Transcript for:
Key Takeaways from the Lecture on Relationships and Conflict

we are often drawn to a person who brings characteristics that we are trying to get away from are you looking for chemistry for a love story or are you looking for chemistry for a life story he's a psychotherapist author and host a round of applause for welcome perel how do you turn conflict into connection it's not what you fight about it's what you fight for how do you know if a relationship is worth saving before we jump into this episode I'd like to invite you to join this community to hear more interviews that will help you become happier healthier and more healed all I want you to do is click on the Subscribe button I love your support it's incredible to see all your comments and we're just getting started I can't wait to go on this journey with you thank you so much for subscribing it means the world to me the number one Health and Wellness podcast J shett J shett the one the only Jett how do you know if a relationship is worth saving shall I stay or shall I go is one of the fundamental questions and here's the thing even if you decide to stay or even if they decide to go you may do so while at the same time having a part of you that actually holds the other side if you think that the decision is 100% perfect no doubt no hesitation then it's a setup if you leave you need to be able to leave while experiencing the loss of something things that may have been good even if it's just a dream of what was if you stay you have to be able to grieve the part of you that will never know what it would have been like if you actually left so the answer is not in the extreme determination it's in the ability to hold inherent contradictions it's a complex question question and complex questions don't have easy binary answers and it's interesting isn't it because We crave a binary easy answer we want it to feel we often seek complete Clarity when we're trying to make a decision rather than accepting that a decision is followed by consequences consequences and a number of different feelings you use the word grief there and I've seen research that shows how when someone breaks up with you or when you break up with someone you almost crave them like We crave an addiction that may even be unhealthy for us at times why do you use the word grief and can you walk us through both of those losses of identity that you spoke about on either end so grief is because I think every choice comes with loss the consequence is the choice you didn't make and even though you think this is the right choice and this is what I must do the grief may be the fact that you didn't you were not capable of making this thing work or that you had such high hopes and it didn't materialize or that you have wished that you didn't make some mistakes that you made or that you wish you had left sooner there's lots of different ways but there is no choice that doesn't have loss and therefore some grief attached to it and that is the nature of the Beast that does not mean that you didn't make the right choice in terms of heartbreak it's a different part yes some people experience heartbreak with such an ache with such a sense of longing and such a sense of fracturing on the inside that they are that their longing becomes obsessive that they are trapped in reminition and that it ex experienced like a withdrawal that is not all breakups but that is the extreme kind of breakup which has been compared to an addiction because of those intense sense of withdrawal and because it takes place in the same centers in the brain let's say someone does want to save their relationship they want to make it work what does that take on a deeper level from that individual what have you seen over the years of what it really takes I think we often think of saving a relationship is like let's do more date nights let's spend more time together let's do more this but what have you seen it really takes from a human so look I work with relationships for 40 years these are questions that I can answer in multiple ways so I'm going to answer it in one way with you today and somebody's going to say but you didn't talk about that so I just want to preface that because there isn't a one size fits all and when I'm going to highlight something now with you because it's the first thing that came into my mind when you asked what can we do to actually repair our relationships strengthen them fortify them solidify them enliven them one of the first thing I often think about is accountability it's actually not asking the other person to do all the changing somebody's going to tell me but what if you've done that and it hasn't made any difference on the other side so I just want that to be mentioned in general in relationships we often get to a place where we think you need to change here I'm going to tell you what you could do differently that would make this relationship better and the hardest thing to do is to actually say what can I do because if you change it is quite sure that it will also create change on the other side because we are interdependent Parts in a relationship I start to do something which makes you do something which makes me do something it's a figure eight but if I start to do something else sooner or later you cannot continue do the same if I no longer answer you when you say something there's a good chance that at some point you're going to stop saying it because because you don't get the reaction that you've been used to get so there's no better way to change the other than to change ourselves but that's not a 100% thing it's just a good principle to keep in mind what is it that I can do differently what's one thing I could choose that I know would improve the relationship because I've heard you or because I know us and if I don't instantly walk out every time but I actually stay and I listen and I pay attention will that create something rather than thinking about you know all the good reasons why I should get out or leave in that moment so this accountability piece is very high on my list but there are 10 other things about what makes us work on a relationship to improve it and you talked about there how you know trying to change the other person isn't necessarily the focus but for so many of us that seems to be the problem the problem seems to be the other person's behaviors their attitude their approach to life maybe their aspirations I hear a lot of people say things like they don't dream enough they don't dream they dream too little right like too much sorry that's it yeah I hear some people say they they don't dream enough they dream too much I hear people say oh they have too many friends they have no friends right I see people at both ends of the spectrum we always seem to have issues with how our partners live and what I've learned at least in my own personal reflection and I found is that for a long time in my relationships I often projected the way I lived onto my partner and I we so strongly believe that the way we live is right the way we were brought up is right that we want our partner to kind of follow suit and I always give this very small example from my own home but in my house we used to eat hang out and then at the end of the night we'd wash the dishes in my wife home they used to eat wash the dishes and then hang out and so when we got married and we started living together and when we were having friends over or whatever it may be in my mind we're going to eat we're going to hang out and then we're going to wash the dishes in my wife's mind she's thinking we're going to eat now we have to clean up make sure everything's clean and then we can hang out and something as little as that can cause so much friction friction and bad communication and feelings of oh you don't care about me and you don't love me and you don't appreciate me or you don't value the work and there's so much that comes from something and that's just a very small example but it's interesting to me that in that scenario we both had not created a new belief system for our relationship but we're operating based on two old belief systems that we'd simply adopted uh walk us through whether you agree whether you disagree whether you can edit that reveal more to us about I find so many of our challenges exist because we project our operating system onto someone else rather than creating one with them I like the way you call it the operating system so I'm going to take a sentence that you highlighted and start from there you said here we were fighting about what's the right moment to do the dishes but in fact it what we were talking about is you don't care you don't see me you don't appreciate me you want it your way and what your highlighting here is something that I've actually talked a lot about in a new course that I'm doing on conflict which is exactly that how do you turn conflict into connection and one of the things I say is that it's not what you fight about it's what you fight for you are fighting for recognition you were fighting for power and control you were fighting for respect you were fighting for trust and closeness underneath the fight there are usually three sets of issues that we are actually fighting for and that is power trust and value M so you don't value me you know I worked on this dis on this cooking I made this nice meal I prepared I tried to be kind to your friends and you don't value me once you've understood that what is the hidden Dimension that you are actually fighting for the fight the dishes the when to do them becomes a lot more clear a lot more clear rather than it's not just I'm imposing my belief on you and I want it to do my way because my way is the right way that's you may think this way but the question is what happens when you have to confront yourself with someone who is different I mean everything about relationships is about straddling sameness and difference you know and when you are a couple's therapist it's very typical that people come to you and they like a drop off center right they tell you you know here my relationship here's my partner let me tell you what's wrong with them and maybe you can fix them and I'll help you I'll be your adjunct on how to make my partner understand why my family's way of doing things is the best way of doing things it's a very good way and so then the question is if you have to change your mind does that mean that it's a loss of your identity or can you actually experience that as an expansion as something that you let in how do you let the other person influence you without being constantly in a defense of your you know this is my flag and here are my values or my operation system yeah I I I really really relate to what you're saying and I love how you've broken it down to what we're fighting