Lori Gottlieb: 7 Answers to Dating Questions You’re Afraid to Ask & How to Break Free from Relationship Timelines

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
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(00:24):
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Speaker 2 (00:42):
We have this saying we're burying our unfinished business. We
date our unfinished business too. If you're not doing the work,
you're going to be behind. Therapist's best selling author Ory Gottlief.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
What would you say to someone who's saying, I have
to kind of compromise and make sure this is the
one because I have to get to that point, because
I want to be in a relationship. I'm going to
get the pick of the bunch because I'm thirty five
years old and I haven't found someone.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
If you are not in a place where you want
to be with a relationship, you have to understand why.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
Am I behind for being single? At twenty eight, the
number one health and wellness podcast.

Speaker 3 (01:18):
Jay said, Jay Sheddy sews only Jetty.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
Hey, everyone, Welcome back to On Purpose. I am so
grateful that you're here with me today. Thank you for
lending me your ears and guys for the next few
moments as we dive into how you can become happier, healthier,
and more healed. Today's guest is one of your favorites.
You absolutely love it whenever she's on the show. We've
obviously reached out already to you for your questions for

(01:47):
her as well. I'm talking about your favorite therapist, Laurie Guttlieb,
saga therapist and New York Times best selling author of
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, which has sold nearly
two million copies and is currently being adapted as a
television series. In addition to a clinical practice, she's the
co host of the popular Dear Therapist podcast. If you're

(02:08):
not subscribed already, make sure you go and do that.
Welcome back to on purpose Lurie Cutleeve. Laurie, it's great
to have you back.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
It's so great to be here, Jake.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
Honestly, every time you come in here and we have
these conversations, they just go crazy viral online. People love
your advice, they love your insight. They always want you back,
And I'm so thankful to you that you always choose
to come back. So it means a lot to me
that you're back here with me.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
Well, thank you so much for having me back.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
We've done what we did last time because people loved
it so much. We've gone out to our audience, gone
out to our community. I've even reached out to some
friends and I've crowdsourced all of their challenges, all of
their issues, all of their real life experiences that they're
going through. And some of these people don't have access
to therapists. Some of these people maybe can't afford it.

(02:54):
Some of these people maybe even have therapists but are
still struggling and trying to figure it out. And so
I love the fact that we can use you as
our community therapist and learn from you.

Speaker 4 (03:04):
So I want to dive straight in.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
Sure.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
One of the biggest questions I'm hearing and getting from
people in my community and audience. Is am I behind
for being single at twenty eight?

Speaker 4 (03:15):
Hmmm?

Speaker 2 (03:17):
You know, it's so interesting because I think that we
tend to compare ourselves so much to other people, especially
with social media. You know, we look at you know,
what is everybody else doing at my age? Is what
is the right thing? And you are exactly where you
need to be if you are doing the work. If
you're not doing the work, you're going to be behind.
And what I mean by doing the work is if

(03:39):
you are not in a place where you want to
be with a relationship, you have to understand why. So
are you examining what has not worked yet? Why if
I am single and I don't want to be single,
what can I be doing differently? And so I think
that's the important work. So you're not behind at all.
In fact, you're probably ahead of people who are in
relationships who have not and the work and maybe aren't

(04:01):
in the right relationship or are in a relationship that's
not going to last or isn't going well.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
I feel like that's such a hard thing to face,
right because we think the problem is external to us,
and what you're saying is well, actually the work needs
to be done internally, and so often we're trying to
solve and shift and construct what's happening around of us
rather than looking inward. Why do you think that is?
Why is it that we struggle to actually do the work?

(04:28):
What does that look like?

Speaker 2 (04:29):
I think it's so much easier when we talk to
our friends, and you know, I've talked about the difference
between idiot compassion and why is compassion before idiot compassion
is you say to your friend, look what happened on
this date, or look what happened with this person and
they say, yeah, you're right, they're wrong, and we never
learn or grow from that right because yes, there might
be something that the other person did, but also what

(04:51):
was your role in that interaction? A relationship is all
about relating, So what was your role in the dance
that you're doing with this person? And what you get
in therapy is you get wise compassion where we hold
up a mirror to you and we help you to
see something about what your role is, maybe something you
haven't been willing or able to see, but that's so

(05:12):
important so you don't repeat these situations where you're in
this pattern and then you wonder, why do I keep
ending up with a person who doesn't listen to me,
or a person where I don't feel seen, or where
I can't be myself, or where we have a lot
of volatility, or where this person's really avoidant. Why am
I always with people who avoid or what makes me avoid?

(05:33):
And I don't talk to the person about what I
want or what I need. So that's the work that's
really important. So you're not behind if you're single at
twenty eight. It's part of the process. If you're doing
the work, you're much closer than you've ever been to
finding the person that you want to be with.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
I'm so glad you said that. I remember talking about
it in my book that I wrote called Eight Rules
of Love, and it was this idea of relationship karma,
and I was using the concept of karma from the
East in tradition to understand that karma is every action
has a reaction, and it was can you pinpoint what
action you've taken in order to end up in the

(06:09):
same experience with a different person. So as you were
saying that whether you keep attracting an avoidant person, you
keep attracting someone who doesn't listen to you. You keep
attracting someone who is interested for a month, but then
disconnect or whatever it may be, and it's like, where,
what action have you taken in your choice, in your
curation of this individual, in your approach to this individual

(06:32):
that has potentially led to that.

Speaker 2 (06:34):
Absolutely, that's so spot on. We know we have this
saying we bury our unfinished business. We date our unfinished
business too. So if you, let's say, earlier in your life,
you were around someone who you know was neglectful, somebody
who drank too much, somebody who lost their temper, somebody
who wasn't honest, somebody who wasn't reliable. We think when

(06:56):
we're dating as adults, like I want the opposite of that.
I want someone where I feel safe, secure, there's trust.
But what happens is unconsciously, Again, if we haven't done
the work our unfinished business, we actually are unconsciousness.

Speaker 3 (07:10):
Oh you look familiar, come closer.

Speaker 2 (07:12):
So on the surface, they don't look like that person,
but then when you get to know them, you're a
month in, you're three months in, you're six months in,
you think, wow, that person reminds me of someone. This
person feels so familiar, And that's why I was drawn
to this person.

Speaker 3 (07:27):
It turns out this person.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
Is very much like what I grew up with, is
very much like the person who hurt me growing up.
So if you do the work, you're able to see, oh,
that person, I see why I'm drawn to them, but
I'm not drawn to them a healthy way. And then
if you do even more work, you're not even drawn
to those people anymore. Now you're drawn to healthy people,
stable people, flexible people, emotionally generous people, people whose values

(07:53):
align with yours. That's who you're drawn to. So you
have to do the work.

Speaker 4 (07:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
Absolutely, I'm so glad that you've made that the reminder,
because I think often we validate and make people feel
like it's okay that they're single, and I think you
are doing that, But I think this is a step further,
which is like you are behind if you're not actually
learning from the experiences that got you here and you're
not actually refining it. Another pressure that I feel that

(08:18):
mounts on people as time goes on. It's so fascinating
to me that we're in twenty twenty four. We hope
that we're living in a society that is letting go
of timelines, that's letting go of gender roles, that's letting
go of these boundaries and limits that are placed on
us because of what age we are and what gender
we are and everything else. But I find that internally,

(08:40):
we all actually still carry a lot of those pressures.
And another big question for our community was if I
do get into a relationship in my early thirties, do
I now have to rush things like do I?

Speaker 4 (08:51):
Often?

Speaker 1 (08:52):
What I heard was people were saying, I feel like
I have to feel like this person is the one
because I'm running out of time, and I have this
fear that the pool is getting so much smaller as
I get into my early thirties that I'm going to
have the worst pick because no good people are going
to be left. Now, we know that all of these

(09:13):
things are not factually true, they're not data backed, like
these are ideas, but these are the kind of thoughts
that I'm hearing from people who are entering that space.
What would you say to someone who's saying, Laurie, I
feel I have to rush things. I have to kind
of compromise and make sure this is the one because
I have to get to that point because I want
to be in a relationship, and actually I fear that

(09:35):
I'm going to get the worst pick of the bunch
because I'm thirty five years old and i haven't found someone.

