0:00

Some of the studies I was looking at

0:02

shows that you get married off to thirty

0:04

each additional year of age increases your chance

0:07

of divorce by five percent, and I couldn't

0:09

figure out why. I like it. There

0:11

are several reasons for this. So first about.

0:13

Laurie gotten the renowned

0:15

psychotherapists. Best selling Author: Couples Counselor This

0:18

helps thousands of people find or see a

0:20

relationship. People use the first date as I'm

0:22

supposed to feel this one thing or else

0:24

forget it and people will come into therapy

0:26

and say I didn't feel like butterflies so

0:29

I'm not gonna go out with him again.

0:31

People said they wouldn't go on a second

0:33

date with somebody because he ordered tap water.

0:35

He must be really cheap. there was one

0:38

where somebody. so he did this impression from

0:40

Austin Powers. Yeah baby! Sissy

0:42

nervous He: he's trying to make you laugh.

0:45

About he asks to split the bill. Would that be

0:47

in a. If he doesn't pay, that

0:49

would be a huge it for me.

0:51

Really? But it's really important to

0:53

understand why, which is. Interesting.

0:56

Now your partner has to be your

0:58

best friend. We have the same interest

1:00

he to walk my world and better

1:03

someone who's really ambitious but also really

1:05

family oriented. Go One human could possibly

1:07

do that If you look at what

1:09

are the most important things that would

1:11

predict whether a relationship is going to

1:13

last, these really important are very important

1:15

and then emotional. Is

1:17

really important. What does that? It means.

1:21

You into therapy because of heartbreak? Yes!

1:24

How. Do we navigate through got dark cloud? One

1:26

strategy that might be helpful is.

1:31

Quick. One quick favor to ask for me. There

1:33

was one simple way that you can support our

1:35

show and that is by hitting the follow button

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on this app that you're listening to the show.

1:40

And right now this year, in Twenty Twenty Four.

1:42

We're. Trying really really hard to level up everything

1:45

we're doing and the only free thing will

1:47

ever asked for me is to hit that

1:49

followed by an on this ah but helps

1:51

the show more than I could probably articulate

1:53

and it allows us enables us to keep

1:55

doing what we're doing. Have appreciated dealing. Onto.

1:58

the shock If

2:08

you had to summarize what it is you

2:11

have done for people over the

2:13

last couple of decades, how would

2:15

you summarize that? I would say

2:17

that I help people to learn what gets in

2:19

their way from living the life that they want

2:21

to live. And what departments of their

2:24

life do you tend to focus on? All

2:26

of them, they're all so important. But I think

2:28

it's really about people's relationships. And

2:30

I mean relationship to self. What

2:33

is going on with the way that I

2:35

talk to myself, the way that I make

2:37

decisions and choices, the way that I hold

2:39

myself back? Relationships

2:42

with friends, with romantic partners,

2:44

with family members, with professional

2:47

colleagues, all of it. And

2:49

of all of those subcategories, what

2:51

are the categories within there that people come

2:53

to you advice for most

2:55

often through your podcast, through your articles,

2:57

through your therapy work? Well, it's

2:59

interesting because it's usually somebody coming in and saying,

3:02

I really want something in my life to change.

3:05

And what they want to change is someone else.

3:09

And so I think what they're surprised

3:11

to find is that, yes, there are

3:14

difficult people in their lives. We like

3:16

to say that before diagnosing someone with

3:18

depression, make sure they aren't surrounded by

3:20

assholes. There

3:23

are really difficult people out there. But

3:25

the question is, where's your agency? What

3:28

are the choices that you're making?

3:31

Are you setting boundaries with these people?

3:33

Are you adding to the tension between

3:36

the two of you because you're kind

3:38

of in a dance and you're doing

3:40

some old pattern that you're in with

3:42

this person? So I think it's really

3:44

important to become self-aware and say, what

3:47

am I doing in the world that gets me closer

3:49

to the way that I want to live? And what

3:51

am I doing in the world that keeps me from

3:53

getting there? And since you

3:55

got into this line of work and since your sort

3:57

of education in this area began, what trade

4:00

What changes have you seen in the types of

4:02

questions and the types of issues that are being

4:04

presented to you in a sort of clinical setting

4:06

or online or through your DMs, etc? I

4:08

think most people are really seeking connection of

4:11

some sort that they don't have in their

4:13

lives. And there's a

4:15

sense of being alone, whether it's, I'm

4:17

the only person who feels this way,

4:19

I'm so ashamed, I don't know why

4:21

I'm so anxious or I'm so depressed,

4:23

or it's a feeling of, I

4:25

feel like I have all these sort

4:28

of friends, you know, kind of peripherally

4:30

or friends in the world if you

4:32

look at their social media, but they

4:34

don't really have someone that they could

4:36

call and say, I really need to

4:38

talk to you about this. Who's this

4:40

person you can confide in? You know, there

4:43

are these studies that have been done where

4:45

they looked at, you know, several decades ago,

4:47

how many people said, I have someone close

4:50

that I can call. And

4:52

most people had at least someone, usually

4:54

a few people. Now most

4:56

people have zero people. They

4:58

have said zero, I have nobody that I can

5:01

call and confide in in that deep way. Does

5:03

that mean that there's a greater

5:05

pressure now put on our romantic

5:08

partners to meet more of our

5:10

needs? Yes, absolutely. And that's

5:12

one of the things that I think you

5:14

see in dating, especially with younger generations because

5:17

it used to be that your community

5:19

was there to meet all different kinds

5:21

of needs. So now it's,

5:23

you know, people like to say, well, my partner

5:26

is my best friend. Well, but you

5:28

also have a best friend. Most

5:30

people also have a best friend, right? So

5:32

what happened? Or maybe they don't anymore because of what

5:34

we've been talking about. So the question is now your

5:36

partner has to be your best friend where they are

5:39

there to meet all of your emotional needs. Whereas before

5:41

you had, you know, I could talk to this friend

5:43

about this and I had this friend that my partner

5:45

doesn't like this hobby, but I get to go. My

5:47

partner doesn't like move these kinds of movies, but I

5:50

could go to these kinds of movies with this person

5:52

or, you know, whatever it is. And

5:54

now it's like, we have to kind of have the same

5:56

interests and we have to be able to talk about all

5:58

the same things. We have to, you know, he

6:01

has to rock my world in bed or she has to rock my

6:03

world in bed or they have to read

6:05

my mind. Right? And so

6:07

no one human could possibly do that. There

6:10

is no human who can do that. And

6:12

so what happens is we think something's wrong with

6:15

this relationship if I'm not getting that

6:17

from this person. And what are

6:19

the other sort of big picture items that

6:21

are making it harder for us to be

6:23

satisfied romantically these days? I think,

6:25

again, the sort of expectations of what it

6:28

means to be loved. I

6:30

think that when people really put

6:32

everything into this other person, they

6:34

aren't getting the kinds of emotional

6:36

nourishment that they would be getting

6:38

from the larger community. So whether

6:40

it's extended family that used to be around, most

6:42

people, a lot of people don't even live where

6:44

they grew up anymore. So

6:47

they're kind of putting down roots somewhere else. They

6:50

are kind of, you know, they have to

6:52

form like a whole new group of people.

6:55

There's something to be said for the people who knew you when

6:57

you were young. There's something about

6:59

that, about really being known because I

7:01

think in relationship people really want to

7:04

know and be known. I

7:06

remember I had a couple come in

7:08

and this was so striking to me

7:10

where she said to her

7:12

husband, you know what, three words I really want

7:14

to hear. And he said, I love

7:16

you. And she said, no, I

7:19

understand you. And that

7:22

was so profound that how deep

7:24

a yearning we all have to

7:26

want to be understood. And

7:28

they think that that comes from, you

7:31

know, you have history with people and

7:33

you have shared experiences with people, but

7:35

we're moving around so much nowadays that

7:37

we don't have that history or those shared

7:40

experiences and people didn't know us at different

7:42

times in our lives when you're

7:44

truly known, oh, you went through this

7:46

transformation or you went through this difficult

7:48

time. I remember that fun time we

7:50

had when we were 16 years old. And

7:54

so a lot of people just don't have

7:56

those kind of deeper connections anymore. understood

8:01

that we

8:03

want. Like what is it what is the fundamental there? Is

8:05

it, does it make us

8:07

feel psychologically safer or what is it? Oh

8:10

it makes us less lonely. Okay. If

8:12

you feel like you're the only one

8:14

who understands what's going on for you,

8:16

you're all alone. And that's

8:19

why it's so interesting you know having

8:21

the your therapist podcast or having the

8:23

column where most people write in and

8:25

think that they are alone and yet

8:27

I have thousands of people writing in

8:29

the same exact thing. So they're not

8:31

alone but they think that they're alone.

8:33

They feel no one understands or no

8:35

one would understand. And I see this more

8:37

with men also than with

8:39

women although both I get

8:41

that but it's interesting because

8:43

they think that with men you know often they'll

8:45

come into therapy. Men get into therapy sort of

8:48

one of two ways. They either come in because

8:50

they're in a couple and there's a problem in

8:52

the relationship and so they come into therapy or

8:55

they come in kind of secretively

8:58

like you know no one knows

9:00

I'm here and they'll say I've

9:02

never told anyone this before. And

9:05

the thing that they tell you is something

9:07

that women will talk about quite easily.

9:09

And it's not that men are less

9:11

deep than women. It's that women feel

9:14

more comfortable to over lunch with a

9:16

friend say something like that. And

9:18

when women come in and they say I've never

9:20

told anyone this before they'll say except for my

9:22

mother my sister my best friend. So they've told

9:24

a few people maybe one

9:27

person maybe two maybe three. And

9:29

so I think it's interesting because I

9:31

think that you know men can be

9:34

particularly lonely because they really

9:36

don't have the place to kind of

9:38

connect in the way that women are

9:41

more culturally acceptable

9:43

to do so. Women sometimes

9:45

have an expectation that their partner

9:47

will open up in the same

9:49

way that their best friends will

9:51

open up. And many

9:53

men fall short of that expectation.

9:55

I you know I think

9:57

there's often a narrative that women want a

10:00

man to kind of sit down and talk

10:02

about his problems and open up

10:04

and listen and all those kinds of things that a

10:06

woman might do with her best friends. But men for

10:08

some reasons tend to struggle with that. Yeah,

10:11

well, they women want that and

10:13

they don't want that. So women

10:15

say they want that. And they think that they

10:17

truly mean it when they say they want that.

10:19

But in couples therapy, I'll see something like a

10:22

woman will come in and, you know, she'll say

10:24

that exact thing to her partner, you know, I

10:26

really want you to open up. I feel like

10:28

we're not connecting. I want you to be more

10:30

vulnerable with me. I want you to tell me

10:33

what's going on inside. And

10:35

if he does, and let's say he starts

10:38

crying, tears up, or

10:41

really starts crying, she inevitably

10:43

will have this reaction of I don't feel

10:46

safe when he doesn't open up to me

10:48

because I don't feel connected to him. But

10:50

I don't feel safe when he's that vulnerable

10:52

with me either because there's

10:54

something just some cultural programming in

10:57

her around what it's like

10:59

to be with a man who's crying or a man

11:01

who is vulnerable. And so I think

11:03

that that's really problematic. And I think that

11:05

makes it, you know, kind of harder

11:07

for men to feel like, well, I have a

11:10

safe space to open up. Like it takes a

11:12

lot for a man to really

11:14

feel like, oh, this is something that

11:16

I want to share. Whereas I think women just feel

11:18

a lot more free to do that with their partners.

11:21

I saw a video yesterday that I'm actually going to play to you

11:23

because I saved it. I had

11:25

this conversation. It caused a lot of

11:27

discussion online on Twitter. Okay. So

11:30

this is the video. Okay. Yeah. I

11:32

just want somebody who is obsessed

11:34

with, I want someone obsessed with

11:36

Jesus and who understands and like

11:39

you said, like we can teach us

11:41

things. Like I want my dude to

11:43

speak in tongues and have tattoos. Like

11:46

a nice, classic man. I want somebody who

11:48

will literally text me and beat someone's butt

11:50

if they need to. But also this, that

11:52

there was some passion. It's just like a

11:55

good hearted man. That's what a true man

11:57

is. There has to be that they kind

11:59

of. I mean, it's the same thing

12:01

with feminine women too. There's always a

12:03

dichotomy. There's a softness and a strength.

12:06

And for men, being masculine

12:08

is being able to produce someone's but maybe

12:11

not physically, but being a protector and

12:13

doing what it needs to be to protect

12:15

the family. But then also being soft enough

12:17

to be able to tend to use wife's

12:19

feelings and make them be able to do

12:21

it. That's hilarious. But

12:23

people would say, well, I'm

12:25

not like that. But

12:28

yet, when you actually talk to

12:30

people about when they're dating

12:32

and you're talking to them about what's going on and

12:34

why they're not going out on another date with somebody

12:36

or why they won't even go on a

12:38

first date with somebody, those

12:41

are the kinds of things. That's an exaggerated version

12:43

of the kinds of things that you will hear.

12:45

Which is what kind of things. Like they're

12:47

not 6'4". They're not strong

12:50

and soft at the same time. Yeah, yeah.

12:52

They have to be this and this. I

12:56

want someone who's really, really ambitious but

12:59

also really family-oriented. I want someone...