for versus what we're fighting about I think that's brilliant and that's from your master class right no this is from my own new course oh this is from your own new course coming out with very soon and that is really about letting people have a very different View and set of skills for handling conflict like this one you know at first it was a nice thing you didn't fight about you just said we do it oh that's so interesting no let's do it now no let's and then slowly because you couldn't come into an unified agreement it became a point of contention and then that point of contention became the go-to every time you need to talk about your backgrounds your values your style your priorities your way of doing I think we feel so robbed or at least when I speak to people about this they feel so robbed as you said of their identity but also as you said people feel robbed of their power that if I give in to this other person my partner may be the more powerful one in the relationship or if I concede then in the future when we're making decisions they're going to think I'm going to concede and often that is the case that people get into relationships because they think the other person is submissive or conceding to them or agrees with them on everything they say and then one one day that person goes wait a minute I didn't realize I just gave up everything I care about for you and so how does one learn how to practice that humility and giving up of power or is the solution a unified agreement as you called it just there what are we what are we trying to unravel how do we do that because I think that but you just betrayed yourself in the question okay your whole question is framed in power terms concede acques give in loss of self loss of power yes some people feel this way that is one frame for some people to enter into a relationship but if I actually change the word power I could go like this in every relationship you will find that there often is one person who is more afraid of losing the other and one person who is more afraid of losing themselves one person more afraid of Abandonment and rejection therefore more likely to acqu yes to pacify to plate to say yes until maybe one day not and one person more afraid of Suffocation and therefore they fight for their ideas their ways of doing it the timing of the dishes and that is less about power that is more about the nature of connection the majority of power struggles in a relationship are not power struggles power is the defense the control battle is the way people are defending in trying to get something for something else that they are worried about it's the surface Behavior you know some people when they're afraid they fight but the issue is not fighting the issue is that they're actually afraid and they're trying to deal with their fear by gaining control so don't just go for what you see because what you see isn't necessarily just what it is go always looking at a level below otherwise you're going to have a lot of this yeah exactly and so you're encouraging those people that feel that way to look at that layer deeper the context of why they're makes you lose your identity where did you get that idea who did you have to fight with that you had a sense that if you don't go all the way and with fists that's the motion of fighting right it's not this you know but you enter the relationship with that and yet you live it with this so what happened to you that is making you L interpret every situation as a fight as a power struggle as I have to stand up and hold on because if I give this is the beginning of a slippery slope that's a frame that is not the truth now maybe you picked somebody with whom this is sometime what is going to happen so then you ask this person what happens if you don't get your way for you the question is what happens if the other person gets their way and for you the question is what happens when you don't don't get your way can you still feel confident even if you don't trample somebody yeah and I think the questions you're asking that we all need to reflect on for ourselves I almost think they're as important to ask our partners like to understand what happened to them like why they're in that position why they get afraid and I think that curiosity is so often lost in romantic relationships where we don't understand why someone is the way they are we just assume that it's about us like we make it personal we don't recognize that they have a whole history of relationships of family of parenting of experiences that have made them that way and maybe they are dealing with a deep fear or a deep challenge does that resonate yes you know this thing about curiosity is the most important shift we try to make curiosity about yourself and curiosity about your partner or friend or cooworker whoever the other is curiosity is on the other side of reactivity so everything dealing with conflict is about helping a shift from reactive to reflective and curious but more interestingly what you reminded me of is a thing with I talk about in the course that's called fundamental attribution error if you are nasty or reactive or bullying me a bit or even just simply if you're late it whatever you're doing that the tendency is to think that when you do this it's because you have a negative personality but if I am nasty or short or you know cutting a little bit then it's because I had a tough day mine is circumstantial and yours is characterological and the loss of curiosity in relationships is because we tend to think that we are more complex than our partner and that's what makes us not ask what is your story with this why do you need to get things your way all the time why do you have to really in until I finally say whatever you want dear you know we'll do it your way because unless you got it your way you think that you are you know on the floor yeah I think people Anda you've I mean you've done this for decades now like I'm sure you feel that what we're really addressing here which I'm so happy that we've kind of gone in this direction it's it's beautiful I'm so happy that we're there that this idea of are you curious about yourself and why it's happening and what happened to you are you curious about your partner and what happened to them are you not making it personal are you thinking about working as a team building unified agreements all of this language is so positive and I genuinely believe that what we've just covered is so often missed in relationships because we're so busy pointing the finger and pointing the blame and pointing the responsibility that as you started off with there's a lack of accountability and that being such a brilliant shift to even just start it's liberating yeah it's actually liberating for people to say let me check myself for a minute the fear that people have is why me is it my problem why you blaming me no no no taking responsibility is liberating because the only thing you can really change is you there's a lot more freedom to do something about yourself than to go look for your partner on the other side you know I had a moment like that with my recently so I was on the phone and I was a little agitated talking to Banks and people and administrating bureaucracy which gets me agitated and uh and then my partner said you you too then my partner says my husband says to me I have a headache I said what happened he says you've been so yelling here next to me in the car and and I'm like you know I'm trying to solve these problems and you can't just say to me you know that's really frustrating these people were like keeping you on the phone for an hour you think I wanted to be on the phone for an hour with this and I just felt like a little lack of empathy please A Bit of Sympathy some support and on top of it I'm get scolded now for my attitude and I sat there and I began you know brooding and I said okay I'm not going to talk to you you know I thought if you don't want to if if I'm that unpleasant well then I'm not going to say anything and then I sat in there and I thinking I'm married almost 40 years I'm thinking to myself am I going to go do this one again you know why am I doing this why do I feel so upset why don't I just simply say I can imagine that it was unpleasant to so he says to me why don't you say something about the fact that it's really annoying to sit next to someone who is so agitated and I'm thinking why doesn't you say something about how frustrated it is that I need to be so agitated you know and this could have turned into a real fight yeah and luckily a little bit of humor takes us out of his very quickly it's like became like how many minutes are we going to do this yes yes and where was that coming from after all this time like like you said you've been together for four decades you love each other like you trust each other you you've worked through so many of these things what do you think it is that we're still fighting for in that moment like what what is it because it doesn't go away you're right like we have two answers I mean we have we would have very different answers to your question first of all just so you understand I will tell you I sometimes you know hear him talk in a situation like this and he's very could you explain to me why this is and I'm think tell them that this is not right you know and and he says afterwards he hangs up says I was very angry on the phone excuse me that is you know so I don't think I get much further by being more you know confrontational then actually I don't think I'm any more effective I think these situations are frustrating whichever way but we get into an argument over which of our approaches is the better one to talk with the bureaucracy it's ridiculous yeah exactly and it's so he thinks I'm I should be nicer right right and I think he should be a little more yeah yeah and and what are you saying are you saying that neither approach matters and we're arguing about something insignificant or is it no here's the thing you're in a situation where you are bound to not necessarily be successful yes you're bound to experience some helplessness it is frustrating the situation is frustrating in instead of dealing with the frustration of the situation you start to blame the other person for the fact that they didn't get to the result that you wanted instead of this kind of situation where you go back week after week with another person on the phone automated thing you know and instead of aligning together against the situation it you start to project onto the other why are you not competent so that I don't have to feel so helpless yes yes yes yeah wow yeah exactly and I can relate to that we we had a similar one kind of inverse to what you just said but but a similar interaction where I remember my wife would often say to me