish what I'm hearing is and I think
about this all the time when I'm working with coaching clients,
we're talking to friends, or our community is just I
wish and hope for everyone listening that we could be
more curious about the context of people's decisions and choices
rather than just the choice or decision in isolation. So

(37:49):
we see someone being late as they're just late, rather
than the context, which you just so beautifully described, which
could be anything from I can't leave work early through
to whatever else it may be. And it's almost like
we see those as excuses rather than as context. Yes,
if we start recognizing that every person you're looking at
has a whole history of relationships and experiences and background,

(38:16):
and your job in order to be with someone is
to research that and to discover that and understand how
those points connect and that's connect and then all of
a sudden you're looking at a real human being who
has complexities and has layers as opposed to this idea
of they chose to be late because they disrespected me
when it's not really about you potentially, right.

Speaker 2 (38:38):
You see it as they're lazy, they're disrespectful, and we
don't realize, we don't think we are. Context becomes the
whole story, you know. I always say we're unreliable narrators
because we're telling the story through our particular lens, but
we're not saying. I will say to people in therapy,
if the other person were here and they were telling
their version of this story, what would it be? And

(39:00):
all of a sudden, the story becomes so much more expansive.
There's the context, and that makes the person not a villain.
But oh, I feel I understand that, I can see,
I have compassion in fact, for why they made that decision,
or at least I understand why they made that decision.

Speaker 1 (39:18):
A lot of what Laurie you're saying and I agree with,
and I also am sharing is this sense of taking accountability,
taking responsibility. But a lot of the time, a lot
of therapy speak on social media especially has made it
feel like we're always the victim and everyone else is
the problem. And so when we use words like gaslighting
and you know, boundary setting and whatever else, it may

(39:40):
be a lot of that language starts to make it
feel like, well, I'm perfect and the other person was
the issue. But you're actually you know, and I'm totally
with you on that. We're flipping that and going, well, no,
let's really look at how we can look at things
differently and how we can change how we behave walk
me through that balance and how you encourage people to
makes sense both because it's saying is as old as

(40:03):
it goes, like you know, it takes two to tango,
it takes too, like you know, it's always going to
take too and so but we try and make it
that it has to be one of the others. So
how do we balance that, reconcile that in a healthy way.

Speaker 2 (40:15):
Yeah, you know, I think it's great that people are
talking more about mental health on social media. What drives
me absolutely bananas is how people use words like we
were saying, boundaries, gaslighting, narcissism. If you looked at social media,
you'd think, like, eighty percent of the population or narcissists. Yes,
eighty percent of the population is being gas lit. Eighty

(40:35):
percent of the population has no one who will respect
their boundaries, and so these terms are being misused and
what happens is you lose the fact of what you're
talking about, which is that we're all doing a dance
in a relationship. There's a dance going on, and if
you change your dance steps, the other person either has
to change their dance steps too because they can't dance
with the otherwise, or they'll just get off the dance floor.

(40:57):
That's really good to know. So we don't think of
about what dance steps can I change? We think, oh,
they did this, that's it, and they're mislabeling people. Someone
is not a narcissist if they didn't see what your
need was, or they talk a lot about themselves, there's
a reason that that's happening. You need to be curious
about that. Narcissistic personality disorder is very rare, so not

(41:18):
everybody is a narcissist. Gaslighting. Gaslighting is not I have
a different opinion from you. Gaslighting is making someone feel
like they're crazy for feeling how they're feeling. Those are
very different things, so someone can feel differently about the
same experience. This happens with couples all the time. They're
not gaslighting each other. They have different feelings about the

(41:38):
same experience. This is not gaslighting, but people on social
media will say, well, I said that I felt this
about this experience. I'm being gas lit because my partner
doesn't agree with my feelings. You don't have to agree,
you don't have to have the same feelings. You can
just notice that the person has those feelings and that
you might have different feelings. That's okay. So what I

(41:59):
I think is important about this is that you know
the boundaries is a really great example of this. People say, well,
this person doesn't you know we have to set these
very rigid boundaries. Well, a boundary is something you set
with yourself. So a boundary is a request that you
make to somebody else. And this is why we see
so many people say on social media, I'm going to
cut this person off, and everyone says, great, cut them off.

(42:21):
They're terrible because they didn't respect your boundary. They can't
respect your boundaries. Did you give them an opportunity to
respect your boundaries? And did you respect your own boundary?
So an example might be let's say that your mother
is always asking about when you're going to be in
a relationship, right and are you dating anyone? What's happening

(42:41):
and that just ruins your time together. You can say,
you know what, Mom, I will let you know if
there's someone important in my life. But in the meantime,
it really makes it hard to be around you when
you're asking about something that you know is very stressful
for me. So if you ask about that, I'm going
to end the visitor. I'm going to end the phone
call very calm. Okay. So then next time you get
together with your mom, she's really good for the first

(43:03):
half hour, and then she's like, oh, and is there
anyone that you're dating? Mom? Remember, I don't have a
good time with you. When that comes up, I'm gonna leave.
But I really look forward to getting together with you
another time when we can talk about something else. Oh no,
I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. No, Mom, I'm gonna leave.
But next time, right next time, your mom maybe she
remembers and it's like an hour later and she's like, oh,

