Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm happy to have joining us doctor Scott Stanley. He's
a research professor at the University of Denver. He's been
studying relationships since the nineteen eighties, so I'm excited to
pick his brain at a time when it feels like
interpersonal relationships are honestly at an all time low. I
have this conversation with my fifteen year old daughter all
(00:21):
the time. I have said to her more than one occasion,
your generation is getting screwed because my generation hung out
together and we had fun together, and we did things
that happy, healthy humans needed to do, and then throw
in politics and it's just this stew of the nonsense.
And so doctor Stanley, with some of his colleagues, has
(00:42):
updated a book that has been now out for four
editions called Fighting for Your Marriage, specifically based on some
of those issues we're facing today.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Doctor Stanley, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Great to be on your show, Manny. Thank you well.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
I'm happy to have you because we talk about this
quite a bit on the program, about the kind of
polarization and ostracization that happens even within families because of politics,
and this, to me is the is the worst kind
of estrangement. So when you talk to people or study
(01:17):
people are that are in this situation. Do you have
any common threads that you start to hear about how
these situations end up with alienation and estrangement rather than
just disagreement.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
I think there's a number of common threads, and one
that's often maybe not directly expressed, but that's in the
air we breathe Q did a really nice survey in
twenty twenty two and they showed a huge shift since
just twenty sixteen in people moving towards seeing people that
(01:52):
vote differently than them as immoral. So not just ideas
to be defeated or things to hash out politically, but
there's something defective with you.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
You're immoral.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
And I think what we're seeing now, and I think
everybody knows instances of it, whether hopefully it's not happening
in an own family and their own marriage and relationship,
but I think we're seeing that come home for a
lot of people, where they really see you as like
you're an enemy, you're not my evil house, you're not
my mate, and they let that bring everything else down.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
And that's another thing that I think is incredibly important,
is the dehumanization or the otherization of people who disagree
with you, and I got to go to the Democratic
National Convention to cover it, which was great from that perspective,
but from a personal perspective it was very It was
(02:45):
nice to be reminded that the people that were at
that convention were just like the people that were at
the Republican National Convention. They just held different viewpoints when
it came to politics.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
But they all love the.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Country, right, they all love this country. We're just arguing
about what it is is best for this country. And
they're not evil, and they don't have horns or tails.
They're just nice people.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
And people have also so again, people dehumanize others, they
see people as immoral. They but when they actually learn,
it helps people to learn because you can learn this
if you interact with other people, that people don't actually
see you as negatively as you think they do just
because you vote differently, that it's really different. I'm reminded
(03:31):
of the video that's one of my favorite little videos
on YouTube, and this can go a different way. But
you see two dogs like behind a sliding glass door, yelling, screaming,
going I'm going to tear you apart. You can just
imagine the conversation and they're barking, and then somebody opens
the sliding door and they're like they're.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Just so hey.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
They're like, oh, hey, hey, you know, you're okay.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
And I think one of the things that and you
talk about this kind of thing pretty often, one of
the things that's part of this environment that's really hurting
families and couples now is that as individuals in couples,
people are not in community anymore. They're not out in
the community. They're at home, they're insulated, they're just inhaling
(04:14):
their media diet that's really tailored to their preferences, and
they're not knowing people that think and believe differently and
able them to find out, well, you're not actually inhuman,
you're not evil. I might think some of your policies
are pretty bad, and you might think some that I
would like a pretty bad but you're an okay person.
(04:35):
That actually happens. But we have lost a lot of
common public space where people would be you know, church
bowling leagues. You know, Robert Putnam's book Bowling Alone just
really nails this. Pta meetings. People are just not out
around others that are different from them as much as
(04:56):
they used to be, and that allow people to realize,
you know, people are okay. A lot of other people
are okay, even if they don't believe the same way
I believe.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
I just had a conversation with a friend who said
she was with a bunch of likes or she has
young children, so there's a large group of moms that
kind of gather at playgrounds or whatever, and they've been
doing this for two years before anyone brought up politics.