I've had a really tough day and i' take that as an opportunity to say I had a tough day too and mine was tougher I would go I would go further i' say I had a tough week you really up like really up like you know and and it's like I'm using her opportunity to be vulnerable and to share how she feels with me and to comforted and supported and just heard to be heard I'm using her opportunity to be heard to hear myself I'm it's kind of like when you were looking at me looking at myself earlier it's like that that idea of she's saying hey just sit with me for a second and I'm saying well no sit with me for a week and think about where I'm coming from you have it tough yeah and then now it just turns into a competition as to whose life is tougher right and making the other person feel like their pain is not valuable or that their stress that they've gone through is insignificant compared to mine and all of a sudden you're fighting for something that you don't even want to prove to your partner like I don't want to make my partner feel like their pain is not valuable but because I'm not honoring my Challenge and my stress and what I'm going through I'm expecting to use their space to do that you just explained it very well but sometimes yeah please I mean the effect is the same you topping her you know in such a big way completely says to her you have nothing to complain about which is not necessarily your intention but it is often the way the other person registers it and then the question to you is do you ever say to her I have a tough week without her prompt yes because part of what happens is that you get prompted by the other person and it suddenly says oh if you give yourself the permission to say to complain or to just vent a moment then maybe I get that permission too and what changes it is to just you know a is to acknowledge what I just been said and then to say I have that feeling often too yeah yeah but it is the competition it is the you suffer I suffer more yeah absolutely now now something that's really helped me you use humor now yeah my my wife can make anything funny so I rely on her to bring the humor in because she's just very useful yeah yeah she's just she's hilarious she's a comedian so not as a not professionally she's just a funny person and so she she can always add that but now what really helps me and this is more what I'm like is I'm kind of preemptive of stress and so I'll sit down with them like hey I've got a really stressful week coming up I just want you to be aware of that and so you know if I'm a bit shorter or I'm running around or I'm not fully present I just want you to be aware I've got a lot of stuff going on and if you need me of course I'll be there but just know and I like to set that up and communicate that because to me it gives me space to at least let her know where I'm coming from rather than to catch me in a bad moment and then I end up behaving in a way that I'm not proud of whereas now she's aware so now she's my mindful of that too and she doesn't have to tiptoe around me or she doesn't have to be unaware but it's the idea that she's conscious that I get it he's got three crazy days coming up and you know we can talk about something maybe the day after can I take this one a step i' love that I'd love that it's probably one of the most useful things I have seen changing in a relationship when you do what you just do you you're attentive you're caring you let her know you're apologetic and being apologetic is very beautiful but it still says my life is very important MH and I just want you to know I'm not going to be there the step that really changes it around is when you say to the other person I'm so thankful that you are here because you're being here is what enables me to go take care of my busy week AB because once you say it like that you make the other person very important and not my life is so important thank you for understanding in it you come after I'll be there if you need me but you come after the thinking reinforces the interdependence and it's true because you couldn't go and attend to your life the way you do without having the other person do whatever it takes for you to be able to be absent for a while and when you acknowledge that it makes them feel like they're part of the story rather than they're on hold while your story unfolds absolutely absolutely I couldn't agree with you more and I've always found that at least for me doing that separately in different context has at least helped me when it's not tied to the same context but I love that idea and I I fully agree with you like you know I think it's a nice switch it's beautiful it's a it's a tweak that really changes the power dynamic in the relationship in a small move yes definitely it's switching the significance from yourself yes to to this relationship and the the support that you each provide yeah that's beautiful I love that I love what we're talking about and you've probably heard this a million times and that's what I think it's important to address a lot of people will say I want to talk to my partner about these things I want to be curious about them I want to ask them about their past but every time I do they shut down they go quiet they don't want to talk about it if I if I get curious and say Hey you know when we're not arguing but when we're just talking and I say hey you know what I just I just wanted to figure out like is there anything that scares you from your past is there anything that worries you or is there any you're going through like how can I help you and the other person goes no no no I'm fine I'm okay I'm dealing with it and people often feel like they get shut down when they're trying to be curious I'm sure you've heard this a million times in sessions and how have you how have you dealt with that if you've tried to ask your partner a certain set of questions and you systematically get the same answer MH change tactic the point is not doing it one more time hoping that this time you're going to get a better response it's a little bit like Moses and the Rock You know the water won't flow yes so what I like is not to be so direct you know somebody told me recently that they had gone to an offsite at work so it started in a different context but it's a good example and she organized this whole offsite and she took a card from the game from where should we begin and the card was somebody who impacted your life and doesn't know it mhm and the whole group went through this question and basically people spoke that have that you knew nothing about people who never talk and people who you thought you knew that came up with stories that you had no idea about try to do it in a more playful way try to do it sometimes as part of a dinner conversation try to do it with a question that is less on the nose you know and that invites you to then start from anywhere you want this is an interesting question that you can answer at so many levels of depth there many of those if you just say tell me about your past no you know you saw this movie and you saw what happened there it's like anything of that that that is familiar to you and you tell your story you you need to create a context yes for many people digging deep into the past is traumatizing aversive scary uninteresting you know or they don't have the vocabulary for it is the other thing so that's why people have used the Arts books movies plays songs poetry they speak our human experience with and we only have to say that that's my thing so sometimes I say to people you know how about you find some songs that Express the stuff that you don't know how to talk about and that's a much lighter lift than tell me about your past you know a character that represents the parent that you grew up with and you go and find into a series a television series one of these characters they're all they've all been written about use other mediums other vocabularies to open up stuff that people don't necessarily want to be in therapy with their partner yeah I love that that's such great advice and I couldn't agree more I always say everyone who's listening to me I always say to them like please don't force my book onto your partner like please don't like you may love my books or you may love my night T please don't do that and I always say to people like it's about speaking the language that your partner connects to and that's what you're saying the language could be music the language could be art the language could be movies and I always talk about one of the reasons why I love having my podcast is because I get to speak to so many different people from so many different backgrounds so many different walks of life talking about similar things you read a book a day yeah exactly and and what I find is someone may relate to athletes more so if an athlete is opening up about their mental health and their vulnerability or a challenge they have with a parent your partner May respond to that more than they would a coach a therapist a psychologist or one of your partners May respond to academics and scientists more than they would to a guide and it doesn't matter how they open up and so I I I love that you said that and I love that you said sometimes we're just trying the same strategy for too long and you know like you said on the nose we kind of approach it in a very lar literal way like tell me about you know you're doing this happened to you before you know like a cause and effect you know play with it yeah you're trying to be that therapist and you can't I think play is a good thing I think movement is important too many people talk much more easily when they're walking when they're hiking when they're you know on a ski lift don't just sit and try to do face to face there's a reason that fishing is so good because you do parallel play everybody is looking forward nobody has to lock eyes and it allows me to think out loud and to answer a question here and there the other thing is sometimes the question comes later often there's one person that's much more articulate about some of these things than another so find other mediums other vocabularies and other settings start with that yeah I love that one of my favorite dates that me and my wife went on very early on was this activity in England called go ape and what it is is it's a it's like a ropes course that's high up in the air so it's like 80 ft or whatever up above in the air and you've got all these different like activities and things so you're like swinging you're like trying to walk on these steps it's it's challenging but it's fun and I remember having so much fun because there were activities that she found easy and I found hard and activities that I found easy and she found hard and we could help each other we could talk while we were doing it there