13:02

These kinds of things that are hard to find

13:04

both of those in equal measure in the same

13:06

person. Someone who's extremely ambitious is probably going to

13:08

spend a lot of time at work. I

13:11

want someone... So I'm 5'2". And

13:14

it would be someone like me saying, and

13:16

he has to be over 6 feet. Really?

13:20

Just all of these kinds of things. So in

13:22

my book, Maringham, I wrote a whole book about

13:24

this because I was looking at how do we

13:26

date today? And what

13:29

are the expectations that we have?

13:31

And the publisher

13:33

called it Maringham, the case for settling

13:36

for Mr. Goodenough. It's not about settling

13:38

at all. It's actually about having higher

13:40

standards, not lower standards, but having higher

13:42

standards about the things that actually matter.

13:45

So I looked at all of the

13:47

data and I talked

13:49

to behavioral economists and sociologists and

13:51

historians. And I talked to people,

13:54

therapists who specialize in divorce, who specialize

13:57

in couples therapy. And it

13:59

was really interesting. to see

14:02

how expectations have changed over time. And

14:05

then also to see what

14:08

it is that actually matters to

14:10

have a happy, fulfilling, long-lasting relationship

14:12

and how when we're dating, we're

14:15

not even looking at those qualities.

14:18

And so for example, the character qualities.

14:21

If you look at what are the

14:23

most important things that would predict whether

14:25

a relationship is going to last, what

14:27

qualities do you want in a partner?

14:29

Flexibility is really important. What

14:31

does that mean? So flexibility meaning you're not

14:33

a really rigid person. People who are really

14:35

rigid, it has to be this way. I

14:37

need it this way. I

14:39

expect this of you, right? On

14:42

social media, we might call that boundaries

14:44

right now. And boundaries are really

14:46

important. Don't get me wrong.

14:48

Healthy boundaries are very important. But

14:51

rigidity is when you say that,

14:53

well, I'm just very boundaried, but

14:55

you're actually really rigid. So

14:57

we have to have flexibility. You have to have room

14:59

for the person to also be them and

15:01

that you are a separate person from

15:04

the person that you're with. And oftentimes

15:06

it's hard for people to see that

15:08

because they're so focused on what I

15:10

need without thinking about what does

15:12

this relationship need? And what does the other

15:14

person need too? Emotional

15:17

generosity is really important

15:19

that you give someone the benefit of the

15:21

doubt, that you're not bringing your old wounds

15:25

into the relationship and projecting them onto

15:27

your partner. So I

15:29

would call emotional maturity or emotional stability.

15:32

So many times people overlook that when they're

15:34

dating. So that looks like someone

15:37

comes into therapy and they say, I

15:39

don't understand why, I

15:41

love him so much and I don't understand why he

15:43

didn't call when he said he would, or I don't

15:45

understand why he canceled. And I

15:48

will say, what do you love exactly?

15:50

Is this how you want

15:52

your life to go? To always be on

15:54

edge, to always wonder, to be with someone

15:56

who's unreliable, who doesn't do what they say

15:58

they were going to do. What part

16:00

of this do you love? Oh,

16:02

but he's so funny and attractive

16:05

and you know, he's so

16:07

smart. You like qualities about him, but

16:09

you don't like the way he is with you

16:12

in relationship. And

16:14

so people need to have higher standards

16:17

about the character qualities, things

16:19

that are important to them

16:21

like loyalty, reliability, emotional stability,

16:24

again, emotional generosity. Can they

16:26

be supportive of you when

16:28

things are going well for you? On

16:31

that point of expectations and how expectations are evolving,

16:33

I found some stats, I think some of them

16:36

are very much inspired by your first book, Marry

16:38

Him. One of them is that 80%

16:40

of women want to date a man over six

16:42

foot tall when only 15% of

16:45

men are over six foot tall. Yes, that's in

16:47

the book. I found some other studies. An

16:50

eHarmony study found that 40% of single

16:52

people have deal breakers that are associated

16:54

with physical appearance. And 50% of

16:57

singles expect their partner to be their best friend,

16:59

soulmate and to fulfill all of their emotional needs.

17:01

That was a study done by match.com. And

17:05

then the other ones that I found quite interesting

17:07

were you talk about in the book

17:09

how this sort of generational shifts

17:11

in expectations and where that's come from.

17:13

But in like my, my granddad's generation,

17:16

or even my dad's generation, I would

17:19

assume they wouldn't have had the same set

17:21

of impossible expectations. I would

17:23

assume is that is that what you

17:26

found in your research? I think

17:28

everybody wants to feel that really

17:30

deep connection with their partner. And so

17:32

I think that the way that society

17:34

has improved is that we are not

17:37

just marrying for sort of practicality, but

17:39

we are also marrying because we genuinely

17:41

enjoy being with this person and want

17:43

to go through life with this person.

17:46

But I think what we're losing a

17:48

little bit is do our values align,

17:50

like the practical part matters. So I

17:52

think the pendulum swung in the other

17:54

direction went from almost pretty

17:56

much all practical to now

17:58

it's all like is the this person my

18:00

soulmate and do they move me? And

18:03

I think you have to have both.

18:05

I'm really attracted to this person's essence.

18:08

And what I mean by essence is, most

18:11

people will say, this is, I don't know

18:13

where the study came from, but I remember

18:16

reading this study, that most people will say

18:18

that the person that they chose to spend

18:20

their lives with is not the most attractive

18:23

person they ever dated. And

18:25

I think that a lot of people say, well, I wouldn't

18:27

want my partner to think that, but you're

18:30

more attractive to your partner holistically. That's why

18:33

they chose you. That's why you chose them.

18:35

That's why you're together. So it's

18:37

not just about, is this the

18:39

person who was the most, the hottest person

18:41

you've ever dated? And so I

18:43

think we really have to think about holistically, who

18:45

do we want to be with? And

18:48

that's what kind of trips us up

18:50

because the practical side matters. Do you

18:52

have similar ideas about the kind of

18:55

life you wanna live? Do

18:57

you have similar ideas about

19:00

how, if you wanna have kids, or if you

19:02

don't wanna have kids and how many you might

19:04

wanna have, where you wanna live, what

19:07

kinds of things you wanna do in

19:09

your lives? What matters to you,

19:11

who you are in the world? Political

19:14

beliefs, often people say, well, that doesn't

19:16

matter as much. I think

19:18

when you have very different views, not necessarily

19:20

about like what political party you're with, but

19:23

more about how you see the world, if

19:25

you see the world very, very differently, that

19:27

can cause a lot of problems in the

19:30

relationship later on, not because you're fighting about

19:32

the world, but because those differences will show

19:34

up in the way you treat each other.

19:37

I hear you saying all of that, and I have to

19:39

say I agree, and I think everyone would really agree because

19:41

it makes perfect sense. But in reality, I was

19:44

thinking about, if I turn to some of my

19:46

friends that are really struggling with dating right

19:49

now, and I said all of that to them, I

19:52

don't think any of it would work because they

19:54

are so hardwired to be

19:57

in the world. in

20:00

search of this like perfect person. You

20:02

know, when I speak to some of my friends who are single

20:04

and they're over 35, they've

20:06

really like never been in a relationship before.

20:08

The things that they say as reasons for

20:11

why they're not giving this person a chance are so

20:13

unbelievably petty. Like I have one friend and she knows

20:15

who she is. She's a really good friend of mine.

20:17

She's been a good friend of mine for more than

20:19

a decade. Shout out to your friend. Yeah, but I

20:21

was on her profile once and she

20:23

told me that the reason she wasn't gonna give

20:26

this guy a chance on this dating app was

20:28

because in the back of the picture, that

20:30

he, his display picture, he had boxes

20:32

on top of his cupboard. Mm. And

20:35

she was like, oh God, he puts boxes on top

20:37

of his cupboard. Like, so

20:39

that's why she didn't give him a chance. So

20:41

here's the thing. What happens is people look at

20:43

dating profiles and are going through the apps. And

20:46

I think, you know, men and women tend to

20:48

do this a little bit differently. Men are like,

20:50

am I attracted to this person? Swipe, which

20:53

also doesn't necessarily work out for them. Like

20:55

they're not really looking for who do I

20:58

wanna be with? And women

21:00

do the opposite. They look at it, you

21:02

know, they look at all the pictures, they'll

21:04

read everything that the person wrote as

21:06

if, do I wanna marry this person potentially

21:08

or not? As opposed to, do I wanna

21:10

spend 45 minutes having coffee

21:12

with this person? That's really

21:15

different. And also on a first

21:17

date, it's the same mentality where a lot of

21:19

people think, oh, you know, like

21:21

people will come in to therapy or even

21:23

friends will say, you know,

21:25

I went on this date, I had a good

21:27

time, it was fun. I just,

21:29

I don't know. I didn't feel

21:31

chemistry. I didn't feel like butterflies.

21:34

I didn't, I wasn't, didn't

21:36

feel that, what I feel like I should feel. So

21:38

I'm not gonna go out with him again. And

21:41

I'll say, well, why don't you just go spend,

21:44

you know, another hour with this person

21:46

and get to know this person and see

21:48

if something develops? No, no, no, no, no,

21:50

right? And so, but it's like, you had

21:52

a good time. You did think, you know,

21:54

they said, I did think he was attractive,

21:57

but I didn't feel chemistry. interesting

22:00

because there's a study in Maringham where it was

22:03

a longitudinal study and it followed people

22:05

from the time that they met their

22:07

partner, like that first date, all

22:09

the way through. They checked in with them every five years

22:11

for I think 20 years. What

22:14

happened was they found that the

22:17

people who were very happy together

22:19

had kind of revisionist history about

22:21

what it was like on their

22:23

first date. People who

22:25

were really happily married said, oh yeah, I

22:27

knew immediately. I felt immediate chemistry with this

22:30

person. I knew this person was the one.

22:32

But if you go back to what they

22:34

reported at the time, often they reported at

22:36

the time, yeah, nice person, not sure. Okay.

22:40

So, but they've changed the story. They really

22:42

truly believe that they felt something different. But

22:44

we have data saying, no, you didn't. On

22:47

the other hand, if people did

22:49

not last, if people are divorced, that

22:51

kind of thing, they will

22:53

say, oh, I was never attracted to the person or

22:55

I knew there were red flags in the beginning. But

22:58

that's not what they reported at the

23:00

time. At the time they reported, wow,

23:02

this person's amazing. So

23:04

it's really interesting that people use the

23:06

first date as like,

23:09

I'm supposed to feel this one thing or

23:11

else forget it when people who are very,

23:13

very happy together, totally in love, totally attracted

23:15

to each other, often didn't feel those sparks

23:17

on the first one, two, three

23:19

dates. You know, maybe they were

23:21

even friends for a while. But

23:24

people don't give each other the chance to

23:26

get to know the other person or to

23:28

let the other person get to know you.

23:31

And I think that because the apps

23:33

give this illusion of so

23:35

many people are juggling multiple people at a time. So someone

23:37

will go on a date with someone and then

23:40

they'll say, yeah, that was fine. Not,

23:42

you know, maybe it was like

23:44

a seven. So, nah. And

23:47

then they're like, I have another date tomorrow. Or they

23:49

just, they're leaving the date and they're walking to their

23:51

car and they're swiping on the apps. Already

23:54

because they have the illusion there's so many people out

23:57

there. But if you just keep juggling people, you're never

23:59

going to get. to know anybody and to know

24:01

if that person is someone that you want to be

24:03

with. So what would you say to

24:05

a serial date then? You'd say to go

24:07

on the second date even if the person is

24:10

a seven? Because I know people that have gone

24:12

on hundreds of dates a year and I think

24:14

statistically they must have met someone that

24:16

they would have been happy with. I don't

24:18

know. Yeah, maybe. It depends if they're

24:20

making good choices about who they go on dates

24:22

with. So some people just go on dates to

24:24

go on dates. Other people, if they're being really,

24:27

you know, if they're saying, hey, this

24:29

person seems like someone I would want to be with

24:31

and that's who they choose to go on a

24:33

first date with, then yes. But I would say the

24:35

question you ask yourself at the end of a first

24:37

date is, did I have a good

24:39

time? The answer is yes, I would go

24:41

on a second date. Doesn't have to be I

24:44

had a life changing

24:46

transformative, you know, I

24:48

was, Cupid's arrow shot me. No,

24:51

it just, did I have a good time with

24:53

this person? Yeah, go on a second date. See

24:55

what happens the second time. Who

24:57

has higher expectations typically men or women and

24:59

who is most likely or

25:01

most willing to adjust their expectations?