And they were pretty evenly split down the middle of
people on the left and people.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
On the right.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
And she said there was this moment of shock where
they all realized how well they all got along and
liked each other, and they had never talked about politics,
and they made they just made a pact and said, Okay,
we'll never bring this up again, and we want to protect.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
What we have.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Is how do you do that if you've decided and
you know, like I have family members that are very
left of where I am. Do you just have to say,
you know what, don't ask, don't tell, we're not going
to have these conversations, or how do you begin to
move forward to secure the relationships.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
I think I think of that as the last step
in the things that I recommend, and that is like
if you as Let's just take a couple for example,
but this works just as well as a family. If
you can't do it, you have different views and whenever
it comes up, it puts you in a bad place,
It drives you apart, it gets snarky, just like your
(06:15):
two talking heads on TV, you know, just going at it.
If you can't find the other ways to do this
and to handle it well, then find good ways to
stop it. But beyond that, I really encourage people to
look for ways to respect the partner, to show that
they can hear and they understand what they believe.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
There are some couples.
Speaker 4 (06:39):
I do think this is kind of rare, and I
don't think we have an estimate on the number. There
are some couples with political differences where the partners actually
can get intimacy out of it. I mean they enjoy
talking about it. It's like two people talking about their
sports teams, and they don't turn it into that inhumane
stuff and to really dissing each other. And I think
(07:03):
the way that that must happen is that couple not
only can they munic to talk without fighting and that's
something we focus on a lot in our book as
ways to talk without fighting. But they're probably also able
to keep the positive connection in the relationship alive by it.
You know, they do things they've ever done that are
(07:23):
fun and relaxing for the two of them, and they
keep that connection. And I'll bet if they do have
some you know, conflict there that gets a little upsetting,
I'll bet they're pretty good at keeping that topic out
of the most.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Relaxing times that they have.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
Like we're just taking a walk and we do disagree
about some policy, Well, that's not the time to bring
it up. That's not the time to chat about it.
You just have certain times in your relationship that are
set apart from the stuff that doesn't go well for
the two of you, And that takes what I call
deciding rather than sliding, because we slide into like bad
(07:59):
places and patterns all the time, and you too might
have to make a decision about we're not going to
do that. Let's not let this political season wreck all
this other great stuff that we have together.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
So let me ask you a question about family specifically,
because this has been something that I have experienced, not
within my family, but within my friend group, there's always
that person that can't not talk about politics. This is
their entire identity, this is everything they do, consume, can't
(08:31):
pay attention to. They they don't have anything else in
their lives except politics. How do you manage that relationship?
Because if it's somebody that's important to you and you,
I mean I have in my experience people like that
burnout of politics and at some point they tend to
move on to something else that they're also passionate about.
So how do you hang in there until they're through
(08:54):
that all consuming period.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
I think some of the difficulty there is one has
to make a decision how much of this can I
tolerate right now? If this is a person I don't
see very often, and I can sort of hang in
the conversation without it damaging things or damaging the whole
thing for everybody else, that's one strategy, you know. Or
you can look for the edges where there might be
(09:19):
some agreement, or you can do a soft version of
sort of engaging in the discussion but giving some viewpoint
on the other side. I think what's harder to do
for most people, but you can do it, is you
can kind of bring up a sort of time out.
We encourage couples to have ways to take timeouts all
the time when they're getting sideways, you know, to just
(09:40):
not let it be so damaging. And I think, well,
this kind of person you can say, you know today,
I just you know, I want to try just talking
about other things today. Can we just like put that
on hold till we meet another time. You know, we're
all gathered here for this birthday party, it's Thanksgiving or
whatever it is. Sometimes you can without having to like
(10:03):
say time out and having to have agreed on the
idea how you take a time out, you can sort
of push for a time out. Let's sort of put
that over to the side. I get that it's really
important for you, and I think if you're that takes
some assertiveness. But I think sometimes for the good of
the family and the good of a party and the
good of a thing that's going on, somebody has to
sort of step up and say, let's try not to
(10:25):
go there today.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
You you are big on things like watching your media, diet.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
What do you mean by that?