was a sense of support and I think what you're saying is so true that I find that doing activities where we're both novices are really fun because when we're both getting a chance to see a new new fresh unseen side of each other we really get to play and really get to understand if I'm in a position of strength if I know a sport really well and she's never done it then I'm not really learning anything new I'm kind of just being there and trying to be the teacher and same vice versa but if we both have no clue about something like me and my wife took a surfing lesson for the first time in our life like a couple of years ago when we went to Hawaii we' both never surfed in our life you know we're both from London and that wasn't accessible there and we went on a first ever lesson and it was just hilarious it was fun it was silly we were both learning about how much tolerance we both had and there was humor coming in and what skill set we had and you're so right that adding movement to being together especially I finding ways where you're not familiar provides a real uh opportunity to see someone vulnerably so you added more than just movement you added risk mhm and you added playfulness there's a beautiful book by Eli fle called The All or Nothing marriage and he talks about really what creates a sense of aliveness in relationships and one of the things he highlights is the importance of doing new things not just doing things that you both enjoy that you comfortable with that's good but that breeds friendship whereas when you do new things that also involve unknown mystery risk curiosity that's where you actually bring in excitement and in my language also desire M I love that yeah that's beautiful that that makes complete sense and I love those words those words we don't often use around relationships risk mystery like yeah no no I know but you just don't hear them as much you don't hear them enough at all around relationships you always feel mystery was something you had on date one or when you saw that person from across the room right like that's when the mystery was and there isn't any but I could agree with you more that but that's because people prefer sometimes to create an illusion of familiarity as if I know you like you're the inside of my pocket until you do something I absolutely did not expect you to do and then suddenly I realized and I say I thought I knew you the real beauty is to know that whoever is next to you who you think is already so familiar and so known is actually still somewhat mysterious somewhat Elusive and that's where you maintain your curiosity next to the person that is with you you know faced with the unknown you can either re with fear and try to flatten it and just ignore all of that and just hold on to what's familiar or you can nurture it and then you are actually engaging with the mystery and the Curiosity that is right in front of you and that you know from your spiritual work that is very much taken from that notion how you then because that allows you to sit like this when you're talking with your partner because you're still attentive and curious versus like this yeah definitely definitely let's let's say someone decides to break up or maybe they're broken up with and we can talk about both sides of that if we talk about the side of someone's decided to break up with someone for their own reasons and of course there could be a million reasons for breaking up with someone so it's hard to be specific there but if someone's broken up with someone but they are having those feelings as you said the consequences will be you'll still have that grief of what could have been you have the consequences of maybe it could have worked maybe we should have tried there's still a feeling of I wish they were still around I used to talk to them every day at 700 p.m. at night I used to on a Friday night we'd always go to this favorite restaurant whatever it may have been we have these memories what do people do with that feeling what do you do with that feeling of craving you know you do a lot of different things but it's so interesting I literally edited a new episode for the podcast for where should we begin of a guy who leaves his wife who he had been very close to for quite a few years has a young child moves in with another woman is on the verge a few years later of marrying that other woman and can't do it and has felt guilt and remorse and regret and longing for all those years and starts to meet the mother of his child again not just as a mother but but now they're going on a first date again and it's like I left you and then I came back to you it's an incredible story to see one person that because that is a question that doesn't have one answer but in this case he couldn't leave her fast enough but he could never leave her fully and I can't tell you today if he's back with her or what but I have a sense that something when he was about to marry this other woman held him back that he couldn't necessarily put into words and that made him feel like he had to examine himself which is what this whole conversation on where should we begin is about and I've never had that particular version of it but it is the one that most responds to your question but you're going to have to go listen yeah yeah yeah absolutely absolutely no and I recommend everyone go and listen to that if that's a question you've been asking yourself I I think that heart AE that that people feel often feels endless as you said it can just go on and on and on forever people feel like we've always heard you know time will heal all wounds but who instigated the breakup is there really changes a lot or if it was Mutual is it ever Mutual yes I think I think that it is often Mutual where two people say we evolved into something else or it just didn't work or you know both people may have felt it but one person was able to say let's do it that that makes sense you know and the person who is more afraid of Abandonment and rejection and all of that is often more the person who may not say it but that doesn't mean they didn't feel it many people tell you I didn't have the guts to do it but it's the best thing that happened to me my partner pushed it I would didn't want it then so between what happens in the moment and how people experience the consequence it's not one and the same M the person who may have pushed it may be the one who has the most regret the person who was more hesitant it may be the one who actually is most liberated yeah it's not it's a much more intricate puzzle than just of course of course what are some of the phases that you see people go through that can give people hope that there is another side to this because I think when you're in it the emotion is I'm never going to be loved again I'll never find someone as good as that them again I can't trust anyone again right like these are the thoughts that people are repeating in their minds what do somebody need to understand during that time to to know it just made me think of of uh of another episode of this but it's the daughter who describes how one day a truck came took all of her father's stuff I mean then comes back home that's a story that we hear quite often and then all the situations of betrayal of infidelity of falling love with somebody else or discovering that your partner you know wants a fundamentally different relationship than you and I think that the situations where you are like completely sight lined and you realize wow the first experience you have is that your whole sense of reality is shattered I thought I knew my life this has nothing to do with where I thought I was at how can this be happening to me you're in a state of confusion in a state of disbelief and in a State of Shock and in a state where you feel like you've been just ejected from your life you you you had value and you have none that's all part of betrayal it's not just the lying it's the fact that somebody could toss you away like that and that you think I don't matter and that's what makes you much more afraid will I ever find someone who can hold me carry care and carry me you know and can I trust that ever again because I trusted it here the question is as much about how do I trust again but not just how do I trust somebody else how do I trust my own perception that's the piece that when you lose the belief in your ability to know that what you believe is what is yeah then you are on such Shaky Ground so it Demands a real scaffolding and a rebuilding no you haven't lost your entire sense of perception because you have good friends family colleagues mentors there's not just that person and you need to get your sense of value from noticing the other relationships that you have so you need to bring those people into your life do not isolate at that moment you need the people who see you differently from the one who just left you and who those who seek you out those who value your presence those who think you're great you know and then slowly you often will find that you connect better with other people who have experience sense of betrayal like that but betrayal is not only infidelity it can also be in a partnership it can be in a being co-founders of something in there other relationships that go through this complete fracture slowly you begin to say it's not one person's harming me or hurting me that is a decree on who I am and my self-worth that person hurt me deeply I have been hurt and I learned from this and and I protect myself a little bit but I don't have to protect myself in such a way that I don't live because the biggest Victory on this kind of hurt is the ability to love again to trust again you did not take that from me that is probably your biggest vengeance is to be happy well yeah I mean that that resonates very very strongly and first of all can people rebuild trust After experiencing infidelity and what does that process look like for someone and how different it is it to what they expect it to be the beauty of your questions is that it filled an entire book of mine because it's actually a big big topic but if I was to try to summarize it yes yes of course people can rebuild trust I mean that is very not everybody and not in every situation but the process itself very much is real and I have met you know I began State of Affair by going to talk to couples that I had seen five or 10 years earlier to know whatever happens to these people because I see them in a moment of Crisis and often I don't know afterwards you know they decided to stay together they worked it through and if they went so I wanted to know what does that relationship actually look like years later who are they what happened to their bond you rebuild trust through a few major stages the first one is that whoever hurt you especially if you choose