Speaker 2 (09:41):
We literally just had someone like this on the podcast,
and she felt like, I have to decide right away
if this is the person, and if there's any issues here,
I have to leave right away, as opposed to understanding
that if she doesn't understand what these issues are about,
she will just repeat that in the next relationship. I mean,

(10:01):
these were not you know, there's certain kinds of issues
that are red flags. These were not red flag issues.
These were normal relational types of things, communication types of things.
And what we told her was, you need to slow
down in order to save time. And it sounds counterintuitive
because people think, wait a minute, I need to hurry
up in order to save time. I don't want to
waste time. But you need to slow down so that

(10:22):
you can say what is right in front of me
right now. If I put that kind of pressure on myself,
I'm going to make decisions for all kinds of the
wrong reasons. So I'm going to make them because you know,
we talk about the difference sort of the head and
the heart you're going to make head decisions instead of
heart decisions.

Speaker 3 (10:37):
You need both. My son taught me this.

Speaker 2 (10:40):
Actually, he was saying, I've been making too many head
decisions and I need to make more heart decisions. And
it's about how do you find the balance between those
two things. So what we told her, this woman on
the podcast, was we said, why don't the two of
you go to therapy for let's say you put a
time limit on it. We're going to go for six months.

Speaker 3 (11:00):
And she said six months.

Speaker 2 (11:01):
I don't have six months to waste. And I said,
it's not going to be a waste. No matter whether
you stay in this relationship or you go to a
different relationship, you're going to learn so much about yourself
in relationship that you can't learn if you're not in
a relationship, because you need to be able to have
these interactions to understand what they trigger in you, what
they bring up in you, and you can't do that

(11:23):
in isolation. So many people say I need to completely
understand myself before I can go and date, and I say,
you're going to learn so much about yourself. You want
the best tutorial on who you are and your operating
instructions and what makes you tick. Get in a relationship
with somebody, you will be pushed and challenged in ways
that you aren't challenged when it's just you sitting there thinking.

(11:43):
So we said to her, go to couple's therapy for
six months, and then you will learn so much about
yourself and you will know so much more about whether
you two are the right combination, are the right couple.

Speaker 3 (11:54):
And so we do follow ups. We do your follow ups.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
Since she came back a year later, and she said,
I was going to leave this person, and I am
so glad that I didn't because I learned that some
of this was me and I didn't have the maturity.
I didn't understand a lot of things, and I grew
so much, and I am so in love with this person.
And I would have left because I was panicked. Now
it could have ended up the other way too, that

(12:17):
she left, which would have also been good if it
wasn't the right person, and then she would have found
the right person because of the work that she did.
So I would say to these people who feel like
I have to hurry, I have to know right away. Relax,
slow down, give yourself a timeline. Don't stay in that
relationship for five years and be ambivalent about what you

(12:37):
want to do, but slow down, give yourself a year
of doing the work with this person, and then you
will know so much more about yourself.

Speaker 1 (12:49):
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(13:11):
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(13:32):
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Speaker 4 (13:34):
Go to NAMI.

Speaker 1 (13:36):
Some people are good for you now and some people
may become good for you forever. But this idea that
if someone's good for me now and they're not forever,
then I don't want them now isn't the healthiest idea,
Because the growth you might make with this person who
may not be your forever person, could be so powerful

(13:56):
and useful in your forever relationship, and you won't know
that until you're actually getting to know them. I had
a friend recently who went through that scenario where they
felt that this individual they were with was helping them grow,
helping them understand themselves. They were doing the same back,
and they realized during the course of that relationship that
this wasn't the one that was going to be the

(14:17):
marriage and the long term commitment. But they feel like
they both grew so much as individuals. And you constantly
in this conversation so far, you've talked about doing the
deep work on your own, You've talked about working with
that person. What's really interesting is that after all this time,
and no matter how many books we read, and no
matter how many podcasts we listen to, there's still this

(14:39):
belief that when we meet the person, it.

Speaker 4 (14:41):
Will be easy, it'll be simple.

Speaker 1 (14:44):
And everything will just make sense. I feel like a
lot of people also who found love in a magical way,
will say things like when you know, you know and
you just feel it, and then people feel like they're
have to find that feeling and that love should be
easy and simple and flow. I'm assuming from what you're
saying so far that it's not really the only way.

(15:07):
It can require work. It does require work. I've been
with my wife for eleven years now, and I can
honestly say that some parts have been really easy and
some parts have required work.

Speaker 4 (15:17):
And I believe we work.

Speaker 1 (15:19):
On it consistently and that's why it becomes easier than
it would become harder. But I feel like there's this
Disney magic belief we still all carry so deep rooted
in us that love should be easy. What would you
say to someone who is carrying that experience or that
vision of love in their heart and mind?

Speaker 2 (15:38):
Right? Well, first of all, you know, when we look
at attachment styles, if you have a secure attachment, sometimes
it is easier for you to know whether this person
is going to be someone you want to pursue long term.

Speaker 3 (15:50):
But even then things will come up.

Speaker 2 (15:52):
But also many of us are not securely attached, meaning
that we had inconsistent caregivers or we had you know,
parents do their best, but parents are also imperfect. Parents
have their own parents, and they have their own histories,
which makes them parent in a certain way. So there
are certain ways in which we didn't get parented the
way we wanted to get parented, and we come into

(16:14):
relationships maybe we don't trust and then we think, oh,
I can't trust that person, But it's really not about
the other person. They're completely trustworthy, but you just don't
trust the world, you don't trust the universe, you don't
even maybe trust yourself. So those people maybe feel like, well,
this is really hard because I don't really trust this person,
but they're not looking at Maybe it's hard because you

(16:36):
are bringing something into this right, so the magic might come,
might be there, but you have to be able to
learn how to trust, and maybe at the beginning of
that relationship it's going to be a little bit hard
for you. So it's not going to look like the
Disney the romantic comedies that we all see. But I
think the other thing is there's a study that I
love that I think more people should know about, which

(16:57):
is that they did this longitudinal study, so that means
they followed people over twenty years, and they checked in
every five years, and they started with the first date.
When you met this person, you write down your impressions.
And some people said, you know, oh this person, there's
so much magic, there's so much chemistry, and some people
said it was fine, yeah, I'd probably see this person again,
but nothing great, right, And then they followed them every

(17:19):
five years, and what they found after twenty years was
that the people who were happily married to each other
did change their story. So at the time they had
said like, yeah, I'm not really sure, nice person, no butterflies,
no spark, they said, oh, I knew right away they
changed the story because now the story is filtered through

(17:40):
the way their marriage is. Now people who were unhappy,
who got divorced or were still married but were unhappy,
you know, said things like, oh, there was no chemistry.

Speaker 3 (17:50):
There was never any chemistry, and.

Speaker 2 (17:51):
They're right away, even though at the time they said magic.

Speaker 1 (17:54):
Right, that's so good.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
So I think it's so important for people to realize
that don't listen to what your friends say about how
they met, because it's going to be filtered through how
they feel about each other. Right now.

Speaker 4 (18:05):
I'm so glad you raised that. That is such.

Speaker 1 (18:08):
That's such a great insight, and I wish if everyone's
listening right now, please please please, like, let that deeply
connect with your heart and head, because I think that's
one of the reasons we will make mistakes. We're either
forcing ourselves to look for the perfection in the moment,
and like you said, some of the best relationships start
by it's fine, it's okay, I'm not sure. And also

(18:29):
to not over amplify that first meeting. I think we
put so much pressure on the first date, the first kiss,
you know, the first time I'm being intimate with someone,
the first the first of everything is like such a.

Speaker 2 (18:41):
So weighted, so weighted, right, yes, unfairly yes, yes. And
what happens is people will go on a date, and
so I see this in therapy all the time. People
will come in and they'll say, I went on the
date with this person, nice person.

Speaker 3 (18:54):
I don't know, I just didn't.

Speaker 2 (18:55):
Feel that intensity. I just didn't I don't know, I
didn't feel this romantic connection with this person. And I'll say,
how did you feel about yourself on this date? I
felt good, I felt really comfortable, I felt like myself.

Speaker 3 (19:07):
Right. Did you have a good time? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (19:09):
Did you feel like this was a fun person to
be around? Yeah? Well why not go on a second date?
Why not spend another hour with this person just to
see what it feels like to sit.