Speaker 4 (10:34):
Well, I think you know, you get to this time
here and this actually gets a little challenging for us,
all Right, I mean, what does the media want to
talk about all the time but this presidential election and
how much is at stake and all this kind of stuff.
But people do know this, there's a ton of other
sorts of media. If we're going to consume a lot
(10:54):
of me I mean, we can stream stuff, we can
watch movies, we can watch shows.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
I was watching.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
YouTube's on like the best tools to buy or the
best you know, age to measure.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
You're tired of that.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
You know, there's a lot of other things we can
distract ourselves with, and we can be interested in in
the media that don't cause more conflict with our family
and that don't rile us up. And that might be
the thing for some people to recognize, does this stuff
just rile me up? And then do I spill over
onto everybody in the home. When that's the case, that's
(11:30):
the time to like cut back. It's kind of cut
those calories back a bit in your media diet and
tone yourself down and help your whole family kind of
calm down a bit.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
I could not agree more.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
And I come from an area of the country where
every place you walk into has the news on twenty
four to seven, every waiting room, every everything, and it's like, Golley,
can we just put it on HGTV for just a
minute and just have a little bit of a break.
So when you're talking to people who are dealing with
a stressful situation, because maybe they're both involved and they
(12:05):
feel deeply and really deeply, and I've gotten some text
messages to this effect, but they're rather rudely worded, so
I'm just going to reword them for you. And there
are things like when we're talking about the murdering of children,
or we're talking about saving the country, or I mean
and you hear it put in those kinds of ways,
(12:26):
And these are really big issues. How do you come
to terms with if you feel passionately on one side
of an issue and you're trying to deal with someone
who feels just as passionately on some of these really
big issues.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
Well, I think when it's it's somebody you either care
a lot about or you have to have a relationship with,
you actually have to make a decision that first off,
maybe do a step into reality a little bit to
ask yourself they feel too strongly as I do about
(13:01):
the other side of this, Do I really think in
this moment I'm going to convert them to my viewpoint,
like what do I really think I'm doing right now?
Or am I just showing that I'm ticked off that
they actually don't get it, that this is so important
you have to make that decision, and that what do
you really think is going to happen here? Because the
main thing that I can say is going to happen
(13:21):
is going to wreck that relationship. So if the two
of you don't figure out a way to pull that
over to the side of the road and move forward
in a different way, that's the one thing for sure
that's going to happen, is you're going to wreck that relationship.
And I would bet most of those people that relationship
matters more in their actual life than having to have
(13:43):
that person agree with them on every single policy thing
that comes up in the US.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Why does it seem like now there are so many
people willing to walk away, especially from familial relationships. I've
gotten multiple text messages while we're chatting of people saying
I don't talk to my parents anymore, or the last
time they talked to me they called me brainwashed and
unreasonable and we haven't spoken since, or don't I've scraped
(14:08):
off family and friendships because this is about saving the country,
not politics. Is there something happening now that makes it
easier for people to just break these ties.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
Well, my view is probably like yours because it was
embedded in what you just said. Is I think that
people are taking in so many messages that make these
arguments existential. And I very well get somebody on a
certain side of a certain view who is going to say,
and some of your listeners are thinking right now it
is existential for me, you know, I actually I really
(14:40):
get that. But to answer your question, I think what
the media has reinforced and that we reinforce in our
minds so easily, is that all of these things threaten everything.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
And that's probably not really true.