25:06

I think it really depends on the person. And

25:09

I think that the expectations are higher in different

25:11

areas. I think for men, the

25:14

expectations are very high

25:17

around physical appearance. And

25:20

I think for the younger generation, especially

25:22

because they're growing up on all of

25:24

these thirst traps that are posted on

25:26

social media, and they're seeing all of

25:28

these girls just posting, you know, all

25:30

of these really provocative pictures that have

25:32

been filtered that have been, you know,

25:34

it took them 30 shots to

25:36

get that one shot that they put up. And

25:38

so when they see people in real life and

25:40

what they really are like on a

25:42

day to day basis, they have

25:45

these very unrealistic expectations. And

25:47

I think that's different from in the

25:49

past when you saw many more people

25:52

in real life than

25:54

you do now where you're seeing more

25:56

people online most of the time. And

25:58

I think for women, the expectations are,

26:01

you know, I think it's confused with

26:03

feminism. So feminism is great, I'm a

26:05

feminist, but I think

26:07

that feminism is not this person has to

26:09

meet all of these criteria that are not

26:12

really human. And I go through them in

26:14

the book, you know, the kinds of things

26:16

that people say, and I have all these

26:18

surveys in the book about the

26:20

kinds of things people say they're looking for

26:22

and they're not finding the right person. And

26:24

I talk about this study that Barry Schwartz

26:27

did, he wrote The Paradox of Choice, and

26:29

he looked at the difference between maximizers and

26:32

satisficers. And this applies

26:34

to dating as much as anything else. But,

26:37

you know, the way it doesn't apply, the way

26:39

that you can look at it, the way he

26:41

did in his study was, he said, look, if

26:43

you go into a store and you want to

26:45

get some jam and they

26:47

have 30 different varieties, most

26:49

people just leave because they

26:52

can't choose. They're just,

26:54

they get, they get anxious, they don't know what

26:56

to pick. It's not like more is better. If

26:58

you have two different choices, it's easy. You say,

27:01

oh, I like this one. And you're really happy

27:03

with it. The people who did choose from the

27:05

30, they're less happy because they're trying to maximize.

27:07

And then when they taste it and they go

27:09

home with it, they think, oh, I wonder what

27:11

that other one would have tasted like, you know,

27:14

because there were so many choices. The

27:16

person who picked from one of the two is very

27:18

happy with their choice. So if you look at the

27:20

kind of dating analogy, it's like, I like to use

27:23

this in the book, I talk about a sweater, say

27:25

you want a sweater, and you know exactly what you

27:27

want. It needs to be this material.

27:29

So it's not itchy. This color looks good

27:31

on you. This is the right size. This

27:33

is the right price. This is the style

27:35

you're looking for. You go into a store

27:37

and you find it. The satisficer

27:40

will buy it, be really happy that

27:42

they found it and really enjoy it

27:44

for a very long time. The

27:47

maximizer will say, Oh, I found this, but while

27:49

I'm at the mall, I might as well just

27:51

put this one, you know, back on the on

27:53

the shelf. And I will go look at a

27:55

few other stores to see if I can find

27:57

something that's maybe a little like the color is

27:59

a little. bit better or the

28:01

prices that maybe there's

28:03

something on sale or maybe there's

28:06

something that's a slightly different material and

28:08

they keep looking and then they find something

28:10

that's maybe slightly better in their mind and

28:13

they buy it they're less happy

28:16

with it because then it took them all

28:18

this anxiety and energy to find it and

28:20

then they find it and they're always looking

28:22

over their shoulder well maybe there's another one

28:24

maybe there's a better one maybe there's a

28:27

different one and the next time they're walking

28:29

and they pass the store window they think

28:31

I should have gotten that one so maximizers

28:33

think that they're putting in all the research

28:36

to find the thing that's going to make

28:38

them happiest but going through that process makes

28:40

them unhappy not only by going through that

28:42

process but when they get the thing that

28:44

they decide on so

28:47

with dating we want to be satisfied

28:49

which means we have very high standards

28:51

it's not like oh I'm

28:53

satisfied that's enough like you're satisfied because

28:55

your standards are very high but

28:58

you're not always looking over your shoulder to wonder

29:00

what you're missing out on you're not always in

29:02

this state of FOMO do you see a

29:04

gender difference between satisfies and

29:06

maximizes again it depends

29:09

on the person it really does I

29:11

mean I think that when you when when you look at

29:13

the surveys in Mary him women do

29:15

tend to be maximizers more than men

29:17

but I think that I

29:19

think that men do have very high standards but I

29:21

think that men are also like after they get over

29:24

the oh I need to

29:26

be with a supermodel and then they come back down to

29:28

earth and they say oh I need to be with someone

29:30

that I'm really attracted to which is different thing they're

29:32

much more holistic like who do they ask the

29:34

right questions who do I enjoy being with and they

29:38

think for women it's there's so many different

29:40

things there you know in Mary him I

29:42

talk about the things that people said they

29:44

wouldn't go on a second date with somebody

29:47

over and it was like he ordered tap

29:49

water instead of sparkling water he must be

29:51

really cheap you know these assumptions

29:53

that people make like when they came by and

29:55

said which kind of water do you want and

29:57

maybe he's just accommodating maybe he just said tap

29:59

water fine. Or, you

30:01

know, he wore this, he wore those

30:04

kinds of shoes with that

30:06

kind of belt. He doesn't have any

30:08

fashion sense. There

30:10

was one where somebody said, Oh, he did this

30:12

impression from Austin Powers, this movie, he did this

30:14

impression, and it was really embarrassing. And I was

30:16

so cringy. It was like, he was just nervous.

30:18

He was on a first date, and he was

30:20

trying to make you laugh. Why don't you go

30:22

on a second date? And if he does something

30:24

cringy on the second date, okay, then you know.

30:26

But a lot of times on a first date,

30:29

people are just really nervous. So

30:31

they did one thing, but the rest of the date

30:33

was great. Go on another date with them. Do

30:36

you think it's really that like in the

30:38

case of the like the Austin Powers impression

30:40

or whatever it was, is that really the

30:42

truth? Is it was it really that or

30:44

is there something else going on in their

30:46

psychology where they've got commitment issues or you

30:48

know, because I

30:51

just think surely it can't be

30:53

that. Yeah, yeah, I think you're

30:55

right. I think when you really get down to

30:57

it, you see that, you know, there are reasons

30:59

that people will find something wrong with a partner

31:01

if they are avoidant

31:04

of intimacy. So

31:06

you do see that. But also I write about

31:08

in maybe you should talk to someone, one of

31:10

the patients that I write about is this young

31:12

woman who I call Charlotte in the book.

31:15

And Charlotte is somebody who is in

31:17

her 20s. She's attractive

31:20

and professionally successful and

31:24

you know, like a lovely person,

31:26

but she keeps going after men

31:29

who replicate her childhood. And

31:32

she's not alone in that. Most of us

31:34

if we haven't really worked through whatever it

31:36

was that that we didn't get growing up or

31:38

that we got too much of or not enough

31:40

of what happens is we

31:42

end up seeking out the familiar. We

31:45

end up our unconscious has

31:47

our subconscious has radar for

31:49

people who are like the

31:52

person that hurt us in childhood

31:54

because it's our experience of

31:56

love. Even if it wasn't a positive

31:58

experience, it's the only experience. experience that

32:00

we have had of love. And so

32:02

the imprint that we have is, oh,

32:04

that's love. So what happened for Charlotte

32:06

was she would meet somebody, and he

32:09

would seem very different from her parents.

32:11

Her mother was very depressed. Her father

32:13

was very kind of either very

32:16

present for her or then abandoning

32:18

her. And he

32:21

also drank too much and had alcohol

32:23

issues. So she would

32:25

find somebody, she would think, oh, this person's

32:27

so different from either of my parents, then

32:29

she'd get to know him and realize, oh,

32:31

wow, he drinks a lot too. Didn't

32:34

realize that. Except her

32:36

subconscious did. Like she somehow had radar

32:38

for that person or this person yells

32:40

a lot too, or this person is

32:42

really inconsistent with me. They're either love

32:44

bombing me or they're disappearing and I

32:46

never know where I stand with them.

32:49

That was her experience of her father.

32:51

So if once she really kind of processed

32:53

what happened with her family, she started going

32:56

out with different kinds of people, meaning she

32:58

started being attracted to different kinds of people.

33:00

In that transition period, she was like, oh,

33:02

I'm going out with this person, but he

33:04

seems really good for me, but I'm not

33:06

really attracted to him. That was because she

33:08

was still attracted to sort of the father

33:10

and the mother, the different

33:13

qualities, the victim-y mom and

33:16

the unavailable mom, and then the dad who was

33:18

kind of inconsistent with his availability and also his

33:20

temper and his drinking. So it's interesting to see

33:22

that she would date people just like that without

33:24

realizing at first that she was choosing them. So

33:27

I think that one thing that therapy can really

33:29

do for people is to help you see why

33:31

is it that you're having trouble meeting someone? Why

33:34

is it that you're having trouble once you're

33:36

in relationship with someone, if you get that

33:38

far, maintaining that relationship or finding someone who's

33:40

good for you? If you sat

33:42

down with someone who had repeatedly

33:44

made the choice to date and

33:47

have one night stands with people

33:49

that were clearly going

33:51

to hurt them or were clearly not going to call

33:53

them back the next day, but they had this pattern

33:56

of continually going for people that were clearly either not

33:58

interested in them or saw them as like a

34:00

one night stand transaction. What

34:03

would your assumption be about that

34:05

individual's backstory?

34:08

You know, I hate to make assumptions, but

34:10

I would say in general, what I would

34:12

probably find would be that this person, um,

34:16

is terrified of intimacy. This

34:19

person doesn't feel that anybody will

34:21

love them. They feel unlovable. They

34:23

feel like nobody would, would want to be

34:25

in a relationship with them. So it's you

34:28

can't fire me. I quit, right? So

34:30

it's, I'm not even going to put myself in

34:33

that position. I know this is going to be

34:35

a one night stand. I don't

34:37

have any expectations. I'm empowered, right? This is

34:39

the story they tell themselves is I'm so

34:41

empowered that I don't have to feel, I

34:44

don't have to get attached. Look at me.

34:46

I, I am

34:48

above my feelings. But the

34:51

thing is they're really terrified of

34:53

their feelings. They're terrified of being

34:55

attached. They're terrified of seeing whether

34:57

somebody can love them because

34:59

they're worried that they're going to get

35:01

what's confirmed, uh, by

35:04

somebody else, which would be the confirmation would

35:06

be, Oh, look, I tried, I got attached

35:08

to this person and they didn't reciprocate it.

35:10

Or we dated for a month and then

35:12

they broke up with me. So see, that

35:15

proves that I am unlovable and

35:17

that doesn't prove anything. It just proves that this

35:19

person was not the right person for you. Where

35:22

would you start with trying to help somebody that was

35:24

in that situation? I would go straight

35:26

to the question of loveability. I would go

35:28

straight to the question of, you know, what

35:30

would it be like to feel your feelings

35:32

and how terrifying is that for you? To

35:34

feel attached to someone. How scary is that?

35:36

To feel like they are the arbiter of

35:39

your worth and how can we switch

35:41

that? So when you go on a date, it's not, will

35:43

they love me? But am I interested

35:45

in them? Do I

35:47

want to spend time with them? So

35:49

it's not about am I going to be

35:51

chosen, but I get to be the chooser.

35:54

What is that like? Because that person has

35:56

never been able to be the chooser. And

35:58

yes, sometimes you will choose someone. who doesn't

36:00

reciprocate that. But you also get

36:02

to choose someone. Sometimes you will

36:04

choose someone will choose you, but

36:06

you don't reciprocate that. So you

36:08

just, you know, so it's not,

36:11

this person is not saying, whoever you go

36:13

out with, they are not determining your worth,

36:15

that you know what your worth is, no

36:17

matter what happens. And they think you really

36:20

have to work on the self worth part

36:22

and where the story came from, because we

36:24

all come into therapy with narratives about ourselves.

36:26

And there's stories that someone told us about

36:28

ourselves, either verbally they told

36:30

us like, you're not good enough, you're not

36:32

this enough, you're not that enough. Or

36:35

they told us with their actions, like they

36:37

weren't nurturing to you. They didn't love you

36:39

in the way that you

36:41

saw other kids being loved. And so you took

36:44

in this story of, I must not be lovable.

36:46

Can you think back to something you said earlier, because I was thinking about this,

36:50

the general disconnect amongst men and women these days,

36:52

you used the word feminism earlier. There's

36:54

been a lot of changes in

36:56

society's expectations and

37:00

views of the role of a man and a woman

37:03

in a relationship, but more

37:05

broadly in the workplace and society.

37:08

And this has caused a lot of interesting

37:11

dynamics that I think might be having

37:13

an impact on people's

37:16

expectations and their amount of satisfaction

37:18

in dates. Some of the

37:20

studies I was looking at ahead of your

37:22

arrival today was one study that shows

37:24

that 71% of people say it's very

37:26

important for a man to be able

37:28

to support family financially, to be a

37:30

good husband or partner. But by comparison,

37:32

only 32% say it's very important for

37:34

a woman to do the same thing.

37:36

And that's Pew Research Survey. But

37:39

also another study that said, this

37:42

is on Sage journals, that men showed

37:44

less attraction towards women who outsmarted them.

37:47

And when you look at the changes in

37:50

income and intellect, in 1980, women

37:52

earned about 60% of what men did. But

37:55

by 2020, that had risen to 83%. obviously

38:00

still issues with gender pay gaps

38:02

and such. But what we're seeing here is

38:04

the kind of macro trend is that women

38:06

are more educated and have more money. The

38:09

expectation that a man is going to

38:11

be the provider in the household still

38:14

persists. And men don't

38:16

want to date, again, speaking generally,

38:18

according to some studies that show

38:20

attraction preferences, women that outsmart them.