to stay together has the ability to express guilt and remorse for hurting you even if they don't feel guilty for the affair itself even if they have host of good explanations good reasons that that make it understandable not justifiable not condonable but understandable they still can experience the guilt and the remorse for hurting you that acknowledgement is fundamental it's fundamental in an intimate relationship in a friendship or between nations for that matter then it's the ability to basically become what I call the Vigilante of the relationship it means it's your job now to say how much you value the relationship and to protect the relationship so in the situation of an affair for example it means that instead of you're asking me questions about what I did and me hoping that you won't ask me because we've already gone through this 10 times I ask you is there something you want to ask me because if I bring it up rather than hoping you won't bring it up then I'm saying to you I'm owning my thing I take responsibility I care about the relationship and most of of the time if we have a good day you may say to me I don't want to talk about it I'm having a good day because I am reminding us and I'm not letting it be forgotten and I'm taking charge that's the Vigilante I'm the protector of the relationship and then number three is to explain to talk between the people why did you do this what did it mean to you and then what did it do to me the affair always includes both sides if you just talk about what it meant for you you're missing a point if we're just talking about what it did to me we're missing a point so the ability to not just look at the facts what did you do but the meaning of it Affairs have meaning they're stories they tell us something about the person about the relationship not always bad things for that matter so what did it mean to you and those three stages in the crisis phase remorse guilt acknowledgement in the inside phas you are the Vigilante and together we explore meaning making of This crisis for us what are we going to do with this and then phase three is if we do Stay Together what's our vision for who we want to be no we will probably not go back to what we were because what we were may have been part of why we got to where we are who do we want to be what does it open up an affair toles the scorecard in a relationship so I may have accepted at all kinds of things because this was the way I conceived of our relationship and I was willing to not work and I was willing to make more money I was willing to work all the time I was willing to do all the child care I was willing to do none of it I was willing to take care of your ailing mother of your addicted brother whatever I accepted a lot of things but now this basically gives me the opportunity to also say I also have discontent it's not just your Affair that expresses the discontent and so here's the fundamental line most of us today in the west are going to have two or three relationships in our adult life or marriages some of us are going to do it with the same person so sometimes the affair is the end of the first marriage or the first relationship but it can be the beginning of the next one with each other and that's the rebuilding of the trust well said yeah no and it's I'm sure that's going to give people a lot of Hope but also what I love about your work and in your books is that there's also a process there there's a structure there there's a method there for people to go oh okay that's where we're at that's what I'm struggling with I think one of the biggest thoughts that repeats in people's minds when they're broken up with or when they've experienced infidelity that I hear from people is Jay I feel like I'm not worthy anymore I feel like I'm not lovable again I feel like I'm not desirable while they are staying with the person or while they've broken up both I've heard people say I don't feel desirable because they desire someone else but I still want to be with that person and I don't feel worthy even with that person now because I'm reminded constantly as you said of their infidelity and these thoughts perpetuate but what I'm hearing you say and I'd love for you to guide us is what I'm hearing you say is well that's why you need to do the meaning making because you really need to understand the their story and meaning and yours right now you're just focus on yours and that's always going to be this negative repetitive pattern you remind me of um a couple I saw and this man had done something that was really egregious in some way because he had taken everything that was special to the relationship and shared it with the other person but everything wow their favorite places restaurants clothing I mean he had left nothing sacred that's a devaluing right and whenever they would drive there was a way when they would arrive to a place and she would look at him and it was like there too and so he would dread it because he knew he was guilty as charged and then I began to say to him I want you every time you drive when there is a place you say yes there too without waiting for the question because you know know that you have to stand but when there is that you have to stand accountable but when there is a place not you say no they not before the question comes up that's part of the Vigilante so that you protect the relationship and you bring back the value you say you know now go create new places too that are new for the two of you and that you need new cells you can't just go back and try to reenter the spaces that you were in the loss of value gets addressed by having someone who is slowly reclaiming the value the feeling is true but it doesn't mean that because they had desire for someone else they had none for you actually sometimes they had desire for someone else because you had none for them you know the person who says that to you is comes with one particular story but there's so many stories you know sometimes you have a person who was completely in uninterested for a decade and then they are upset that they're partner was interested with somebody else it's not just you know I was there available for you and you dumped me for someone that you looked at with a bigger you know fer eyes so what people experience after the Betrayal doesn't always tell the story of what happened before that's why the meaning making is so really important you know sometimes somebody's going to say to the other you devalued me for 10 years you barely paid any attention to me you were so en ruptured in your work you were so busy with your phone you were so you know you I was abandoned long before you know and that also needs to be put into the story the story doesn't start the moment that you discover something because there are a lot of moving pieces underneath and people addressing this with care carefulness and responsibility is the process it's the Hope doesn't come from nowhere it comes because two people say this is important we build something we've been together 5 10 15 years 25 years we not letting this just go now we need to reclaim the value of this for both of us absolutely this idea that we're going to have two to three relationships in our adult adult life and they could either be with the same person or of course with two to three different people and I think this idea of choice and selection has obviously rapidly changed because of technology and apps and the amount of people you can bump into you know I looked at studies saying that you know 25 years ago most people ended up with someone within a f mile radius of where they grew up we know that that's not the case anymore people are moving countries for people moving States people are living in different parts of the world we both live in different parts of the world than where we grew up and so when I look at that one of the biggest challenges I find or or that I hear from people is because there's so much selection there's a sense of like I'm not feeling any spark I'm not feeling any chemistry I don't feel a connection with this person I hear that a lot and we let's address that and then the other thing I hear is this idea of like you know this guy didn't have as much as the other guy or you know and you start comparing it because you can because you're just exposed to so many more people now and you're almost comparing resumés of people that you've heard about spoken to seen on a dating app introduced through your friends so this idea of choice and the Paradox of choice as it's always been called in studies from products to people now you know we can get stuck at a grocery store wondering which product to buy but in in dating it feels like you can keep going because you can just keep swiping let's talk about both of those the idea of how do you choose how do you select and when you're choosing and selecting how do you not feel that sense of there could be more I said Choice comes with loss I'm actually very excited about this question because I'm very interested in this at this moment right I'm interested in the intersection of technology and relationships and mental health and I've just done a a bunch of episodes with people in the dating scene because of exactly this so we have have a frenzy of consu of romantic consumerism in which in search of the perfect people are no longer happy with the good mhm we have people looking for a soulmate on an app that's an interesting combination between spirituality and capitalism and how do we even think that a partner is a soulmate soulmate used to be God you know and now we want Transcendence and mystery and wholeness and all of it and ecstasy almost with a person you know the stuff that people looked for in the realm of the Divine they now want with their person and at the same time they're doing it with a checklist so that many dating experiences are like job interviews so all of that combined right I do think we have more choice but we also have a lot more uncertainty and a lot more self-doubt and we are a lot less capable of handling uncertainty because we live with a host of Predictive Technologies that are all meant to take away uncertainties obstacle friction you know rough edges so we don't rub anymore with stuff that helps us deal with uncertainty unknown and engage with happen stance you know happen stand means you stand in line and you start talking to the person that is behind you in line and after that you go and have a drink with that person and after that you find yourself exchanging numbers and a story starts MH SP ously unprompted so I think that the commodification that people feel is real it's not just because of your childhood it's part of society at this point there is a way in which we talk about ourselves as products and there is a way in which we talk about ourselves