Speaker 4 (14:57):
The things are likely not to be as bad as
either side fears from the other side winning, even though
I'm sure I make people mad by saying that. But
America has been you know, if you go back to
like hundreds of years, you know, we it goes up
and down. But America has been fairly nasty in its
(15:18):
politics for ever. I think, I mean, it's not exactly new,
but we do have this tendency to believe that the
sky is falling, and that everything hinges on getting this
right for the next four years, and there's no recovery
if we get it wrong for four years. And that's
really probably not true. And I'm offending some people for
(15:39):
staying that. But if you want to burn the most
important relationships in your life because you believe it's true,
you're probably making a bad decision.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Aimen to that.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
That is something I say all the time. Politicians will
inevitably disappoint you. I want to talk a little bit
about fighting for your marriage the book Positive Steps for
Preventing Divorce and Building a Lasting Love. This is the
and what edition of this book, And I wanted to
ask you, how have you guys? What kind of issues
have you updated over the years, what's changed, and what's
(16:09):
kind of stayed the same.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
So let me just give you a few examples. There's
always things that are sort of new or more clear
coming out in the research. So, for example, I study
a lot about commitment and relationships and how it works.
So one of the things that my colleague Gleaner Rhodes
and I have published a lot of studies on is
what I call asymmetrical commitment. When you have a romantic
(16:34):
relationship where two people are really not on the same
page about how committed they are to each other. So
as that kind of stuff gets clear, there's a section
on that.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
Now.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
There's always been a chapter on commitment in this book,
but there's a section on that now, or things about
again related to commitment, alternative monitoring, which is kind of
checking other people out and monitoring your ex's when you're
in this relationship and how does that affect this relationship?
Now a lot of those trends we talk more about
(17:07):
the ways people meet now very differently than the way
they met thirty or forty years ago. Used to be friends,
social networks, church community, and now it is mostly online.
Is the number one way people meet? Wow, that relates
to this topic today because we expanded the whole section
in this book about different kinds of differences that couple
(17:29):
struggle with, like cultural, political, religious, you know, we've always
talked about, but we've expanded these others because I think
what happens now in romantic relationships is you have more
people now who have met and fallen in love with
somebody without having grown up in the same community, without
having the same cultural context. And that is delightful and
(17:55):
it's a challenge. It's stuff you got to work. Their
family might be so much much more different than when
you've met in the same community at the same high
school and their family was sort of like your family.
So I think changes like that are always happening, and
we can apply a lot of the same things that
we've ever taught about communicating more effectively, managing conflict while
(18:20):
and preserving and protecting the best stuff around what the
culture is now and what people are struggling with.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Now to your point about you know, people are marrying
people that don't have that similar background. In from my
high school graduating class, we have four couples who dated
in high school, went married someone else, were married for
twenty twenty five years, got divorced, and then went back
to their high school sweethearts again, the people they grew
(18:47):
up with and are now married. So it's kind of
goes to exactly what you're talking about. When you don't
have that shared history, that shared sense of space, it
can create specific challenges. I've always told people, and I
believe this, find somebody with the same kind of damage
you have, right if they understand your damage, you're going
to be fucking looking forward, doctor Scott's Stanley things in.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
The same kind of bottom line, Yes, what are your
big things?
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (19:11):
You really?
Speaker 4 (19:13):
I mean I have one friend who says I could
never marry somebody that doesn't recycle. Well that's that, you know,
but they they know you got to know where you're
like deal breakers right are now? I think that's the
trick of dating these days, that we could do a
whole show on the whole dating scene these days we
welcome We.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Have to because I'm so am I'm out of time
right now with you, so we've got to. I'm going
to have you back on for dating. We're going to
talk about dating because that that'd be great.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Let me tell you, that's the biggest frustration I get
via email that has nothing to do with the show,
is where.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Do I meet people in this town? What do I do?
Speaker 1 (19:48):
So we'll have you back on for that, Doctor Scott Shanley.