(43:24):
but are you Oh sorry, sorry, sorry? Oh mom? Great,
I'm gonna go now, right, And so you realize, like,
is this person able to respect your boundary? But the
main thing is you respected yours. You said I'm going
to leave if you ask that question, and then over time,
and you have to be consistent. If sometimes you say, oh,
it's okay, Mom, I understand no, because she's just gonna

(43:44):
keep doing it. So if you're consistent with yourself, you
have to keep your own boundary. This isn't her fault.
This is about you. And if you are not going
to value your boundary enough to keep it every time,
that's on you. And so if you keep doing that
and your mom eventually probably will stop because she knows
that she wants to have a conversation with you or
have an outing with you, she'll probably stop asking you

(44:05):
about it. But if she doesn't, you've learned that she
cannot do that. So I'm going to keep with my
boundary and maybe I'm going to get together with her
less or I'm still going to leave every time she
brings that up, right, So it's about what you're going
to do. So it's not that you know nobody can
keep your boundaries. It's about I've said something that I
think is reasonable, and I'm going to see what the

(44:26):
other person is capable of. And so when people say
I'm going to be I'm going to cut this person off, well,
are you really like you know or can you set
a boundary that works for you so that you can
have the good parts of the relationship and not the
parts that are problematic.

Speaker 1 (44:41):
The way we have to think about it is that
people are probably going to keep breaking your boundaries. Are
you going to keep them in that situation? Right? That's
what's happening there. It's like a boundary set for you
to protect you from yourself, yes, from giving in to
a scenario in a situation would you call contra But
we think a boundary is almost an order or a

(45:03):
law that other people have to follow. And the truth
is you can't control them like they're going to act
how they're going to act, and you've got to set
a boundary where you know how to behave and you
know how to act one of them. I'm so glad
that you talked about your feelings around how therapy speakers
is healthy. It's important for people to have these conversations
about how certain words are being misused and bent online

(45:24):
because I do think that it creates exactly what you said,
a culture where we think that everyone we meet is
a narcissist because everyone has one percent of a narcissist
in them, or everyone we meet is a gas light,
and it starts to create a really unhealthy belief system
around who we're around. I watched this movie recently. I

(45:45):
didn't get great ratings on Rotten Tomorrows, but I saw
on a plane and I watched it out of intrigue.
It's called cat Person and it's based on this element
of catfishing. It's a kind of like a satire parody
thriller of the challenges of modern dating about how so
much of those challenges are in our head, but how

(46:05):
they can transform into reality. And if anyone hasn't watched it,
it's a fun one time watch on a plane or
you know, one night with a friend or whatever it
may be. But what I appreciated about it is it
talked about this idea of how we kind of start
viewing people as more crazy or psychotic than they might
be because of these little clues that we've been trained

(46:26):
to look out for.

Speaker 2 (46:27):
If that makes sense, Yes, and we do. We look
at other people as they're doing things that are very
human and we label that crazy. When we do it,
we say, oh, but there's a reason, and here's why
I'm not crazy. I had context, Like you said, Yeah,
we don't give them the context. Now, I'm not talking
about abusive behavior, of course, but I'm talking about the
things that we will literally say oh, that's unacceptable without saying,

(46:51):
wait a minute, why is this happening right now? All
of our behavior, by the way, is motivated by we
want to be loved. We really do, and sometimes we
do it in a way that makes people not want
to love us, and we don't realize that we're pushing
people away with our behavior. But at the core, we
are doing it because we want to be liked. We
want to be loved. So is this person doing this

(47:13):
very strange thing because they're a horrible person or because
they're human like me, and at their core they're very vulnerable,
and they don't Their behavior doesn't reflect the wish the
wishes I want you to like me, or I want
to protect myself from being hurt. The behavior is not okay.
It's kind of like when you say to little kids,

(47:33):
it's okay to be angry, it's not okay to hit someone, right,
So what is that equivalent as an adult? It's okay
to feel the feeling, but what do we do with it?
And can we understand why that person is acting that way?
Can we understand the context?

Speaker 1 (47:48):
Absolutely absolutely. One of the ways that that kind of
transpires into a bigger moment that a community had a
lot of questions around was what's the right amount of
pressure for someone to get married or proposed to you?
Because I think people get to this point where they
feel like we've invested someone's time, we're together, we're here,

(48:11):
but this person is just not proposing, they're not getting
they don't you know, they don't want to get married,
whatever it may be. And there it gets to this
point of this ultimatum of like, and now there's even
a TV show called The Ultimatum, which is all about
people dealing with that period in their life. So what
does someone do in that scenario where they feel there's
good commitment, we're getting somewhere, but the other person isn't

(48:32):
showing this excitement, enthusiasm, or even taking action on taking
this relationship to the next level.

