June 16, 2025 • 47 mins
How do you transform relationship challenges into opportunities for growth? What does it mean to truly flourish together beyond mere happiness? When hardship strikes, what separates couples who crumble from those who emerge stronger?
Dr. Nathan Lenhart, assistant professor at Brigham Young University and author of "The Science of Virtue," tackles these profound questions with refreshing clarity. He introduces the concept of "capital R Resilience" versus "lowercase r resilience" – distinguishing between transformative crucible experiences and smaller but meaningful gains from everyday challenges.
Through the practical ABCX model (Stressor + Resources + Perception = Stress Response), Dr. Lenhart unpacks how couples can navigate everything from cancer diagnoses to daily work-family conflicts. He emphasizes that our resources (community support, extended family) and especially our perception of events dramatically affect our resilience trajectory. As he poignantly notes, sometimes the question isn't "why did this happen?" but rather "how can we make the most of this time together?"
The conversation deepens as Dr. Lenhart challenges our culture's fixation on happiness and satisfaction, which he describes as "fragile" and often "hollow" when pursued individualistically. Instead, he advocates for relationship flourishing – characterized by meaning, belonging, and growth – as a more stable foundation that withstands life's inevitable storms. His cross-cultural research reveals how Americans who chase happiness often end up less fulfilled than those in more relationally-focused cultures, suggesting our approach to happiness itself might need recalibrating.
Perhaps most thought-provoking is Dr. Lenhart's assertion that virtues like gratitude, forgiveness, and humility underlie truly successful relationships, more fundamental than even communication skills. "It doesn't matter how effectively you're communicating if you're communicating your distaste for each other," he observes. His recommendation to find inspiring relationships to emulate acknowledges that transformation often begins with inspiration rather than instruction.
Whether you're facing acute trauma or chronic stressors in your relationship, this episode offers both practical frameworks and profound wisdom. Listen now to discover how you can not just survive challenges together, but genuinely flourish through them.
Visit our site for FREE relationship resources and regular giveaways:
Strongermarriage.org
Podcast.stongermarriage.org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/strongermarriage/
Facebook Marriage Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/770019130329579
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/strongermarriagelife/
Dr. Dave Schramm:
Dr. Liz Hale:
http://www.drlizhale.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
On today's episode, dr Liz and I welcome Dr Nathan
Lenhart to the show.
He breaks down different typesof stressors and resilience and
shares some helpful researchinsights on trauma,
transcendence and flourishing incouple relationships.
He then offers someresearch-backed facts on
relationships and sexuality,religion and the role of virtues
.
Nathan Lenhart is an assistantprofessor of family life at
(00:26):
Brigham Young University.
He studies virtues andflourishing in close
relationships and teaches acourse about resilience in
family life.
He has over 50 academicpublications and his research
has been featured in popularnews outlets such as Psychology
Today, daily Mail, cnn and Men'sHealth.
He recently co-authored a bookentitled the Science of Virtue A
(00:47):
Framework for Research.
We hope you enjoy the show.
Hey friends, welcome to anotherepisode of the Strongman
Marriage Connection Podcast.
I'm Dr Dave here at Utah StateUniversity, alongside Dr Liz
Hale, our psychologist.
We're aiming to bring you thevery best we have in research
(01:09):
and resources, along with a fewtips and tools to help you
create the marriage of yourdreams.
All right, friends.
Our guest today is a goodfriend.
He's a great colleague who I'veworked with over the last few
years on some projects andpapers tied to virtues.
He was recently hired well, acouple of years ago at Brigham
Young University.
He's known for his great workrelated to resilience and
(01:31):
flourishing as well.
Here to discuss those topics andmore is Dr Nathan Lenhart.
Welcome to the show, my friend.
Hey, thanks a lot for having me.
All right, nate, we're going tojump right in here.
When I hear the word resilience, I mostly hear people talking
about it and describing it asthe ability to bounce back, or
to bounce back better orstronger.
(01:52):
As we talk about resiliencetoday, can we just set things up
for our discussion?
What is resilience and why isit important, individually and
as a couple?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yeah, I love the definitions that you put forward
and, if I can add to that alittle bit, I personally love
the crucible metaphor, the ideaof going to the refiner's fire,
if you will, and allowing thatfire to kind of burn off some of
the rough pieces and createsomething new.
It can be transformative.
So the idea of taking thehardest of things that we have
(02:25):
in life and somehow using themfor our gain and transforming us
into something better andthere's something to be careful
with that.
I think there might be adifference between a capital R
resilience and a lowercase rresilience, as I would describe
it, where you have somestressors, some things that are
really hard in life, that leadto a net positive, a net gain,
(02:46):
of which you become betterholistically as a person and
you're able to accomplish moregood in the world.
There are some hard things thatmight be so intense that it's
hard to view the experience as anet gain as a whole, and in
(03:22):
that perhaps it's more valuable,this pain for the rest of our
lives.
But is there at least somethingsmall of value that I can take
from this?
For example, many people willdescribe how having someone
close to them die being amotivating factor in their own
professional or personal livesand being more aware of those
(03:43):
types of things.
So that might be an example ofthe lowercase r-resonance, but
again, the general idea of whatbenefits, what can be gained
from going through some hardthings.
So that's more of thedefinition side.
As far as why does it matter, Ithink it's just the question of
we don't want to remain broken.
(04:06):
It's inevitable that brutalthings are going to happen to us
in our lives and unfair things,and I think every person that
I've met, if I talk with themlong enough, they have a story
of sufficient tragedy that itcan bring me to tears and I
think, just knowing thateveryone has that type of thing,
(04:28):
we need to have a sense ofresilience in order to try to
deal with that in the best waypossible.
Getting more specifically to thecouple level why it's so
critical for couples I thinkit's important to recognize that
(04:50):
in any intimate relationshipwhere you truly get to know a
person, that person is both asafe haven and a stressor.
So the fact that I mean,hopefully, the people you choose
to have close, intimaterelationships with are
predominantly more of a safehaven force, but as a stressor
they're going to be differentfrom us and they're going to
present different challengesthat we have to deal with.
There's research from JohnGottman suggesting that about
(05:11):
two-thirds of conflicts inmarriage are perpetual, meaning
they're never completelyresolved.
So, yeah, it's inevitable thatat some point your spouse is
going to do things that hurt youand you're going to have to be
able to work with each other infiguring out how to apologize,
forgive and move forward and tryto be better in facing some of
(05:32):
those things.
And even on the outside, chancethat you happen to find that
perfect person.
That is all safe.
Haven't had no stress, or letme know if you ever find someone
like that.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Let's say thought exercise.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
You do happen to find someone like that hard things
are going to happen to thatperson that you care so deeply
about.
So, even if they're not thesource of stress in your
relationship, anything that ishard for them is going to be
hard for you because of how muchyou care about them.
So, once again, resiliencebeing so critical in this person
(06:13):
that I love deeply is in pain.
I'm feeling pain for that.
How can we approach this in away that's resilient and working
together and approachingwhatever pains being experienced
by this person that's dear tome?
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Man, Nate, there's so much there.
Liz, yeah, we have to unpack it, Like when they hurt.
Yeah, it's true, I hurt, right.
I remember my again, my wife'sbrain surgery, you know, years
ago, and it was, yeah, traumaticfor me and for her, but
resilience wasn't like okay,yeah, we're going to be.
You know, all of a sudden she's, she's better.
(06:49):
You know, her brain is all of asudden better than it ever was.
But all of a sudden Iappreciated things.
I didn't take things forgranted and I and I made
commitments to be like, okay,I'm going to treat her better,
Right, Like the queen that sheis, because of how fragile life
is.
And so, man, I love so muchthere that I've never thought
about the capital R andlowercase r yeah, isn't that
great, yeah, that's great.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
I really love that too.
I think it's so respectful ofthe things that we go through
right.
Some really are the capitals,and I just think that's a lovely
way to differentiate that.
It's very humbling to think Iam both for my husband.
I am both safe and stressful.
Yeah, I'm sure.
I'm sure that's the case evenin this working relationship,
dave.
I'm safe and stressful.
(07:28):
I think this is just such agreat topic, nathan.
Can you let's see yeah, I'm sosorry I was like what I do love
this topic, nathan Can you giveus some practical examples on
what resilience looks like incouple and family dynamics?
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Yeah.
So there's a framework used inresearch and also really
practical used in a lot oftherapy settings.
That's called the ABCX modeland I talk about this constantly
in my class on familyresilience and this is something
that's been used really heavilyin family stress and resilience
(08:10):
research since the mid to early1900s, so it's extremely well
established and used a reallylong time.
So the ABCX model, breakingdown those letters, the A is the
stressor or the event, the Bthe resources, c perception, and
(08:31):
then the X is basically thedegree of stress or the reaction
to the stress.
So just talking through anexample to get a sense of the
practicality of this, let's saythat a family member is
diagnosed with cancer.
So that would be the A, thatwould be the stressor, event,
and then the resulting level ofstress or the reaction to the
(08:53):
stress, the X.
It's going to depend veryheavily on the resources that
are available and also theperception of the event.
So, justin, as an example, youhave a family member spouse
that's diagnosed with cancer.
Consider the resources that areavailable.
There's going to be potentiallymajor upheaval.
Is this a spouse?
Maybe it's the breadwinnerspouse?
(09:15):
Are there going to need to berearrangements in the couple of
the non-cancer person having togo back to work that hasn't
worked in a while.
Maybe it's the homemaker spouse.
Well, how on earth are thesekids going to be looked after
with this parent that isdiagnosed with cancer?
(09:36):
So you have that main stressorevent and then a bunch of
smaller stressor events thatmight be connected to that.
So you look at something likeresources.
Are the ways to bring in, forexample, extended family members
community A lot of people inUtah have church communities,
for example or is that aresource that can be activated
(09:57):
of?