The book is Fighting for your Marriage. I put a
link to their website that has all the links to
buy the book. Thank you so much for a fascinating conversation.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
Thanks so much, Fanny
I'm happy to have joining us doctor Scott Stanley. He's
a research professor at the University of Denver. He's been
studying relationships since the nineteen eighties, so I'm excited to
pick his brain at a time when it feels like
interpersonal relationships are honestly at an all time low. I
have this conversation with my fifteen year old daughter all
(00:21):
the time. I have said to her more than one occasion,
your generation is getting screwed because my generation hung out
together and we had fun together, and we did things
that happy, healthy humans needed to do, and then throw
in politics and it's just this stew of the nonsense.
And so doctor Stanley, with some of his colleagues, has
(00:42):
updated a book that has been now out for four
editions called Fighting for Your Marriage, specifically based on some
of those issues we're facing today.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Doctor Stanley, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Great to be on your show, Manny. Thank you well.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
I'm happy to have you because we talk about this
quite a bit on the program, about the kind of
polarization and ostracization that happens even within families because of politics,
and this, to me is the is the worst kind
of estrangement. So when you talk to people or study
(01:17):
people are that are in this situation. Do you have
any common threads that you start to hear about how
these situations end up with alienation and estrangement rather than
just disagreement.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
I think there's a number of common threads, and one
that's often maybe not directly expressed, but that's in the
air we breathe Q did a really nice survey in
twenty twenty two and they showed a huge shift since
just twenty sixteen in people moving towards seeing people that
(01:52):
vote differently than them as immoral. So not just ideas
to be defeated or things to hash out politically, but
there's something defective with you.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
You're immoral.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
And I think what we're seeing now, and I think
everybody knows instances of it, whether hopefully it's not happening
in an own family and their own marriage and relationship,
but I think we're seeing that come home for a
lot of people, where they really see you as like
you're an enemy, you're not my evil house, you're not
my mate, and they let that bring everything else down.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
And that's another thing that I think is incredibly important,
is the dehumanization or the otherization of people who disagree
with you, and I got to go to the Democratic
National Convention to cover it, which was great from that perspective,
but from a personal perspective it was very It was
(02:45):
nice to be reminded that the people that were at
that convention were just like the people that were at
the Republican National Convention. They just held different viewpoints when
it came to politics.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
But they all love the.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Country, right, they all love this country. We're just arguing
about what it is is best for this country. And
they're not evil, and they don't have horns or tails.
They're just nice people.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
And people have also so again, people dehumanize others, they
see people as immoral. They but when they actually learn,
it helps people to learn because you can learn this
if you interact with other people, that people don't actually
see you as negatively as you think they do just
because you vote differently, that it's really different. I'm reminded
(03:31):
of the video that's one of my favorite little videos
on YouTube, and this can go a different way. But
you see two dogs like behind a sliding glass door, yelling, screaming,
going I'm going to tear you apart. You can just
imagine the conversation and they're barking, and then somebody opens
the sliding door and they're like they're.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Just so hey.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
They're like, oh, hey, hey, you know, you're okay.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
And I think one of the things that and you
talk about this kind of thing pretty often, one of
the things that's part of this environment that's really hurting
families and couples now is that as individuals in couples,
people are not in community anymore. They're not out in
the community. They're at home, they're insulated, they're just inhaling
(04:14):
their media diet that's really tailored to their preferences, and
they're not knowing people that think and believe differently and
able them to find out, well, you're not actually inhuman,
you're not evil. I might think some of your policies
are pretty bad, and you might think some that I
would like a pretty bad but you're an okay person.
(04:35):
That actually happens. But we have lost a lot of
common public space where people would be you know, church
bowling leagues. You know, Robert Putnam's book Bowling Alone just
really nails this. Pta meetings. People are just not out
around others that are different from them as much as
(04:56):
they used to be, and that allow people to realize,
you know, people are okay. A lot of other people
are okay, even if they don't believe the same way
I believe.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
I just had a conversation with a friend who said
she was with a bunch of likes or she has
young children, so there's a large group of moms that
kind of gather at playgrounds or whatever, and they've been
doing this for two years before anyone brought up politics.