Speaker 3 (19:20):
With this person again.

Speaker 2 (19:22):
And what happens is sometimes not always, Sometimes you sit
with this person enough and then all of a sudden
you're like, Oh, they're really cute. I didn't see that before,
or they're really funny. They were kind of nervous on
the first date because it's a first date. It's like
a job interview, right, So people are performing. It's a
very performative action going on a first date. But when
people feel more comfortable and they can be more themselves,

(19:45):
you feel like you can be more yourself. They feel
like they can and you see the real person and
they can become very attractive to you. So this doesn't
always happen, but it happens enough that I think that
what happens is we feel like there's this abundance that
because of dating apps, we feel like if I don't
feel like this person is fabulous a ten everything that

(20:06):
I've imagined on that first forty five minutes or an
hour that I'm meeting them in this weird coffee place,
in this weird environment. Because we're strangers, we're both nervous,
we're both trying to impress each other. We both have
these fantasies that we're bringing in the other person's letting
down my fantasy. You know, what a weird way to
meet someone. And then they think, Okay, well, there's ten

(20:26):
other people on this app that I can swipe on
and they'll meet my fantasy. Except they probably won't either,
or they might. Here's the danger. They might on that
first date, but then they're locking into some fantasy that
you have. But then when you really get to know them,
you find out, oh, I don't really connect with this person,
or this person's kind of superficial, or this person's great

(20:48):
at first dates. Because people who are great at first
dates can be really charming. But that doesn't mean that
that's what you want in a partner. You want someone
who's real. You want someone who's authentic, who's annuin and
maybe the person who's a great first dater is not
a great partner.

Speaker 4 (21:05):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (21:06):
I mean, Laurie, you just did this genius therapy question
thing there that I want people to notice. I think
you're so right that after a first day, the number
one thing we focus on is how did I feel
about them? And our friends will ask us what did
you think of them? And you just shifted that question
that you asked one of your patients, the question being

(21:28):
how did you feel about yourself? Yeah, And I think
that's so powerful because you're so right that if you're
only looking at the other person and making your assumptions
and judgments on whether they're interesting, whether they're exciting, whether
there's someone who can entertain you, rather than going how
did I feel about myself? And it was so interesting.
I was just saying to one of my friends. I
was saying that when do you feel peaceful around someone?

(21:50):
And I was saying, peaceful around someone usually isn't exciting,
it's usually not exhilarating, but you feel listen to cart
when you're around them, they kind of relax your no
system a little bit. And so when you ask the
question how did I feel about myself? And you're like,
I felt natural, I felt comfortable. I actually felt really
good all of a sudden, like oh, I didn't feel butterflies,

(22:10):
and I wasn't constantly nervous and I wasn't trying to
impress them. So this is actually a much healthier space
to live in. So I love that reframe of after
a first date, not asking yourself what did I think
of them? Are they interesting? Are they the one? How
did I feel about myself? I think that's a brilliant,
brilliant note.

Speaker 2 (22:27):
Yeah, and how we feel about ourselves often comes from
the person on that date is really listening to you
and is really interested. So the person who can entertain
you on a first date might be really fun. But
I don't think that you want an entertainer. I think
what you want is you want someone you can actually
have some kind of connection with, and someone who knows
how to listen, and someone who's genuinely curious about you

(22:49):
and not just trying to impress you is going to
make a much better long term partner.

Speaker 1 (22:53):
I think, Laurie, we're uncovering something really interesting here. It's like,
I feel like we don't know what human connection is, right,
Like we don't know what human love is. Like I've
like what we're getting to here, it's like because it
is so hard to define, I guess, but there's a
sense of we don't know what healthy connection communication looks

(23:16):
like because chances are we haven't seen it at home,
we haven't seen it around us, we haven't seen it
in the media. So there's a sense of not being
able to mirror or not being able to reflect something
that embodies that deep, profound experience of love. So when
you're saying you're not looking at someone who's giving you

(23:38):
the ability to feel listen heard, seeing what is from
all of your experience and everything you've read. You've done
this for decades now, Like, what have you seen? Are
the core values of human connection that we should be
aspiring for in a healthy relationship? Can we even define those?

Speaker 2 (23:56):
We forget that love is not some kind of airy feeling, right?
Love is you know, people say that people in love
are actually like people on drugs. It's the same dopamine reaction,
and so you're not really thinking straight. So that might
feel like infatuation that feels really good, and yes, that's
a component of feeling really connected and feeling love. But

(24:20):
love in the day to day is a verb. How
can I be loving to another person? How is someone
being loving as a verb to me? And so I
remember this struck me so much when I had a
couple and the woman and the couple said to her husband,
you know what three words I really want to hear
and he immediately said, I love you. You want to

(24:41):
hear I love you more? And she said no, I
know you love me. I want to hear I understand you,
and that to her was love. Right. I know that
you say you love me. I want you to show
me you love me because I want to feel understood
by you and I want to understand you. And I
think so much what we don't do in a loving

(25:04):
relationship is we don't take the time to either understand
ourselves and communicate that or understand the other person. It
really takes an act of love.

Speaker 1 (25:14):
It's such a great point. And even hearing you say that,
I like it resonates so strongly with how I see
love and how much I see the conflicts that exist
in relationships being because people love each other, but they
don't understand each other.

Speaker 2 (25:28):
They don't and they're not curious, right, so they feel like,
if you don't understand me, then you know you don't
love me. If they do this, if you loved me,
you would X as opposed to let me tell you
how I'm feeling right now, let me explain this to you,
because the truth is, if they understood you, they would

(25:50):
do X probably, but it's not if they love you.

Speaker 3 (25:54):
It has nothing to do with if they love you,
they would do X.

Speaker 4 (25:57):
Yeah, that's so powerful, that's so true. It's resonating so
strongly with me too.

Speaker 1 (26:01):
And that idea of we think that if I say
I love you, that means I understand you. Yes, But
the person on the other side is saying, no, I
get that you love me, but you're not understanding me.
You're not hearing me, you're not seeing me. And I
often think that we think love makes up for a
lack of understanding, but love can't. Love can't complete a

(26:25):
lack of understanding. Love can't complete the fact that you
haven't really listened to what the other person is saying,
because love can often be this overarching emotion as opposed
to what you're saying, this active verb that's being expressed.
And so I think that's a great takeaway for people
is is someone actually trying to understand you? And I

(26:45):
think we have this intuitive feeling that if someone completes
our sentences on the first date, or they like the
same things we like, then they must understand us. Right
If we're talking about our favorite foods and we both
agree that Italian cuisine is our favorite food, or we
both agree that we love comedy movies and we love
we almost we feel understood, And I feel like both

(27:08):
people in that moment of feeling understood stop trying to
understand and be understood. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2 (27:15):
What you're talking about is having things in common which
is very different from what you're coming into the relationship with.
So you can have a lot of interest in common.
You might both like sushi and rollerblading and these kinds
of movies and these kinds of TV shows and this
kind of cuisine. Right, and you say we have so
much in common. We love the same music. We you know,

(27:36):
we read the same things.

Speaker 3 (27:37):
That's what you have in common.

Speaker 2 (27:38):
That doesn't mean that you understand the person's operating instructions.
And what I mean by that is when you get
anything a new car, you know, it comes with a
manual and it says like, this is how this car operates,
and it's different from your last car.

Speaker 3 (27:53):
So just because it's a car doesn't mean it operates
in the same way. Like this button is going to
be over here, and if you want to control this,
it's to be over here, and it doesn't like when
you do this, and it likes when you do this, Right,
That's what the manual says. We need that for our
people we need to know what is there, what are
their operating instructions? And we assume that because we have

(28:13):
all this in common, that that person is going to
know my operating instructions and I'm going to know that
person's operating instructions. But we have to share our operating
instructions with the other person. Just because you like to
be when you want to come to me with something
and you just want to vent, right, I.