Speaker 2 (48:39):
This is like that birthday party thing where you feel like,
you know, the other person should just know, but we're
not communicating about it. The fact that people don't talk
about whether they want to get married before a proposal
happens is insane to me. It just said it makes
it makes no sense that it shouldn't be a total surprise.
You should know that you are both on the same page,

(49:01):
and you should know that the other person is definitely
going to say yes that you've talked about this. So
many people come to me for pre marital therapy where
they can talk about because they know they want to
get married and maybe they want to they're not even
having any problems. They just want to talk about their
families and how they're going to blend their families and
the in laws and the siblings and you know this

(49:22):
person and this personality. Or they want to talk about money,
or they want to talk about whether they want to
have kids and how many and how that might work,
and they want to talk about balancing their careers. They
want to talk about sex and all the different things
that might be hard to talk about before you get
married that are so important and they might not have
the answers right now, but they're learning how to talk
about these challenging topics. And people say, oh, you're in

(49:45):
therapy and you're not even married yet, something must be
terribly wrong. It's like, no, something's terribly right. And so
the fact that people are saying, like I really want
this person to propose, but I don't understand why they're
not and they don't feel like they can ask the
person means you are not ready to marry that person
if you don't feel like you can bring this up

(50:06):
and say where are we We've been together for this
amount of time. I'm feeling this. I'm wondering where you
are with this and the person You'll get so much
information from. I do want to marry you. I don't
feel ready yet because of this, but I think I
will feel ready in six months. Right, and then you
have a choice. Do you want to wait for that
or do you not want to wait for that?

Speaker 1 (50:26):
Or right?

Speaker 2 (50:28):
Or they might say, actually, I don't know how I
feel about getting married. I don't know if I'm going
to come around to that. You have a choice about
what you want to do with that. I you know, Oh,
I didn't realize that. I thought I did want to
get married, but now I'm not so sure. Well, that's
really important to know why what's happening between us, so
that conversation is so important. Or do you just want

(50:50):
to sit there scheming with your friends about how you
can drop hints or how you can like analyze the
behavior because the person did this, and what does that mean?
That doesn't sound like the kind of marriage you want
to be in. Don't you want to be in the
kind of marriage where you can say to the person, Hey,
this is what i'm desiring, this is what i'm wanting.
Where are you with this? If? That's such a basic conversation.

Speaker 1 (51:11):
But that's so much healthier than an ultimatum, too, because
I think we also get Again, it goes back to
what we were talking about earlier. You haven't given that
regular check in, you haven't touched base. You don't really
know what that person's belief system is around marriage or
whatever else it may be. And all of a sudden
it's built up for you as this big thing and
now you're like, okay, well either you marry me or
we're over. And then that's not comfortable for that person either,

(51:34):
because now they feel they're forced into a choice, as
opposed to a sense of how do you feel about
this and what are your thoughts about this? Again, it
comes back to we're so scared of appearing to be naggy. Yeah,
we're so scared of appearing to be high maintenance. We're
so scared of appearing to be the one who's needy
or desperate or whatever. Maybe, but we are feeling all
of those things because we're not checking. How do we

(51:56):
get over this hurdle? And by the way you experienced
it in both like a lot of people don't break
up with people for years because they don't want to
be seen as the bad person. The amount of people
I've spoken to who are like, oh, if I break
up with her, if I break up with them, if
I break up with him, oh my god, he's just
going to hate me and I'm going to be the worst.
And I just don't want to do that to them,

(52:16):
and they're a nice person. But really always saying is
I just don't want to I want to be liked. Yeah,
in both scenarios, whether it's I don't want to nag
them to marry me and propose, I don't want to
break up with them because I don't want them to
see me negatively. How do we get over that hurdle
of recognizing that we're putting off the best decision for
us or conversation because we want to be liked in

(52:39):
a space that does that make sense? You're not trying
to say right.

Speaker 2 (52:43):
Right, well, it's like a parent, like if you've set
a boundary with your child, they might not like you
in that moment, but you're doing something loving. And so
if you break up with someone that you know you
don't want to be with, you're doing something loving. So
I think that we need to reframe what we're actually doing.
What you're doing by staying in a relationship and stringing
someone along is actually cruel and it's wasting their time.

(53:06):
So you're not being nice, you're not going to be liked.
But I think the other thing we were talking about
about bringing things up, it's not just about a proposal,
it's even about lots of people will say, oh, you know,
I know, I think by the person that I'm dating
is also dating other people. I would like to not
date other people, but I'm afraid that all appear too
needy too early, right as opposed to just being honest

(53:27):
about what you want. They can say yes or no,
but to be clear about look, we're dating. I don't
feel comfortable with I can't really feel like I can
get close to you if I know that you're dating
other people at this point, because we're spending a lot
of time together. So how do you feel about this?
Are you ready to be in an exclusive relationship? Is
that of interest to you? If they say no, wow, great,

(53:48):
you've learned a lot. You can make a choice like
I'm comfortable doing this for another month or I'm not,
or you know, whatever it is. Or they can say, oh,
I didn't know that that was important to you and
I would like that too, let's do that, or I'm
not ready to do that. So people do this in
all kinds of situations. It's not just about marriage. They're
so afraid to just bring their true selves into the

(54:11):
kind of relationship where the whole game here is bringing
your true self to it. So if you can't practice
that at any point in the relationship, you're not ready
to be together for the long term. You can't just say, oh,
now that we're engaged, now I can bring my true self. Well,
that's a recipe for a disaster, because now it's like
you've misrepresented what you actually want to need in a relationship,

(54:33):
and maybe the other person has misinterpreted what you want
to need because you haven't expressed it.

Speaker 1 (54:37):
But we're so I'm frilly with you. I just find
that we're so it's so hardwired in us, like we're
so scared of rejection, we're so scared of being able
to say this is how I feel, because we're like, oh,
that person's just going to walk away from me, Like
this is the thing that I'm going to lose this
person over if I really tell them. And I think often, Laurie,

(54:58):
you've probably seen that people don't know how to effectively
weigh their emotions. So everything's a ten. So right, it's like, oh,
they were late, that's a ten. They're seeing other people,
that's a ten. Like everything's a ten. And so I
think we're all so bad at being like, Okay, well
this doesn't need to be raised because it's a two,
and yet this does need to be raised because it

(55:20):
is a nine and this is a minus five. Like
I'm just being ridiculous here. And so I think because
we weigh everything is a ten, then we don't know
how to Does that make sense?