38:22

Right. So the interesting

38:24

thing is that when

38:26

people say, you know, I want I

38:29

want to have flexibility, meaning

38:31

a lot of women will say this,

38:33

I want to have that they'll say,

38:35

I absolutely expect that I'm going to

38:37

have a career. But I also

38:39

don't want to be the sole provider for

38:41

the family. And if

38:44

they're really honest, a lot of women will say, I

38:46

would like my husband to earn more than me. At

38:48

the same time, more women are

38:50

getting college degrees, more women

38:53

are getting graduate degrees, more women are

38:55

getting ahead of men in those areas.

38:57

And so women will also say, and

39:00

I want someone who's as educated as

39:02

I am, but there aren't as many

39:04

men just number wise. So if there

39:06

are more women who are educated, meaning

39:09

college, graduate school than men,

39:12

but those women want men

39:14

who have those degrees, they're

39:16

not the there's low inventory

39:18

of men who have that. And so there's

39:20

a there's sort of a problem with that.

39:24

And so what I really want to encourage people to

39:26

do is when they're dating, and this is

39:28

not about lowering your standards, it's about saying

39:30

to women, there are lots of kinds of

39:33

intelligence. So you Yes, you

39:35

want to be with someone who is

39:37

equally intelligent. But that doesn't

39:39

mean that they have the same degrees that you

39:41

have. Who do you want to talk to? Who do

39:43

you have interesting conversations with? Is this

39:46

causing an issue for successful women that

39:48

are better over 30? I was reading an article, I think it

39:50

was on the Washington Post, where a lady

39:53

was interviewing another lady who'd written a book called,

39:55

I think it's called like the gender gap or

39:57

something. And they concluded that much

40:00

of the reason why successful women

40:02

above the age of 30 were struggling in dating

40:04

is because of this issue that men

40:07

don't want to be with a woman that is like

40:09

better than them and it's somewhat emasculating to a man.

40:12

And so I've had lots of private

40:14

conversations with very successful women. I know

40:16

a lot of successful women that are

40:18

very exceptional relationships, but I've also

40:20

got a small cohort of women that tell

40:22

me that they're struggling in

40:24

dating because they're too successful and men

40:26

don't like it and are emasculated. Is

40:28

that true? I think there's

40:30

this narrative in our culture that women

40:34

who are successful are not finding men because

40:36

they're focused too much on their career. And

40:38

I think that's absolutely false. I

40:40

think that when you are out there in

40:43

the work environment, you are meeting men and

40:46

that's where you're meeting other people. You're meeting

40:48

other women who maybe are married and their

40:50

husbands have friends. You're out there in the

40:52

world and people are seeing you. And

40:55

also you have meaning and purpose in your life and

40:58

you're doing something you enjoy. And

41:00

I think that that's very attractive. I think

41:02

that people are wanting someone who can

41:07

not live their work, which

41:10

is different from being successful because

41:12

you want a partner who's also available to

41:15

you. But I don't think that it's because

41:17

women are too focused on their careers that

41:19

that's what's happening. I think it's because of

41:21

this gap that the women who are maybe

41:23

achieving certain things in the world are not

41:25

finding men who are achieving at the same

41:28

level. And so there just aren't enough men

41:30

for those women. The numbers

41:32

just don't work out. And so then there's

41:34

this question of as

41:37

a woman who is a very

41:39

high achieving, do you have to be with

41:41

somebody who is high achieving in the same

41:43

way? And that's

41:45

a very hard cultural shift for a lot of

41:47

women to make. And the other problem is that

41:50

when high achieving women want to be

41:53

with high achieving men, a lot of

41:55

those high achieving men are

41:57

not great partners. And

41:59

that's the thing that so they might

42:01

be dating a lot of high achieving men

42:04

and they maybe they are finding them but

42:06

then they find that this person doesn't have

42:08

time for me or this person isn't really

42:10

nurturing or this person is you

42:13

know married to his job and I

42:15

don't like that. I think it's hard

42:18

when you have two people who are

42:20

extremely focused on their professional lives and

42:23

neither one of them has time for the relationship.

42:25

So I'm not saying you know there

42:27

are a lot of relationships where that works really

42:29

well where both people are very focused on their careers

42:32

but they also understand each other in a way that

42:34

helps them. And then

42:36

there are the relationships where you have two very high achieving

42:38

people and they both expect that the other person is going

42:40

to be more involved in the

42:42

relationship to help them support their own career

42:45

and they can't because they're supporting their career

42:48

so you can't you can't do both. Yeah

42:50

just with this stat in mind that 71% of people

42:52

say it's very important for a man to be able

42:55

to support a family financially to be a good husband

42:57

or partner. If we get to

42:59

the point which is kind of the trajectory we're

43:01

on where women and men are earning the

43:03

same, women already have more sort of college

43:05

degrees than men by about I think it's

43:07

roughly about 10% at the moment roughly.

43:10

We're going to find ourselves where

43:12

yeah expectations for

43:15

what a man can offer are

43:17

really really high but reality is really low

43:19

and then you that it feels like that

43:22

the amount of women that are not finding what they want is going

43:24

to continue to increase and the amount

43:27

of men that don't feel like they

43:29

are good enough for a woman because they're not smart enough

43:31

they don't have enough money they can't contribute in the same

43:33

way is also going to increase. But

43:36

then also with general working dynamics we're seeing that

43:38

people are getting married later and later they're having

43:40

less and less kids. So

43:43

are you at all concerned about this trajectory? Yes

43:45

very because I think

43:48

it leaves a lot of people who really

43:50

want to partner and could really enjoy having

43:52

a partner who maybe is different from what

43:54

this cultural norm is. They

43:56

don't go after that. So a woman

43:58

will say oh I'm not going to do that. going to

44:01

even go on a date with this guy because he's not

44:03

successful enough. You know, we're

44:05

too different. And a man, on the other hand,

44:07

might say, I'm not going to even go on

44:09

a date with her because she's so focused on

44:11

her career or, you know, or I'm not good

44:13

enough for her. So they don't even get a

44:15

chance to even see if they might be

44:18

a good match. And sometimes it's a

44:20

great match because you don't necessarily want

44:22

two people who are exactly the same.

44:24

And I see this all the time

44:26

with couples who come in for couples

44:28

therapy, where they thought that what was

44:30

so good about their relationship when they

44:33

first got together was we're so

44:35

the same. And then they find that, wait

44:37

a minute, but there's no

44:39

one here to be more of the nurturer,

44:41

or there's no one here to spend more

44:43

time with the household, or there's no one

44:45

here to do more of kind of logistical

44:48

things in the house because we're both doing

44:50

exactly the same job. Isn't that sort of

44:52

central to the equality narrative that you should share with

44:55

the responsibilities? Right. So equality

44:57

doesn't mean that you have exactly the

44:59

same responsibilities. It means that you feel

45:01

that there's not a power dynamic. So

45:03

equality means one person doesn't have more

45:06

power than the other person. But that

45:08

doesn't mean that, you know, I

45:10

do laundry 2.5 days of the week or 3.5 days of the

45:12

week and you do laundry 3.5

45:16

days a week. Maybe someone only does their

45:18

responsibility is the laundry. That doesn't mean that

45:20

there's a power dynamic. It means the other

45:23

person maybe they're always doing the dishes or

45:25

whatever it is, it doesn't have to

45:27

be split up in this way. So I

45:29

think that when people think about having

45:31

an egalitarian marriage, we're talking about that there's

45:33

not a power differential, but you still get

45:36

to choose like a woman might say,

45:38

and I'm being stereotypical here, it might be

45:40

the man, but often it's the woman

45:42

who says, you know what, I

45:44

want to do, I want to switch to

45:46

part time with my work. So that doesn't

45:49

mean she has less power in the marriage

45:51

because he makes more now because he's working

45:53

full time. It means that they've divided up

45:55

things differently because that was their choice. That

45:58

was something that was chosen. It wasn't like

46:01

you can't work. It was, I

46:03

would like to do less. Do

46:05

you tend to see issues unique to

46:07

relationships when a woman is earning

46:09

more than a man? Yeah, I do.

46:11

I still think this is something that

46:14

is very primal for us around,

46:17

you know, what it means. I

46:19

think that women sometimes feel resentful. That's

46:22

why they want to be with someone. It's funny

46:24

because a woman can be making a lot of

46:26

money and she won't even go out with someone

46:28

who makes the same amount. She has to go

46:30

out with someone who makes more, which is interesting

46:32

because she won't necessarily say that. I think it's

46:35

hard to acknowledge the contradictions. And I

46:37

think for men, the same thing that a man will say,

46:39

you know, I want a woman who has her own life.

46:41

I want somebody who is doing something in the world

46:43

that is important to her, but I

46:45

don't want her to make more money than me.

46:47

It's hard to say that out loud. This comes

46:49

out in couples therapy where people start talking about,

46:52

wow, there is this difference. And maybe it didn't

46:54

even start out that way. Maybe it started out

46:56

where he was making more and then things shifted

46:58

and then she started making more and it changed

47:00

something in their dynamic. And so they

47:02

start fighting a lot, but they're not fighting about

47:04

that. They're fighting about all different kinds

47:07

of things. And so it comes out in different

47:09

behaviors. And they come to couples therapy saying, we're

47:11

having, we're fighting all the time or we're not

47:13

having sex or here's what's happening. And it turns

47:15

out it was really about this issue of who

47:17

has power now, but they

47:19

didn't realize it was about that or they weren't willing to

47:21

kind of look at that. Do you

47:23

think it's getting increasingly harder to know what the

47:26

role of a man and a woman are? Because

47:28

I think, you know, I've had so many conversations

47:30

on and off this podcast with people who have

47:33

sons or daughters. It's often the ones that have

47:35

sons. I'm thinking about a lady that I know.

47:38

And she says she's so confused by what to

47:40

tell her son a man is these days. And,

47:43

you know, when I think about suicidality

47:45

and how much of a big killer

47:47

it is, especially in the UK, I know it's sort

47:49

of a Western trend, but I think

47:51

it's the biggest killer of men under the age of 45 is themselves.

47:54

I'm thinking, you know, there's often a narrative

47:57

that that's because masculinity

48:00

is changing, they're not being masculine enough, and

48:02

then there's another narrative that says no, it's

48:04

because they're not being feminine enough. What's

48:07

typically associated with feminine traits? Yeah.

48:09

Well, it's true that more men

48:12

die by suicide than women do.

48:14

And some people say, well, that's

48:16

because the method that men choose

48:18

is more lethal. But I also

48:20

think that that's only part of

48:22

the story. Because when men do

48:24

come into therapy, they truly, truly

48:26

feel that

48:28

conflicted about exactly what you said, that I

48:30

don't know how to be a man in

48:33

today's world. It used to be much more

48:35

clear. Now, I'm not saying that was a

48:37

good thing, that used to be much more

48:39

clear, because there were all kinds of power

48:41

dynamics that weren't so healthy for men and

48:43

women. But I think now what

48:45

men are saying is, I maybe don't want

48:49

to be the person solely responsible

48:51

for... I would like my partner

48:53

to also bring in some income.

48:56

But that creates all kinds of problems.

48:58

Or I want to be

49:00

able to, again, open up to and

49:02

talk to my partner in this way, but

49:04

I'm afraid that it makes her feel unsafe.

49:07

So what do we do? What does

49:09

it mean? And I'm raised... So I could say

49:11

I'm raising a boy who is now 18

49:14

years old, and even things like, does

49:16

he still pay? He always wants to

49:18

pay on a date, and

49:21

he's been... Some people don't like that. And

49:24

he thinks, well, I'm just being sort of chivalrous.

49:27

But there are all these ways in

49:29

which you don't know sort of what

49:31

is expected of you. So it's like,

49:33

if he pays, then some people take

49:35

offense. If he doesn't pay, then some

49:38

people take offense, and he just doesn't

49:40

know what to do. How much of

49:42

these things that I feel

49:44

are being sort of the role of

49:46

a man in a nice way, like

49:48

protecting, taking care of, will

49:51

be offensive to some people because they

49:53

see it as kind of a power

49:55

dynamic. So what is the role of a

49:57

man? It's really unclear. I

50:00

mean, that's the thing. And I think that it

50:02

really needs to be discussed. And that's where I

50:04

think there's hope, is that when people can actually

50:06

say, hey, I'd really like to pay on this

50:09

date. And if she

50:11

says, well, I don't feel comfortable with that, I think a

50:13

question is, okay, that's fine. We can

50:16

split it. But I want to, let's talk about why. And

50:18

to be able to talk about, what

50:21

does this mean that I pay? What does

50:23

that mean to you? I

50:25

think a lot of people would say, oh, well, it

50:28

means that you expect something back from me. That

50:31

we're gonna have sex. Or you expect whatever

50:34

these ideas are. And

50:36

I think that we need to be having these

50:38

conversations. That's my point, is that it's not so

50:40

important that we know what it means.

50:42

It's more important that we know what it means to

50:45

the person that we are interested in. What does it

50:47

mean to them? It's gonna mean something different to everybody.