Speaker 2 (28:30):
Actually want feedback. That doesn't mean that we have the
same way of wanting to be listened to. When you
are feeling sad, you do this. When I'm feeling sad,
I need this. Those are different things. When I'm angry,
I need to talk about it right away. When you're angry,
you need to walk around the block. Oh that's really

(28:50):
good information. I didn't read your manual. Tell me more.
So we have to be really curious about tell me
you're operating instructions. And we learn that just by experiencing
the other person and seeing that while we have a
lot in common and we connect, they're actually separate and
apart from us, they're a different person. Yeah, and that's
so important. So how can we be loving? What is

(29:12):
love is saying I'm taking the time to understand your
operating instructions.

Speaker 1 (29:18):
That's so well put, and I think we struggle with
that so much because we don't have enough self awareness
of our own operating instructions. And then we have this
warped view that love means you should be able to
understand and read that bit in between the lines, and
none of us read the operating instructions for our devices today,
so yeah, we're also not reading between the lines. And

(29:41):
the other person sitting there going, well, if you love me,
you'd know all of this. How can you not know
after ten years that I love celebrating my birthday or
anniversaries are really important to me. And it's fascinating to
me that we don't want to help people help us.

Speaker 2 (29:57):
Right, So what we do using the birthday example is
some body will say, you know, to their partner, what
would you like to do for your birthday?

Speaker 3 (30:03):
And they say, oh, it's no big deal.

Speaker 2 (30:05):
But they really actually want something, and they think my
partner should know that when I say it's no big deal,
don't worry about it, and then the partner says, oh,
we're just going to do a quiet dinner when they
wanted a big party that their partner doesn't get them
at all. How did their partner know that no big
deal actually meant I love big parties? How do you
not notice after being together for three years that I

(30:26):
love being at big parties? So you should have known
that my no big deal meant I love big parties.
But why can't we just communicate our desires? Why does
that take away from the magic? We think if I
have to explain it, there's no chemistry between us. You
should just know. But we should be able to say, Hey,
I would love a big party. I love celebrating in

(30:47):
the company of all of my people and all of
my friends. What a relief for your partner to know
I can please my partner and give my partner exactly
what my partner wants because now I know. Yea, that
doesn't take away from the chemistry or the magic or
the connection between you. That enhances the connection.

Speaker 4 (31:06):
I agree. I agree.

Speaker 1 (31:07):
A few years ago, me and my wife, after never
knowing what to do for each other's birthdays and always
getting it wrong, we set that packed with each other
where we're like, we're just going to tell each other
three to four months in advance what we'd like to
do for our birthdays. Her birthdays in July, it just
actually went two days ago, and then my birthday is
in September, and we're just like, we're just going to

(31:28):
tell each other what we want, what kind of party
we want, what we want. So this year she was
thinking about doing something. She was like one day and
then she's like, no, actually, I just want to do nothing.
And she's generally I over the years, I always did
extravagant things because I like extravagant things. And realized I
was giving her the birthday party I wanted, yes, and
she was giving me the birth device she wanted. And
so that's why we just started telling each other. And

(31:49):
so she said to me, she was like, I just
want to do something really small. That's what we did.
It was beautiful. And then she was telling me what
do you want? I was like, I just want to
someone to do something with just me and you. I
was like, whatever it is, as long as it's me
and you, I'm open to it. And I think it's
become so much more fun being able to not have
to live in this anxiety and anticipation of do they
understand me? Have I dropped enough hints do they get

(32:10):
the magic and then feeling disappointed or even feeling like
they got it all. But oh, it's because I gave
them all the notes anyway. And so you're so right
that we've removed the magic because we've shared what we want, right.

Speaker 2 (32:25):
And it's so funny what you said, this whole thing
about if I give them the notes, that somehow it's
not special anymore, as opposed to this person took the
time to understand exactly what I want and to make
my day the magical day that I want it to be.
That's the magic. This person cares enough to give you
exactly what you want. But we don't give them credit

(32:46):
for that. We actually give them demerits.

Speaker 1 (32:49):
Yeah yeah, and we give ourselves credit for yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 4 (32:51):
Yeah no, And you're so.

Speaker 1 (32:53):
Right, Like I think, it comes with so many things
that we think asking for help or telling people what
we actually need or having a request is a weakness.
We see it as a sign of a weak relationship,
when actually it's the sign of strong self awareness and
a strong relationship that you have the ability to share

(33:14):
your desires, your needs, your interests, and the other person
has the ability to comprehend and take action on them
that is actually a healthy long term relationship. And yeah,
I hope that this conversation can encourage people if you're
in a relationship, even if you're starting out in one.
These are great habits to set early on rather than
wasting three to five years making mistakes, trying to figure

(33:37):
it out, carrying that baggage and then figuring it out right.

Speaker 2 (33:39):
And the setting the early on is the really important part,
because relationships are like cement, if you know, be in
the beginning, everyone's trying to be the ambassador of themselves,
so they think, oh, I don't want to ask for
too much, or I didn't really like that the person's
always late, but I'll deal with that later. But it
really frustrates you. And so then you know, six months
a year into the really relationship, you just blow up

(34:01):
and you say, how come you're always late? I don't
like it, you're always late, And the person's like, this
never bothered you before, I don't understand. Okay, thank you
for telling me, but you're so upset about it at
that point, or the person doesn't call when they say
they will, or whatever it is, it's really important because
now the cement is dried, and now you have to,
you know, get a jackhammer out there and bring up

(34:24):
the cement. If you do it when the cement is wet,
and you say, you know, after the first couple times,
you know what, when you're late, I feel like you
don't prioritize us getting together at this time, or you
don't prioritize me.

Speaker 3 (34:36):
I would really appreciate it if you could come on time.

Speaker 2 (34:38):
And now you get to see, as the cement is drying,
can this person respond to that?

Speaker 3 (34:43):
Right?

Speaker 2 (34:43):
And that's really important to know, because why do you
want to spend a long time with this person if
they're never going to be able to respond to it,
or why do you want to be frustrated for all
this time when you could have just told them early on.
And now this person is used to being late, they
don't know it's a problem. It's going to take a
while for them to reverse their pattern. Whereas if they
know in the beginning this is really important, they're going
to reverse their pattern or they're not, and that's good

(35:05):
information for you.

Speaker 1 (35:06):
And totally, I feel like a lot of the reason
why we don't say something in the beginning or in
the early stages is either we want to give the
other person grace. We don't want to be disliked for
giving feedback, and we want to be liked. It can
be well intentioned of maybe they'll change, maybe they'll notice.
But actually, as you said, all we're doing is the

(35:29):
problems getting bigger and bigger and bigger for us. It's
becoming less and less big for that individual. And so
now the distance between you and that person when you
share that problem is so far and wide because they've
started to devalue being on time because you don't seem
to care, and you've started overvalue being on time. And
so now you're at two opposite ends of the spectrum.

(35:50):
And now you can't hear each other because they're so
far away from each other. And I find that so
interesting that when you try to avoid problems and the
other person becomes more and more unaware, you just become
further apart, so that then when you raise the problem,
they can't hear you because you're so far away from
each other.

Speaker 3 (36:10):
Right, because then it becomes blame.

Speaker 2 (36:11):
So if at the beginning you say you know, when
you come late, I feel like you're not prioritizing me,
that person might because you said it calmly, that person
might say, Oh, well, the reason is I really was
prioritizing you. I know you like to eat early, so
I was trying to leave work early for you.

Speaker 3 (36:28):
But I see that that's not working. So what can
we do?

Speaker 2 (36:31):
Because you like to eat early, it's hard for me
to leave work at that time, So I agree to it.

Speaker 3 (36:36):
But then I'm never on time, and.

Speaker 2 (36:37):
Then you've got a problem you can work through together.
Oh maybe we can just meet half an hour later
from now on, and now you're both happy.

Speaker 4 (36:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:44):
Right, But if you do it later, it's kind of like, well,
you never leave work for me, Well, I didn't know
I was leaving early for you know, it just becomes
a fight.

Speaker 4 (36:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (36:52):
I wish what I'm hearing is and I think about
this all the time when I'm working with coaching clients,
we're talking to friends, or our community. Is just I
wish and hope for everyone listening that we could be
more curious about the context of people's decisions and choices
rather than just the choice or decision in isolation. So

(37:13):
we see someone being late as they're just late, rather
than the context, which you just so beautifully described, which
could be anything from I can't leave work early through
to whatever else it may be. And it's almost like
we see those as excuses rather than as context.