Hey, we're in over our heads.
Can we get a little bit of helpin watching kids?
There's all sorts of thingsthat might be considered with
that.
And then, on the subject ofresources, I think that one of
the hardest things for us to dosometimes is to just utter the
four-letter word of help.
I think that there's manypeople that have resources at
(10:20):
their disposal but they might behesitant to access some of
those for a variety of differentreasons.
Often, what happens with amajor stressor event is in the
days and weeks immediatelyafterwards there's this huge
rush in of support, but then amonth, two months, three months
down the line, there's anacclimation to that and all of a
(10:42):
sudden there's not the sameoutpouring of support when
things might actually be gettingworse with something like the
cancer diagnosis.
So being able to have ongoingconversations and realization
how to access our most importantresources is important.
That's on resources.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
So B is resources, right, it's one to clarify B is
resources, yep.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
So B is resources.
Right, just wanted to clarify Bis resources, yep, thank you.
So B resources, C, again, a bigthing that helps from the
stressor and having a moreeffective, more likely,
resilient response to it.
C is the perception and, dave,I think the example that you
gave earlier actually speaks tothis point really well.
So an example of a perceptionmight be something called
(11:25):
mortality salience, so thisbelief that life is precious,
that it's short, that we have tomake the most of the time that
we have.
So you think about a cancerdiagnosis.
There's a lot of different waysa family might perceive that
particular stressor.
Some people might perceive itas this is unsolvable, like
we're doomed, there's nothing wecan do about this.
(11:46):
Some people might go so far asjust ask questions like why did
this happen?
Like, is God punishing me?
Is something that people mightask for?
Something that's sounexplainable like this, or out
of our control, out of ourcontrol, but asking more
(12:08):
questions of how can we make themost of this, or how can we
make the most of the time wehave, how can we use this to
draw closer as a family?
These are the examples ofperceptions and the way you view
that event, viewing life asbeing finite, precious, short,
and taking advantage of that andrealizing tomorrow isn't
promised and we need to make themost of the time that we have.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
That's powerful, nate .
As you're talking about some ofthese examples, I think in my
own life there's been like onetime or acute events versus
chronic or perpetual stressors.
I mean, and I'll give you aconcrete example of our
daughters getting married thiscoming Saturday, right, so it's
a stressor.
I mean it's a good stressor butit's still a stressor.
(12:54):
There's a lot of things We'vegot to make details and phone
calls and money and all thesethings that are working up to
this big event that we knowthat's going to the end.
Know, the end, the event, themarriage, right, it's not going
to end the actual wedding, yeah,that ceremony and the stressor
is going to end.
But some of it is like, okay,we've had another, you know
daughter get married.
So we've been through thisbefore.
(13:15):
So our perception, you knowthis is we can do this, we can
make it, we've got resources andgreat, you know he's a great
guy with a great family and sothe communication and things
there.
But it's still it does kind ofspill down to us and it even
spills down to our otherchildren because they kind of
get different parents who are inthis high intensity, you know
stress mode.
So that's one that immediatelycame to mind in my own life.
(13:39):
So, nick, can you walk usthrough a little bit about the
difference in resilience, or isthere a difference in these
acute kind of one-time thingsversus cancer, for example, or
these chronic things or povertyor disability, things that are
going to last a long time, andthe impact I guess that has on
the specifically on the couplerelationship?
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Yeah, I think that.
Yeah, there's certainlydifferent flavors of stressors
and different flavors ofresilience that are going to be
found in these types of things.
So, on the one hand, somethingthat might be a one-time thing
(14:24):
trauma is an intense amount ofdistressing change in a short
amount of time, change in ashort amount of time.
So that might actually besomething that's more one-time,
instantaneous, but can be sodramatic in its effect that it
requires a complete reappraisalof everything that you thought
was true.
An example of this might besomething like infidelity.
(14:45):
You have this idea of who yourspouse is and our identity is so
closely tied into who ourspouse is that someone's
unfaithful to you.
It raises all sorts ofquestions of who am I married to
and who am I?
How can I trust the peopleclosest to me?
How can I trust myself?
Am I gullible?
(15:06):
Am I someone that's takenadvantage of?
So you can have something thatmight be one time more acute, if
you will, but the degree is sointense that it's going to
require a different response dueto the trauma that's involved.
Meanwhile, there are thingsthat might be chronic, daily
(15:26):
stressors, like work-family-lifebalance.
That's highly unlikely to bringa traumatic response, but it's
more likely to have kind of thisongoing negotiation and
consistent challenge in.
Okay, uh, we figured this outtoday.
Do we have this figured outtomorrow?
(15:46):
We figured this out for whatthis semester of school looks
like.
But what happens with this nextsemester of how classes work
with schedules?
We have things figured outright now with our kids that are
five, three and one.
Is this configuration going towork when all of our kids are no
(16:08):
longer at home and, using amore stereotypical example,
mom's starting to get a littlebit restless during the day
because kids aren't at schoolanymore?
There's this constantreconfiguration for some of
these more constant stressorsand, yeah, I would say that the
more consistent the nature ofthe stressor, the more
(16:28):
consistent the nature of thenegotiation.
The more dramatic the nature ofthe stressor, the more dramatic
the nature of the stressor, themore dramatic need of a more
dramatic intervention.
So, with a lot of those dailystressors, those are often
solvable between couples andbeing able to talk through
things, negotiate, figure thingsout day, week, month, quarter
(16:51):
of a year, at a time whenthere's some more intense trauma
involved, even if that'ssomething that's a little bit
shorter and a one-time eventbecause of the intensity of the
distress surrounding that.
That might require a little bitof therapy, for example, in
dealing with this completereappraisal of how this has
(17:12):
turned life upside down.
So, yeah, those are just acouple of examples, but the
general principle I would say isthat, yeah, there's definitely
going to be different flavors ofstressors and different flavors
of adapting and resilience inconnection with those.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
And it still comes back.
It seems like I mean thetakeaways, resources, drawing on
your resources, learning to dothings differently, from a
different perspective, or withcompassion or patience, or
whatever that is, but thecombination of the resources and
perception are key, regardlessof the types of stressors.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Yeah, very, very common principles involved.
Yeah, very, very commonprinciples involved, but the
flavor of how those might beapplied are certainly going to
vary from stressor to stressor.
That's one of the reasons whyit's such an effective framework
the ABCX model is.
It has such wide applications,so ranging from infidelity to
(18:09):
divorce to a job transition.
It can just be applied acrossso many different things.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Yeah, Nate, switching gears a little bit.
We've done some fun worktogether for a few years,
publishing some things,presenting on some things.
Some of that has been tied toflourishing.
I'd love to get your take onwhat flourishing is in a
relationship and what couldcouples do to flourish these
days.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Yeah.
So a lot of this line of workcame from just kind of a
critique of seeing a lot ofstudies that focus on
satisfaction as kind of theultimate end-all be-all.
And I want to be very clearthere's nothing wrong with being
satisfied, there's nothingwrong with being happy in a
relationship, but flourishing issomething that goes beyond that
(18:58):
.
It goes beyond happiness, forexample, is very much based upon
happenstance very similaretymology in the word where
things that happen to you have ahuge influence upon your
happiness.
That happenstance of thatFlourishing is something a
little bit deeper.
I really enjoy readingAristotle on the subject.
(19:23):
He distinguishes betweensomething called hedonia, which
is the pursuit and pleasure andavoidance of pain as kind of the
ultimate good, and avoidance ofpain as kind of the ultimate
good, versus eudaimonia, whichis based in kind of this deeper
sense of meaning and joy in lifethat has a little bit more
stability, I would say.
So in some of the work thatI've been doing I've been trying
(19:44):
to find ways to better capturewhat it means to truly flourish
in a relationship and what someof those pieces are.
So rather than asking thingslike are you happy with your
relationship, are you satisfiedwith your relationship?
Again, good things, butincomplete.
How about asking questions likehow meaningful is your
relationship?
What extent do you experience asense of belonging in your
(20:07):
relationship?
To what extent are yourexperiences helping you to grow
together as a couple?
So kind of shifting that frameto a deeper view of what
relationships are and can be.
This very beautiful vision, andalso recognizing the complexity
and challenges people can havein life, really loved on a paper
(20:29):
we worked on together that Ithink was capturing some of this
.
There's something calledavoidance attachment, which are
basically people that have areally hard time being
vulnerable and being intimate inrelationships, and we basically
found that for those that weremore avoidantly attached, they
reported greater satisfaction intheir relationship the less
(20:51):
connected they were, which isnot something particularly
healthy.
So there's something to be saidabout.
People can report happiness andsatisfaction from a wide
variety of things, but sometimeswe get pleasure and
satisfaction from things thatultimately aren't the best for
us.
So there's something to be saidabout a flourishing perspective
(21:15):
of trying to understand whatsome of these core pieces are to
more universal applications ofthese.
Are actually healthy behaviorsand healthy aims to happen in a
relationship?
Speaker 1 (21:25):
yeah, yeah, there is that different, that fascinating
, we as we study that together,this happiness or satisfaction.
It feels more like me, you knowit's asking me, are you
satisfied?
Whereas flourishing feels likeit's more of a, of a we, yeah,
are we growing, you know?
Are we have to have meaning, um, together?
So it's more of kind of this,this togetherness, this
(21:45):
purposeful.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
So, yeah, so I I just , I just love that idea yeah,
it's fascinating, and somepeople actually will say they're
happier when they're moredetached.
Did I get that right?
Speaker 2 (21:57):
That's the basic idea .
Yeah, those that wereavoidantly attached, avoidantly
attached yeah.
So those with more avoidantattachment they reported more
satisfaction with theirrelationship the less connected
they were.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Wow, got to think about that.
I love this whole idea offlourishing and taking it back
to resilience.