Speaker 2 (55:29):
It does? And I think that's because again, we bring
so much of the relationship outside where people don't have
the context. So, and that's what I was talking about earlier,
is like you say, listen to what this person did,
or listen to what this person is doing, and your
friends sees that you're upset about it, so they say, yeah,
you should really bring that up. You don't have to

(55:50):
bring up every thought that crosses your mind. That is
not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about what do
you value what makes you uncomfortable to the point that
this is something that you want to address. So I
think people either undervalue it, which is what we were
talking about, and they don't bring it up because they're afraid, well,
maybe it's not such a big deal, even though it

(56:12):
is a big deal to you that this person is
seeing other people. You don't feel safe, you don't feel comfortable.
But then there are things that they overvalue, you know,
like well this person does this or that, right. I
hear this in therapy all the time, and I'm thinking, really,
you know, like this is but I'm glad we're talking
about it. I'm glad they brought it up in therapy
because now they can understand it better and now and

(56:34):
by the way, I think the other blind spot that
people have in dating is they think these are things
that make the other person not perfect, and they don't realize, oh,
there are things that the other person has to compromise
on to be with me that I am not perfect either.
I'm sure there are so many things that I do
that the other person is annoyed by or frustrated by.
Or maybe if they could create, you know, a la

(56:56):
carte the perfect person, they might not order that particular feat, sure,
but I have it and they are with me anyway, right,
And so we think we're going to change all these
things about them without thinking about the other person is
being so chill about some of my maybe less than
perfect features. Absolutely so, how can we see the other
person as human in these ways? So we don't have

(57:18):
to kind of craft them, We don't have to shape
them or mold them in a certain way. We just
have to say, Okay, these are the big things and
the other little things. Remember, they're putting up with things
about me too, and I'm very grateful for that.

Speaker 1 (57:32):
Yeah, definitely. There's that famous statement that says we judge
other people by their actions, not their intentions. Yes, and
we judge ourselves by our intentions, not our actions. And
when we're looking at someone else, we're blind to their intention.
It's just what they said or what they did, Whereas
when we look at ourselves, we can justify why we

(57:53):
said it. And why we did that, And we have
to start offering both sides that grace and compassion and empathy,
because otherwise we're going to constantly feel that everything's against
us and everyone's not for us.

Speaker 2 (58:07):
Right when I cancel on someone, I have a good,
valid reason and I still care about them. When they
cancel on me, they're disrespectful and they don't care about me.

Speaker 1 (58:15):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. One of the biggest this is, I'm
enjoying this conversation so much, Laurie, because I feel like
we're really getting to like the heart and the core
of so much of what I feel is making dating
so challenging right now. And you know, finding love is
just such an important pillar of human happiness and connection

(58:35):
that it breaks my heart when I see that we're
tripping ourselves up. Yeah. And when I ask my community,
what was one of the things that they think trips
them up, it was this idea that they have now
coined future tripping, this idea of planning the future in
their head, visioning a future with this person. When things
are looking okay or good in their head, they're you know,

(58:58):
in the most extreme cases in Madame, their wedding day
or what their kids might look like. But even in
the immediate sense, like this could be it, this is amazing,
this is going to last, and then all of a
sudden they get a reality check with that person is
not really mirroring that back. How do we stop ourselves
from future tripping? Or is there a healthy way of
future tripping with the person? Is there a collective collaborative

(59:21):
future tripping? Like what does that look like?

Speaker 2 (59:23):
I think the future tripping is being in the present,
And what I mean is what's happening now is what
is going to look like in the future. So instead
of imagining, oh, this person will change in this way,
or we're going to have this kind of life, but
you don't know if the other person wants that kind
of life. If you're not talking about it now in
the present, you don't know how does this person treat me?

Speaker 1 (59:43):
Now?

Speaker 2 (59:44):
What is it like when we're together? The biggest indicator
would be we had a disagreement. How did we get
through it? That's what your future is going to look like.
We didn't agree on this, We were frustrated with each other,
We had a difference of opinion. How did we repair
that rupture? We talk a lot about rupture and repair.
Everybody's going to have ruptures. You have it with your

(01:00:06):
family members, with your friends, with your coworkers, with your parents,
with your children, especially with your romantic partners, because we
have this misguided notion that we shouldn't have a rupture
with them because we're so in love and we see
each other and we see eye to eye. But of
course you're going to have ruptures. It's not so much
whether you're going to have a rupture, it's what do
you do with it and what does it look like.