And they were pretty evenly split down the middle of
people on the left and people.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
On the right.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
And she said there was this moment of shock where
they all realized how well they all got along and
liked each other, and they had never talked about politics,
and they made they just made a pact and said, Okay,
we'll never bring this up again, and we want to protect.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
What we have.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Is how do you do that if you've decided and
you know, like I have family members that are very
left of where I am. Do you just have to say,
you know what, don't ask, don't tell, we're not going
to have these conversations, or how do you begin to
move forward to secure the relationships.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
I think I think of that as the last step
in the things that I recommend, and that is like
if you as Let's just take a couple for example,
but this works just as well as a family. If
you can't do it, you have different views and whenever
it comes up, it puts you in a bad place,
It drives you apart, it gets snarky, just like your
(06:15):
two talking heads on TV, you know, just going at it.
If you can't find the other ways to do this
and to handle it well, then find good ways to
stop it. But beyond that, I really encourage people to
look for ways to respect the partner, to show that
they can hear and they understand what they believe.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
There are some couples.
Speaker 4 (06:39):
I do think this is kind of rare, and I
don't think we have an estimate on the number. There
are some couples with political differences where the partners actually
can get intimacy out of it. I mean they enjoy
talking about it. It's like two people talking about their
sports teams, and they don't turn it into that inhumane
stuff and to really dissing each other. And I think
(07:03):
the way that that must happen is that couple not
only can they munic to talk without fighting and that's
something we focus on a lot in our book as
ways to talk without fighting. But they're probably also able
to keep the positive connection in the relationship alive by it.
You know, they do things they've ever done that are
(07:23):
fun and relaxing for the two of them, and they
keep that connection. And I'll bet if they do have
some you know, conflict there that gets a little upsetting,
I'll bet they're pretty good at keeping that topic out
of the most.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Relaxing times that they have.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
Like we're just taking a walk and we do disagree
about some policy, Well, that's not the time to bring
it up. That's not the time to chat about it.
You just have certain times in your relationship that are
set apart from the stuff that doesn't go well for
the two of you, And that takes what I call
deciding rather than sliding, because we slide into like bad
(07:59):
places and patterns all the time, and you too might
have to make a decision about we're not going to
do that. Let's not let this political season wreck all
this other great stuff that we have together.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
So let me ask you a question about family specifically,
because this has been something that I have experienced, not
within my family, but within my friend group, there's always
that person that can't not talk about politics. This is
their entire identity, this is everything they do, consume, can't
(08:31):
pay attention to. They they don't have anything else in
their lives except politics. How do you manage that relationship?
Because if it's somebody that's important to you and you,
I mean I have in my experience people like that
burnout of politics and at some point they tend to
move on to something else that they're also passionate about.
So how do you hang in there until they're through
(08:54):
that all consuming period.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
I think some of the difficulty there is one has
to make a decision how much of this can I
tolerate right now? If this is a person I don't
see very often, and I can sort of hang in
the conversation without it damaging things or damaging the whole
thing for everybody else, that's one strategy, you know. Or
you can look for the edges where there might be
(09:19):
some agreement, or you can do a soft version of
sort of engaging in the discussion but giving some viewpoint
on the other side. I think what's harder to do
for most people, but you can do it, is you
can kind of bring up a sort of time out.
We encourage couples to have ways to take timeouts all
the time when they're getting sideways, you know, to just
(09:40):
not let it be so damaging. And I think, well,
this kind of person you can say, you know today,
I just you know, I want to try just talking
about other things today. Can we just like put that
on hold till we meet another time. You know, we're
all gathered here for this birthday party, it's Thanksgiving or
whatever it is. Sometimes you can without having to like
(10:03):
say time out and having to have agreed on the
idea how you take a time out, you can sort
of push for a time out. Let's sort of put
that over to the side. I get that it's really
important for you, and I think if you're that takes
some assertiveness. But I think sometimes for the good of
the family and the good of a party and the
good of a thing that's going on, somebody has to
sort of step up and say, let's try not to
(10:25):
go there today.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
You you are big on things like watching your media, diet.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
What do you mean by that?