How are resilience andflourishing tied together?
Nate.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Yeah.
So I would say that aflourishing relationship is
better equipped to withstandhard things and achieve
resilience.
So, again, if you're anchoringyour relationship in something
like happiness or satisfaction,well, what's going to happen
when the hard things come?
Well, something hard happens.
It's really hard to be happy inthe moment when your spouse has
(22:48):
a cancer diagnosis.
It's really hard to be happy ina moment when you experience a
child loss, and that's anunderstandable thing.
Happiness is wonderful.
It's certainly something thatis a beautiful thing to have in
life.
It's also very fragile.
But going back to the cancerdiagnosis example, there's
(23:11):
research suggesting that, whilethere might be decrease in
well-being with things likesatisfaction in the relationship
, a lot of people report growth,including spiritual growth,
when they have a spouse thatthey're put in a caregiving
position and is dealing withcancer to.
Is my relationship meaningful?
And that becomes kind of theprimary thing I focus on.
(23:33):
Am I developing a meaningfulrelationship that's a stronger
anchor in being able towithstand the inevitable, unfair
, hard things that life is goingto throw at you.
And just a really interestingstudy that helped illustrate
this point.
This was a cross-cultural studylooking at the pursuit of
happiness and what it was doingto people with their quality of
(23:57):
life.
So, asking people the extent towhich they're pursuing happiness
in their lives and then justhow good they're reporting their
life to be Like, I believe I'mliving a life well-lived.
What's fascinating is that inthe United States, people that
reported a higher pursuit ofhappiness reported lower
well-lived.
What's fascinating is that inthe United States, people that
reported a higher pursuit ofhappiness reported lower
well-being.
Meanwhile, in other countries,in like East Asia for example,
(24:21):
that are very relationallyfocused, those that reported a
pursuit of happiness reportedbetter well-being because that
pursuit of happiness was drivingthem to form better
relationships.
It was very relationallyfocused on points surrounding
happiness.
So the danger with the way manyof us in the United States view
(24:43):
happiness in kind of a moreindividualistic lens, is less
likely of fixating on thishappiness.
Likely of fixating on thishappiness, uh, it's less likely
to actually lead to overallwell-being because it's not
always driving that deeperconnection in relationships that
we really need happiness has tobe connected to the connections
of others.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
Is that, is that it?
That's the key.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
I get that right yeah , so the idea is that when, when
, like, pursuing happiness canbe perfectly fine insofar as
it's driving people to developdeep, flourishing-type
connections the issue is oftenhere in the United States the
pursuit of happiness becomes amore individual pursuit.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
About me, me myself and I Am I happy.
Yeah, yeah, I like it, thankyou.
About me, me myself and them.
Am I happy.
Yeah, yeah, I like it, thankyou.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Yeah, so it's not always driving these deeper
connections that are needed inorder to flourish and truly be
resilient in life.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Yeah, that's fascinating.
It reminds me of the threeneeds we're born with safety,
satisfaction and connection.
But it reminds me of what aprofessor at BYU once said when
I was an undergrad there.
He said you can never get me of.
What a professor at BYU oncesaid when I was an undergrad
there.
He said you can never getenough of what you don't need.
Use what you don't need willnever satisfy you.
It's this pursuit of thispleasure and this satisfaction
(26:04):
and this drive.
If it's not tied to connectionin some way in relationships,
it'll end up feeling hollow, Iguess, and not truly fulfilling
and meaningful.
Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Yeah, I like the word hollow there.
Again, we pursue things that wethink will make us happy that
ultimately don't work that wayall the time.
It's a pretty common thing andit should be a pretty
understandable thing.
It's very normal to think thatwe're on the right track to
(26:37):
pursue something, thinking thisis going to be what I need, and
then ultimately it doesn't endup working out and kind of leads
to a reevaluation of sorts.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
We'll be right back after this brief message.
And we're back, let's diveright in, nate.
I also know your line ofresearch has included over the
years a combination of sexuality, of religion and virtues, even.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
How do you see these topics connecting with what
we're discussing today?
Yeah, so, starting withsexuality, this is actually the
topic.
That kind of was the startingpoint in me getting into some of
these topics that we'reprimarily focusing on today.
So I started off kind of myprimary research interest was on
pornography.
I was concerned with theinfluence that it was having on
relationships, and that led tojust kind of some deeper
(27:44):
questions about some of themixed findings on pornography
research.
So predominantly, researchsuggests that pornography is
harmful to relationships.
But there is enough mixedfindings, for example, showing
some studies show that whenpeople view pornography together
, they're reporting more sexualsatisfaction, for example.
(28:04):
So I had the question well, whyare we getting some
inconsistency in these findings?
So as I dove deeper into thedifferent studies that are out
there, I started to realize, oh,we have this issue with the way
that people are definingsatisfaction.
So if you ask someone that'sbeen in a relationship for a few
months, how sexually satisfiedare you on a scale of one to 10?
(28:29):
Do you think that looks thesame for a couple that's been
married for 20 years On a scaleof one to 10, do you think that
looks the same for a couplethat's been married for 20 years
.
On a scale of one to 10, howsexually satisfied are you?
So I started to realize that,oh, there can be different ideas
of what people consider to besatisfying and again, sometimes
we can find things that aresatisfying that ultimately
aren't the best for us in thelong term.
(28:52):
So with something likepornography, this idea that,
yeah, so people might usepornography trying to get this
deeper fulfillment inrelationships, but I would argue
that ultimately it'sshort-lived, that it might
quote-unquote, spice things upin certain situations for a
(29:12):
period of time, but thelong-term ramifications of it,
uh, I have real concerns aboutobjectification within
pornography, the separation ofidentity from sexuality, and the
basic idea is you can't lovesomeone completely for who they
are if you accept a message ofsexuality without identity.
(29:32):
So we have this basic idea herethat we dive deeper into what
ultimately makes a high qualityrelationship, particularly a
sexual relationship, you canstart to understand more clearly
oh, this is how and whypornography is inconsistent with
what a healthy relationshipwill look like for people.
So that was kind of how thiswhole line of thought got
(29:56):
started and in looking at thatit motivated me to ask deeper
questions about what a goodsexual relationship is moving
beyond satisfaction to capturingsome of these things like
belonging, growth, meaning inthe relationship, and from there
it just kind of has gone in allthese other directions of just
(30:17):
relationships as a whole andlife as a whole and how we can
maximize flourishing andresilience in life.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Yeah, that's great.
Thanks, Nick.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
Go ahead, mate, Please go ahead.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Yeah, if it's something to say on sexuality
like, yeah, I'm just going tojump to the next one.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Yeah, it's very good.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
We can stay on that.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
Let's do that, my friend.
It's pretty common in privatepractice to hear about sexual
intimacy and the struggles thatcouples are facing, and you've
done a lot of research in thisarea, even tying it to gratitude
, which I'm so curious about.
What have you learned that youwant to share with our listeners
today, those practical tipsyou've come across, my friend?
Yeah, some practical tips.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Um, there are as many people you can scratch that.
Uh, there are.
Uh, there are as many sexualrelationships as there are
relationships between people,right?
So at the end of the day, yourspouse is going to be the most
(31:26):
important expert you can turn towith things like this.
Yeah, so with that, I'm alittle hesitant of being overly
prescriptive of some of thesethings, but certainly happy to
talk about principles and, yeah,there can be some specifics,
but I want to start with thatcaveat of this is so
individualized and so specificto each relationship, but some
(31:49):
general ideas that, when itcomes to sexuality, it's
valuable to consider thebiological, the psychological
and the relational.
All of these things are workingtogether and in order to have a
good sexual relationship, uh,those are all good check-in
points of what might be going on.
So, for example, if the overallrelationship you have with your
(32:13):
spouse is not good, it's goingto be really hard to be
fulfilled sexually.
At the same, you might have areally great relationship with
your spouse.
But if you are dealing withsome major trauma from past
sexual experiences, no matterhow good your relationship is
with your current spouse, theremight be some things that you
(32:35):
need to go to therapy to addresssome of these more
psychological points from pasthard experiences.
You might have things reallywonderful in your relationship
and you might have a veryhealthy psychological
perspective when it comes tosexuality, but there are some
very real biological challengesthat make it hard to be
(32:56):
fulfilled sexually and thatmight require a little bit more
medical intervention in tryingto figure out what's going on
there.
So trying to focus from all ofthese different prongs and being
able to be open and realizethat kind of all of these things
need to be working inconjunction with each other is
very healthy for maximizing thelikelihood of having a better
(33:19):
sexual relationship.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
And so just summarizing that Nate, the
psychological, the biologicalright Things in your body, the
kind of the way that you processthings, view things, and then
the relational in thatrelationship.
Yeah, well, said that they allspill over and affect that.
But what about some of theother topics religion, virtues,
yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
So on the subject of religion, I've been doing a lot
of research on sacredexperiences and a sense of
transcendence, if you will, andthis is an idea to still iron
out and keep thinking on.
But I would argue, in many waystranscendent experiences are
kind of the opposite oftraumatic experiences.
(34:03):
So traumatic experiences are anintense amount of distressing
change in a short amount of time.
I would argue that in many ways, transcendent experiences are
an intense amount of positivechange in a short period of time
, extremely powerful experiences, and there's actually good
research out there highlightingthat this is something that can
(34:23):
get people out of some reallypainful ruts.
Just one quick example this isfrom several years ago but it
happened here in Utah.
Chris Williams, drunk driver,killed his wife and two children
and there's a really movingexperience where he talks about
having this sense oftranscendence and just kind of
this spiritual healing that hehad from the pain of that
(34:48):
experience to the point that hewas able to forgive this young
man who killed his wife and kidsand became something of a
mentor figure to him.
It became something of a mentorfigure to him.