Speaker 3 (37:29):
Yes, if we.

Speaker 1 (37:30):
Start recognizing that every person you're looking at has a
whole history of relationships and experiences and background, and your
job in order to be with someone is to research
that and to discover that and understand how those points connect,
and that's connect And then all of a sudden you're
looking at a real human being who has complexities and

(37:53):
has layers, as opposed to this idea of they chose
to be late because they disrespected me, not really about
you potentially, right.

Speaker 2 (38:02):
You see it as they're lazy, they're disrespectful, and we
don't realize we don't think we are. Context becomes the
whole story.

Speaker 1 (38:10):
You know.

Speaker 2 (38:10):
I always say we're unreliable narrators because because we're telling
the story through our particular lens, but we're not saying
I will say to people in therapy, if the other
person were here and they were telling their version of
this story, what would it be? And all of a
sudden the story becomes so much more expansive. There's the context,
and that makes the person not a villain, but oh

(38:33):
I feel I understand that, I can see, I have
compassion in fact for why they made that decision, or
at least I understand why they made that decision.

Speaker 1 (38:42):
A lot of what Laurie you're saying and I agree
with and I also am sharing is this sense of
taking accountability, taking responsibility. But a lot of the time,
a lot of therapy speak on social media especially has
made it feel like we're always the victim and everyone
else is the problem. And so when we use words
like lighting and you know, boundary setting and whatever else,

(39:04):
it may be a lot of that language starts to
make it feel like, well, I'm perfect and the other
person was the issue. But you're actually you know, and
I'm totally with you on that. We're flipping that and going, well, no,
let's really look at how we can look at things
differently and how we can change hour we behave walk
me through that balance and how you encourage people to
make sense of both, because it's saying is as old

(39:27):
as it goes, like you know, it takes two to tango.
It takes two, like you know it's always going to
take too, and so but we we try and make
it that it has to be one of the others.
So do we how do we balance that, reconcile that
in a healthy way.

Speaker 2 (39:39):
Yeah, you know, I think it's great that people are
talking more about mental health on social media. What drives
me absolutely bananas is how people use words like we
were saying, boundaries, gaslighting, narcissism. If you looked at social media,
you'd think, like, eighty percent of the population or narcissists. Yes,
eighty percent of the population is being gas lit. Of

(40:00):
the population has no one who will respect their boundaries,
And so these terms are being misused. And what happens
is you lose the fact of what you're talking about,
which is that we're all doing a dance in a relationship.
There's a dance going on, and if you change your
dance steps, the other person either has to change their
dance steps too because they can't dance with the otherwise,
or they'll just get off the dance floor. That's really

(40:22):
good to know. So we don't think about what dance
steps can I change? We think, oh, they did this,
that's it, and they're mislabeling people. Someone is not a
narcissist if they didn't see what your need was, or
they talk a lot about themselves. There's a reason that
that's happening. You need to be curious about that. Narcissistic
personality disorder is very rare, so not everybody is a

(40:43):
narcissist gas lighting. Gaslighting is not I have a different
opinion from you. Gaslighting is making someone feel like they're
crazy for feeling how they're feeling. Those are very different things,
So someone can feel differently about the same experience. This
happens with couples all the time. They're not gas each other.
They have different feelings about the same experience they're This

(41:04):
is not gaslighting. But people on social media will say, well,
I said that I felt this about this experience. I'm
being gas lit because my partner doesn't agree with my feelings.
You don't have to agree, you don't have to have
the same feelings. You can just notice that the person
has those feelings and that you might have different feelings.

Speaker 3 (41:22):
That's okay.

Speaker 2 (41:23):
So what I think is important about this is that
you know the boundaries is a really great example of this.
People say, well, this person doesn't you know we have
to set these very rigid boundaries. Well, a boundary is
something you set with yourself. So a boundary is a
request that you make to somebody else. And this is
why we see so many people say on social media,
I'm going to cut this person off, and everyone says, great,

(41:44):
cut them off. They're terrible because they didn't respect your boundary.
They can't respect your boundaries. Did you give them an
opportunity to respect your boundaries? And did you respect your
own boundary? So an example might be, let's say that
your mother is always asking about when you're going to
be in a relationship right and are you dating anyone?

(42:05):
What's happening? And that just ruins your time together. You
can say, you know what, Mom, I will let you
know if there's someone important in my life. But in
the meantime, it really makes it hard to be around
you when you're asking about something that you know is
very stressful for me. So if you ask about that,
I'm going to end the visitor, I'm going to end
the phone call very calm.

Speaker 3 (42:23):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (42:24):
So then next time you get together with your mom,
she's really good for the first half hour and then
she's like, oh, and is there anyone that you're dating? Mom?
Remember I don't have a good time with you when
that comes up, I'm gonna leave but I really look
forward to getting together with you another time when we
can talk about something else.

Speaker 3 (42:39):
Oh no, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.

Speaker 2 (42:41):
No, Mom, I'm gonna leave. But next time, right next time,
your mom maybe she remembers and it's like an hour
later and she's like, oh, but are you Oh sorry, sorry, sorry?

Speaker 3 (42:50):
Oh mom, great, I'm gonna.

Speaker 2 (42:52):
Go now right, And so you realize, like, is this
person able to respect your boundary? But the main thing
is you respected yours. You said I'm going to leave
if you ask that question, and then over time, and
you have to be consistent if sometimes you say, oh,
it's okay, Mom, I understand no, because she's just going
to keep doing it. So if you're consistent with yourself,

(43:12):
you have to keep your own boundary. This isn't her fault.
This is about you. And if you are not going
to value your boundary enough to keep it every time,
that's on you. And so if you keep doing that,
and your mom eventually probably will stop because she knows
that she wants to have a conversation with you or
have an outing with you, she'll probably stop asking you
about it. But if she doesn't, you've learned that she

(43:33):
cannot do that. So I'm going to keep with my
boundary and maybe I'm going to get together with her
less or I'm still going to leave every time she
brings that up, right, So it's about what you're going
to do. So it's not that you know nobody can
keep your boundaries. It's about I've said something that I
think is reasonable, and I'm going to see what the
other person is capable of. And so when people say

(43:53):
I'm going to be I'm going to cut this person off, well,
are you really like you know? Or can you set
a boundary that works for you so that you can
have the good parts of the relationship and not the
parts that are problematic.

Speaker 1 (44:06):
The way we have to think about it is that
people are probably going to keep breaking your boundaries. Are
you going to keep them? In that situation? Right, That's
what's happening there. It's like a boundary set for you
to protect you from yourself, yes, from giving in to
a scenario in a situation which you can't control. But
we think a boundary is almost an order or a

(44:27):
law that other people have to follow. And the truth
is you can't control them like they're going to act
how they're going to act, and you've got to set
a boundary where you know how to behave and you
know how to act. One of the I'm so glad
that you talked about your feelings around how therapy speakers
is healthy. It's important for people to have these conversations
about how certain words are being misused and bent online

(44:48):
because I do think that it creates exactly what you said,
a culture where we think that everyone we meet is
a narcissist because everyone has one percent of a narcissist,
or everyone we meet is a gas lighter, and it
starts to create a really unhealthy belief system around who
we're around. I watched this movie recently. It didn't get

(45:10):
great ratings on Rotten Tomorrows, but I saw on a
plane and I watched it out of intrigue. It's called
Cat Person, and it's based on this element of catfishing.
It's a kind of like a satire parody thriller of
the challenges of modern dating about how so much of
those challenges are in our head but how they can

(45:30):
transform into reality. And if anyone hasn't watched it, it's
a fun one time watch on a plane or you know,
one night with a friend or whatever it may be.
But what I appreciated about it is it talked about
this idea of how we kind of start viewing people
as more crazy or psychotic than they might be because
of these little clues that we've been trained to look

(45:51):
out for.

Speaker 4 (45:51):
If that makes.

Speaker 3 (45:51):
Sense, Yes, and we do.

Speaker 2 (45:53):
We look at other people as they're doing things that
are very human, and we label that crazy. When we
do it, say oh, but there's a reason, and here's
why I'm not crazy. I had context. Like you said,
we don't give them the context.

Speaker 1 (46:06):
Now.