Speaker 4 (10:34):
Well, I think you know, you get to this time
here and this actually gets a little challenging for us,
all Right, I mean, what does the media want to
talk about all the time but this presidential election and
how much is at stake and all this kind of stuff.
But people do know this, there's a ton of other
sorts of media. If we're going to consume a lot
(10:54):
of me I mean, we can stream stuff, we can
watch movies, we can watch shows.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
I was watching.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
YouTube's on like the best tools to buy or the
best you know, age to measure.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
You're tired of that.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
You know, there's a lot of other things we can
distract ourselves with, and we can be interested in in
the media that don't cause more conflict with our family
and that don't rile us up. And that might be
the thing for some people to recognize, does this stuff
just rile me up? And then do I spill over
onto everybody in the home. When that's the case, that's
(11:30):
the time to like cut back. It's kind of cut
those calories back a bit in your media diet and
tone yourself down and help your whole family kind of
calm down a bit.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
I could not agree more.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
And I come from an area of the country where
every place you walk into has the news on twenty
four to seven, every waiting room, every everything, and it's like, Golley,
can we just put it on HGTV for just a
minute and just have a little bit of a break.
So when you're talking to people who are dealing with
a stressful situation, because maybe they're both involved and they
(12:05):
feel deeply and really deeply, and I've gotten some text
messages to this effect, but they're rather rudely worded, so
I'm just going to reword them for you. And there
are things like when we're talking about the murdering of children,
or we're talking about saving the country, or I mean
and you hear it put in those kinds of ways,
(12:26):
And these are really big issues. How do you come
to terms with if you feel passionately on one side
of an issue and you're trying to deal with someone
who feels just as passionately on some of these really
big issues.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
Well, I think when it's it's somebody you either care
a lot about or you have to have a relationship with,
you actually have to make a decision that first off,
maybe do a step into reality a little bit to
ask yourself they feel too strongly as I do about
(13:01):
the other side of this, Do I really think in
this moment I'm going to convert them to my viewpoint,
like what do I really think I'm doing right now?
Or am I just showing that I'm ticked off that
they actually don't get it, that this is so important
you have to make that decision, and that what do
you really think is going to happen here? Because the
main thing that I can say is going to happen
(13:21):
is going to wreck that relationship. So if the two
of you don't figure out a way to pull that
over to the side of the road and move forward
in a different way, that's the one thing for sure
that's going to happen, is you're going to wreck that relationship.
And I would bet most of those people that relationship
matters more in their actual life than having to have
(13:43):
that person agree with them on every single policy thing
that comes up in the US.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Why does it seem like now there are so many
people willing to walk away, especially from familial relationships. I've
gotten multiple text messages while we're chatting of people saying
I don't talk to my parents anymore, or the last
time they talked to me they called me brainwashed and
unreasonable and we haven't spoken since, or don't I've scraped
(14:08):
off family and friendships because this is about saving the country,
not politics. Is there something happening now that makes it
easier for people to just break these ties.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
Well, my view is probably like yours because it was
embedded in what you just said. Is I think that
people are taking in so many messages that make these
arguments existential. And I very well get somebody on a
certain side of a certain view who is going to say,
and some of your listeners are thinking right now it
is existential for me, you know, I actually I really
(14:40):
get that. But to answer your question, I think what
the media has reinforced and that we reinforce in our
minds so easily, is that all of these things threaten everything.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
And that's probably not really true.