I would argue that that's goingsomething beyond rational type
of experience.
It's hard to just kind ofexplain that and logic your way
through that type of experienceto get to that point of healing.
And regardless of what yourspiritual or religious beliefs
(35:12):
are, there's something to besaid about the potential for
religion to help us access thesetypes of transcendent
experiences that can break usout of being really stuck in
this sense of pain and sorrowfrom the different hard things
that life throws at us.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
What Chris Williams went through.
I mean, that's what you callthe capital R right are right
yeah, that um yeah, definitelyit's yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
So yeah, I don't I guess it depends on the way
you're looking at it definitelya capital.
I guess you might say acapitalist stressor or something
like that.
Um, and I don't know, I don'tknow if he would describe that
experience leading to an overallnet benefit in life, but I
think it's clear to say that heachieved an incredible amount of
(36:07):
resilience where many mightdeem it to seem impossible to do
that under such a painful typeof thing like that.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
It's a remarkable story, yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
What about virtues?
Speaker 2 (36:21):
Nate, yeah, so I would argue that virtues are at
the heart of success in thisarea.
Lots of people talk aboutcommunication, and that's
definitely important.
Strict definition ofcommunication.
What I want to successfully sayis understood by my partner.
That matters.
To successfully say isunderstood by my partner, that
(36:43):
matters.
At the same time, you mightcounterpoint that it doesn't
matter how effectively you'recommunicating if you're
communicating your distaste foreach other.
Accurately having my messageunderstood isn't sufficient.
With that, I like to joke thatthere's been practitioners that
have used the talking stick soyou can only communicate while
(37:04):
you're holding the stick andthen pass it on to someone else
for them to be able tocommunicate.
Sometimes people get sofrustrated with each other they
just end up wanting to beat theother with the stick.
So communication matters, butthere's something more at the
heart of things.
Virtues are a bit deeper and Iwould argue that successful
(37:27):
communication is likely anextension of people who are
forgiving, grateful, humble.
If you hold these types ofvirtuous characteristics more,
successful communication is morelikely to become kind of an
offshoot of that, and that'ssomething I'd really love to see
(37:48):
more work done on.
So there's some researchsuggesting that interventions
surrounding communication don'thave the same staying power.
It might help things in theshort term but it doesn't fix
kind of the core issues involved.
And again, not saying it'sproblematic to focus on
communication, I'm saying thatsolely focusing on communication
(38:11):
without focusing on some ofthese deeper, underlying issues
is insufficient.
So there's some trickiness toit.
I think a lot of people focus oncommunication because it is
quicker and practical of saythese things, do these things.
Here's how you effectivelycommunicate.
It's a lot easier to get tosome of the hows.
When you talk about some of thevirtues, it's like be more
(38:33):
humble.
Being instructed of that can bea bit more challenging.
Being instructed of that can bea bit more challenging.
So I think that there'ssomething to be said about
trying to inspire virtues inpeople.
Communication can be moreeffectively interwoven through
instruction.
I would argue that virtues, weneed a lot of inspiration.
(38:55):
Find exemplars of people thatyou want to be like and allow
their experiences to inspire youtowards developing some of the
virtues that are good inrelationships with them.
Speaker 3 (39:08):
Nice.
I hope you write that book onvirtues in marriage.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
So thank you, we love that.
Yeah, that's right, let's getgoing.
So thank you, I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Yeah, I love that.
Just that whole idea, though,and you and I I mean if you've
written and talked about thisbefore, uh, in other areas but
just this whole idea that it'sboth it takes both skill and
will write this this soft, thisopen um heart, because, yeah,
you can teach all these skills,whileally Goddard likes to say
it's like the shiny outside ofthe sports car, but it's the
(39:39):
inside underneath and the engine.
That's real where the power is,and that's more about getting
our hearts right, our heartsopen to being compassionate,
yeah, to humble, grateful, allthose other types of virtues.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
So yeah, love that Yep, like that language.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
Yeah, singing my tune , my friend.
That language yeah, singing mytune, my friend.
Well, hey, nate.
Before we wrap up, uh, we'dlike to ask all of our our
guests a couple of questions.
Uh, the first one, in honor ofthe name of our, our podcast the
stronger marriage connection.
What do you feel like is is akey to a stronger marriage
connection?
Speaker 2 (40:13):
I appreciate that language of a key, because
there's so many things and uh,yeah, I definitely can't
definitively say this is thething, but it is helpful.
Uh, just piggybacking off ofwhat I was saying earlier, I'd
say to try to find couples thatinspire you.
(40:34):
So I'd say, be on the lookoutfor the best relationships that
are out there, see what they'redoing and let what they're doing
motivate you and hopefully youhave something more proximal.
Hopefully people are able tolook to their parents' marriages
and be able to find some things.
That's not everyone, noteveryone.
(40:56):
Maybe sometimes they findsomeone else in the community
where they're able to find thisbeautiful example of what they
want to have in theirrelationship and maybe, if
they're struggling with that,they can go to other sources.
There are a lot of beautifulstories in literature and film
that have very detaileddescriptions of how truly
(41:17):
inspiring marriages can come tofruition, and I think being on
the lookout for those examplesand doing our best to have
experiences that motivate us toemulate those and trying to
follow those examples is onething that can be very helpful
(41:38):
in developing a strongermarriage connection.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
I love that, nate, and in some ways I think back.
As you're mentioning that, Imean specific names and faces
and couples and people that haveinspired me to be a little bit
better and in some ways I almostwant to say that they're
transcendent.
Not this overpowering, but likethis person has inspired me to
be better.
I want to be more patient as ahusband or be a better dad
because of those.
So it is.
(42:04):
I love that.
We have never heard that on thepodcast and, yeah, I love that
answer.
So thank you.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
Yeah, and I love what you say there.
I think that there's a veryclose tie between inspiration
and transcendent experiences, soyeah, I love the connection
between those.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
Dr Lenhardt, please tell us where can our listeners
find out more about you, yourresearch and other helpful
resources that you would like toshare, please?
Speaker 2 (42:33):
Yeah, I'm happy to send some links for this.
You can look me up on a websitecalled Google Scholar.
It has a list of everythingthat I've published.
I'm always happy to answerquestions that people have on
things.
You can look at my email and ifthere's a particular
publication that seemsinteresting to you topic, want
(42:55):
to know more about it?
I'm very happy to answerquestions and chat about it.
Want to know more about it?
I'm very happy to answerquestions and chat about it.
I also did recently publish abook.
It's not as much focusedspecifically on marriage, but it
does more broadly focused onvirtues, so it's called the
Science of Virtue, a Frameworkfor Research.
The virtue stuff is stuff thatsounds particularly interesting
(43:16):
to anyone.
Yeah, you can definitely lookinto that book.
I'm very happy with the workthat me and my co-authors have
done.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
Yeah, awesome, nate, we're going to plug that.
We're going to put links tothat our listeners both the
Google Scholar and a link toyour book in our show notes for
our listeners.
So go check those out.
Speaker 3 (43:37):
And just real quick, dave, do you mind if I ask Nate?
I'm sorry, nate, did you lookat William Bennett's book, the
Book of Virtue?
Is that a really thick book?
Say the name again the Book of.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
Virtues by William Bennett.
Virtues by William Bennett.
I don't know if I've read thatspecifically Up to this point.
Speaker 3 (43:53):
that's really the only thing I have seen on
Virtues.
To tell you the truth, I'm sureit's out there.
I haven't done a deep dive, butnow I've got the Science of
Virtue by Nate Lenhart, so goodenough.
Thank you for telling us.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
Yeah, for sure, thank you.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Nate.
Another question we have foryou is we like to conclude with?
Is really your takeaway of theday?
Is there a take-home messageyou hope our listeners will
remember from our discussiontoday?
Speaker 2 (44:28):
Yeah, so a couple of quick nuggets.
I think it's important torecognize the complexity of
relationships and I want to saythat nobody is completely whole
and nobody is completely broken.
We all need people.
We all need people close to us.
We all need a little help andhopefully, wherever we are on
that spectrum of hold to broken,we're able to turn to the
(44:51):
people closest to us inestablishing more of that sense
of resilience, of just trulybeing able to help each other,
because we all need a little bitof help.
Speaker 1 (44:59):
Yeah, love it, thanks , nate.
Able to help each other,because we all need a little bit
of help.
Yeah, love it, Thanks Nate.
Liz, what about you?
What's your takeaway today?
Speaker 3 (45:06):
I'm just thinking about that.
No one is completely whole orcompletely broken in how we need
each other.
It's so beautiful.
I love this whole idea, nateand Dave, of anchoring into
meaning not so much happiness,but anchoring into the meaning
of life, the meaning of thismarriage, the meaning of this
particular relationship.
I love that.
(45:26):
And Dave, what about you?
What's the richest nugget thatyou hope we will all remember
from our time together with DrNathan Lenhart?
Speaker 1 (45:34):
Yeah, nate, I haven't heard the capital R, lowercase
r, resilient stuff.
So I love that insight.
But I think that my biggesttakeaway is the traumatic to the
transcendent.
We've heard of ACEs, all thoseawful experiences that people
can have, those adversechildhood experiences, but also
(46:00):
I've seen the HOPE document, thehelpful outcomes of positive
experiences, and so that's whatit kind of reminds me of.
But I would love to kind ofdive in and learn a little bit
more about those transcendentexperiences, about the
inspirational people, peoplethat want whether it's music or
people or experiences that helpme, inspire me to be a little
bit better and do a little bitbetter as a husband and as a dad
.
So, thank you, I love thoseinsights.
(46:22):
I'm taking those with me today,so I appreciate that, nate.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
Nate, thanks again for coming on, that's all for
now.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Thanks for joining us today.
Our friends, thanks so much fortuning in.