Speaker 2 (46:06):
I'm not talking about abusive behavior, of course, but I'm
talking about the things that we will literally say, oh,
that's unacceptable without saying, wait a minute, why is this
happening right now? All of our behavior, by the way,
is motivated by we want to be loved. We really do.
And sometimes we do it in a way that makes
people not want to love us, and we don't realize

(46:28):
that we're pushing people away with our behavior.

Speaker 3 (46:30):
But at the core, we are doing it because.

Speaker 2 (46:33):
We want to be liked. We want to be loved.
So is this person doing this very strange thing because
they're a horrible person or because they're human? Like me,
and at their core they're very vulnerable and they don't.
Their behavior doesn't reflect the wish the wishes I want
you to like me or I want to protect myself
from being hurt.

Speaker 3 (46:53):
The behavior is not okay.

Speaker 2 (46:56):
It's kind of like when you say to little kids,
it's okay to be angry, it's not okay to hit someone, right,
So what is that equivalent.

Speaker 3 (47:04):
As an adult?

Speaker 2 (47:05):
It's okay to feel the feeling, but what do we
do with it? And can we understand why that person
is acting that way? Can we understand the context?

Speaker 4 (47:13):
Absolutely? Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (47:14):
One of the ways that that kind of transpires into
a bigger moment that our community had a lot of
questions around was what's the right amount of pressure for
someone to get married or proposed to you? Because I
think people get to this point where they feel like
we've invested someone's time, we're together, we're here, but this

(47:36):
person is just not proposing, they're not getting they don't
you know, they don't want to get married, whatever it
may be. And there it gets to this point of
this ultimatum of like and now there's even a TV
show called The Ultimatum, which is all about people dealing
with that period in their life. So what does someone
do in that scenario where they feel there's good commitment,
we're getting somewhere, but the other person isn't showing this excitement, enthusiasm,

(48:00):
and more even taking action on taking this relationship to
the next level.

Speaker 2 (48:03):
This is like that birthday party thing where you feel
like you know the other person should just know, but
we're not communicating about it. The fact that people don't
talk about whether they want to get married before a
proposal happens is insane to me. It just makes it
makes no sense that it shouldn't be a total surprise.
You should know that you are both on the same page,

(48:25):
and you should know that the other person is definitely
going to say yes, that you've talked about this. So
many people come to me for premarital therapy where they
can talk about because they know they want to get
married and maybe they want to they're not even having
any problems. They just want to talk about their families
and how they're going to blend their families and the
in laws and the siblings and you know this person

(48:46):
and this personality. Or they want to talk about money,
or they want to talk about whether they want to
have kids and how many and how that might work,
or they want to talk about balancing their careers. They
want to talk about sex and all the different things
that might be hard to talk about out before you
get married that are so important and they might not
have the answers right now, but they're learning how to
talk about these challenging topics. And people say, oh, you're

(49:09):
in therapy and you're not even married yet. Something must
be terribly wrong. It's like, no, something's terribly right. And
so the fact that people are saying, like, I really
want this person to propose, but I don't understand why
they're not and they don't feel like they can ask
the person means you are not ready to marry that
person if you don't feel like you can bring this

(49:30):
up and say, where are we We've been together for
this amount of time. I'm feeling this. I'm wondering where
you are with this and the person you'll get so
much information from.

Speaker 3 (49:39):
I do want to marry you.

Speaker 2 (49:41):
I don't feel ready yet because of this, but I
think I will feel ready in six months, right, And
then you have a choice, do you want to wait
for that or do you not want to wait for
that or nev right, Or they might say, actually, I
don't know how I feel about getting married. I don't
know if I'm going to come around to that. You
have a choice about what you want to do with that.
I you know, Oh, I didn't realize that. I thought

(50:04):
I did want to get married, but now I'm not
so sure. Well, that's really important to know why what's
happening between us, so that conversation is so important. Or
do you just want to sit there scheming with your
friends about how you can drop hints or how you
can like analyze the behavior because the person did this,
and what.

Speaker 3 (50:23):
Does that mean?

Speaker 2 (50:24):
That doesn't sound like the kind of marriage you want
to be in. Don't you want to be in the
kind of marriage where you can say to the person, Hey,
this is what I'm desiring, this is what I'm wanting.
Where are you with this? If that's such a basic conversation.

Speaker 1 (50:35):
That's so much healthier than an ultimatum, too, because I
think we also get again. It goes back to what
we're talking about earlier. You haven't given that regular check in, right,
you haven't touched base. You don't really know what that
person's belief system is around marriage or whatever. Else it
may be, and all of a sudden, it's built up
for you as this big thing and now you're like, Okay,
we'll either you marry me or we're over. And then

(50:56):
that's not comfortable for that person either, because now they
feel they're forced into a choice as opposed to a
sense of how do you feel about this and what
are your thoughts about this? Again, it comes back to
we're so scared of appearing to be naggy. We're so
scared of appearing to be high maintenance. We're so scared
of appearing to be the one who's needy or desperate
or whatever. Maybe but we are feeling all of those

(51:18):
things because we're not checking how do we get over
this hurdle? And by the way you experienced it in
both like a lot of people don't break up with
people for years because they don't want to be seen
as the bad person. The amount of people I've spoken
to who are like, oh, if I break up with her,
if I break up with them, if I break up
with him, oh my god, he's just gonna hate me

(51:38):
and I'm going to be the worst. And I just
don't want to do that to them. And they're a
nice person, but really always saying is I just don't
want to I want to be liked in both scenarios,
whether it's I don't want to nag them to marry
me and propose, I don't want to break up with
them because I don't want them to see me negatively.
How do we get over that hurdle of recognizing that
we're putting off the best decision for us or conversation

(52:01):
because we want to be liked in a space that.

Speaker 4 (52:06):
Does that make sense? You're trying to say, right.

Speaker 2 (52:07):
Right, Well, it's like a parent, like if you've set
a boundary with your child, they might not like you
in that moment, but you're doing something loving. And so
if you break up with someone that you know you
don't want to be with, you're doing something loving. So
I think that we need to reframe what we're actually doing.
What you're doing by staying in a relationship and stringing
someone along is actually cruel and it's wasting their time.

(52:30):
So you're not being nice, You're not going to be liked.
But I think the other thing we were talking about
about bringing things up, it's not just about a proposal.

Speaker 3 (52:37):
It's even about lots of people.

Speaker 2 (52:39):
Will say, oh, you know, I know I think by
the person that I'm dating is also dating other people.
I would like to not date other people, but I'm
afraid that all appear too needy too early, right as
opposed to just being honest about what you want. They
can say yes or no, but to be clear about Look,
we're dating. I don't feel comfortable with I can't really

(52:59):
feel like I can get close to you if I
know that you're dating other people at this point, because
we're spending a lot of time together. So how do
you feel about this? Are you ready to be in
an exclusive relationship? Is that of interest to you? If
they say no, wow, great, you've learned a lot. You
can make a choice like I'm comfortable doing this for
another month or I'm not, or you know, whatever it is.

(53:20):
Or they can say, oh, I didn't know that that
was important to you and I would like that too,
let's do that, or I'm not ready to do that.
So people do this in all kinds of situations. It's
not just about marriage. They're so afraid to just bring
their true selves into the kind of relationship where the
whole game here is bringing your true self to it.

(53:41):
So if you can't practice that at any point in
the relationship you're not ready to be together for the
long term. You can't just say, oh, now that we're engaged,
now I can bring my true self. Well, that's a
recipe for a disaster, because now it's like you've misrepresented
what you actually want to need in a relationship, and
maybe the other person has misinterpreted what you to need
because you haven't expressed it.

Speaker 1 (54:02):
But we're so it's I'm fully with you. I just
find that we're so it's so hardwired in us, like
we're so scared of rejection. We're so scared of being
able to say this is how I feel because we're like, oh,
that person's just going to walk away from me, Like
this is the thing that I'm going to lose this
person over if I really tell them. And I think often, Lauria,

(54:23):
you've probably seen that people don't know how to effectively
weigh their emotions. So everything's a ten. So right, it's like, oh,
they were late, that's a ten, they're seeing other people,
that's a ten.

Speaker 4 (54:35):
Like everything's a ten.