50:49

So if we can't talk to this person that we're

50:51

interested in about what it means, then

50:54

we're just gonna, both people are gonna be

50:56

mired in confusion. Yeah, I'm

50:58

a bit of a old school romantic, as

51:00

they say. My partner, she

51:03

has a great job. She has her own money. But

51:05

I just absolutely feel the need to open up every

51:08

door for her, pay for every bill for her. I

51:10

would absolutely not have it any other way. Maybe that's

51:12

because I'm insecure or something, I don't know. But

51:14

I just, I watch my dad

51:17

do it for my mum. And

51:19

it's like hardwired into my DNA that

51:21

my role is to protect,

51:24

take care of, do everything

51:26

I can to support. And

51:29

if she, yeah, God,

51:32

I'd really struggle with her paying for me. And

51:34

she's got her own money. She's got her own business, her own

51:36

job. But have you talked about it or it

51:38

just worked out that way? She never

51:40

said, can I pay this once or can I?

51:43

Yeah, yeah, yeah. She pays, she pays. It's

51:46

like a bit of a competition. She'll like sneak

51:48

off to the bathroom and pay and stuff. But

51:51

generally, I think it's, I've always wanted

51:53

to do that on dates. I think

51:55

if you sat people down and asked

51:57

them the question, you go on a first date with

51:59

a guy. and he asks to split

52:01

the bill or he asks or you know

52:03

he doesn't immediately pay mm-hmm would that be

52:05

an ick for you would that turn you

52:07

off them that would be a

52:10

huge ick for me yes it was

52:12

even for you it would be yes yes if you

52:14

went on a first date with a guy and he didn't know

52:16

yes would you absolutely

52:19

why it's hard to articulate because and this

52:21

is what people you know we'll sell women

52:23

will say of all ages I think

52:26

for my age we grew up with that

52:28

was the expectation I think for younger generations

52:30

maybe it's not the expectation but I think

52:32

a lot of people still

52:35

like it or want it there's something

52:37

there's something about

52:39

it that that says I really I

52:42

really valued our time together I care I'm interested

52:45

it's a way of signaling interest but I think even

52:47

if the person isn't interested and you're never gonna see

52:49

each other again it's just a nice gesture but

52:52

I don't have any any rational way

52:55

of explaining why and if

52:58

and if I were to get rational about it I

53:00

would talk myself out of it yes I

53:02

think that's a very honest answer and

53:05

then the counter sort of rebuttal to that

53:07

means I case if men are expected to

53:09

pay then we're gonna need

53:12

more money yes yes

53:15

and it gets very expensive today yeah it

53:17

does I mean you know people will say

53:19

oh you can go on a hike it

53:21

doesn't doesn't cost anything you can do a

53:23

picnic you can you know

53:26

watch a movie there are all kinds of things

53:28

you can do but the reality is it's

53:31

kind of like I remember that that old Chris

53:34

Rachuk in the first three months of a relationship

53:36

you're not you you're the ambassador of you so

53:38

you know you want to impress somebody you're trying

53:40

to show interest in somebody but I

53:43

do think there's that that really

53:45

primal need for

53:47

safety that is gender based

53:49

that we don't like to talk

53:52

about or acknowledge but that

53:54

I think women really I think if

53:56

somebody doesn't pay on a first date if a guy doesn't pay on a

53:58

first date I think a lot of women don't

54:01

feel safe. That's what it comes down to. It's

54:03

a tricky world and it's getting increasingly

54:06

trickier it feels, you know? It

54:08

feels like an insult almost that the person

54:10

doesn't pay. Not many people, some people

54:12

would, but no one would really publicly say that though,

54:15

because it's like not socially acceptable to say that. No,

54:17

it's not. But in private conversations,

54:19

of course. Everyone I know is that

54:21

if they went on a date with a man, so

54:23

in a heterosexual relationship, and the man either

54:25

asked to split the bill or

54:28

suggested that you might pay, this person. Well,

54:31

the bill came and

54:33

she was shocked and she

54:35

thought, okay, well, she

54:37

made it. It was very personal to her. At

54:40

first she thought, I must, he must really, really

54:42

have had a horrible time with me to

54:44

have want to not pay for my $5 coffee.

54:49

And then he asked her out again and

54:51

she said to me, I don't understand this

54:53

at all. So he was interested in me

54:55

and he didn't pay for my coffee. And

54:58

she did not go out with him again. So

55:01

these are the kinds of signals that it

55:03

very much is emblematic of something. Who

55:05

pays on that first date? Do you agree

55:07

with that decision that she made? And

55:12

I didn't say that as her therapist. It's

55:14

really about understanding it for her.

55:17

But I do agree with that decision. And

55:19

I think it's because there's

55:23

something like a half note

55:25

off about a person who

55:27

doesn't even see that it's

55:30

a $5 coffee and you're interested in

55:33

this person. And she

55:35

wasn't making any moves to pay. She was

55:37

just sitting there for a very long time.

55:39

And she said, the way she told

55:41

the story was that the person came around a couple

55:43

of times and said, are you ready? And the guy

55:46

said, oh, no, we're not ready yet. And then at

55:48

a certain point he said to her, oh, do you

55:50

want to put your credit card

55:52

down? Right. To her. And so

55:54

she just said, I could never go out with somebody like that.

55:57

Even though they had a really good time before that. So

56:00

if we zoom back out then, are

56:02

you saying that that is a telltale

56:05

sign of a broader character issue that this

56:07

individual has? Because earlier you said that we

56:09

really should be focusing on like character traits.

56:11

Is that a red flag of some kind

56:13

of other character trait? I think

56:16

that when things are hard in the beginning, that's

56:18

not a good sign. So

56:20

I think that when there's like a

56:22

big disconnect in the beginning that you

56:24

should pay attention to that. So

56:26

a big disconnect is not the example

56:28

I gave earlier of, he said yes

56:31

to the tap water. That's

56:33

different from he didn't

56:35

pay for my coffee. That's

56:38

different. The tap water might be, oh, I don't

56:40

know. Is he cheap? I don't know. Let's see.

56:42

Let me get to know him better. This is

56:46

about generosity. They're

56:48

different things. And so I

56:50

feel like relationships, I always

56:52

say to people when they overlook things in the

56:54

beginning, I think there are two camps on this.

56:56

There's the people who think everything is a red

56:59

flag. That's not like the tap water,

57:01

not a red flag. But there are

57:03

people who don't

57:05

pay enough attention to the red flags in

57:07

the beginning. So they say, yes, this person,

57:09

they kind of disappeared for

57:11

a couple of days and I didn't like

57:14

that. And you know, but or they were

57:16

they're late all the time or, you know,

57:19

whatever it is, that doesn't necessarily mean it's a deal

57:21

breaker, but it's kind of a

57:23

flag that you want to discuss early on.

57:25

So what happens is if you don't discuss

57:27

it is a person will say, you know,

57:29

after they're now they're in a relationship and

57:31

they've been dating for several months and then

57:34

and they're moving along. And the person says,

57:36

I can't stand it when you're

57:38

late every time. And he says, why

57:40

is this a problem? I've always been late. Why is this a

57:42

problem now? Right. So if

57:44

you bring it up early before the cement drives.

57:47

So, you know, I always say relationships

57:49

are like cement, that there is room

57:52

for things to move in the beginning

57:54

before things kind of really get hard

57:56

and difficult to change. But once the

57:58

cement tries, it's much harder. change

58:00

those habits or those interactions or the dance

58:02

that you're doing with the other person. So

58:04

if you don't like something in the beginning,

58:06

you might want to bring it up to

58:09

see how much wiggle room

58:11

is there here? Can this person be

58:13

more aware of being on time? Because

58:15

I don't like sitting there for

58:17

half an hour every time we meet plans. We're

58:19

getting married a lot less, and we're getting married later.

58:22

Later, yeah. So there was a stat that I

58:25

found that said, for the

58:27

first time ever, people over the age

58:29

of 30 haven't been married in higher numbers

58:31

than ever before. So,

58:34

yeah, marriage is getting later and later in

58:36

people's lives. But I also found this really

58:38

interesting graph, which I printed out, which

58:40

shows that there seems to be an optimal time

58:43

to get married. Yes, I was just going to

58:45

mention that, that there's a window. So I'll

58:47

put it up on the screen for anyone that's looking, and

58:49

I'll put it in the description below. But it

58:51

essentially shows that if you

58:54

get married after 30, you're

58:56

more likely to get divorced than if you got married

58:58

between 25 and 30. Right. So there's a

59:00

sweet spot. So if you get married too young,

59:03

you're more likely to get divorced, meaning if you

59:06

get married sort of under 20, I

59:08

think it's 22 or 23. But if you get married over,

59:10

I think it's 28, you have more likelihood of

59:15

getting divorced. So the study

59:17

which I have in front of me by the Institute

59:20

for Family Studies says there is an optimum age to

59:22

get married if you want to

59:24

statistically avoid a chance of divorce. And it seems

59:26

to be around ages 25 to

59:29

30 ish, someone who marries at 25 is over 50%

59:31

less likely to get

59:33

divorced than someone who weds at age 20.

59:36

Before the age of 32 or so, each additional year

59:39

of age of marriage reduces the odds

59:41

of divorce by 11%. However, after 32

59:43

years old, every

59:47

year increases your chance of divorce by 5%.

59:49

I couldn't

59:51

figure out why. necessarily

1:00:00

have the skills you aren't really established

1:00:03

in your own life and you

1:00:06

don't necessarily have the maturity to do

1:00:08

what you need to do to be in that kind

1:00:10

of relationship for the long term. You

1:00:13

also don't really know who you are yet. And

1:00:15

so you might think that you want a certain kind of

1:00:17

life and you find out your partner

1:00:19

wants something very different. But once

1:00:22

you get into your mid-20s and

1:00:24

even sort of later 20s, it's

1:00:26

an optimal time because you

1:00:28

have a better sense of who you are, you

1:00:31

know more of what you want and

1:00:34

you can grow together as a

1:00:37

couple. And I think that's really

1:00:39

important. You're going to have more shared experiences. You're

1:00:41

going to know more of each other's families. Your

1:00:44

parents are probably still alive on

1:00:46

each side. You're going to get

1:00:48

to know each other's siblings. If you have siblings,

1:00:50

you're going to be more integrated into each other's

1:00:52

lives. As you get older, first

1:00:54

of all, you're more sort of set in your

1:00:56

ways. We talked about rigidity

1:00:58

earlier. You're more rigid. You

1:01:02

have different expectations. I

1:01:04

think when you're younger, you're more flexible in

1:01:06

terms of just being

1:01:09

more open-minded. We get less open-minded

1:01:11

generally as we get older around

1:01:13

relationship, around the things that we

1:01:15

expect. And we also

1:01:18

have a history as we get older.

1:01:20

So we have more negative experiences of

1:01:23

maybe heartbreak, being broken up with,

1:01:25

breaking up with people, relationships

1:01:27

that didn't work out that then inform

1:01:30

the way we behave in our relationships.

1:01:32

And I like to say it's almost

1:01:34

like we're punishing our current partner for

1:01:36

a crime they didn't commit. So

1:01:39

if you were in a relationship before where

1:01:41

maybe you were cheated on or someone didn't

1:01:43

treat you well, then you are less trusting

1:01:46

of the partner that you're with or you're

1:01:48

more on guard or more closed off because you're

1:01:50

worried you're not going to get treated well. So

1:01:52

it's almost like the more

1:01:55

dating experiences that you have, some

1:01:57

people would think counterintuitively, they would

1:01:59

think, you know, if

1:02:01

I have more dating experience, then I'm going to be a

1:02:04

better partner later on. But often, because

1:02:06

those were not great dating experiences, sure, you

1:02:08

might have learned something in them. But if

1:02:10

you have too many of them, it's good

1:02:12

to maybe have a relationship or two before

1:02:14

you get married. But to

1:02:16

have five, it's harder, right? Because you

1:02:18

have all this baggage that you're bringing

1:02:20

in, and the other person who's also

1:02:22

your age has all this baggage that

1:02:25

they're bringing in. And there might

1:02:27

also be something, it's kind of like if a fight breaks

1:02:29

out in every bar, you're going to, maybe it's

1:02:31

you, that maybe you are

1:02:33

doing something in relationship, and that is why.

1:02:36

It's not that you haven't been able to

1:02:38

meet someone, it's that you've been pairing up

1:02:40

with people in a way that

1:02:42

is not really healthy. So you

1:02:44

haven't spent the time to really figure it

1:02:46

out. So you're just going to keep repeating

1:02:48

and repeating those not great relationships, even if

1:02:50

you marry the person, it might not last

1:02:52

because something has not been working in those

1:02:54

last five relationships, and you haven't figured that

1:02:57

out yet. In your Ted

1:02:59

Talk, you talk about part

1:03:01

of getting to know yourself is getting

1:03:03

to unknow yourself. Why do

1:03:05

we have to get to unknow ourselves? Well,

1:03:08

I think that so many people think

1:03:10

I'm going to come into therapy, and

1:03:12

I'm going to learn so

1:03:15

much about myself. And you do,

1:03:17

but part of learning about yourself

1:03:19

is learning what the faulty narratives

1:03:21

are that you've been carrying around,

1:03:23

whether it's I'm unlovable, or I

1:03:25

can't trust anyone, or I'm no

1:03:27

good at this, or this thing

1:03:29

is wrong with me. These

1:03:32

again, are stories that you

1:03:34

picked up about yourself from

1:03:36

a long time ago. And

1:03:39

it might not even have been your parents, it

1:03:41

might have been at school, maybe you were bullied

1:03:43

in school, or maybe you were in an environment

1:03:45

that maybe you had ADHD, and you were told

1:03:47

you weren't smart, because people didn't realize that you

1:03:50

learn differently, and you actually are quite intelligent.