Speaker 1 (46:32):
We'll see you again next time on another episode of
the Stronger Marriage ConnectionPodcast.
Speaker 3 (46:37):
That's right, and remember it's the small things
that create a stronger marriageconnection.
Speaker 1 (46:42):
Take good care of yourself.
Be sure to smash the likebutton, leave a comment and
share this episode with a friend.
You can also follow andinteract with us on Instagram,
at Stronger Marriage Life, andFacebook at Stronger Marriage,
so be sure to share with uswhich topics you loved or which
guests we should have on theshow.
Next, If you want even moreresources to improve your
marriage or relationshipconnection, visit
(47:04):
StrongerMarriageorg, whereyou'll find free workshops,
e-courses, in-depth webinars,relationship surveys and more.
Each episode of StrongerMarriage Connection is hosted
and sponsored by the UtahMarriage Commission at Utah
State University.
And finally, a big thanks toour producer, Rex Polanis, and
(47:25):
the team at Utah StateUniversity and you, our audience
.
You make this show possible.
The opinions, findings,conclusions and recommendations
expressed in this podcast do notnecessarily reflect the views
of the Utah Marriage Commission.
On today's episode, dr Liz and I welcome Dr Nathan
Lenhart to the show.
He breaks down different typesof stressors and resilience and
shares some helpful researchinsights on trauma,
transcendence and flourishing incouple relationships.
He then offers someresearch-backed facts on
relationships and sexuality,religion and the role of virtues
.
Nathan Lenhart is an assistantprofessor of family life at
(00:26):
Brigham Young University.
He studies virtues andflourishing in close
relationships and teaches acourse about resilience in
family life.
He has over 50 academicpublications and his research
has been featured in popularnews outlets such as Psychology
Today, daily Mail, cnn and Men'sHealth.
He recently co-authored a bookentitled the Science of Virtue A
(00:47):
Framework for Research.
We hope you enjoy the show.
Hey friends, welcome to anotherepisode of the Strongman
Marriage Connection Podcast.
I'm Dr Dave here at Utah StateUniversity, alongside Dr Liz
Hale, our psychologist.
We're aiming to bring you thevery best we have in research
(01:09):
and resources, along with a fewtips and tools to help you
create the marriage of yourdreams.
All right, friends.
Our guest today is a goodfriend.
He's a great colleague who I'veworked with over the last few
years on some projects andpapers tied to virtues.
He was recently hired well, acouple of years ago at Brigham
Young University.
He's known for his great workrelated to resilience and
(01:31):
flourishing as well.
Here to discuss those topics andmore is Dr Nathan Lenhart.
Welcome to the show, my friend.
Hey, thanks a lot for having me.
All right, nate, we're going tojump right in here.
When I hear the word resilience, I mostly hear people talking
about it and describing it asthe ability to bounce back, or
to bounce back better orstronger.
(01:52):
As we talk about resiliencetoday, can we just set things up
for our discussion?
What is resilience and why isit important, individually and
as a couple?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yeah, I love the definitions that you put forward
and, if I can add to that alittle bit, I personally love
the crucible metaphor, the ideaof going to the refiner's fire,
if you will, and allowing thatfire to kind of burn off some of
the rough pieces and createsomething new.
It can be transformative.
So the idea of taking thehardest of things that we have
(02:25):
in life and somehow using themfor our gain and transforming us
into something better andthere's something to be careful
with that.
I think there might be adifference between a capital R
resilience and a lowercase rresilience, as I would describe
it, where you have somestressors, some things that are
really hard in life, that leadto a net positive, a net gain,
(02:46):
of which you become betterholistically as a person and
you're able to accomplish moregood in the world.
There are some hard things thatmight be so intense that it's
hard to view the experience as anet gain as a whole, and in
(03:22):
that perhaps it's more valuable,this pain for the rest of our
lives.
But is there at least somethingsmall of value that I can take
from this?
For example, many people willdescribe how having someone
close to them die being amotivating factor in their own
professional or personal livesand being more aware of those
(03:43):
types of things.
So that might be an example ofthe lowercase r-resonance, but
again, the general idea of whatbenefits, what can be gained
from going through some hardthings.
So that's more of thedefinition side.
As far as why does it matter, Ithink it's just the question of
we don't want to remain broken.
(04:06):
It's inevitable that brutalthings are going to happen to us
in our lives and unfair things,and I think every person that
I've met, if I talk with themlong enough, they have a story
of sufficient tragedy that itcan bring me to tears and I
think, just knowing thateveryone has that type of thing,
(04:28):
we need to have a sense ofresilience in order to try to
deal with that in the best waypossible.
Getting more specifically to thecouple level why it's so
critical for couples I thinkit's important to recognize that
(04:50):
in any intimate relationshipwhere you truly get to know a
person, that person is both asafe haven and a stressor.
So the fact that I mean,hopefully, the people you choose
to have close, intimaterelationships with are
predominantly more of a safehaven force, but as a stressor
they're going to be differentfrom us and they're going to
present different challengesthat we have to deal with.
There's research from JohnGottman suggesting that about
(05:11):
two-thirds of conflicts inmarriage are perpetual, meaning
they're never completelyresolved.
So, yeah, it's inevitable thatat some point your spouse is
going to do things that hurt youand you're going to have to be
able to work with each other infiguring out how to apologize,
forgive and move forward and tryto be better in facing some of
(05:32):
those things.
And even on the outside, chancethat you happen to find that
perfect person.
That is all safe.
Haven't had no stress, or letme know if you ever find someone
like that.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Let's say thought exercise.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
You do happen to find someone like that hard things
are going to happen to thatperson that you care so deeply
about.
So, even if they're not thesource of stress in your
relationship, anything that ishard for them is going to be
hard for you because of how muchyou care about them.
So, once again, resiliencebeing so critical in this person
(06:13):
that I love deeply is in pain.
I'm feeling pain for that.
How can we approach this in away that's resilient and working
together and approachingwhatever pains being experienced
by this person that's dear tome?
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Man, Nate, there's so much there.
Liz, yeah, we have to unpack it, Like when they hurt.
Yeah, it's true, I hurt, right.
I remember my again, my wife'sbrain surgery, you know, years
ago, and it was, yeah, traumaticfor me and for her, but
resilience wasn't like okay,yeah, we're going to be.
You know, all of a sudden she's, she's better.
(06:49):
You know, her brain is all of asudden better than it ever was.
But all of a sudden Iappreciated things.
I didn't take things forgranted and I and I made
commitments to be like, okay,I'm going to treat her better,
Right, Like the queen that sheis, because of how fragile life
is.
And so, man, I love so muchthere that I've never thought
about the capital R andlowercase r yeah, isn't that
great, yeah, that's great.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
I really love that too.
I think it's so respectful ofthe things that we go through
right.
Some really are the capitals,and I just think that's a lovely
way to differentiate that.
It's very humbling to think Iam both for my husband.
I am both safe and stressful.
Yeah, I'm sure.
I'm sure that's the case evenin this working relationship,
dave.
I'm safe and stressful.
(07:28):
I think this is just such agreat topic, nathan.
Can you let's see yeah, I'm sosorry I was like what I do love
this topic, nathan Can you giveus some practical examples on
what resilience looks like incouple and family dynamics?
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Yeah.
So there's a framework used inresearch and also really
practical used in a lot oftherapy settings.
That's called the ABCX modeland I talk about this constantly
in my class on familyresilience and this is something
that's been used really heavilyin family stress and resilience
(08:10):
research since the mid to early1900s, so it's extremely well
established and used a reallylong time.
So the ABCX model, breakingdown those letters, the A is the
stressor or the event, the Bthe resources, c perception, and
(08:31):
then the X is basically thedegree of stress or the reaction
to the stress.
So just talking through anexample to get a sense of the
practicality of this, let's saythat a family member is
diagnosed with cancer.
So that would be the A, thatwould be the stressor, event,
and then the resulting level ofstress or the reaction to the
(08:53):
stress, the X.
It's going to depend veryheavily on the resources that
are available and also theperception of the event.
So, justin, as an example, youhave a family member spouse
that's diagnosed with cancer.
Consider the resources that areavailable.
There's going to be potentiallymajor upheaval.
Is this a spouse?
Maybe it's the breadwinnerspouse?
(09:15):
Are there going to need to berearrangements in the couple of
the non-cancer person having togo back to work that hasn't
worked in a while.
Maybe it's the homemaker spouse.
Well, how on earth are thesekids going to be looked after
with this parent that isdiagnosed with cancer?
(09:36):
So you have that main stressorevent and then a bunch of
smaller stressor events thatmight be connected to that.
So you look at something likeresources.
Are the ways to bring in, forexample, extended family members
community A lot of people inUtah have church communities,
for example or is that aresource that can be activated
(09:57):
of?
Hey, we're in over our heads.
Can we get a little bit of helpin watching kids?
There's all sorts of thingsthat might be considered with
that.
And then, on the subject ofresources, I think that one of
the hardest things for us to dosometimes is to just utter the
four-letter word of help.
I think that there's manypeople that have resources at
(10:20):
their disposal but they might behesitant to access some of
those for a variety of differentreasons.
Often, what happens with amajor stressor event is in the
days and weeks immediatelyafterwards there's this huge
rush in of support, but then amonth, two months, three months
down the line, there's anacclimation to that and all of a
(10:42):
sudden there's not the sameoutpouring of support when
things might actually be gettingworse with something like the
cancer diagnosis.
So being able to have ongoingconversations and realization
how to access our most importantresources is important.
That's on resources.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
So B is resources, right, it's one to clarify B is
resources, yep.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
So B is resources.
Right, just wanted to clarify Bis resources, yep, thank you.
So B resources, C, again, a bigthing that helps from the
stressor and having a moreeffective, more likely,
resilient response to it.