Speaker 4 (14:57):
The things are likely not to be as bad as
either side fears from the other side winning, even though
I'm sure I make people mad by saying that. But
America has been you know, if you go back to
like hundreds of years, you know, we it goes up
and down. But America has been fairly nasty in its
(15:18):
politics for ever. I think, I mean, it's not exactly new,
but we do have this tendency to believe that the
sky is falling, and that everything hinges on getting this
right for the next four years, and there's no recovery
if we get it wrong for four years. And that's
really probably not true. And I'm offending some people for
(15:39):
staying that. But if you want to burn the most
important relationships in your life because you believe it's true,
you're probably making a bad decision.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Aimen to that.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
That is something I say all the time. Politicians will
inevitably disappoint you. I want to talk a little bit
about fighting for your marriage the book Positive Steps for
Preventing Divorce and Building a Lasting Love. This is the
and what edition of this book, And I wanted to
ask you, how have you guys? What kind of issues
have you updated over the years, what's changed, and what's
(16:09):
kind of stayed the same.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
So let me just give you a few examples. There's
always things that are sort of new or more clear
coming out in the research. So, for example, I study
a lot about commitment and relationships and how it works.
So one of the things that my colleague Gleaner Rhodes
and I have published a lot of studies on is
what I call asymmetrical commitment. When you have a romantic
(16:34):
relationship where two people are really not on the same
page about how committed they are to each other. So
as that kind of stuff gets clear, there's a section
on that.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
Now.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
There's always been a chapter on commitment in this book,
but there's a section on that now, or things about
again related to commitment, alternative monitoring, which is kind of
checking other people out and monitoring your ex's when you're
in this relationship and how does that affect this relationship?
Now a lot of those trends we talk more about
(17:07):
the ways people meet now very differently than the way
they met thirty or forty years ago. Used to be friends,
social networks, church community, and now it is mostly online.
Is the number one way people meet? Wow, that relates
to this topic today because we expanded the whole section
in this book about different kinds of differences that couple
(17:29):
struggle with, like cultural, political, religious, you know, we've always
talked about, but we've expanded these others because I think
what happens now in romantic relationships is you have more
people now who have met and fallen in love with
somebody without having grown up in the same community, without
having the same cultural context. And that is delightful and
(17:55):
it's a challenge. It's stuff you got to work. Their
family might be so much much more different than when
you've met in the same community at the same high
school and their family was sort of like your family.
So I think changes like that are always happening, and
we can apply a lot of the same things that
we've ever taught about communicating more effectively, managing conflict while
(18:20):
and preserving and protecting the best stuff around what the
culture is now and what people are struggling with.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Now to your point about you know, people are marrying
people that don't have that similar background. In from my
high school graduating class, we have four couples who dated
in high school, went married someone else, were married for
twenty twenty five years, got divorced, and then went back
to their high school sweethearts again, the people they grew
(18:47):
up with and are now married. So it's kind of
goes to exactly what you're talking about. When you don't
have that shared history, that shared sense of space, it
can create specific challenges. I've always told people, and I
believe this, find somebody with the same kind of damage
you have, right if they understand your damage, you're going
to be fucking looking forward, doctor Scott's Stanley things in.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
The same kind of bottom line, Yes, what are your
big things?
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (19:11):
You really?
Speaker 4 (19:13):
I mean I have one friend who says I could
never marry somebody that doesn't recycle. Well that's that, you know,
but they they know you got to know where you're
like deal breakers right are now? I think that's the
trick of dating these days, that we could do a
whole show on the whole dating scene these days we
welcome We.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Have to because I'm so am I'm out of time
right now with you, so we've got to. I'm going
to have you back on for dating. We're going to
talk about dating because that that'd be great.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Let me tell you, that's the biggest frustration I get
via email that has nothing to do with the show,
is where.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Do I meet people in this town? What do I do?
Speaker 1 (19:48):
So we'll have you back on for that, Doctor Scott Shanley.
The book is Fighting for your Marriage. I put a
link to their website that has all the links to
buy the book. Thank you so much for a fascinating conversation.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
Thanks so much, Fanny
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