1:03:53

So you have these stories. So it's to unknow

1:03:55

people come in and say, well, I'm not that

1:03:57

I'm not really smart. Well, you have

1:03:59

to unknow. know that because that might not be

1:04:01

true. Let's find out. So

1:04:03

it's really, you know, it's interesting because I was

1:04:06

a writer long before I was a therapist and

1:04:08

I still am a writer, but I use so

1:04:10

much of writing and

1:04:12

narrative in the therapy to kind

1:04:14

of help people edit their stories.

1:04:17

Let's look at, you know, is the

1:04:19

protagonist going in circles or is the

1:04:21

protagonist moving forward? Who are the supporting

1:04:23

characters and do the major characters need

1:04:25

to be more minor characters in your

1:04:27

life and do some of the minor

1:04:29

characters need to be more major characters

1:04:32

and what is going to be the next

1:04:34

chapter? How do we look

1:04:36

at where the story is going? So a

1:04:38

lot of this is unknowing stuff about the

1:04:40

character, which is you, you know,

1:04:42

if you come up with a character as a writer

1:04:44

and you say, well, this person is not very smart,

1:04:46

they're kind of weird and they're unlovable. Well,

1:04:49

you're going to write the story a certain way

1:04:51

thinking the character has those traits. But if you

1:04:53

say, actually, this person is quite smart and they're

1:04:55

quite lovable and they're quite attractive, well, you're going

1:04:58

to write a different next chapter for them. I've

1:05:01

always on that point about sort of narratives we've

1:05:04

written, I've always considered

1:05:06

myself to be very

1:05:08

productive. Maybe the more

1:05:10

honest answer is a bit of a workaholic

1:05:13

to some degree. I think that my work

1:05:15

is fundamentally attached and

1:05:17

associated with my own self-esteem. So I

1:05:20

think when I'm working really, really

1:05:22

hard and I feel really productive, I think at

1:05:24

some deep level, I think I'm worth

1:05:26

more or I'm like, I fit in and kind of

1:05:28

it goes back to when I was younger and I

1:05:30

felt like I didn't fit in. It feels like I'm

1:05:33

more valuable. Now, the problem you have as an adult

1:05:35

when you're trying to achieve a different set of goals,

1:05:38

like have a healthy relationship, is this kind of

1:05:40

gets in your way. And I think I found

1:05:42

that in myself that I still

1:05:44

have this urge to be really successful and work

1:05:46

really hard because at some level it's making, it's

1:05:48

doing something for my image of myself. But

1:05:51

as I get older, I kind of need to figure out a way

1:05:53

to drop that down a little bit or

1:05:55

else I'm going to miss out on something that's going to make

1:05:57

me happy, which is relationships. And a lot of people that I

1:05:59

speak to, a lot of people, people that listen to this podcast

1:06:01

are in a similar situation where they

1:06:04

just can't get off the train in terms of their

1:06:06

work. Yeah. Yeah. So

1:06:09

we were talking about defense mechanisms. And so one

1:06:11

of the defense mechanisms is where you take

1:06:13

something that comes from an unhealthy place

1:06:16

and you put it into something that

1:06:18

looks on the surface healthier. So

1:06:21

I don't feel worthy or as worthy

1:06:23

as I would like to. So I'm going

1:06:25

to succeed in this incredible way. So on

1:06:28

the surface, it looks great. It looks like

1:06:30

you're doing something really healthy. But

1:06:32

actually, you're not really working on that

1:06:34

self-worth piece. Another example might

1:06:36

be somebody who has a

1:06:38

lot of anger and they take up

1:06:41

boxing, right? Or

1:06:43

they become a surgeon because they cut into people.

1:06:45

You see this a lot, where

1:06:48

somebody takes their anger. So they put it

1:06:50

into something that looks healthy. But

1:06:52

they're not really dealing with the underlying issue, which is the

1:06:54

anger. You see that a lot, that people

1:06:56

that have anger issues sometimes take up roles like surgeons.

1:07:00

Sure. Yeah. Really?

1:07:03

Yeah. Anything where you can

1:07:05

do... Again, boxing, it could be anything,

1:07:07

where you're putting it into a socially

1:07:09

acceptable container as opposed to

1:07:11

dealing with the issue. So there's nothing wrong

1:07:13

with being a great surgeon. There's

1:07:15

nothing wrong with being somebody who succeeds in

1:07:18

work that they love. What

1:07:21

happens is when you're not

1:07:24

doing the thing that gets the societal

1:07:26

approval, then what

1:07:28

do you do with, in one case, your anger and the

1:07:30

other case, your self-worth? And so I'm glad

1:07:32

that you're looking at the self-worth piece because that's

1:07:34

going to be important because you're not always going

1:07:37

to get it from your work.

1:07:39

How do you improve your self-worth? What would you do with

1:07:41

a patient like me? I

1:07:44

think we do this on the podcast

1:07:46

where we do something very practical, where

1:07:49

we have people make a list of

1:07:51

the things that other people would

1:07:54

say. So there's two columns. There's

1:07:56

one, what would other people say are your best qualities

1:07:58

that have nothing to do with your work? What

1:08:01

do they appreciate most about you? And

1:08:03

then what do you appreciate most about yourself that

1:08:05

has nothing to do with work that you think

1:08:07

other people don't see? And when

1:08:09

you start to look at those, they're very quiet

1:08:11

at first. People don't have a long

1:08:13

list. They're kind of like, I don't really know. And

1:08:16

I'm looking for really tiny things like this person

1:08:18

really appreciated that when they were sick, I called

1:08:21

them. This person really

1:08:23

appreciates that I'm funny, that I make

1:08:25

them laugh. I appreciate that

1:08:27

about myself, you might say, right? I

1:08:30

really appreciate about myself, or I appreciate

1:08:32

that I can be calm under really

1:08:35

stressful circumstances. I

1:08:37

appreciate that I notice

1:08:41

my partner and I do nice

1:08:43

things for my partner. I appreciate that. Not my partner

1:08:45

appreciates that. That'll be on one column. But the other

1:08:47

column is I appreciate that about myself. So

1:08:50

looking at how can I pay more attention

1:08:52

to some of these areas that I don't

1:08:54

pay enough attention to because I can only

1:08:56

see the real shiny thing out there, which

1:08:58

is how many people know

1:09:00

how many millions of people follow me

1:09:02

or how many people download the podcast,

1:09:05

those kinds of things. And

1:09:07

is there a reason why you separate work from

1:09:09

that is because you're trying to find yourself as

1:09:11

deeming other places outside of the work? Right. So

1:09:14

it's both and. It's not to say don't feel

1:09:16

worthy because of what you do with your work.

1:09:18

That's a big part of what we do with

1:09:20

our lives. Think of the number of hours that

1:09:23

we spend in work. We're spending

1:09:25

most of our days doing work. And

1:09:27

of course we want to get self-worth from that.

1:09:30

But we also want to know that we

1:09:32

have other areas in which we are worthy

1:09:35

and that we don't pay enough attention. We

1:09:37

don't give ourselves enough credit.

1:09:39

It's kind of like in a relationship.

1:09:41

There's a statistic about the bank of

1:09:44

goodwill. So in a healthy relationship, there

1:09:46

are we think of deposits of how

1:09:48

many positive interactions do you have with

1:09:51

your partner to how many negative interactions

1:09:53

do you have? And so you want

1:09:55

to have 20 positive interactions for every

1:09:58

one negative interaction. in

1:10:01

a relationship. And

1:10:04

when things are not good, you want to

1:10:06

have, you know, you hope you can do

1:10:08

five positive ones to one negative one. But

1:10:11

that's a lot. So it's really noticing.

1:10:14

These are small little deposits that you make. Like

1:10:17

I held, I took my partner's hands

1:10:19

when we were walking down the street. You know,

1:10:21

those are like small positive interactions. You're not counting

1:10:23

them. It's just a way of being. But

1:10:26

what happens is when your self-worth is

1:10:28

all in one bucket, you don't notice.

1:10:30

You're not making enough deposits to yourself

1:10:33

into the self-worth bank. So

1:10:35

it really is about noticing what are the deposits

1:10:37

that I'm making. So I'm making a lot of

1:10:39

deposits in the work bucket, but I'm

1:10:41

not making a lot of deposits and noticing that

1:10:43

was really, I really liked that. I was really

1:10:45

funny at that dinner party. That was really fun.

1:10:49

I was really kind to that stranger

1:10:51

on the street. That was really nice of

1:10:53

me. Do you think that some

1:10:55

people are scared to go to therapy because they think

1:10:58

if they are to heal from something, whatever that

1:11:00

means, it will rob them of something

1:11:02

that they value? If I go

1:11:04

to therapy and I work through my childhood

1:11:06

trauma, then maybe I won't be as ambitious

1:11:08

or successful or driven, etc. I

1:11:11

think the fear is I will have to change. I

1:11:14

will have to change and I will have to do

1:11:16

something different and I might not like that. And

1:11:19

that's why people are like, if I go to

1:11:21

therapy and I take off my mask and this

1:11:24

person sees the truth of who I am and

1:11:26

I see the truth of who I am, I

1:11:28

might need to do something difficult and

1:11:31

I might need to get rid of

1:11:33

one of my defense mechanisms like I'm

1:11:35

avoidant maybe, right? Or I

1:11:37

might not be able to do things

1:11:41

that maybe I get away with that are

1:11:43

not very healthy because they're

1:11:45

easier. In your book, you

1:11:47

say something, your new book, maybe

1:11:51

you should talk to someone. You say

1:11:53

something that really surprised me, which is

1:11:55

that sometimes when someone changes, those around

1:11:57

them will sabotage them. and

1:12:00

basically get in the way of that

1:12:03

change because it changes the dynamic that that relationship

1:12:05

has with a person. And I mean, we see

1:12:07

this generally when someone becomes successful, for example, their

1:12:09

friends from their hometown might be a little bit

1:12:11

resistant because they want to keep the dynamics the

1:12:13

way that they are. But the examples that you

1:12:15

talk about in the book about like, you know,

1:12:17

someone gets over their alcohol addiction and

1:12:19

then a friend might sabotage them

1:12:22

by giving them alcohol or taking them to a

1:12:24

bar. Yeah, yeah. We're really striking. Yeah,

1:12:26

that happened with Charlotte in the book when

1:12:28

she realized that her drinking was a problem.

1:12:30

She was the young woman who's in her

1:12:32

20s and was dating and she realized that

1:12:34

she drinks too much and it's really affecting

1:12:36

her life and her functioning. And

1:12:38

so she decided that she was going to do

1:12:41

something about that. And then when her she was

1:12:43

having a birthday party and her friends said, Oh,

1:12:45

let's do it at this bar. And she said,

1:12:47

No, I'd rather do it at this other place

1:12:49

because I don't want to be in that environment.

1:12:52

And her friends are like, you're no fun

1:12:54

anymore. And you don't come out with

1:12:56

this anymore. But the real issue is

1:12:59

that she was holding up

1:13:01

a mirror without realizing it to her

1:13:03

friends because they were saying, Oh, maybe we

1:13:05

aren't drinking in a healthy way. And they

1:13:07

didn't want to look at that. So

1:13:10

if they could get her to go back to

1:13:12

the old way, we see this in couples a

1:13:14

lot. When one person decides they're going to get

1:13:16

healthy in a certain way, like, I'm going to

1:13:18

start exercising, and the person starts exercising, and the

1:13:20

other person doesn't exercise at all, and they're really

1:13:22

unhealthy. And that person says, Why do you get

1:13:25

up early and go to the gym? You're no

1:13:27

fun anymore. You know, you're obsessed

1:13:29

with exercise when they're not they're just

1:13:31

going to the gym in a normal way. And

1:13:34

really, they're feeling threatened. They're like, you know, this

1:13:36

is changing the dynamic between us because we used

1:13:38

to be both unfit. And now my partner is

1:13:40

looking really healthy and hot. And now it's

1:13:43

really clear that I'm not really healthy. And I don't

1:13:45

look as good as I could look. And

1:13:47

maybe I'm going to have to do this. And

1:13:50

they don't really want to they're resistant to doing

1:13:52

that. And the partners not asking them to do

1:13:54

to go to the gym, they're saying, I'm going

1:13:56

to the gym, you do what you want. But

1:13:58

there's this implicit. pressure

1:14:00

of I

1:14:02

have to look at myself. That's why people, again,

1:14:04

don't come to therapy is because I'm going to

1:14:06

have to look at myself and maybe make some

1:14:08

changes that are healthier. I'm not sure I'm ready

1:14:11

to do that yet. And I write

1:14:13

in the book about the stages of change because

1:14:16

I think it's so important that people

1:14:18

understand that New Year's resolutions, for example,

1:14:20

don't often work because people think I

1:14:22

just decide this thing. I have this

1:14:24

goal. I'm going to do it and

1:14:26

I either succeed or I fail. And

1:14:28

that's just not true. There are these stages

1:14:30

that people go through and it starts with

1:14:33

pre-contemplation where you don't even know you're thinking

1:14:35

of making a change. And that's

1:14:37

usually like if your partner starts exercising, you

1:14:39

didn't realize that maybe in the back of your mind

1:14:41

that that was something you had

1:14:43

been thinking about but weren't ready to deal with.