C is the perception and, dave,I think the example that you
gave earlier actually speaks tothis point really well.
So an example of a perceptionmight be something called
(11:25):
mortality salience, so thisbelief that life is precious,
that it's short, that we have tomake the most of the time that
we have.
So you think about a cancerdiagnosis.
There's a lot of different waysa family might perceive that
particular stressor.
Some people might perceive itas this is unsolvable, like
we're doomed, there's nothing wecan do about this.
(11:46):
Some people might go so far asjust ask questions like why did
this happen?
Like, is God punishing me?
Is something that people mightask for?
Something that's sounexplainable like this, or out
of our control, out of ourcontrol, but asking more
(12:08):
questions of how can we make themost of this, or how can we
make the most of the time wehave, how can we use this to
draw closer as a family?
These are the examples ofperceptions and the way you view
that event, viewing life asbeing finite, precious, short,
and taking advantage of that andrealizing tomorrow isn't
promised and we need to make themost of the time that we have.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
That's powerful, nate .
As you're talking about some ofthese examples, I think in my
own life there's been like onetime or acute events versus
chronic or perpetual stressors.
I mean, and I'll give you aconcrete example of our
daughters getting married thiscoming Saturday, right, so it's
a stressor.
I mean it's a good stressor butit's still a stressor.
(12:54):
There's a lot of things We'vegot to make details and phone
calls and money and all thesethings that are working up to
this big event that we knowthat's going to the end.
Know, the end, the event, themarriage, right, it's not going
to end the actual wedding, yeah,that ceremony and the stressor
is going to end.
But some of it is like, okay,we've had another, you know
daughter get married.
So we've been through thisbefore.
(13:15):
So our perception, you knowthis is we can do this, we can
make it, we've got resources andgreat, you know he's a great
guy with a great family and sothe communication and things
there.
But it's still it does kind ofspill down to us and it even
spills down to our otherchildren because they kind of
get different parents who are inthis high intensity, you know
stress mode.
So that's one that immediatelycame to mind in my own life.
(13:39):
So, nick, can you walk usthrough a little bit about the
difference in resilience, or isthere a difference in these
acute kind of one-time thingsversus cancer, for example, or
these chronic things or povertyor disability, things that are
going to last a long time, andthe impact I guess that has on
the specifically on the couplerelationship?
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Yeah, I think that.
Yeah, there's certainlydifferent flavors of stressors
and different flavors ofresilience that are going to be
found in these types of things.
So, on the one hand, somethingthat might be a one-time thing
(14:24):
trauma is an intense amount ofdistressing change in a short
amount of time, change in ashort amount of time.
So that might actually besomething that's more one-time,
instantaneous, but can be sodramatic in its effect that it
requires a complete reappraisalof everything that you thought
was true.
An example of this might besomething like infidelity.
(14:45):
You have this idea of who yourspouse is and our identity is so
closely tied into who ourspouse is that someone's
unfaithful to you.
It raises all sorts ofquestions of who am I married to
and who am I?
How can I trust the peopleclosest to me?
How can I trust myself?
Am I gullible?
(15:06):
Am I someone that's takenadvantage of?
So you can have something thatmight be one time more acute, if
you will, but the degree is sointense that it's going to
require a different response dueto the trauma that's involved.
Meanwhile, there are thingsthat might be chronic, daily
(15:26):
stressors, like work-family-lifebalance.
That's highly unlikely to bringa traumatic response, but it's
more likely to have kind of thisongoing negotiation and
consistent challenge in.
Okay, uh, we figured this outtoday.
Do we have this figured outtomorrow?
(15:46):
We figured this out for whatthis semester of school looks
like.
But what happens with this nextsemester of how classes work
with schedules?
We have things figured outright now with our kids that are
five, three and one.
Is this configuration going towork when all of our kids are no
(16:08):
longer at home and, using amore stereotypical example,
mom's starting to get a littlebit restless during the day
because kids aren't at schoolanymore?
There's this constantreconfiguration for some of
these more constant stressorsand, yeah, I would say that the
more consistent the nature ofthe stressor, the more
(16:28):
consistent the nature of thenegotiation.
The more dramatic the nature ofthe stressor, the more dramatic
the nature of the stressor, themore dramatic need of a more
dramatic intervention.
So, with a lot of those dailystressors, those are often
solvable between couples andbeing able to talk through
things, negotiate, figure thingsout day, week, month, quarter
(16:51):
of a year, at a time whenthere's some more intense trauma
involved, even if that'ssomething that's a little bit
shorter and a one-time eventbecause of the intensity of the
distress surrounding that.
That might require a little bitof therapy, for example, in
dealing with this completereappraisal of how this has
(17:12):
turned life upside down.
So, yeah, those are just acouple of examples, but the
general principle I would say isthat, yeah, there's definitely
going to be different flavors ofstressors and different flavors
of adapting and resilience inconnection with those.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
And it still comes back.
It seems like I mean thetakeaways, resources, drawing on
your resources, learning to dothings differently, from a
different perspective, or withcompassion or patience, or
whatever that is, but thecombination of the resources and
perception are key, regardlessof the types of stressors.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Yeah, very, very common principles involved.
Yeah, very, very commonprinciples involved, but the
flavor of how those might beapplied are certainly going to
vary from stressor to stressor.
That's one of the reasons whyit's such an effective framework
the ABCX model is.
It has such wide applications,so ranging from infidelity to
(18:09):
divorce to a job transition.
It can just be applied acrossso many different things.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Yeah, Nate, switching gears a little bit.
We've done some fun worktogether for a few years,
publishing some things,presenting on some things.
Some of that has been tied toflourishing.
I'd love to get your take onwhat flourishing is in a
relationship and what couldcouples do to flourish these
days.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Yeah.
So a lot of this line of workcame from just kind of a
critique of seeing a lot ofstudies that focus on
satisfaction as kind of theultimate end-all be-all.
And I want to be very clearthere's nothing wrong with being
satisfied, there's nothingwrong with being happy in a
relationship, but flourishing issomething that goes beyond that
(18:58):
.
It goes beyond happiness, forexample, is very much based upon
happenstance very similaretymology in the word where
things that happen to you have ahuge influence upon your
happiness.
That happenstance of thatFlourishing is something a
little bit deeper.
I really enjoy readingAristotle on the subject.
(19:23):
He distinguishes betweensomething called hedonia, which
is the pursuit and pleasure andavoidance of pain as kind of the
ultimate good, and avoidance ofpain as kind of the ultimate
good, versus eudaimonia, whichis based in kind of this deeper
sense of meaning and joy in lifethat has a little bit more
stability, I would say.
So in some of the work thatI've been doing I've been trying
(19:44):
to find ways to better capturewhat it means to truly flourish
in a relationship and what someof those pieces are.
So rather than asking thingslike are you happy with your
relationship, are you satisfiedwith your relationship?
Again, good things, butincomplete.
How about asking questions likehow meaningful is your
relationship?
What extent do you experience asense of belonging in your
(20:07):
relationship?
To what extent are yourexperiences helping you to grow
together as a couple?
So kind of shifting that frameto a deeper view of what
relationships are and can be.
This very beautiful vision, andalso recognizing the complexity
and challenges people can havein life, really loved on a paper
(20:29):
we worked on together that Ithink was capturing some of this
.
There's something calledavoidance attachment, which are
basically people that have areally hard time being
vulnerable and being intimate inrelationships, and we basically
found that for those that weremore avoidantly attached, they
reported greater satisfaction intheir relationship the less
(20:51):
connected they were, which isnot something particularly
healthy.
So there's something to be saidabout.
People can report happiness andsatisfaction from a wide
variety of things, but sometimeswe get pleasure and
satisfaction from things thatultimately aren't the best for
us.
So there's something to be saidabout a flourishing perspective
(21:15):
of trying to understand whatsome of these core pieces are to
more universal applications ofthese.
Are actually healthy behaviorsand healthy aims to happen in a
relationship?
Speaker 1 (21:25):
yeah, yeah, there is that different, that fascinating
, we as we study that together,this happiness or satisfaction.
It feels more like me, you knowit's asking me, are you
satisfied?
Whereas flourishing feels likeit's more of a, of a we, yeah,
are we growing, you know?
Are we have to have meaning, um, together?
So it's more of kind of this,this togetherness, this
(21:45):
purposeful.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
So, yeah, so I I just , I just love that idea yeah,
it's fascinating, and somepeople actually will say they're
happier when they're moredetached.
Did I get that right?
Speaker 2 (21:57):
That's the basic idea .
Yeah, those that wereavoidantly attached, avoidantly
attached yeah.
So those with more avoidantattachment they reported more
satisfaction with theirrelationship the less connected
they were.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Wow, got to think about that.
I love this whole idea offlourishing and taking it back
to resilience.
How are resilience andflourishing tied together?
Nate.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Yeah.
So I would say that aflourishing relationship is
better equipped to withstandhard things and achieve
resilience.
So, again, if you're anchoringyour relationship in something
like happiness or satisfaction,well, what's going to happen
when the hard things come?
Well, something hard happens.
It's really hard to be happy inthe moment when your spouse has
(22:48):
a cancer diagnosis.
It's really hard to be happy ina moment when you experience a
child loss, and that's anunderstandable thing.
Happiness is wonderful.
It's certainly something thatis a beautiful thing to have in
life.
It's also very fragile.
But going back to the cancerdiagnosis example, there's
(23:11):
research suggesting that, whilethere might be decrease in
well-being with things likesatisfaction in the relationship
, a lot of people report growth,including spiritual growth,
when they have a spouse thatthey're put in a caregiving
position and is dealing withcancer to.
Is my relationship meaningful?
And that becomes kind of theprimary thing I focus on.
(23:33):
Am I developing a meaningfulrelationship that's a stronger
anchor in being able towithstand the inevitable, unfair
, hard things that life is goingto throw at you.
