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April 23, 2025 21 mins

In this episode, Randy and Beverly discuss how relationships are often seen as "bad" in a moment when a broader view might help both partners see things a little differently. When relationships encounter trouble, the human brain goes into protection mode and notices all the bad stuff, while almost completely ignoring the good stuff. Plus, in this episode, you get to learn the word agathokakological and see if your relationship is like a Florida Neighborhood Watch Program. 

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Episode Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Welcome to Heart vs.
Head, a podcast that helpscouples communicate and fight
better.
Here are your hosts, RandiHampton and Beverly Craddock.

SPEAKER_01 (00:21):
Today I want to talk about something that a client
brought in last week and I'vehad it many times before that as
well.
This client is a heart like meand she was talking about her
relationship.
She was saying that she's reallynot happy and her problem is

(00:41):
that she notices on social mediathat other couples are happier
or it seems like her partnerdoesn't do as many things or
provide as many needs as shewould like.
And so I asked her, I said,okay, I understand.
I hear that.
Out of 100, what percentage,what number would you say your

(01:06):
relationship is like compared toothers or what?

SPEAKER_02 (01:11):
Perception of others

SPEAKER_01 (01:12):
would be?
Right.
Well, if you take

SPEAKER_02 (01:43):
it as a percentage, 50 is average.
That's the way my brain as asociologist works.
I go, okay, well, 50 is average.
If you're above 50, maybe you'redoing pretty good.

SPEAKER_01 (01:55):
So would love to hear from listeners on this one.
We have an email address if youhave questions, want to weigh

SPEAKER_02 (02:04):
in.
Info atheartandheadcoaching.com.
Info atheartandheadcoaching.com.

SPEAKER_01 (02:09):
Her take on that was that she was pretty shocked
about that.
She had never thought aboutanything less than 90, maybe 80%
in her relationship.
And when we started talkingabout what if 50 is just the
average?
What if 50 is...
That point that we look at andanything above 50, then we feel

(02:35):
like we're pretty good or we'rebuilding

SPEAKER_02 (02:44):
or we're growing.
relationships that are somehowthe good Okay, if you're at 50%

(03:05):
of that, that's still 75.

(03:33):
Always at that, oh, well, thingsare 80%.
I think our brain tricks us.
It just convinces us thatsomehow we're worse than we
thought when we compare to otherpeople.
We're worse than we thought whenwe look at it ourselves.
And there's a reason the braindoes that.

SPEAKER_01 (03:53):
Also, I think the idea of anything above 50 is a
good start is that everythingabout humans is good and bad.
There are parts of my life as amother, for example.
There are parts of my motheringskills that were excellent, but

(04:16):
there were also parts thatweren't.
As a human, we have strengths,we have weaknesses.
And so as a person, whether it'sa parenting role, or even if
it's a job, I like to think thatI'm really good at my job better
than maybe a 50 50, meaning 50%good, but 50% struggle.

(04:37):
But then when it comes to arelationship, how do we quantify
that percentage?
And I think that if we're fair,I think we would say our partner
is somewhere around that 50-50mark.
There's a lot of good that I seein Randy and I's relationship.

(04:58):
There's also things that westill are working on, or even
things that perhaps we strugglewith.

SPEAKER_02 (05:05):
Sure, I think that's true.
But that's true with everycouple.
You're going to have the goodand the bad.
What's the Greek word for that?
Agathococological, I think.
It was actually a British poetthat came up with the word.
But agathococological is thingsthat are composed of both good

(05:25):
and evil.
And there's always this in ourrelationship.
There's the good and the Andthat's just relationships.
That's just any humaninteraction.
There's always good and bad.
We talk about it when we talkabout kids, you know, having

(05:45):
children and everybody goes,children.
And then they put in the workand they go, oh, kids, that's a
lot.
There's always good and bad inthat kind of stuff.
But in a relationship, our brainis just looking at the problems.

(06:06):
It's looking for the troublebecause that's its job.
It's sitting in there trying toprotect us.
So it always sees the bad.
And I think the The other point

SPEAKER_01 (06:57):
would be that a relationship, if it was shooting
for 90%, that's a lot ofpressure.
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 (07:36):
moments and we have days and and there are days i
can tell you i'm a i'm a 20partner there are days and
beverly can tell you all ofthose 20 days there's just days
where they're tough days wheresomething's going on physically
or or somebody's crappy to meand something that's that's
completely not even related tobeverly i'll get an email from

(07:59):
somebody that the that's on aproject i'm working with them on
or something like that and theni'm having a bad day and i'm
turn it into the cranky, youknow, 20% partner that's not
paying attention when Beverly'stalking.
You just, I think you, you hopethat, As a partner, I hope that
there are more 90% days thanthere are 20% days, and it's

(08:25):
certainly what we're allshooting for.