Speaker 1 (54:36):
And so I think we're all so bad at being like, Okay, well,
this doesn't need to be raised because it's a two.
And yeah, this does need to be raised because it
is a nine and this is a minus five.

Speaker 4 (54:47):
Like I'm just being ridiculous here.

Speaker 1 (54:49):
And so I think because we weigh everything is a ten,
then we don't know how to Does that make sense?

Speaker 2 (54:53):
It does? And I think that's because again, we bring
so much of the relationship outside where people don't have
the context. So, and that's what I was talking about earlier,
is like you say, listen to what this person did,
or listen to what this person is doing, and your
friends sees that you're upset about it, so they say, yeah,
you should really bring that up. You don't have to

(55:14):
bring up every thought that crosses your mind. That is
not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about what do
you value what makes you uncomfortable to the point that
this is something that you want to address. So I
think people either undervalue it, which is what we were
talking about, and they don't bring it up because they're afraid, well,
maybe it's not such a big deal, even though it

(55:36):
is a big deal too that this person is seeing
other people. You don't feel safe, you don't feel comfortable.
But then there are things that they overvalue. You know, like, well,
this person does this or that, right, I hear this
in therapy all the time, and I'm thinking, really, you know,
like this is but I'm glad we're talking about it.
I'm glad they brought it up in therapy because now
they can understand it better and now and by the way,

(55:59):
I think the other blind spot that people have in
dating is they think these are things that make the
other person not perfect, and they don't realize, oh, there
are things that the other person has to compromise on
to be with me that I am not perfect either.
I'm sure there are so many things that I do
that the other person is annoyed by or frustrated by.
Or maybe if they could create, you know, a la

(56:21):
carte the perfect person, they might not order that particular feature,
but I have it and they are with me anyway, right,
And so we think we're going to change all these
things about them without thinking about the other person is
being so chill about some of my maybe less than
perfect features. Absolutely so, how can we see the other
person as human in these ways? So we don't have

(56:43):
to kind of craft them, We don't have to shape
them or mold them in a certain way. We just
have to say, Okay, these are the big.

Speaker 3 (56:50):
Things and the other little things.

Speaker 2 (56:52):
Remember, they're putting up with things about me too, and
I'm very grateful for that.

Speaker 4 (56:56):
Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (56:57):
There's that famous statement that says we judge other people
by their actions, not their intentions. Yes, and we judge
ourselves by our intentions, not our actions. And when we're
looking at someone else, we're blind to their intention. It's
just what they said or what they did, Whereas when
we look at ourselves, we can justify why we said

(57:17):
it and why we did that. And we have to
start offering both sides that grace and compassion and empathy,
because otherwise we're going to constantly feel that everything's against
us and everyone's not for us.

Speaker 2 (57:31):
Right when I cancel on someone, I have a good,
valid reason and I still care about them. When they
cancel on me, they're disrespectful and they don't care about me.

Speaker 4 (57:39):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (57:41):
One of the biggest this is I'm enjoying this conversation
so much, Laurie, because I feel like we're really getting
to like the heart and the core of so much
of what I feel is making dating so challenging right now,
And you know, finding love is just such a important
pillar of human happiness and connection that it breaks my
heart when I see that we're tripping ourselves up. And

(58:05):
when I ask my community what was one of the
things that they think trips them up, it was this
idea that they have now coined future tripping, this idea
of planning the future in their head, visioning a future
with this person when things are looking okay or good.
In their head, they're you know, in the most extreme cases,
imagining their wedding day or what their kids might look like.

(58:27):
But even in the immediate sense, like this could be it,
this is amazing, this is going to last, and then
all of a sudden they get a reality check with
that person is not really mirroring that back. How do
we stop ourselves from future tripping? Or is there a
healthy way of future tripping with the person? Is there
a collective collaborative future tripping?

Speaker 4 (58:46):
Like what does that look like?

Speaker 2 (58:47):
I think the future tripping is being in the present,
And what I mean is what's happening now is what
is going to look like in the future. So instead
of imagining, oh, this person will change in this way,
or we're going to have this kind of life, but
you don't know if the other person wants that kind
of life. If you're not talking about it now in
the present, you don't know how does this person treat

(59:07):
me now? What is it like when we're together. The
biggest indicator would be we had a disagreement. How did
we get through it? That's what your future is going
to look like. We didn't agree on this, we were
frustrated with each other, We had a difference of opinion.
How did we repair that rupture? We talk a lot
about rupture and repair. Everybody's going to have ruptures. You

(59:29):
have it with your family members, with your friends, with
your coworkers, with your parents, with your children, especially with
your romantic partners. Because we have this misguided notion that
we shouldn't have a rupture with them because we're so
in love and we see each other and we see
eye to eye.

Speaker 3 (59:44):
But of course you're going to have ruptures.

Speaker 2 (59:45):
It's not so much whether you're going to have a rupture,
it's what do you do with it and what does
it look like. So if you have been dating for
let's say six months, and you haven't had a rupture,
you guys are not going deep enough. You guys don't
know each other well enough, you're still on your best behavior.
You have to be able to be yourselves. That's going
to tell you what the future looks like. So stop
the pretending. Be yourself, Be what you want your future

(01:00:09):
to look like. Act like you want your future to
look like. See how the other person acts, and see
what happens between the two of you, and a repair
would look like something like, oh, I didn't you know
we're having a disagreement right now. Why don't we take
fifteen minutes and let's come back when we're not so
heated and let's talk about that. Or you know, you

(01:00:30):
made a mistake, you know what I've been thinking about this.
You know, say you have an argument, you say, we're
not going to talk for a few minutes, let's go
cool off.

Speaker 3 (01:00:38):
Whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:00:40):
You call them back and you say, you know what
I thought about it. I was wrong and I'm so sorry.
Here's what I did, and I wish I had done
it this way. And that's great. If your partner can
do that, or if you can do that right, and
then if your partner then can accept that without shaming you,
If your partner can say, I really appreciate that, and
I wish that I had reacted differently in this way,

(01:01:03):
and how can I be more supportive in those moments.
That's beautiful, that's your future, but you have to see
it in the present. You can't imagine what the future
is going to be. You have to actually live it
in the present and say, oh, now, I know it's
going to be just like it is right now.

Speaker 1 (01:01:19):
Yeah, And like you're saying, like, if you are making
plans in your head but you're uncomfortable to talk about
those plans, then they only exist in your head, like
they aren't real. They aren't they aren't going there. I
was gonna. I wanted to get your thoughts. I don't
know if you watch any of these shows or whether
you're exposed to them. And I know that your book's
being turned into a scripted show.

Speaker 4 (01:01:37):
I believe, yes, yes.

Speaker 1 (01:01:38):
But when you look at like unscripted shows, like you
look at shows like Love Island or Love is Blind,
I mean Love Island right now is culturally like one
of the most talked about shows in for young people
for sure. How do you feel about those shows? And yes,
they're entertaining, and yes we love to get into all
the gossip and what's going on in everything? How is

(01:02:00):
that affecting our views in our own relationships?

Speaker 2 (01:02:03):
Yeah? I haven't actually seen those shows, but many of
my therapy clients talk about them. I did just watch Bridgerton,
which is a scripted show, but very much like what
I imagine those other shows to be, and I just
think that, you know, people think that that's what it's
supposed to be like. So many times people will come
into therapy and they'll say, is this what it's supposed
to feel like? What it supposed to be like? And

(01:02:27):
it's like, how does it feel to you? Oh, it
feels really good, well, then that's how it's supposed to be.
How does it feel to you? I don't know, doesn't
feel right, well, then that's not how it's supposed to be.
And that's really again coming back to can you tap
into how do I feel around this person? Does it

(01:02:47):
feel as you said, peaceful, calm? Do I feel safe?
Do I feel comfortable? And it's not just that. It's
not just that because you've been have friends that you
feel that way around, But if you don't have that
and you have the other things, that's not enough.

Speaker 1 (01:03:02):
That kind of brings me onto this next theme that
I want to dive into you deeply around is what
is it about the five to seven year mark that
ends in a divorce or a breakup? Like, why is
that the number that you see in the research? Why
has that become such a prominent pivot point or end point?

Speaker 4 (01:03:21):
What have you seen over the years.