online with followers as if we are religious leaders you and me for that matter so the first thing don't go in thinking that you have to find somebody at the first meeting that's not the way it works and that you go down you list and you know and then if the the first thing that goes wrong you go ick and you just go on to the next you know what I'm doing now when I address this very question is I show a very famous clip it's classic in Psychology called the still face experiment have you ever seen it no I haven't it's a two-minute clip on YouTube in the steel face experiment the mother is playing with the little one and the little one is pooing and showing her things and you know and then at some point the mother goes still face and the kid continues to point and continues to call her attention and within 30 seconds or less of the mother not responding the kid goes into a panic a frenzy loses its body composure starts shrieking and basically you understand that we are relational people from and what this clip shows me is that this is what goes on in ghosting in bread crumbing in check listing this is what is the experience of many people at this moment you go you have a honic threadmill you meet someone you think there's possibilities and then they disappear on you and you're left like this and then you unravel and you do this sometimes 20 times a day with the same person this is kind of the experience of modern dating in this I haven't seen many people say I love it you know maybe 6 5% of meeting people meet on an app but I don't see people saying I love it actually it's the number one complaint of people dating at this moment so try to bring back something that is more Humane you meet somebody or a friend introduce you to someone don't go and meet with them alone in a bar to have a face to-face conversation to go down an interview do an activity it's exactly what you were talking about do something you enjoy doing bring that person to a thing that you're doing with friends you want to get to know somebody put them in a social social situation see how they interact with people how they act how they respond how they engage with people if you think that you're going to have epiphanies with Clarity like an app forget it you will be exhausted and you won't meet anybody really well said and I and I could agree with you more I'm always trying to push people away I'm like get out of your inbox and your DMs and your messages and get out there there's no way talking to someone over a couple of messages is going to help you figure anything out but you've probably spoken to so many people who've had chemistry lost chemistry never had it I feel like a lot of people today that I hear from they're meeting people but they're like there's no spark there's no chemistry I'm not feeling anything what should we want to feel if there is anything we should want to feel at all with someone and what is the difference between chemistry compatibility and well first of all I think we need to differentiate are you looking for chemistry for a love story M or are you looking for chemistry for a life story lots of people you can have chemistry with have a fantastic night with for that matter or more but that's not the person you necessarily want to make a life with the project will determine the nature of the chemistry right that's number one so number two is curiosity a desire for more I want to you know it's like you read a book a person is a book right or you can use other metaphors do you drag yourself through the next page you know I should you know let me see where it goes or like you can't wait you know it's a page Turner if you have the experience of the page Turner with the person you want more you want to have the next conversation you want to ask them that kind of question you want to go do something else with them you're on a good track you know this notion of this instant combustion of emotion that fills you up you want a religious experience that is not always the case sometimes people fall like that you know as we say it for but the majority of the time it things grow you know they grow through the interaction you get a good text you like what you just read you find yourself wanting to answer a sentence and you've just answered two pages you know you wanted to go and meet them for half an hour and three hours later you're still sitting on the floor in the hallway having an olling conversation that's the stuff that reads the feelings if you sit there like this and think that some you know deox Machina is going to fall from the heavens you're off you know it's this false certainty that is not the majority of people and there's many ways in some people start hot and then they become lukewarm and some people start lukewarm and the heat grows over time there isn't one narrative this notion that Hollywood has sold us that just like ah and I can't can't wait and I just have this I fall for you on the spot that's one plot there are many plots and if you constrain yourself in thinking this is how I should be feeling and I'm not feeling it then you you are limiting your options yeah one thing that has really come up a lot with people have spoken to recently is this idea of they find someone who makes them feel safe who they feel cared for by and the person seems to be they consider them to be good-hearted MH that person makes waiting for the butt yes exactly you're right you already know you already know this person in their words makes sense MH but they feel like they're settling because there must be someone else who has all of that plus the other three things that they want you are a perfect candidate for romantic consumerism if if you think this way you've been had you've been literally you've become a good person that I can we can you know you your mind is set for somebody telling you this is the product you need the perfect fit and then you are going to be the perfect patient who comes in thinking I thought my person was like this and this and this and they're not the deal that I bargain for it's not what was written on paper you can Le the language it's like business you know capitalism enters romantic life it's it's really crippling to people you know the more you have this notion of perfection the low the higher you can fall you know are you perfect are you that great do you think that everybody falls like what is this notion so then there is this idea that there is the sense and settling with the passion you know and you should have that passion passion is a wonderful feeling to have it's maybe not the best thing to decide if you want to have a life with somebody on it's not the most important ingredient for that you know that doesn't mean you don't want excitement intensity you know draw but this idea that there is reason and passion that's a very old divide that's the that is the Divide of the 19th century the rationalists and the romantics and why do you say that why do you think that and I and I get that you're giving a balanced approach there but to Enlighten Us in what you've seen you compared the love story and the life story why do you think it almost feels like what we've been sold is for the love story but the life story requires a different set of skills yes skills and values and compatibilities because there are many more people that you can love than people you can make a life with I can have many love stories with people that I meet on a trip that I you know with whom I have a a beautiful short story with but would that be the person with whom I can do we share anything else in terms of how we see life M with everything else that life brings that's a different thing that doesn't mean you don't want love in the life story but many more love stories can exist without life story not that many life stories will exist without a love story you know you can call it an adventure you can call it you know and it is what people used to do when they date before they're looking for someone with whom they want to have a more committed relationship it's very important that that we see that a lot of the things that we're looking for are the things that make for a real love story the things we want to feel the things that are on the checklist are the things we've kind of created an impossible situation it's really so you don't settle if you see that language says what I am fantastic you know or I am not fantastic but I'm going to find someone fantastic who's going to make me rise M and it is a kind of use of people that really is is creating such a psychological POS it's really eroding people's sense of self-esteem and sense of self-worth it's not good yeah where are you at in your life at 23 you're going to think differently from 33 you know at 20 at 33 it's likely that you're going to think of a few people that you said no to at 23 that were perfectly fine and you can kind of didn't because you kept thinking I can do better and this I can do better is eating people up because it creates constant restlessness in relationships in life in Pursuit and then they need to go and meditate to get calmer to be less restless but the restlessness is this constant pursuit of more better younger and therefore living with the feeling not enough I don't have enough I'm not enough and that's the crisis that then follows around self-worth because you constantly want more you end up constantly feeling not enough yeah and someone else will make me feel more than enough yes the evaluation you know the the the meaning of finding the love partner today is that it will end my sense of constant self- evaluation I'm evaluating myself I'm presenting myself I'm selling myself I'm trying to compete on the market it's like language you know the the Romantic language is about the market you know the meat and then when I find you my beloved I will finally stop the process of evaluation this is a thing from aao a great sociologist that studies love relationships that's such a beautiful language as well that you want to end your process of evaluation when actually a life story is an evolution of self-evaluation it's only going to come with more do do you see there being inherent value in long-term committed relationships or is that also a construct of society I see look I work very cross-culturally right so I I don't think the answer is the same if I am in Belgium in India in Turkey but I think there is a lot of value in a long-term relationship but the long-term relationship has doubled in lifespan so 100 years ago we lived half of now so the long term gets keeps on getting longer but there is also tremendous value in having had the possibility of finally being able to end this and to start a new or to never have had it and to start a new people who marry for the first time in their 60s or people who realized that they