SPEAKER_01 (08:28):
Sure.
We don't start out the morning,oh, I'm going for a 10% today.
Now, I might look at my week andsay to my partner, I've got a
lot of work to do this weekend.
I'm not going to be around.
I'm not going to be able to dothings with you or hang out or
maybe do much, but eat and getthrough my work schedule.

(08:50):
And in that case, we allow forthat, right?
You know, we allow our partnerthose times where they've got to
balance out their life withother things.
And we know that they're a 10%maybe during that time period.
I think the realistic view ofrelationships being not 90, not

(09:11):
80, but maybe 60 or 70 is veryenlightening and Because if we
have that high goal, we're goingto walk around and feel like
we're not hitting it, ourpartner's not hitting it, and
we're going to feel like afailure.
And like Randy said, our minddoes focus on that negative.

(09:34):
I think it's the differencebetween the cup half full, the
cup half empty, that if we lookat it, that 50 is the average or
the balance point, then anythingwe get above that is gravy.
It's really good.
The other thing that people askme is, well, then I feel like
I'm settling.

(09:55):
If I look at my partner and I'mlike, well, he's a 55.
Right.
And I understand that.
Perhaps that person doesn't putin a lot of effort.
However, maybe have aconversation.
I wouldn't go to the person andsay, hey, you're a 55 out of
100.
Can you step it up?

SPEAKER_02 (10:17):
Wait, this isn't Yelp reviews for partners?
No.
That's awesome.
We need to make that app therate your partner app.
And then we could actually workout the average over time and
then people would know whattheir partner is.
With thousands of people.

SPEAKER_01 (10:35):
Because it does change over time.
I think satisfaction is a movingtarget.
It depends on that week, thatyear, that chapter.
Kids, no kids.
I mean, there's so manydifferent moving pieces that
have an impact on satisfaction.
Back to the partner at 55%.

(10:55):
If you have a conversation, itwould be good to touch base with
what is their expectation?
How do they feel?
Maybe ask, well, what percentagewould you give me?
Start with that.
You know, read an article onrelationship satisfaction and
say, hey, this was interesting.
And I'm wondering, how would yourate me as a partner?

(11:17):
How satisfied are you?
It's funny, because I've beenBased on all the hundreds and
thousands of couples we'veworked with, I think heads would
normally give a higher number.
I think a head would say theirheart partner was closer maybe
to an 80%.

SPEAKER_02 (11:35):
Sure.
I think as a head partner, Ilook at our relationship and I
go, it's a 95.
It's so good that I don't worryabout the 5%.
But maybe that's a head.
I don't know.
Where do you put ourrelationship, Beverly?
This is the most dangerousquestion I've asked on this

(11:57):
podcast.
Could be the last question I askon this podcast.
Beverly, where's ourrelationship?
If I say it's at a 95, what areyour thoughts as a heart?

SPEAKER_01 (12:06):
I would say probably about a 90, not as high as
yours.
I think that's in line with mosthearts.
I think hearts have that higherexpectation, higher number.
I think we have that naturally.
And what What we don't realizeis it's not that realistic, and
we don't think about all theother different components that

(12:29):
factor into relationshipsatisfaction.
Things like how well wecommunicate, do I trust this
person, how close we are, what'sour intimacy or sex life, or
even just how we handleconflicts together.
All of those things can weighin, as well as parenting and are
they a good dad, a good parent.

(12:51):
a lot of those things willactually factor into
relationship satisfaction.
So it's very subjective anddifferent for everyone.
I do think that hearts do have alower number or they feel
dissatisfied.
And sometimes they need remindedto look at the whole picture.
I

SPEAKER_02 (13:09):
was reading an article the other day about
astronauts.
And when they return to Earth,there's this, and I don't
remember the word, for it, butthere's a shift...
In how they view humanity,really.