And just a really interestingstudy that helped illustrate
this point.
This was a cross-cultural studylooking at the pursuit of
happiness and what it was doingto people with their quality of
(23:57):
life.
So, asking people the extent towhich they're pursuing happiness
in their lives and then justhow good they're reporting their
life to be Like, I believe I'mliving a life well-lived.
What's fascinating is that inthe United States, people that
reported a higher pursuit ofhappiness reported lower
well-lived.
What's fascinating is that inthe United States, people that
reported a higher pursuit ofhappiness reported lower
well-being.
Meanwhile, in other countries,in like East Asia for example,
(24:21):
that are very relationallyfocused, those that reported a
pursuit of happiness reportedbetter well-being because that
pursuit of happiness was drivingthem to form better
relationships.
It was very relationallyfocused on points surrounding
happiness.
So the danger with the way manyof us in the United States view
(24:43):
happiness in kind of a moreindividualistic lens, is less
likely of fixating on thishappiness.
Likely of fixating on thishappiness, uh, it's less likely
to actually lead to overallwell-being because it's not
always driving that deeperconnection in relationships that
we really need happiness has tobe connected to the connections
of others.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
Is that, is that it?
That's the key.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
I get that right yeah , so the idea is that when, when
, like, pursuing happiness canbe perfectly fine insofar as
it's driving people to developdeep, flourishing-type
connections the issue is oftenhere in the United States the
pursuit of happiness becomes amore individual pursuit.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
About me, me myself and I Am I happy.
Yeah, yeah, I like it, thankyou.
About me, me myself and them.
Am I happy.
Yeah, yeah, I like it, thankyou.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Yeah, so it's not always driving these deeper
connections that are needed inorder to flourish and truly be
resilient in life.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Yeah, that's fascinating.
It reminds me of the threeneeds we're born with safety,
satisfaction and connection.
But it reminds me of what aprofessor at BYU once said when
I was an undergrad there.
He said you can never get me of.
What a professor at BYU oncesaid when I was an undergrad
there.
He said you can never getenough of what you don't need.
Use what you don't need willnever satisfy you.
It's this pursuit of thispleasure and this satisfaction
(26:04):
and this drive.
If it's not tied to connectionin some way in relationships,
it'll end up feeling hollow, Iguess, and not truly fulfilling
and meaningful.
Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Yeah, I like the word hollow there.
Again, we pursue things that wethink will make us happy that
ultimately don't work that wayall the time.
It's a pretty common thing andit should be a pretty
understandable thing.
It's very normal to think thatwe're on the right track to
(26:37):
pursue something, thinking thisis going to be what I need, and
then ultimately it doesn't endup working out and kind of leads
to a reevaluation of sorts.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
We'll be right back after this brief message.
And we're back, let's diveright in, nate.
I also know your line ofresearch has included over the
years a combination of sexuality, of religion and virtues, even.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
How do you see these topics connecting with what
we're discussing today?
Yeah, so, starting withsexuality, this is actually the
topic.
That kind of was the startingpoint in me getting into some of
these topics that we'reprimarily focusing on today.
So I started off kind of myprimary research interest was on
pornography.
I was concerned with theinfluence that it was having on
relationships, and that led tojust kind of some deeper
(27:44):
questions about some of themixed findings on pornography
research.
So predominantly, researchsuggests that pornography is
harmful to relationships.
But there is enough mixedfindings, for example, showing
some studies show that whenpeople view pornography together
, they're reporting more sexualsatisfaction, for example.
(28:04):
So I had the question well, whyare we getting some
inconsistency in these findings?
So as I dove deeper into thedifferent studies that are out
there, I started to realize, oh,we have this issue with the way
that people are definingsatisfaction.
So if you ask someone that'sbeen in a relationship for a few
months, how sexually satisfiedare you on a scale of one to 10?
(28:29):
Do you think that looks thesame for a couple that's been
married for 20 years On a scaleof one to 10, do you think that
looks the same for a couplethat's been married for 20 years
.
On a scale of one to 10, howsexually satisfied are you?
So I started to realize that,oh, there can be different ideas
of what people consider to besatisfying and again, sometimes
we can find things that aresatisfying that ultimately
aren't the best for us in thelong term.
(28:52):
So with something likepornography, this idea that,
yeah, so people might usepornography trying to get this
deeper fulfillment inrelationships, but I would argue
that ultimately it'sshort-lived, that it might
quote-unquote, spice things upin certain situations for a
(29:12):
period of time, but thelong-term ramifications of it,
uh, I have real concerns aboutobjectification within
pornography, the separation ofidentity from sexuality, and the
basic idea is you can't lovesomeone completely for who they
are if you accept a message ofsexuality without identity.
(29:32):
So we have this basic idea herethat we dive deeper into what
ultimately makes a high qualityrelationship, particularly a
sexual relationship, you canstart to understand more clearly
oh, this is how and whypornography is inconsistent with
what a healthy relationshipwill look like for people.
So that was kind of how thiswhole line of thought got
(29:56):
started and in looking at thatit motivated me to ask deeper
questions about what a goodsexual relationship is moving
beyond satisfaction to capturingsome of these things like
belonging, growth, meaning inthe relationship, and from there
it just kind of has gone in allthese other directions of just
(30:17):
relationships as a whole andlife as a whole and how we can
maximize flourishing andresilience in life.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Yeah, that's great.
Thanks, Nick.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
Go ahead, mate, Please go ahead.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Yeah, if it's something to say on sexuality
like, yeah, I'm just going tojump to the next one.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Yeah, it's very good.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
We can stay on that.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
Let's do that, my friend.
It's pretty common in privatepractice to hear about sexual
intimacy and the struggles thatcouples are facing, and you've
done a lot of research in thisarea, even tying it to gratitude
, which I'm so curious about.
What have you learned that youwant to share with our listeners
today, those practical tipsyou've come across, my friend?
Yeah, some practical tips.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Um, there are as many people you can scratch that.
Uh, there are.
Uh, there are as many sexualrelationships as there are
relationships between people,right?
So at the end of the day, yourspouse is going to be the most
(31:26):
important expert you can turn towith things like this.
Yeah, so with that, I'm alittle hesitant of being overly
prescriptive of some of thesethings, but certainly happy to
talk about principles and, yeah,there can be some specifics,
but I want to start with thatcaveat of this is so
individualized and so specificto each relationship, but some
(31:49):
general ideas that, when itcomes to sexuality, it's
valuable to consider thebiological, the psychological
and the relational.
All of these things are workingtogether and in order to have a
good sexual relationship, uh,those are all good check-in
points of what might be going on.
So, for example, if the overallrelationship you have with your
(32:13):
spouse is not good, it's goingto be really hard to be
fulfilled sexually.
At the same, you might have areally great relationship with
your spouse.
But if you are dealing withsome major trauma from past
sexual experiences, no matterhow good your relationship is
with your current spouse, theremight be some things that you
(32:35):
need to go to therapy to addresssome of these more
psychological points from pasthard experiences.
You might have things reallywonderful in your relationship
and you might have a veryhealthy psychological
perspective when it comes tosexuality, but there are some
very real biological challengesthat make it hard to be
(32:56):
fulfilled sexually and thatmight require a little bit more
medical intervention in tryingto figure out what's going on
there.
So trying to focus from all ofthese different prongs and being
able to be open and realizethat kind of all of these things
need to be working inconjunction with each other is
very healthy for maximizing thelikelihood of having a better
(33:19):
sexual relationship.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
And so just summarizing that Nate, the
psychological, the biologicalright Things in your body, the
kind of the way that you processthings, view things, and then
the relational in thatrelationship.
Yeah, well, said that they allspill over and affect that.
But what about some of theother topics religion, virtues,
yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
So on the subject of religion, I've been doing a lot
of research on sacredexperiences and a sense of
transcendence, if you will, andthis is an idea to still iron
out and keep thinking on.
But I would argue, in many waystranscendent experiences are
kind of the opposite oftraumatic experiences.
(34:03):
So traumatic experiences are anintense amount of distressing
change in a short amount of time.
I would argue that in many ways, transcendent experiences are
an intense amount of positivechange in a short period of time
, extremely powerful experiences, and there's actually good
research out there highlightingthat this is something that can
(34:23):
get people out of some reallypainful ruts.
Just one quick example this isfrom several years ago but it
happened here in Utah.
Chris Williams, drunk driver,killed his wife and two children
and there's a really movingexperience where he talks about
having this sense oftranscendence and just kind of
this spiritual healing that hehad from the pain of that
(34:48):
experience to the point that hewas able to forgive this young
man who killed his wife and kidsand became something of a
mentor figure to him.
It became something of a mentorfigure to him.
I would argue that that's goingsomething beyond rational type
of experience.
It's hard to just kind ofexplain that and logic your way
through that type of experienceto get to that point of healing.
And regardless of what yourspiritual or religious beliefs
(35:12):
are, there's something to besaid about the potential for
religion to help us access thesetypes of transcendent
experiences that can break usout of being really stuck in
this sense of pain and sorrowfrom the different hard things
that life throws at us.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
What Chris Williams went through.
I mean, that's what you callthe capital R right are right
yeah, that um yeah, definitelyit's yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
So yeah, I don't I guess it depends on the way
you're looking at it definitelya capital.
I guess you might say acapitalist stressor or something
like that.
Um, and I don't know, I don'tknow if he would describe that
experience leading to an overallnet benefit in life, but I
think it's clear to say that heachieved an incredible amount of
(36:07):
resilience where many mightdeem it to seem impossible to do
that under such a painful typeof thing like that.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
It's a remarkable story, yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
What about virtues?
Speaker 2 (36:21):
Nate, yeah, so I would argue that virtues are at
the heart of success in thisarea.
Lots of people talk aboutcommunication, and that's
definitely important.