had a beautiful relationship for certain things and that now they needed something else the marriage was an institution that you couldn't leave you got in and you got in for life and if you didn't like it you could hope for a Hur an early death of your partner you know hope because that was the only way out and especially for women I mean marriage has not meant the same for men and women marriage for same-sex people is very recent so the question has a lot of different pieces I think that there is something very beautiful in a long novel and I think that there are beautiful short stories there isn't a one siiz fits all at this moment and the interesting thing is we've been Crea about a lot of things we disrupt we are creative about even family life we have Blended families samex families single parent families accordian families but when it comes to romantic couples Romanticism the exclusiveness the monogamous long-term model has been the dominant model for two centuries and and is quite um strong so I think we can be more creative and in in rethinking relational arrangements and relationship that are more diverse and that bring in other people as in the community because what is happening in the long-term relationship of today is not only that it is much longer but it is also much more isolated longer loner longer and loner one person to give us what normally an entire Village should provide and that is crippling the relationships under so much weight and so many expectations so those those who do it well do it better than the relationships of the past says Eli but the majority of them don't manage to climb the Olympus yeah and I you know I often think about that because I think what we were talking about earlier when I first met my wife I definitely say that there was so much of the Romanticism of the perfect relationship and I often talk about in my book as well about how I proposed to my wife which was basically based off her of Instagram and YouTube videos how I invented a proposal that was so not personal or not she liked it well I'll tell you I'll I'll tell you what happened so and if anyone's heard this story before I apologize but I I want to estate have the context yeah so we'd been together I think at that point for like maybe I proposed off like a couple of years M and so we'd been together I decided I was going to propose we were walking down the bank of the river temps in London I had an Acappella group jumped out and sing Bruno Mars will you marry me like marry you to her they gave her a bouquet of flowers they performed this amazing number I got down on one knee I proposed we both shed a tear she said yes uh we then had dinner on the side of the temps where I had the kind of fagala table from a restaurant I had food that was brought in but it was cold because everything had gone wrong on the timing so we ate cold food which was we didn't mind my wife is amazing so she didn't care but it but I was looking at that gun going hm and then we walked around the corner and we ended up on a white horer Carriage that I'd booked that took us around London on this beautiful carriage and it was a beautiful trip and then we got on the train to go back to her parents and we got home to her parents her parents opened the door and they said what happened to you to her uh she had hives all over her face because that was the day I discovered that she was allergic to horses and I didn't know that and she didn't know that and I've always looked back and reflected at that story because my wife said yeah she's never complained about it she was happy with it but when I really look at it and as I've got to know her more and more every year and like you said I feel like I get to know more of her new things and old things every year we've been together for 10 years now and I still feel like every day I'm discovering something new about her I realized that that was the most impersonal show of Love ever it wasn't the song wasn't specific to her the horer carriage wasn't specific to her the the food was the only thing my wife would care about because she's a big foodie and that's her world and it was cold and I look back at that event and I go I'm lucky she said yes but actually the hives were a reminder to me of how little I knew my wife at that time or or the how eager you were to impress how eager exactly how I was a complete show of ego I was um 20 maybe six 27 yeah uh and and just what a show it was as opposed to you come from traditional amilies uh I would say we come yeah like I would say we come from more traditional families yes yeah definitely they're they're modern thinking but generally traditional overall in the world uh and it was where they arranged marriages or were they my mom and dad were and pretty much hers was as well yeah pretty much her parents were as well so that's a major transition so when you ask me about long-term relationships I think people who are in an arranged marriage system answer that question very differently than people Who start with the Roman you know what the research says right what does I've seen bits but please clarify yeah I don't want to I think it's Daniel's research that U people who start with romantic and falling in love and passion are much more likely to then experience a a dissatisfaction in the relationship then the majority of people who start in an arranged situation which is much more rational actually their satisfaction Rises as they get to know each other and develop the fness and the relationship I think this is true if the relationship is good yeah if it's good but for those for whom it was really not a good match it must be horrific horrific yeah and and I think the reason why I was sharing that story was because I think what I've realized and you were mentioning this earlier is that I feel like I found the person who has helped me continue self-evaluation in a way that I would have avoided with someone else or that I would have tried to avoid if I would have had multiple love stories whereas this life story that I have with my wife currently is just the most purifying and cleansing detoxifying process internally but in the most fun loving and caring way and I look at that and I I think about that often where I think to myself I would have had to learn these lessons with anyone but maybe someone else may not be able to challenge me as much as my wife does with the lack of criticism and complain and judgment in a safe space with humor which actually makes it accessible to me and it's it's one of these really interesting Reflections I wanted to share with you to hear your thoughts on that because I don't think I would there are so many skills today that I have only because I married this particular person there are there are so many emotional parts of myself that been able to discover because of this person there have been so many you know you know what you're telling me in some way is you didn't succeed in impressing her I have never succeeded in impressing my wife and the best that's her power you know I mean not that you're not impressive to her and that she doesn't appreciate and admire but you didn't succeed till this day right and therefore her opinion matters and therefore she can keep you on your toes and therefore she doesn't let you sit on your laurels and get away with stuff and therefore she can see you in a more humble way when you come home from having done 40 stage events after another where you get you know clapped the whole time and you kind of lose a sense of you know proportions and that is an extremely I think that you're very lucky and not just lucky because you found her but also because you knew you knew that you did need someone who challenges you and who can hold hers to you but do it in a way that doesn't feel authoritarian or humiliating or ball busting Etc and so it creates the right friction MH she cares and she can criticize she loves and she can challenge you know it's both end and that that holding those tensions in a relationship is in my mind very important and very um gives a lot of strength and energy to a relationship yeah I think yeah oh sorry please that's it I think the it's your self-awareness of it that is really good it's like if you had somebody who just looks like that it would have been a problem if you had somebody who just did that it would have been a problem but you knew that you needed that yeah and I don't think I knew it before we started having that experience but it it just became really evident to me that she loves me for who I am not what I do and and what I achieve and how I try to impress for example and I think that's a great reminder for me to love myself for who I am and not love myself for what I achieve or what I do or what I create and I think that that is a really I'm like that's the great it's very important yeah yeah to to have some yeah and and and it's also how you perceive it I think what you're saying is true like I've talked about it with people I could easily perceive it and people could perceive it and say Jay you're just a pushover Jay you're just you know making it up you're making sense of something and it's bad treatment or whatever and I'm like well no because I can see that done from love and care and it's humor as you said like it's done from such a special loving place that I feel that I know it's a knowingness that it is liberating and it is it is wonderful but it's interesting because I think a lot of people may have that experience but they don't want to be humble they don't want to access that point and I'm fortunate that my my monk training is kicks in there and and allows for that vulnerability and self-reflection and not thinking I'm perfect whereas I wonder if that's we're scared to do that because we almost want our partner to make us feel perfect no I think I think that this this thing of perfection is I think we want our partners to recognize us and accept us Perfection but it comes in the form of at least in the beginning demanding adoration and yeah but the beginning is only the beginning it's one phase of a relationship yeah you know I think my my friend Terry real has beautiful definition self-esteem or self-worth or self-confidence is seeing ourself as flawed imperfect people and still hold ourselves in high regard if you actually need to see yourself as perfect you lack the confidence the confidence is the ability to make mistakes and not to not sleep over it for three weeks because you feel such shame and such you know intense attack on your identity but I have a question from you for you that from what You' just said do you feel that these days on both sides of on all sides of the spectrum of the gender spectrum that people are so enraptured with the notion of identity and holding on to the self that they find accepting influence