(01:00:26):
So if you have been dating for let's say six months,
and you haven't had a rupture, you guys are not
going deep enough. You guys don't know each other well enough.
You're still on your best behavior. You have to be
able to be yourselves. That's going to tell you what
the future looks like. So stop the pretending. Be yourself,
Be what you want your future to look like, Act
like you want your future to look like, See how

(01:00:48):
the other person acts, and see what happens between the
two of you, and a repair would look like something like, Oh,
I didn't you know we're having a disagreement right now.
Why don't we take fifteen minutes and let's come back
when we're not so heated and let's talk about that.
Or you know, you made a mistake, you know what
I've been thinking about this. You know, say you have

(01:01:10):
an argument, you say, we're not going to talk for
a few minutes, let's go cool off. Whatever. You call
them back and you say, you know what I thought
about it. I was wrong and I'm so sorry. Here's
what I did, and I wish I had done it
this way. And that's great if your partner can do that,
or if you can do that right, and then if
your partner then can accept that without shaming you, if

(01:01:32):
your partner can say, I really appreciate that, and I
wish that I had reacted differently in this way, and
how can I be more supportive in those moments. That's beautiful.
That's your future, but you have to see it in
the present. You can't imagine what the future is going
to be. You have to actually live it in the
present and say, oh, now, I know it's going to

(01:01:53):
be just like it is right now.

Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
Yeah, And like you're saying, like if you are making
plans in your head but comfortable to talk about those plans,
then they only exist in your head like they aren't real.
They aren't they aren't going there. I was going to.
I wanted to get your thoughts. I don't know if
you watch any of these shows or whether you're exposed
to them. And I know that your book's being turned
into a scripted show. I believe, yes, yes, but when
you look at like unscripted shows, like you look at

(01:02:17):
shows like Love Island or Love is Blind, I mean
Love Island right now is culturally like one of the
most talked about shows in for young people for sure.
How do you feel about those shows? And yes, they're entertaining,
and yes we love to get into all the gossip
and what's going on and everything. How is that affecting
our views and our own relationships?

Speaker 2 (01:02:39):
Yeah, I haven't actually seen those shows, but many of
my therapy clients talk about them. I did just watch Bridgerton,
which is a scripted show but very much like what
I imagine those other shows to be. And I just
think that, you know, people think that that's what it's
supposed to be like. So many times people will come
into therapy and they'll say, is this what it's supposed
to feel like? Was it supposed to be like? And

(01:03:02):
it's like, how does it feel to you? Oh, it
feels really good, Well, then that's how it's supposed to be.
How does it feel to you? I don't know, doesn't
feel right? Well, then that's not how it's supposed to be.
And that's really again coming back to can you tap
into how do I feel around this person? Does it

(01:03:22):
feel as you said, peaceful, calm? Do I feel safe?
Do I feel comfortable? And it's not just that. It's
not just that because you're gonna have friends that you
feel that way around, But if you don't have that
and you have the other things, that's not enough.

Speaker 1 (01:03:37):
That kind of brings me onto this next team that
I want to dive into you deeply around is what
is it about the five to seven year mark that
ends in a divorce or a breakup?

Speaker 2 (01:03:48):
Like?

Speaker 1 (01:03:48):
Why is that the number that you see in the research?
Why has that become such a prominent pivot point or
end point? What have you seen over the years?

Speaker 2 (01:03:59):
What I see how happen around that time is several
things are happening. There's a developmental change that happens throughout
a marriage, and you both become different people and the
relationship becomes different and you adapt together, and those are
the strong marriages and the strong relationships.

Speaker 1 (01:04:17):
So that's what you're being called in to. Either you
grow together or you grow.

Speaker 2 (01:04:20):
Up well, so different things happen. So, first of all,
I think that sometimes people don't know each other well
before they get married. Then they're married and they're like
a year in and they think, oh, this isn't exactly
what I wanted, but I'm in it. I'm married, And
then they say, okay, let's have a baby, right, because
then that's the next step. And then now that's really hard.

(01:04:40):
Parenting is really challenging, and if you and your partner
are not already on solid ground, it's going to be
extra challenging. So then you think, oh, my partner's the problem,
when actually the relationship is the problem. So many times
people come into couple's therapy and the first thing that
they say is the problem is and let me tell
you everything that's wrong with my partner. What I do

(01:05:00):
with couples therapy is I say, before you come in,
I want you each to come in and say, if
you were to be your best selves in this relationship,
what would you need to change of yourself? Each of you?
And they say it out loud, and that's all they're
working on is changing that. They're not working on changing
the other person. And when they do that, they say,
oh wow, like that actually changes the relationship. The relationship

(01:05:24):
is an entity. It's not just you know, there's two people.
It's like there's three people happening. It's like there's you,
there's you, and then there's the two of you. And
so I think around five years either they realize I
didn't know enough about this person, or I still have
work to do, or other things have come into our lives.
A parent got sick. It was really challenging. We didn't
know how to deal with it. We had children, we

(01:05:46):
didn't know how to deal with that. You know, we've
had we've had difficulties, we've had loss, All kinds of
things happen at that point.

Speaker 1 (01:05:54):
Yeah, I just want to say to your point, I've
had so many friends who had given the advice that
if your relationship's not working out, have a baby and
it will save it. Terrible It's never made sense to me,
because if your relationship's not working, now you have another
relationship to take care of. Who is a new child,

(01:06:15):
a new human being in the in the world, And
so how are you you're going to give less attention
to each other. You've already been given no attention. Now
you have less attention to share with each other and
more attention on this another being. I'm shocked that that
advice still gets passed around and people still see it
as a viable solution to a bad relationship. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:06:32):
Yeah, they think of it as like sunk costs, Like
we've been married this long, so we can't we can't
start over, We can't you know, what do we do
to save this? Let's have a baby because it's a distraction.
They think like, this will be great, it's exciting, it'll
bring some vitality and energy and a liveness into the relationship,
when if you don't already have that aliveness and that
vitality between the two of you, the baby is not

(01:06:55):
going to provide that for you. You're going to get
a lot of outside attention like, oh that's so great,
look at the baby. But in reality, you guys are
going to have to be more of a team than
you've ever been and problem solved more than you've ever
had to, and figure out how to create connection under
much more challenging circumstances. So it's the most counterintuitive advice.