Strict definition ofcommunication.
What I want to successfully sayis understood by my partner.
That matters.
To successfully say isunderstood by my partner, that
(36:43):
matters.
At the same time, you mightcounterpoint that it doesn't
matter how effectively you'recommunicating if you're
communicating your distaste foreach other.
Accurately having my messageunderstood isn't sufficient.
With that, I like to joke thatthere's been practitioners that
have used the talking stick soyou can only communicate while
(37:04):
you're holding the stick andthen pass it on to someone else
for them to be able tocommunicate.
Sometimes people get sofrustrated with each other they
just end up wanting to beat theother with the stick.
So communication matters, butthere's something more at the
heart of things.
Virtues are a bit deeper and Iwould argue that successful
(37:27):
communication is likely anextension of people who are
forgiving, grateful, humble.
If you hold these types ofvirtuous characteristics more,
successful communication is morelikely to become kind of an
offshoot of that, and that'ssomething I'd really love to see
(37:48):
more work done on.
So there's some researchsuggesting that interventions
surrounding communication don'thave the same staying power.
It might help things in theshort term but it doesn't fix
kind of the core issues involved.
And again, not saying it'sproblematic to focus on
communication, I'm saying thatsolely focusing on communication
(38:11):
without focusing on some ofthese deeper, underlying issues
is insufficient.
So there's some trickiness toit.
I think a lot of people focus oncommunication because it is
quicker and practical of saythese things, do these things.
Here's how you effectivelycommunicate.
It's a lot easier to get tosome of the hows.
When you talk about some of thevirtues, it's like be more
(38:33):
humble.
Being instructed of that can bea bit more challenging.
Being instructed of that can bea bit more challenging.
So I think that there'ssomething to be said about
trying to inspire virtues inpeople.
Communication can be moreeffectively interwoven through
instruction.
I would argue that virtues, weneed a lot of inspiration.
(38:55):
Find exemplars of people thatyou want to be like and allow
their experiences to inspire youtowards developing some of the
virtues that are good inrelationships with them.
Speaker 3 (39:08):
Nice.
I hope you write that book onvirtues in marriage.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
So thank you, we love that.
Yeah, that's right, let's getgoing.
So thank you, I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Yeah, I love that.
Just that whole idea, though,and you and I I mean if you've
written and talked about thisbefore, uh, in other areas but
just this whole idea that it'sboth it takes both skill and
will write this this soft, thisopen um heart, because, yeah,
you can teach all these skills,whileally Goddard likes to say
it's like the shiny outside ofthe sports car, but it's the
(39:39):
inside underneath and the engine.
That's real where the power is,and that's more about getting
our hearts right, our heartsopen to being compassionate,
yeah, to humble, grateful, allthose other types of virtues.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
So yeah, love that Yep, like that language.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
Yeah, singing my tune , my friend.
That language yeah, singing mytune, my friend.
Well, hey, nate.
Before we wrap up, uh, we'dlike to ask all of our our
guests a couple of questions.
Uh, the first one, in honor ofthe name of our, our podcast the
stronger marriage connection.
What do you feel like is is akey to a stronger marriage
connection?
Speaker 2 (40:13):
I appreciate that language of a key, because
there's so many things and uh,yeah, I definitely can't
definitively say this is thething, but it is helpful.
Uh, just piggybacking off ofwhat I was saying earlier, I'd
say to try to find couples thatinspire you.
(40:34):
So I'd say, be on the lookoutfor the best relationships that
are out there, see what they'redoing and let what they're doing
motivate you and hopefully youhave something more proximal.
Hopefully people are able tolook to their parents' marriages
and be able to find some things.
That's not everyone, noteveryone.
(40:56):
Maybe sometimes they findsomeone else in the community
where they're able to find thisbeautiful example of what they
want to have in theirrelationship and maybe, if
they're struggling with that,they can go to other sources.
There are a lot of beautifulstories in literature and film
that have very detaileddescriptions of how truly
(41:17):
inspiring marriages can come tofruition, and I think being on
the lookout for those examplesand doing our best to have
experiences that motivate us toemulate those and trying to
follow those examples is onething that can be very helpful
(41:38):
in developing a strongermarriage connection.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
I love that, nate, and in some ways I think back.
As you're mentioning that, Imean specific names and faces
and couples and people that haveinspired me to be a little bit
better and in some ways I almostwant to say that they're
transcendent.
Not this overpowering, but likethis person has inspired me to
be better.
I want to be more patient as ahusband or be a better dad
because of those.
So it is.
(42:04):
I love that.
We have never heard that on thepodcast and, yeah, I love that
answer.
So thank you.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
Yeah, and I love what you say there.
I think that there's a veryclose tie between inspiration
and transcendent experiences, soyeah, I love the connection
between those.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
Dr Lenhardt, please tell us where can our listeners
find out more about you, yourresearch and other helpful
resources that you would like toshare, please?
Speaker 2 (42:33):
Yeah, I'm happy to send some links for this.
You can look me up on a websitecalled Google Scholar.
It has a list of everythingthat I've published.
I'm always happy to answerquestions that people have on
things.
You can look at my email and ifthere's a particular
publication that seemsinteresting to you topic, want
(42:55):
to know more about it?
I'm very happy to answerquestions and chat about it.
Want to know more about it?
I'm very happy to answerquestions and chat about it.
I also did recently publish abook.
It's not as much focusedspecifically on marriage, but it
does more broadly focused onvirtues, so it's called the
Science of Virtue, a Frameworkfor Research.
The virtue stuff is stuff thatsounds particularly interesting
(43:16):
to anyone.
Yeah, you can definitely lookinto that book.
I'm very happy with the workthat me and my co-authors have
done.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
Yeah, awesome, nate, we're going to plug that.
We're going to put links tothat our listeners both the
Google Scholar and a link toyour book in our show notes for
our listeners.
So go check those out.
Speaker 3 (43:37):
And just real quick, dave, do you mind if I ask Nate?
I'm sorry, nate, did you lookat William Bennett's book, the
Book of Virtue?
Is that a really thick book?
Say the name again the Book of.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
Virtues by William Bennett.
Virtues by William Bennett.
I don't know if I've read thatspecifically Up to this point.
Speaker 3 (43:53):
that's really the only thing I have seen on
Virtues.
To tell you the truth, I'm sureit's out there.
I haven't done a deep dive, butnow I've got the Science of
Virtue by Nate Lenhart, so goodenough.
Thank you for telling us.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
Yeah, for sure, thank you.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Nate.
Another question we have foryou is we like to conclude with?
Is really your takeaway of theday?
Is there a take-home messageyou hope our listeners will
remember from our discussiontoday?
Speaker 2 (44:28):
Yeah, so a couple of quick nuggets.
I think it's important torecognize the complexity of
relationships and I want to saythat nobody is completely whole
and nobody is completely broken.
We all need people.
We all need people close to us.
We all need a little help andhopefully, wherever we are on
that spectrum of hold to broken,we're able to turn to the
(44:51):
people closest to us inestablishing more of that sense
of resilience, of just trulybeing able to help each other,
because we all need a little bitof help.
Speaker 1 (44:59):
Yeah, love it, thanks , nate.
Able to help each other,because we all need a little bit
of help.
Yeah, love it, Thanks Nate.
Liz, what about you?
What's your takeaway today?
Speaker 3 (45:06):
I'm just thinking about that.
No one is completely whole orcompletely broken in how we need
each other.
It's so beautiful.
I love this whole idea, nateand Dave, of anchoring into
meaning not so much happiness,but anchoring into the meaning
of life, the meaning of thismarriage, the meaning of this
particular relationship.
I love that.
(45:26):
And Dave, what about you?
What's the richest nugget thatyou hope we will all remember
from our time together with DrNathan Lenhart?
Speaker 1 (45:34):
Yeah, nate, I haven't heard the capital R, lowercase
r, resilient stuff.
So I love that insight.
But I think that my biggesttakeaway is the traumatic to the
transcendent.
We've heard of ACEs, all thoseawful experiences that people
can have, those adversechildhood experiences, but also
(46:00):
I've seen the HOPE document, thehelpful outcomes of positive
experiences, and so that's whatit kind of reminds me of.
But I would love to kind ofdive in and learn a little bit
more about those transcendentexperiences, about the
inspirational people, peoplethat want whether it's music or
people or experiences that helpme, inspire me to be a little
bit better and do a little bitbetter as a husband and as a dad
.
So, thank you, I love thoseinsights.
(46:22):
I'm taking those with me today,so I appreciate that, nate.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
Nate, thanks again for coming on, that's all for
now.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Thanks for joining us today.
Our friends, thanks so much fortuning in.
Speaker 1 (46:32):
We'll see you again next time on another episode of
the Stronger Marriage ConnectionPodcast.
Speaker 3 (46:37):
That's right, and remember it's the small things
that create a stronger marriageconnection.
Speaker 1 (46:42):
Take good care of yourself.
Be sure to smash the likebutton, leave a comment and
share this episode with a friend.
You can also follow andinteract with us on Instagram,
at Stronger Marriage Life, andFacebook at Stronger Marriage,
so be sure to share with uswhich topics you loved or which
guests we should have on theshow.
Next, If you want even moreresources to improve your
marriage or relationshipconnection, visit
(47:04):
StrongerMarriageorg, whereyou'll find free workshops,
e-courses, in-depth webinars,relationship surveys and more.
Each episode of StrongerMarriage Connection is hosted
and sponsored by the UtahMarriage Commission at Utah
State University.
And finally, a big thanks toour producer, Rex Polanis, and
(47:25):
the team at Utah StateUniversity and you, our audience
.
You make this show possible.
The opinions, findings,conclusions and recommendations
expressed in this podcast do notnecessarily reflect the views
of the Utah Marriage Commission.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.