from another person an instant threat of their identity like pushover pushover is is is like you know it's it's a power Dynamic instantly when you use that word you know if you accept what you wife says what kind of a man are you right you're just a pushover that's more in the masculine version the women have it in the and but it is along the whole Spectrum something about the way we are so busy protecting our egos is making everything that involves letting someone else actually have influence over us which is part of what being in a relationship is about as an attack yeah I mean I'd love to discuss this with you and my My Reflection from what you were saying and I was nodding along because I there's so much of it that I agree with I think that what I see is most of us struggle to know our self when we get into a relationship so I think I'd propose that I don't think most people have a lot of self-awareness when they get into a romantic relationship ship so they don't actually have a conscious sense of self-identity we have a subconscious sense of self-identity in the sense of what our parents taught us and what family and media we have all this mix of stuff but we wouldn't if I asked someone to lay out their top 10 values they wouldn't be able to do that because they'd be like I'm not sure and what ends up happening I think in that scenario is you adopt the values of the other person and then at some point you go wait a minute I've just been doing what you want and you think that person made you adopt their values but actually you just didn't know yours and so I think you see that happen in some relationships in other relationships I think what you're saying is true people are so definitive about their own self-identity that they go into a relationship going I'm not going to get influenced At All by this person and I think that also happens because we're getting into long-term relationships later in life so if you're going into a relationship later in life chances are you actually have you know who you are and what you want to do and what you're building and what's important to you when you're younger you're less self-aware when you're older hopefully you're somewhat more self-aware and so you're more Concrete in your ideology but the opposite could be equally true opposite could be equ when you're young you think you know everything and you're certain about stuff you have no certainty about totally and when you get older you actually become more flexible because you realize that there isn't one way for everything totally exactly so it can be both ways and I think overall I think the point that at least I think we're trying to get to which I like is that it's a bit of both there's there's it's almost like I read I'm trying to find this poem and I can't find it ever since I read it it's one of those I'm sharing it here because hopefully someone finds it I read this poem while I was researching and there was this beautiful poet and I can't find it I've like I've like looked for it and everything but this poet was talking about how when you are single you've been building your home with the bricks that you were given and your home is broken and some of it's beautiful because that's how we are as people some parts of our home make sense and some part of the bricks are falling out and he said when you come into a relationship you want the other person to move into your home you want them to come to your home and the other person wants you to go to their home but actually what you need to do is take the bricks you both like from your own homes and build a new home together and I really love that visual the idea that this unified agreement which was the language you used or this idea that you're saying of like how much do I allow the influence without feeling powerless but to feel like we're co-creating something you know my wife and I have a lot of agreements that they're not rules or contracts but they're agreements of how we deal with certain things and it it's something we've created together it's not something we adopted from my parents her parents or anywhere else and I feel that if we walked into a relationship and said what do we want to build together what do we want to create together what what does a good healthy relationship mean to us to me those questions at least feel empowering as opposed to draining of power one of the complementarities in relationships that is that we are often drawn to a person who brings characteristics that we are trying to get away from so true so true understand yeah so true so it's a I mean it it when it's dynamic IC it's really a very beautiful you know kneading of the dough yeah soest throughout our conversation you've been referencing this new course of yours which I'm so excited for people to do because I feel like so many of what things we've discovered today with your books and your practice yes exactly how do you actually apply it so please tell us where we can find this course and the name of the course and where it is turning conflict into connection it's a 1 hour eight videos with a F fantastic workbook that really not just helps you fight better and more constructively but also helps you relate better because if you have a different attitude toward conflict you have a whole different relationship it's on my website EST sell.com and it's coming out October 10 okay amazing well I recommend everyone who's listening and watching make sure you go and check out the course if you've loved this conversation I know you're going to get so much value from it so much insight and of course uh make sure you go and take a look at all of est's books as well so please check those out I want to do one last thing Esther with you because you did our final five last time yeah because when we don't fight I want you to play and so first I created the game I said let's play I love it this is Esther's beautiful game where should we begin a game of stories by Esther Perell if you don't have this grab it too we're going to pick a couple of cards and and have some fun with this open it like a chocolate box oh there oh like oh there we go there we go like a CH Belgian you know what's really I love chocolate so you speaking my language completely I'm going to take this out and we're going to shuffle these cards and then what do we do pick one at random yes we pick look this is you know relationships are stories yeah and we tell stories about ourselves to people at every level yeah um and we recreate connection intimacy and fun I you pick this is f oh I'm picking friend then you hold it you Shuffle it too then I'll to make sure everyone knows that this is truly random I want to have some fun and I love stuff like this so I love games I love play like me one of my wife's and I's favorite things to do is we play a lot of pickle ball right now we love will you write to me after you've played with her Escape rooms yeah I'm going to this one I'm going to yeah definitely I'd love to all right all right we go okay if you don't like it you pick another oh okay is that how it works well it works like now I'm I'm going to do a few I'll do a few cuz they're quick uh so at a party you'll find me is the prompt and so at a party you'll find me finding the one person I can have a deep meaning ful conversation with sitting in the corner with them and having existential conversations for the whole night and people may not even know I was at the party that would be me really so then we just be sitting next to each other great I love that so I do that with you I love it awesome um oh me again oh you're like poking that out to me this is like I CAU it there we go all right oh wow if I could change something about the way I was raised it would be so the easy answer the first thing that came to mind is I wouldn't change anything because I'm really happy with the human I am today and how my life has gone the way it has I I really I really think that is my honest answer but if I if I could change something about the way I was raised and it doesn't just have to be your family yeah I would say it would be I would have loved earlier on to know that there were so many more careers and paths in the world so when I met the monks when I was 18 years old that was the first time my mind was open to that path but it took me years to recognize that you could have a career in Media or that you could have a career in do this do do this like I never thought I never knew any of that like I literally thought there were like three it sounds ridiculous but I was so limited in my thinking growing up because of what I was surrounded by I would change that I want people to know that there are so many different I didn't know you could be a therapist I didn't know you could be a neuroscientist I didn't know you could be I would have wanted to be a neuroscientist if I knew that existed I didn't know I can be a therapist outside my office I've worked in a field that is very confidential I could never talk about what I did and through the podcast I'm able to work with people who are not patients will never be and so I can actually bring what is happening between the four walls to the world and bring the world inside the office and you can be a fly on the wall in someone else's session amazing so just a remind everyone the game is called where should we begin uh you can also order the game as well play with your friends and family and with your dates with your partner you grab a few cards you put in your pocket you can leave the box and off you go into story L I love it and you can surprise someone with chocolates in it too see as oh yeah yeah yeah you can mix you can mix and match Esther has been such an honor honestly talking to you I I feel so it's really interesting when you talk to someone and you just feel like you've immersed yourself so deeply in this space for so many decades and the wisdom shines through your words it shines through your empathy at the same time your assertiveness I I'm so grateful that you do what you do for the world honestly I I learn so much from you I learn so much from your work I'm a I'm a student of your work and I honestly feel humbled and grateful that I've got to spend this time with you and I highly encourage everyone to go and immerse themselves in your world in all ways so thank you so much for the gift that you offer to the world I really mean that thank you means a lot I mean it thank you if you love this episode you're going to love my conversation with Matthew hussy on how to get over your ex and find true love in your relationships people should be compassionate to themselves but extend that compassion to your future self because truly extending your compassion to your future self is doing something that gives him or her a shot at a happy and a peaceful life