(13:54):
And I think that's kind of theperspective shift we're talking
about is if you step back andyou go, okay, this partner, the
partner that's pissing me offright now, this partner actually
is a good dad or a good mom andis certainly a good friend to

(14:19):
their friends and cares for meand they do make me dinner.
and smile at me sometimes.
And when you start to take alook at that bigger picture,
maybe it gets a little easier.
Beverly is correct.
Hearts are definitely...
Definitely tougher graders ofthe relationship than heads are,

(14:42):
but it's okay.
I'm such a tough grader that Iwould say I'm probably a 75%
partner.
And so when you say 90, my braingoes, woohoo, we're killing it.
And so that's maybe just my takeon it.

SPEAKER_01 (15:01):
It is interesting to look at hearts and heads and how
they view their relationshipsdifferently to have those
communications with each otherto talk about if there are areas
that you want to improve thenyou know find ways that you can
do that to to grow and talkabout your partner about that

(15:24):
see if they have an interest inthat if a partner doesn't want
to do any additional work ifthey're satisfied and don't see
the point in it then that mightbe an area of concern but Yeah.

(16:06):
that Randy and I score so highlyin our satisfaction.
One reason is because even thelittle things, the quote bad in
our relationship is not thatbad, but stuff that we've talked
about, stuff that I understand,stuff that has a very low level

(16:29):
of frustration.
And so it really lets that scorebe much higher.
I think sometimes when clientscome in, If there's something
like an addiction issue, forexample, that can be very
draining and it can pull thatnumber down, I think.

SPEAKER_02 (16:46):
I think, too, that there are life moments that
lessen those numbers.
The thing you really have tokeep in mind, though, is your
brain is looking for trouble.
It's not looking for amazing.
And so...
We see the trouble so easily.

(17:06):
We see the arguments, but wedon't notice that for three
hours before the argument, wewere joking, laughing, sitting
at peace with one another.
We notice the blowups and stuff.
I guess I'll round this out witha quick story, a study I saw
years ago about a neighborhoodwatch program in Florida.

(17:31):
And the neighborhood was havingall the typical kind of
neighborhood problems, you know,people breaking into cars and
doing stuff.
And so the neighborhood said,okay, we're going to set up a
neighborhood watch.
And they did.
And immediately things gotbetter.
They had people wandering aroundat night and in teams and making
sure that there weren't problemsand things.

(17:52):
And everybody kind of got theirassigned nights and it was
working out really well.
And the crime that they were soconcerned about had gone down.
But over time, people startedcomplaining about the
neighborhood watch and wantingit gone.
And the neighborhood eventuallydisbanded their neighborhood
watch because despite the factthat they had had that success,

(18:13):
the people in the neighborhoodwatch, when there were no more
people breaking into cars andstealing catalytic converters to
look for, the neighborhood watchpeople got bored.
And so they were doing thingslike measuring people's grass or
yelling at some jogger forcutting across the street at
four o'clock in the morning andnot using the And so eventually

(18:35):
the neighborhood watch justbecame the nanny police of the
neighborhood.
And I think sometimes that's howour brain works when it comes to
this kind of stuff.
Even when there are no problems,when our relationship is
magical, our brain is lookingfor these problems to solve.
It's got to fix something.
That's its job.

(18:57):
And so recognize that thenegative scoring stuff in this
course.
Anything you want to

SPEAKER_01 (19:10):
add before we get out of here, Beverly?
Just remember that if arelationship is less than 100%,
less than 90% perhaps, much ofour world is the same.
Sometimes we think about otherpeople or politics or even art.
You can stand and look at apiece of art and it can be, I

(19:32):
love this, but I hate this.
that?
How many times do we readsomething on the internet or
social media and it's like, oh,I love this, but I don't like
that.
So a lot of our world is goodand bad, good and evil.
And it's really that balancethat we're looking at.

(19:54):
And when it comes torelationship satisfaction, I
think you need to take intoaccount the whole picture.
Sometimes we feel dissatisfied.
But if we really think about itor make a list, maybe the pros
and cons of this relationship, alot of times I think the numbers
will add up a lot higher than ifwe just focus on, like Randy

(20:17):
said, that one or two thingsthat still are out there that
aren't 100%.

SPEAKER_02 (20:23):
All right.
That's it for this time aroundthe pod.
Thank you, Beverly.
Thank you.
Always fun.
Thanks, everybody, for tuningin.

SPEAKER_00 (20:36):
Thanks for listening to Heart vs.
Head.
You can learn more atheartandheadcoaching.com and
check out new podcast episodesevery Wednesday.
If you have a question for Randyand Beverly, send an email to
info atheartandheadcoaching.com.
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