(01:07:16):
And I always tell people, if you are not solid,
do not bring another person into this family.

Speaker 1 (01:07:22):
Yeah, it's almost like you already don't have problem solving skills,
you don't have collaboration skills, and now you're having to
make choices on behalf of an entirely new human being
where the stakes are so high and everything feels like
it's personal of whether things are going well for the
child or not.

Speaker 2 (01:07:39):
Well, what happened? Does the Pain Olympics start? And what
I mean is that you know I had the baby
all day. I have it harder. You didn't do this. No,
I had it harder because I've been at work all
day and now I have to take over this and
you didn't have to work all day. Whatever it is.
They vie for who has the most pain, and then
they compete for it, and that becomes their relationship. You know, well,

(01:08:00):
you owe me because I won the Pain Olympics today. No,
you owe me because yesterday I won the Pain Olympics
and I never got my reward, and that becomes their
whole relationship.

Speaker 1 (01:08:10):
Yeah. One of the questions I asked people when they
say to me like should we have kids now? Or
is it the right time to have children? I often
say that I think we're asking the wrong question, Like
the question should be do I know how my life
is going to change? And am I ready for that?
And am I aware of that? And are we aware
of how our life is going to change? To the
point you're making of well, who is going to take

(01:08:32):
the responsibility? And am I going to feel like you're
not helping out? And what does that look like? Again,
having a conversation about it seems like the practical thing
to do. Another relationship that seems to add more complexity
since the beginning of time is in laws. You mentioned
it earlier that you have clients that come in to
see you for that the amount of friends of going
to recently, you have this challenge where they feel that

(01:08:54):
the in laws are too involved, their in laws are
not involved, when their in laws are too involved, There too,
can controlling of either or one of the partners, or
their expectations. They have certain demands on time and holidays
and where they're spent and all of these kinds of things.
What I've found to be the core pain again, going

(01:09:15):
back to our earlier conversation, is people feel their partners'
parents are too involved, too demanding, too hands on, but
they feel their partner can't stand up to their parents
and their partner doesn't understand how it affects them. That's
kind of where I've seen the main pressure that people

(01:09:37):
are carrying. How does someone deal with the fact that
they feel their partner doesn't defend them or stand up
for them in front of their partner's parents, and therefore
they feel their partner doesn't understand what they're going through.

Speaker 2 (01:09:49):
I have gotten thousands of letters to my column and
to my podcast about in laws, and what I always
say is in law issues are couples issues. So people
think it's about the mother in law the father in law.
It's about the two of you. And if your partner,
whose parent that is, cannot talk to their parent on
your behalf, that's a couple's issue. So the person will say, oh,

(01:10:13):
it's really not that bad. But if your partner is saying,
I am really struggling with this and it's not your
you know it's not their parent. You need to talk
to your own parent about this. You need to have
your partners back, and if you don't, your partner is
going to feel that you are treating them the same
way that their parent is. You might not be doing

(01:10:35):
the same thing, but the fact that they don't have
your support is going to pull you apart in this
marriage because your partner. It's not about taking sides, it's
about prioritizing this couple's relationship and saying, listen, when you
do this, it makes my wife feel like she's not
a good parent or she's not a good wife. And

(01:10:55):
you might have these values, mom, and I understand that,
but I don't want you saying the kinds of things.
You can have. Whatever thoughts you have, please don't say
them to me or to my wife, because I'm very
happy with our relationship. And what you're really standing up
for is the relationship. It's not just standing up for
your partner, is standing up for we understanding each other.
We can talk about these things with each other and

(01:11:16):
we do not want that kind of interference.

Speaker 1 (01:11:19):
What do you do when your partner doesn't have the
guts to do that, When they don't have the authority
or the relationship with their own parents, which is constantly
being they've been baby, they've been you know, the mummy's boy,
or whatever it may be, and they don't really have
the courage to stand up to their parents and say
what you just said, which isn't rude, it's not mean,

(01:11:42):
but in their head they're like, how could I ever
defy my parents? Like what does that look like? Or
or they're guilt tripped like by their parents, where it's
like they're like, I can never do that to my mom,
like she's loved me since day one, Like you just
turned up in my life two years ago, Like what
do you do when your partner's feeling that way?

Speaker 2 (01:11:59):
Yeah, well, I think you help your partner to understand
that this is a very loving thing for the relationship
with the parent too. So you're not telling the parent
I don't want you in our lives. You're saying I
want you in our lives. We both want you in
our lives, but we want you in our lives in
a way that makes us feel like we're enjoying our

(01:12:19):
time with you. And if it becomes this thing where
we're not enjoying our time with you and it becomes problematic,
we're going to be spending less time with you, and mom,
I don't want that and my wife doesn't want that.
We both want to spend time with you. We just
want it to be enjoyable. So we're asking that you
not talk about this whatever the issue is, or you
not do this, or you not tell my wife to

(01:12:40):
do this, or you're not criticized, because that makes it
not enjoyable, and then we're going to see you less.
And we love you so much that we feel comfortable
saying this to you. If we didn't love you and
we didn't care how much we saw you, we wouldn't
be bringing this up. I'm bringing this up because I
love you and I want to be able to see you.
And I think when people when you set back in
a loving way, when you say I want to see

(01:13:02):
more of you, I want to be able to continue
to see you. I'm not pushing you away. I'm pulling
you close. But the way to pull you close is
to make sure that we have a good time together.