1:14:46

Contemplation is you know you're thinking about making a

1:14:48

change, but you're not ready to do it yet.

1:14:50

That's usually when people come to therapy. They're thinking

1:14:52

about it, but they don't really, they're not really

1:14:54

ready. Preparation is when you

1:14:56

start to get ready, you're preparing, you're maybe getting

1:14:59

a gym membership or you're taking

1:15:02

an anger management class or whatever

1:15:04

you're doing. And

1:15:06

then action is when you put the change and

1:15:08

it might also be like you're preparing to break

1:15:10

up with someone who's not good for you. So

1:15:12

you're getting thinking about how am I going to

1:15:14

do this? What are the logistics of this? And

1:15:17

then when you action is you actually do the

1:15:19

thing. You break up, you go to the gym,

1:15:21

you change jobs, you apply for a job that

1:15:24

you always wanted, you go back to grad school,

1:15:26

you do the thing you wanted to do. But

1:15:29

then the next stage is the most

1:15:31

important stage which is maintenance. And maintenance

1:15:33

is it's not like you're on this

1:15:36

upward trajectory and if you go

1:15:38

off the trajectory then you fail. It's not like

1:15:40

that. Maintenance is how does

1:15:43

this become more habitual in my life?

1:15:45

So let's use the breakup example. You

1:15:48

broke up with this person, you're having a

1:15:50

really bad day, you're feeling really lonely, you

1:15:52

called them at midnight or you texted them

1:15:54

at midnight because oh I

1:15:56

don't know. And so now you

1:15:58

say oh I better get back in a relationship. I

1:16:00

guess I'm back in a relationship with them. No, no,

1:16:02

no, no, no. You slipped off. It's okay. Then you

1:16:05

say, you know what? I was feeling really lonely. I

1:16:07

didn't know how to cope with it. I'm going to

1:16:09

go to therapy. I'm going to have an extra session.

1:16:11

I'm going to call my friend. I'm going to watch

1:16:13

a TV show that I like. I'm going to read

1:16:16

a book that I like. It will feel different in

1:16:18

the morning. Next time, that's what I'm going to do.

1:16:21

And so you have to get used to,

1:16:23

you know, we talked about the familiar earlier

1:16:25

about going toward familiar partners. Making a change

1:16:27

is really hard because we're changing something that

1:16:29

was familiar to us. It's like when

1:16:31

I was in therapy, my

1:16:34

therapist said, you know, you remind me of

1:16:36

this cartoon and it's of a prisoner shaking

1:16:38

the bars, desperately trying to get out. But

1:16:40

on the right and the left, it's open.

1:16:43

No bars. So that's

1:16:45

us where we think, you know, I would

1:16:48

like to make a change, but I'm really

1:16:50

afraid of going out. So I'm more comfortable

1:16:52

being in jail in this miserable situation than

1:16:54

knowing that I have freedom, but I have

1:16:56

to change. I'm going to have to take

1:16:58

responsibility for my life if I walk around

1:17:00

those bars. And so I

1:17:02

think with change, it's really about how

1:17:06

do I give myself self compassion

1:17:09

when I have trouble

1:17:11

making the change and help myself get back on

1:17:13

track and what kind of support do I need?

1:17:15

People think if I beat myself up, if I

1:17:17

self flagellate, if I tell myself I'm awful and

1:17:19

I'm a failure, I'm going to get back on

1:17:21

track because that's going to help me. No, it's

1:17:23

not going to help you in the short term.

1:17:25

It might help you a little bit, but what's

1:17:27

really going to help you is to have self

1:17:29

compassion because that actually gives you more accountability. You're

1:17:31

more able to say to yourself, okay, let

1:17:34

me think about what I can do differently. It's

1:17:36

kind of like if your kid comes home from

1:17:38

school and says, I did really badly. I failed

1:17:40

this test. Are you going to scream at them?

1:17:42

Is that going to help them do better on

1:17:44

the next test? Or are you

1:17:46

going to say, let's sit down and figure this out.

1:17:48

What do you think happened here? And your kid might

1:17:50

say, I didn't really understand

1:17:52

it and I didn't get help. Or your kid

1:17:54

might really be honest and say, I didn't study

1:17:57

enough. So we can say, okay, well,

1:17:59

what can you do? next time, let's try to think

1:18:01

about can you make a schedule? Can you do

1:18:03

you need to study with a study partner? What

1:18:05

do you need to do? That's what helps people

1:18:07

make long term change. Is that

1:18:09

the wise compassion that you spoke about versus

1:18:11

the sort of idiot compassion, which

1:18:14

you talk about as well? Idiot compassion

1:18:16

is what we tend to do with our

1:18:18

friends. So your friend says, listen

1:18:20

to what my partner, my coworker,

1:18:22

my, you know, my sibling, my

1:18:24

parents did or said. And we

1:18:27

say, yeah, they're wrong. You're right.

1:18:29

How dare they? Because we're just

1:18:31

validating their perspectives. And like we

1:18:33

were talking about in my Ted

1:18:35

talk, there are many different versions

1:18:37

of a story, all of which

1:18:39

are true. So you're only

1:18:41

getting one narrow perspective when you're

1:18:44

hearing one, one person's perspective. That's

1:18:46

why couples therapy is so great,

1:18:48

because I can hear the same

1:18:50

incident told by two different people

1:18:52

who were there, both of whom

1:18:54

are telling the absolute truth of

1:18:56

their experience, but they're leaving

1:18:58

out the other person's experience. And

1:19:01

that's where things get dangerous. So an idiot

1:19:03

compassion, we don't consider what the other person's

1:19:05

perspective might be when our friend is telling

1:19:07

us something, we just back up our friend.

1:19:10

But they're not learning anything from that experience.

1:19:12

And when you hear them over and over, you

1:19:15

kind of get a sense that maybe they're doing

1:19:17

something like an example would be your

1:19:20

friend keeps getting broken up

1:19:23

with. And we can say,

1:19:25

yes, these men are jerks, they're terrible,

1:19:27

you deserve better. Or we can say,

1:19:29

you know, I think that

1:19:31

sometimes you're a little bit too possessive early

1:19:33

on in the relationship, and I think they

1:19:35

start to feel overwhelmed. And

1:19:37

then they break up with you. But if

1:19:40

you could just hold your anxiety a little

1:19:42

bit more at the beginning of the relationship,

1:19:44

and not be so overwhelming

1:19:47

that you might develop something different the next

1:19:49

time, that would be wise compassion, that's what

1:19:51

they're going to hear in therapy. So

1:19:54

in therapy, we hold up a mirror to them

1:19:56

and help them to see something about their role

1:19:58

in the situation that maybe they haven't been willing

1:20:00

or able to see. And

1:20:03

so we think we're being a good friend by

1:20:05

offering idiot compassion, but we're not actually helping our

1:20:07

friends. And that's what therapy I think

1:20:09

can be really helpful. When you're stuck with a

1:20:11

man and a woman in a therapy session, do you typically find

1:20:13

that the woman expresses

1:20:16

more emotion, tears than

1:20:18

the man? Sometimes, yes, often.

1:20:22

I also think that emotions can

1:20:24

be used as manipulation. So

1:20:26

an example is a pattern

1:20:28

in a relationship might be that he

1:20:31

brings up something that he wants to talk about.

1:20:33

She cries because of what

1:20:36

he said. And he said

1:20:38

it nicely, but it's something they need to deal

1:20:40

with. And she cries.

1:20:42

And then he gets terrified by her

1:20:44

crying. He thinks, oh my gosh, I've

1:20:46

hurt her. And so then

1:20:48

he shuts down. And so

1:20:50

really her crying is a manipulation. It's

1:20:52

a, I don't want to hear anything

1:20:54

that I'm quote, doing wrong. And

1:20:57

so I'm going to shut that down by crying and being

1:21:00

the victim and being hurt. Being a

1:21:02

victim is actually a power position because

1:21:04

you are making it impossible for

1:21:06

anyone to deal with whatever

1:21:09

is going on between the two of you because

1:21:11

now you're the victim and now they look like a

1:21:13

horrible person if they're making you cry. So

1:21:15

I will call that out in therapy and I will say, you

1:21:18

know what, he's going to talk and

1:21:21

we're going to do something different where he's going to be able to say what

1:21:23

he wants to say. She might cry, but

1:21:25

if she cries, I want you to please

1:21:27

go on. She's going to be fine. I'm

1:21:30

going to be here with her and you

1:21:32

don't have to manage her feelings. You're

1:21:34

going to tell her about your feelings. I will be

1:21:36

here to help manage her feelings. Hmm.

1:21:39

Interesting. And you see

1:21:42

that if you're not in therapy, you'll see that pattern

1:21:44

where it's just, you know, someone will play the victim

1:21:46

in the relationship and it could go either way. It

1:21:48

could be anyone in the relationship.

1:21:50

So when someone plays the victim, the

1:21:52

other person actually becomes the victim. They

1:21:55

become so helpless in the relationship. The true

1:21:57

victim is the person who has to. interact

1:22:00

with the person who plays the victim. Dreams.

1:22:03

Something I was quite surprised to find in your book,

1:22:06

but pleasantly surprised. Yes. Do our

1:22:08

dreams have meaning, or are they just random? I

1:22:10

think both, but I think that dreams

1:22:12

are really helpful. And in the

1:22:14

book, I do give examples of dreams where dreams

1:22:17

are often kind of

1:22:19

a story that we tell ourselves that we

1:22:21

aren't giving ourselves permission to

1:22:24

think about when we're awake.

1:22:26

So an example might be somebody who

1:22:28

has been, who is worried that they

1:22:30

have been doing something financially that is

1:22:33

not legal. They have

1:22:35

a dream that they were speeding on the highway

1:22:37

and they got caught. Well, what

1:22:39

is that dream really about? It's

1:22:41

this, I don't really want to think about

1:22:43

this thing that I'm doing that's not quite

1:22:45

above board. And I know I shouldn't

1:22:47

be doing it, but I'm not going to think about that.

1:22:51

You know, the dream that I have in the

1:22:53

book where, so I come into therapy because of

1:22:55

a breakup and I

1:22:58

have a dream that I ran into my ex

1:23:02

and it's this

1:23:04

very elaborate dream. But the point is

1:23:06

that in my first therapy session, I

1:23:08

had said to my therapist when I was talking about the

1:23:11

breakup, I said, well, half my life is over. And

1:23:13

he really glommed onto that statement that that was really

1:23:16

why I was in therapy. What was

1:23:18

this about for me? It wasn't so much about the break

1:23:20

at the breakup got me into therapy, but this whole question

1:23:22

of what am I doing with my

1:23:24

life and how am I living my life? And this

1:23:26

question of mortality was really what was on my mind.

1:23:29

And so in the dream, I

1:23:31

think I see that he has a new girlfriend

1:23:34

and I see that she's older than me and

1:23:36

I feel very self satisfied by that in this

1:23:38

petty way. And then

1:23:40

I look at myself in the mirror in the

1:23:42

dream and I'm like this 80 year

1:23:45

old wrinkled person and

1:23:47

I realize, oh, this is really

1:23:49

about this fear that I have

1:23:51

about getting older and that half my life is

1:23:53

over. And so dreams really

1:23:55

do inform our biggest fears and

1:23:58

our biggest preoccupation. that

1:24:00

feel too scary

1:24:03

to think about in our

1:24:05

waking life. And if we pay attention to

1:24:07

our dreams and what I mean by that

1:24:09

is when you wake up and you remember

1:24:11

your dream if you write it down immediately

1:24:13

but you write it in the present not

1:24:15

we were here and this happened but I'm

1:24:17

here and I see so-and-so and so-and-so says

1:24:19

to me if you write it in the

1:24:22

present it will bring back more of the

1:24:24

dream for you and it will

1:24:26

help you understand what connection it

1:24:28

has to something that you really do need to

1:24:30

be dealing with in your life that you're probably

1:24:32

not dealing with. Dreams can

1:24:34

be a precursor to self confession. Yes

1:24:37

that's what I say. Self confession.