Speaker 1 (01:13:12):
Yeah. Yeah, And I find that sometimes it can be
different in every relationship, but often this at least and
the people I know, the pressure often falls on the
man who feels like he's in between his mom and
his wife that in that kind of a setup, or
at least those are the ones that I'm aware of
and I'm sure it has takes all sorts of forms,

(01:13:33):
but it's often quite a heavy pressure that I know
a lot of men feel. And they're like, I don't
want to let my mom down and I don't want
to let my wife down. And now I'm stuck in
between these two things, and it's almost like who do
I choose?

Speaker 2 (01:13:46):
And I feel like I have to choose a side, right,
But you're not choosing, You're actually choosing to bring everyone together.
You're saying, I want us all to be able to
be together, and so what I'm doing is I'm making
sure that we can spend more time together.

Speaker 1 (01:13:59):
Yeah, that's great advice, and I really hope that reframe
is kind of, you know, permeates. One of the things
I imagine you see a lot in therapy is one
partner has forced the other partner to come there. Maybe
in couples therapy, it's hard for two people to feel
equally as excited. Maybe if they're premarrit or that may
be more equal, but when it's reactive, it's definitely one
saying we need to go to therapy, and someone may

(01:14:20):
feel forced. One thing I've found that a lot of
people say to me is Jair, I just can't get
my partner to open up, Like, whether it's in therapy,
whether it's with me, I'm asking them, I'm talking to them,
I'm just like, I just want to know what you feel.
Like even with the question you said earlier of like, hey,
I have a dream to get married. What's your take
on it? And they'll be like, I don't know, or
they'll they'll go quiet when it's like, hey, we need

(01:14:43):
to go talk to your parents about this because they're
getting really involved and they just go quiet. They don't
know what to say, and they constantly feel that these
their partner doesn't have the capacity to open up. And
I find this especially with young couples, where they're just like,
my partner doesn't have an emotional vocabulary, Like they don't
have the ability. How have you encouraged people in those
scenarios to be able to open up or help their

(01:15:05):
partners open up or create a safe space when a
lot of people don't have that skill and that ability
to actually even know what they're feeling and thinking.

Speaker 2 (01:15:15):
Yeah, you have to create the space for that person
to feel comfortable opening up. So often people who can't
open up or have a hard time with it. They
were not given the space before, so when they opened up,
someone would say, oh, no, you don't feel that way, right.
So when they were growing up, they'd say, you know,
I'm upset about this, or I'm sad about this, and

(01:15:35):
the parent would say, no, don't be sad, let's go
get ice cream. Right, So there was no space for
the sadness. Or I'm really angry about this. Oh, you're overreacting.
You're so sensitive, So they don't tell someone that they're
angry about something, or I'm really worried about this. Oh,
don't worry, It'll all work out. Or what do you
mean you're worried about that? Why are you always so

(01:15:56):
worried about everything? So they never felt like they had
a space for their feelings to be received and held.
We talk about in therapy the concept of feeling felt.
What does it mean to feel felt? And I love
that expression because I think that when you want someone
to open up, they want to feel felt. They want
to know that you're going to receive whatever they have
to offer in a compassionate way and in a way

(01:16:20):
that feels connecting. So when you tell someone tell me
what you're feeling, open up that feels like so much
pressure as opposed to just you know, being with them.

Speaker 1 (01:16:31):
So maybe you.

Speaker 2 (01:16:32):
Start with something like, hey, I'm feeling really this about this.
You know, what was that like for you? And they
might say it was fine because they don't know did
you have a good time?

Speaker 1 (01:16:44):
You know?

Speaker 2 (01:16:44):
Did it make you sad when this happened? It made
me sad? But maybe you didn't feel that way, you know,
just just helping them to have the vocabulary. There's this
thing called a feelings wheel, and a lot of people
only learned like with the colors, the primary colors, right,
so red, yellow, blue, right, And then if you mix
red and yellow you get orange and there's more nuance.

(01:17:06):
And if you put more yellow, it becomes more yellowy orange, right,
And so people only know like happy, sad, mad, but
they don't know like I felt frustrated, I felt scared,
I felt vulnerable, I felt anxious. But where did you
feel the anxiety? Well, I felt it in my belly,
I felt it in my chest, right, So there's so
much nuance. And for people who don't open up, they

(01:17:27):
often only have those three primary emotions, and then they
don't really know how to describe what they're feeling, so
you can mirror that for them and model that when
you talk about your feelings, Like I was really afraid
of that and I was really angry, but actually, underneath
the anger with my friend, I was feeling hurt and
I realized I was feeling really hurt by her behavior

(01:17:48):
and it seemed like I was angry, but I'm feeling
really neglected. And so, you know, did you ever feel
that way? Have you ever felt you know, whatever it is,
But it just like it just becomes part of the air.
It's not like, sit down, face me and tell me
how you're feeling. Open up to me. That feels like
so much pressure, but it just like it's in the air.
And they've never lived in that environment before, you have

(01:18:10):
to remember, So it's just this is a new planet
that they've landed on, and here's it's like a new
Let's say it's a new city and in this city,
we speak a different language and we speak in the
language of emotion, and they're going to start to pick
up the language bit by bit, but they're not going
to be fluent right out the cause they don't say,
speak French to me. It's like, oh, here's this new language.

(01:18:31):
You'll pick up a few words here and there.

Speaker 1 (01:18:32):
That's so good. That's such a great visual and analogy.
Like if I turn up in a different city or
a different country and someone just expected me to know
how to speak that language, I would feel so much pressure.
And actually we've all experienced that. We're like, I don't
even want to try and say a sentence yea, I
feel I'm going to sound so stupid. It's that comfortability,
and that could take a while. This is my last
question I want to ask you today, Laurie. What how

(01:18:55):
long no abuse? Not some is extremely that? How long
can you tolerate disrespect, confusion and distance from your partner
before you feel this is enough? I can't do it anymore.
I feel like every relationship goes through phases and periods

(01:19:18):
of distance, of disconnect, of disagreements. It's normal, it's going
to happen across a long period of time. But when
does an individual say, you know what, I can't do
this anymore. I can't keep tolerating this. What have you
found that makes people feel strongly about leaning in that
direction versus I can I'm in it for some more. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:19:38):
Well, first of all, there's a study that shows that
if you think of your relationship like a bank account
and you want to have lots of good will in there,
Let's say it's an account of good will, and you
don't want to take a lot of withdrawals. So when
we talk about disrespect, so you need five positive interactions
for every one negative interact, or you're going to be

(01:20:01):
operating in deficit spending and it won't work. But we're
talking about maybe the confusion, or somebody had a bad
moment but they repaired it. Those kinds of things. Disrespect
is so corrosive in a relationship. So if someone does
it the first time, like the cement during you say,
hey that you don't tell them you were so disrespectful,

(01:20:24):
that was so mean. You say, I felt really disrespected
by that. Can you tell me what you actually meant?

Speaker 1 (01:20:31):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:20:31):
And they may say, oh, I'm sorry I said it
that way. I should not have said it that way.
Here's what I meant and it came off completely different,
and I will make sure that doesn't happen anymore. That's
the response you want, right, And here's what I was thinking,
and I need to work on that. If someone says
that wasn't you know, if you said I felt disrespected,

(01:20:51):
and they said, well, it wasn't disrespectful or I didn't
intend for it to be. You say, okay, you didn't
intend for it to be, but it felt disrespectful to me,
and let me explain more about why. And the person
still is like, well, I didn't mean it, okay, but
here's how it landed on me. That person doesn't seem
like they have a lot of flexibility. The number one
trait after emotional stability that predicts the success of two

(01:21:12):
people having a good relationship is flexibility. You cannot have
a good relationship with neuroticism, rigidity, lack of self awareness.
So if this person can't respond to you and they're
still being disrespectful, I would not wait. The question is
are you being clear about what disrespect is, because again
then we get to you know, someone said something that

(01:21:36):
maybe was not disrespectful, but because of your history, you
hear something as being disrespectful. You know, they might have
said like, oh, I don't know if that that job
is worthy of you, and you hear that is are
you saying that like I have a bad job and
you're saying no, I think your worth is higher than

(01:21:57):
your job. Right, So that person was actually being very
respectful of you and saying the opposite of what you thought.
So you have to really be clear about can I
hear this person clearly? But if this person is critical
of you, and sometimes the way they frame it is, oh,
I was just kidding. You can't take a joke that
is so abusive, so it's not funny. Criticism is not

(01:22:18):
a funny way of making a joke. And if you
have to put someone down to be funny, then that's
probably not someone you want to be in a relationship with.

Speaker 1 (01:22:26):
Laurie, thank you so much for coming and sharing your
wealth of wisdom and depth of insight today with our community.
I want to thank everyone who's been listening and watching
for your amazing questions. Please keep sending them through so
that we can keep getting Lorrie back. I think you've
helped identify so many root issues today. I feel like
we've really got to a place of talking about some
of the deepest aspects of where we go wrong at

(01:22:48):
the same time as talking about a lot of the
day to day challenges that we seem to hear about.
And I really hope that everyone who's listening and watching,
I hope this helps you in your love life to
find deeper connections, to find more meaningful relationships, and ultimately
maintain a natural, healthy, truly nourishing relationship with a partner.

(01:23:09):
And wishing you all the best in your love life.
So thank you so much again, Laurie for being here.

Speaker 2 (01:23:14):
Yeah, and thank you so much for having me, And
thank you to your audience for submitting so many great questions.

Speaker 1 (01:23:18):
Yeah, thanks Larie. Hey everyone, if you love that conversation,
go and check out my episode with the world's leading therapist,
Laurie Gottlieb, where she answers the biggest questions that people
ask in therapy when it comes to love, relationships, heartbreak,
and dating. If you're trying to figure out that space
right now, you won't want to miss this conversation.

Speaker 2 (01:23:41):
If it's a romantic relationship, hold hands. It's really hard
to argue. It actually calms your nervous systems. Just hold
hands as you're having the conversation. It's so lovely.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Lori Gottlieb: 7 Answers to Dating Questions You’re Afraid to Ask & How to Break Free from Relationship Timelines