1:24:39

They can tell you things about yourself

1:24:41

before you're willing to admit them about

1:24:43

yourself into yourself. Yes and

1:24:45

and it's so liberating. I

1:24:47

think that there's something about the safety

1:24:49

of a dream sometimes our dreams are really scary

1:24:52

but you wake up and you say okay now

1:24:54

I can deal with it now

1:24:57

that I've acknowledged it to myself I can deal with

1:24:59

it in the dream I just had to go with

1:25:01

the flow of the dream but now

1:25:03

I can actually make choices about what I

1:25:05

want to do in my waking

1:25:07

life. At the beginning of each therapy session

1:25:10

you'll often ask your patients to describe their

1:25:12

last 24 hours. Why

1:25:14

is that useful to know what someone's been

1:25:17

doing for the last 24 hours? I think most

1:25:19

of us don't realize how we spend

1:25:21

our time we have no idea. If

1:25:23

you said to somebody you spend three hours a

1:25:26

day scrolling on Instagram they would say no I

1:25:28

don't. We

1:25:31

don't realize and I think that at the end of

1:25:33

the day most of us want

1:25:35

to live our lives with intention and

1:25:37

what I mean by that is I

1:25:40

think that knowing that life has a

1:25:42

hundred percent mortality rate that all of

1:25:44

us has a limited

1:25:46

time here we're living on borrowed time that's

1:25:48

not to freak people out it's to make

1:25:50

people say how are you

1:25:52

actually spending this borrowed time that you have

1:25:54

here because one day you might look back

1:25:56

and wonder why and I

1:25:58

always say that we Regret can lead us

1:26:01

in one of two directions. It can be

1:26:03

a way of

1:26:05

self-lagulating and living in the past,

1:26:07

or it can be an engine for change. And

1:26:11

I really think regret is the most powerful

1:26:13

engine for change. I regret that I

1:26:15

lived my life this way. So if we don't realize

1:26:17

how we are living our lives, we don't have the

1:26:19

engine for change. In that chapter

1:26:21

24, you say the opposite of depression isn't happiness,

1:26:24

but vitality. Yeah, that's Andrew

1:26:26

Solomon, and I'm quoting there. I

1:26:30

thought that really struck me when he said that

1:26:32

in his own book and his own TED Talk,

1:26:35

because I think that people think about, well,

1:26:37

I'm either happy or I'm sad. And

1:26:41

I think what we're... There's

1:26:43

no... You can't be happy all the time. There's

1:26:46

no such thing. You would never know any other emotion

1:26:48

if that's all you were feeling. So

1:26:50

I think that vitality is what people are

1:26:53

looking for in life. What is vitality?

1:26:56

It's a sense of aliveness. And

1:26:58

this is why people have affairs, by the way. Often

1:27:01

when you ask people, why did you

1:27:03

cheat when you love your partner? I

1:27:06

didn't feel vitality in my life. I

1:27:08

felt the sense of aliveness and awakeness

1:27:11

when I was with this other person.

1:27:14

And it had not much to do

1:27:16

with the other person, and it really didn't

1:27:18

have much to do with your partner. It

1:27:20

had to do with you didn't feel vitality

1:27:22

in your own life. And instead

1:27:24

of looking at yourself and saying, what can I

1:27:26

do to create vitality in my life? I

1:27:28

blamed it on my marriage. I blamed it

1:27:30

on my partner. I said I was

1:27:32

going to find it with this other person. And

1:27:35

what they find is, yeah, that works for a

1:27:37

little while, but not very long. Does menopause play

1:27:39

a role in this? In terms of...

1:27:41

I heard a stat from someone that was

1:27:43

on the podcast previously where they said, post

1:27:46

menopause of women, but also women going through menopause,

1:27:48

will often divorce their partner, because

1:27:50

they have

1:27:52

a lot of psychological

1:27:56

doubts about themselves and maybe their expectations. I

1:27:58

think someone said to me that... their expectations go

1:28:00

up, so they end up divorcing their partner because they're clearer

1:28:02

on what they want now. But I was

1:28:04

just wondering what role menopause will

1:28:07

play in someone's marriage and

1:28:09

their expectations, their view of themselves, their chance

1:28:12

of maybe getting a divorce. And if you

1:28:14

see anything in therapy associated with this. I

1:28:17

think what menopause does is it goes back to this idea

1:28:19

of I don't have forever here. And

1:28:22

if they weren't happy with the

1:28:24

marriage that they were in, then

1:28:27

I think people really wake up and they really say, what

1:28:29

do I want in my life? It's

1:28:31

a very, there's a lot of

1:28:33

psychological changes that come with it's

1:28:35

not just the hormonal changes, but

1:28:37

it's what does that represent that

1:28:40

I am done with that chapter of

1:28:42

my life. And I'm now I'm, I'm,

1:28:44

you know, halfway through, again, half my

1:28:46

life is over. And what do I

1:28:48

want to do to more

1:28:51

intentionally because often women have been

1:28:53

serving others. So that's

1:28:55

what they've been doing, they've been taking care of other

1:28:58

people's needs, whether it's their partners or their children or

1:29:00

their parents. You know, they tend to

1:29:02

be the caretakers. And

1:29:05

now they're saying, wait a minute, I only

1:29:07

have this much time left. And I

1:29:09

really want to find that vitality in my life.

1:29:12

You went to therapy because of heartbreak. Yes,

1:29:15

I've been through heartbreak. Who has

1:29:17

not? It's one

1:29:19

of the worst feelings in the world. And it's really

1:29:21

hard to give someone advice when they're going through heartbreak.

1:29:23

I had a friend reach out to me recently and

1:29:25

said, Listen, I'm going through a heartbreak and I just

1:29:27

don't know what else to turn to. It's this big

1:29:30

dark cloud that hangs over everything I do think and

1:29:32

say that just won't go away. What

1:29:34

have you come to learn about heartbreak from your own experience,

1:29:36

but also from your patients? How

1:29:38

do we navigate through that dark cloud? I

1:29:41

think what people don't understand about heartbreak

1:29:43

is the grief. And

1:29:46

so this is why I talk about it so much. And

1:29:48

maybe you should talk to someone because it's

1:29:50

not just that you lost the present

1:29:52

with that person. It's that you lost

1:29:54

the future that you had created in

1:29:56

your mind. So you're

1:29:58

losing the dailiness. something really

1:30:02

profound about the

1:30:04

person you tell all the minutiae of your day, the

1:30:06

person you know so much about

1:30:09

each other and you know each

1:30:11

other's habits and quirks, this again

1:30:13

being understood being truly known, such

1:30:15

a delicious feeling being truly known.

1:30:18

And so this person knows like what

1:30:21

kind of pizza you like or this

1:30:23

quirky habit you have or what TV

1:30:25

shows you watch or that thing that

1:30:27

you do with your eyes when you're

1:30:30

excited. They know all those

1:30:32

little seemingly trivial details that are so important

1:30:34

about being known and they know your history

1:30:37

and they know about your family and they

1:30:39

know who your friends are and you've had

1:30:41

shared experiences with this person so you have

1:30:43

all that history together. Even by

1:30:46

the way if it was only six months, you

1:30:48

have a lot together a year. And

1:30:50

so in that time you started to

1:30:53

imagine oh and then

1:30:55

this is going to happen next year and then

1:30:57

in five years this will happen or we're going

1:30:59

to grow old together, whatever you imagine will happen

1:31:01

and you become attached to their friends and they

1:31:03

attach to your friends and

1:31:05

then you lose the dailiness of being known,

1:31:07

you lose the bigger circle that you had

1:31:10

and you lose the

1:31:12

companionship, you lose the physical connection,

1:31:15

you lose all that but you also lose

1:31:17

this idea of what was to come. And

1:31:20

so every day you're living in this

1:31:23

future that is radically different from that

1:31:25

day as it would have been if you

1:31:27

were in that relationship. So it's very

1:31:29

hard, people think well how it's been this long, how come you're

1:31:31

not over this person? It's kind

1:31:33

of like the same thing when

1:31:35

someone has a breakup instead of a divorce. People

1:31:38

think it's not that big of a deal, why? Why

1:31:40

is it less of a big deal? It's still loss

1:31:42

and grief or it's

1:31:45

like if someone loses a child,

1:31:47

everyone surrounds them. There

1:31:49

are all these rituals for how do we help people

1:31:51

through that kind of loss. Someone has

1:31:53

a miscarriage, people are like well you can still get pregnant

1:31:55

again, at least you got pregnant. The things, there's a chapter

1:31:57

in the book called The what

1:32:00

not to say to a dying person because one of the

1:32:02

patients that I work with in the book

1:32:04

is somebody who's a young person in

1:32:06

her 30s who is newly married

1:32:08

and then gets a cancer diagnosis. And people

1:32:10

say the most well-meaning

1:32:12

but ridiculous things to

1:32:15

her. And so I think the same

1:32:17

thing happens in heartbreak where people try

1:32:19

to minimize it, they try to cheer

1:32:21

you up, they won't sit with

1:32:23

you in your loss. And

1:32:26

that's what you really need is someone to sit with

1:32:29

you in your loss and to

1:32:31

acknowledge how profound the loss is.

1:32:33

And people don't do that. They either don't see

1:32:36

how profound it is or they do but they

1:32:38

feel like, well, we don't want the person to

1:32:40

wallow in it or if I bring it up,

1:32:42

they're going to be worse. No,

1:32:44

they need to be seen and actually that's going to make

1:32:46

them better and it's going to make them heal faster. What

1:32:49

impact did it have on you? The way

1:32:51

people reacted or the heartbreak. I

1:32:55

think for me it was a big wake-up

1:32:57

call, again, around this idea of half my

1:32:59

life is over and what do I want

1:33:02

in my loss and why

1:33:05

was I willing to overlook

1:33:07

certain things in my relationship

1:33:09

that were clearly there but that

1:33:13

I didn't want to see. How

1:33:16

did you go about recovering,

1:33:19

is that the right word,

1:33:21

moving forward? How

1:33:23

did you go about moving forward? That's

1:33:25

the whole narrative of the book. I

1:33:28

went to therapy and it's really about what

1:33:31

I learned about myself in therapy

1:33:33

that helped me heal and helped

1:33:35

me move forward. I was

1:33:38

thinking about the advice that I could give to my

1:33:41

friend and how I could have

1:33:43

been a better support act because my natural disposition

1:33:45

is to try and fix. And

1:33:47

from what you said, that's not necessarily the

1:33:50

best approach to take. My

1:33:53

natural inclination is to go tell them the

1:33:55

future will be better, share

1:33:58

my experience of my heartbreak. break.

1:34:00

And those are all good because as a

1:34:02

therapist, I want to hold hope from somebody's

1:34:04

really, really dealing with a difficult situation, whether

1:34:06

it's a breakup or something else. I want

1:34:08

to hold hope that they can't access. They

1:34:10

can't access any hope at that point. So

1:34:12

I'm going to hold the hope for them,

1:34:15

but I'm not going to try to cheer them

1:34:17

up. I'm just going to be the container for

1:34:19

that hope so that they know that

1:34:21

someone else is holding that hope.

1:34:23

So you did two things really well. One

1:34:26

was that you shared your experience so that this

1:34:28

person knows this happens. This person isn't alone in

1:34:30

this thing because I think when you go through

1:34:32

a heartbreak, intellectually, you know, other

1:34:34

people have gone through it, but you feel

1:34:36

like yours is so much worse than anybody

1:34:38

else's. And so to know that

1:34:41

that you went through it too, and here's what

1:34:44

helped you. And it also

1:34:47

took time and it sucked and all of

1:34:49

those things. And then I

1:34:51

know that it will get better even if you

1:34:53

can't see it right now to let them know

1:34:55

that piece. I know it will get better for

1:34:57

you even if you can't see

1:34:59

it right now. And the third, but so

1:35:02

those are the two things that went well.

1:35:04

The third thing though, is to be able

1:35:06

to sit in the grief with them to

1:35:09

say, tell me about how things are

1:35:11

different for you. Tell me what you miss, tell

1:35:13

me, and people think, oh, that's just going to

1:35:15

stir up all the stuff. They're just going to

1:35:17

ruminate. This isn't helpful. You

1:35:20

need to give them a place where they

1:35:22

can feel understood. And you can

1:35:24

say one strategy that might be helpful is

1:35:27

you can give yourself 30 minutes

1:35:30

a day to go

1:35:32

through all the things you miss, everything that sucks,

1:35:34

how horrible it is. You get that 30 minutes

1:35:36

so that the rest of the day they're not

1:35:38

ruminating because every time they catch themselves thinking about

1:35:40

it, they say, wait a minute, at six o'clock,

1:35:42

I get to do this nonstop for 30 minutes.

1:35:45

And so you can hold it, you

1:35:48

rewire your nervous system neurologically, this

1:35:50

actually happens, where that

1:35:53

pathway gets interrupted. If we can put a

1:35:55

stop sign up between the

1:35:57

feeling and and

1:36:00

the behaviour, which is the rumination. I feel

1:36:02

sad, oh, now I'm gonna ruminate on this.

1:36:04

We put a stop sign up and say,

1:36:06

I get to go there later. Then

1:36:08

later, when we start having more of these feelings, we

1:36:10

have a stop sign that we're used to now. Now

1:36:13

we're wired that way. So we

1:36:15

put more time between the thought and

1:36:17

the rumination. As you know,

1:36:19

Woop are a sponsor of this podcast and I'm

1:36:21

an investor in the company. And last month, I

1:36:23

had the chance to sit down with Kristen Holmes.

1:36:26

She's a VP of performance at Woop. And I

1:36:28

learned so much from our conversation about circadian rhythms

1:36:30

and things like sleep. Studies show that for every

1:36:32

45 minutes of sleep debt that you accrue, that

1:36:34

your decision-making ability will drop by up to 10%.

1:36:38

And when you're chronically underslept, you'll only

1:36:40

be a fraction of the person, the

1:36:43

fraction of the boss, partner, friend, manager

1:36:45

that you can be. That's why I'm

1:36:47

obsessed with Woop. Which not just

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tracks, but coaches you on how to get better

1:36:51

at sleep. So you can bring your best to

1:36:53

everything that you choose to do. If you're not

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convinced, you can try Woop for 30 days and

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join.woop.com/CEO. That's

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join.woop.com/CEO. And