Speaker 2 (01:03:23):
What I see happen around that time is several things
are happening. There's a developmental change that happens throughout a marriage,
and you both become different people and the relationship becomes
different and you adapt together. And those are the strong
marriages and the strong relationships.

Speaker 1 (01:03:41):
So that's what you're being called into. Either you grow
together or you grow.

Speaker 3 (01:03:44):
Upon well, so different things happen.

Speaker 2 (01:03:46):
So, first of all, I think that sometimes people don't
know each other well before they get married. Then they're
married and they're like a year in and they think, oh,
this isn't exactly what I.

Speaker 3 (01:03:55):
Wanted, but I'm in it.

Speaker 2 (01:03:56):
I'm married, and then they say, okay, let's have a baby, right,
because then that's the next step, and then now that's
really hard. Parenting is really challenging, and if you and
your partner are not already on solid ground, it's going
to be extra challenging. So then you think, oh, my
partner's the problem, when actually the relationship is the problem.

(01:04:16):
So many times people come into couple's therapy and the
first thing that they say is the problem is and
let me tell you everything that's wrong with my partner.
And so what I do with couples therapy is I say,
before you come in, I want you each to come
in and say, if you were to be your best
selves in this relationship, what would you need to change
of yourself? Each of you? And they say it out loud,

(01:04:38):
and that's all they're working on is changing that. They're
not working on changing the other person. And when they
do that, they say, oh wow, like that actually changes
the relationship. The relationship is an entity. It's not just
you know, there's two people. It's like there's three people happening.
It's like there's you, there's you, and then there's the
two of you. And so I think around five years

(01:05:00):
either they realized I didn't know enough about this person,
or I still have work to do, or other things
have come into our lives. A parent got sick. It
was really challenging. We didn't know how to deal with it.
We had children, we didn't know how to deal with that.
You know, we've had we've had difficulties, we've had loss,
all kinds of things happen at that point.

Speaker 1 (01:05:18):
Yeah, I just want to say to your point, I've
had so many friends who were given the advice that
if your relationship's not working out, have a baby and
it will save it.

Speaker 2 (01:05:30):
Terrible.

Speaker 1 (01:05:30):
It's never made sense to me, because if your relationship's
not working, now you have another relationship to take care of.
Who is a new child, a new human being in
the world, And so how are you You're going to
give less attention to each other. You've already been given
no attention. Now you have less attention to share with
each other and more attention on this noother being. I'm
shocked that that advice still gets passed around and people

(01:05:53):
still see it as a viable solution to a bad relationship. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:05:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:05:57):
They think of it as like sunt casts, like we've
been married, this lone, so we can't start over. We
can't you know, what do we do to save this?
Let's have a baby because it's a distraction. They think like,
this will be great, it's exciting, it'll bring some vitality
and energy and a liveness into the relationship when if
you don't already have that aliveness and that vitality between

(01:06:18):
the two of you, the baby is not going to
provide that for you. You're going to get a lot
of outside attention like, oh, that's so great, look at
the baby. But in reality, you guys are going to
have to be more of a team than you've ever been,
and problem solved more than you've ever had to, and
figure out how to create connection under much more challenging circumstances.
So it's the most counterintuitive advice. And I always tell people,

(01:06:43):
if you are not solid, do not bring another person
into this family.

Speaker 1 (01:06:47):
Yeah, it's almost like you already don't have problem solving skills,
you don't have collaboration skills, and now you're having to
make choices on behalf of an entirely new human being
where the stakes are so high and everything feels like
it's personal whether things are going well for the child
or not.

Speaker 2 (01:07:04):
Well, what happened? Does the pain Olympics start? And what
I mean is that, you know, I had the baby
all day. I have it harder. You didn't do this, No,
I had it harder because I've been at work all day,
and now I have to take over this and you
didn't have to work all day. Whatever it is, they
vie for who has the most pain and then they
compete for it and that becomes their relationship. You know,

(01:07:24):
you owe me because I won the Pain Olympics today. No,
you owe me because yesterday I won the Pain Olympics
and I never got my reward, and that becomes their
whole relationship.

Speaker 4 (01:07:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:07:35):
One of the questions I ask people when they say
to me, like should we have kids now or is
it the right time to have children? I often say
that I think we're asking the wrong question, Like the
question should be do I know how my life is
going to change? And am I ready for that? And
am I aware of that? And are we aware of
how our life.

Speaker 4 (01:07:53):
Is going to change?

Speaker 1 (01:07:54):
To the point you're making of well, who is going
to take the responsibility? And am I going to feel
like you're not helping out? And what does that look like? Again,
having a conversation about it seems like the practical thing
to do. Another relationship that seems to add more complexity
since the beginning of time is in laws. You mentioned
it earlier that you have clients that come and see
you for that. The amount of friends have spoken to recently,

(01:08:15):
you have this challenge where they feel that their in
laws are too involved, their in laws are not involved.
When their in laws are too involved, they're too controlling
of either or one of the partners, or they have expectations,
they have certain demands on time and holidays and where
they're spent, and all of these kinds of things. What

(01:08:36):
I've found to be the core pain, again going back
to our earlier conversation, is people feel their partners' parents
are to involved, too demanding, too hands on, but they
feel their partner can't stand up to their parents and

(01:08:56):
their partner doesn't understand how it affects them. That's kind
of where I've seen them. The main pressure that people
are carrying. How does someone deal with the fact that
they feel their partner doesn't defend them or stand up
for them in front of their partner's parents, and therefore
they feel their partner doesn't understand what they're going through.

Speaker 2 (01:09:14):
I have gotten thousands of letters to my column and
to my podcast about in laws, and what I always
say is in law issues are couples issues. So people
think it's about the mother in law of the father
in law. It's about the two of you, and if
your partner, whose parent that is, cannot talk to their
parent on your behalf, that's a couple's issue. So the

(01:09:36):
person will say, oh, it's really not that bad. But
if your partner is saying, I am really struggling with
this and it's not your you knows it's not their parent.
You need to talk to your own parent about this.
You need to have your partners back, and if you don't,
your partner is going to feel that you are treating

(01:09:56):
them the same way that their parent is. You might
not be doing the same thing, but the fact that
they don't have your support is going to pull you
apart in this marriage because your partner. It's not about
taking sides, it's about prioritizing this couple's relationship and saying, listen,
when you do this, it makes my wife feel like

(01:10:16):
she's not a good parent or she's not a good wife.
And you might have these values, mom, and I understand that,
but I don't want you saying those kinds of things.
You can have whatever thoughts you have, please don't say
them to me or to my wife, because I'm very
happy with our relationship and What you're really standing up
for is the relationship. It's not just standing up for
your partner, it's standing up for we understanding each other.

(01:10:37):
We can talk about these things with each other and
we do not want that kind of interference.

Speaker 1 (01:10:43):
What do you do when your partner doesn't have the
guts to do that, when they don't have the authority
or the relationship with their own parents, which is constantly
being they've been babied, they've been you know, the mommy's
boy or whatever it may be, and they don't really
have the courage to stand up to their parents and
say what you just said, which isn't rude, it's not mean,

(01:11:07):
but in their head they're like, how could I ever
defy my parents?

Speaker 4 (01:11:10):
Like what does that look like?

Speaker 1 (01:11:11):
Or they're guilt tripped like by their parents, where it's
like they're like, I can never do that to my mom,
like she's loved me since day one, Like you just
turned up in my life two years ago. Like what
do you do when your partner's feeling that way?

Speaker 2 (01:11:23):
Yeah, well, I think you help your partner to understand
that this is a very loving thing for the relationship
with the parent too, So you're not telling the parent,
I don't want you in our lives. You're saying I
want you in our lives. We both want you in
our lives, but we want you in our lives in
a way that makes us feel.

Speaker 3 (01:11:42):
Like we're enjoying our time with you.

Speaker 2 (01:11:44):
And if it becomes this thing where we're not enjoying
our time with you and it becomes problematic, we're going
to be spending less time with you, and mom, I
don't want that, and my wife doesn't want that. We
both want to spend time with you. We just want
it to be enjoyable. So we're asking that you not
talk about this whatever the issue is, or you not
do this, or you not tell my wife to do this,

(01:12:05):
or you're not criticized, because that makes it not enjoyable,
and then we're going to see you less. And we
love you so much that we feel comfortable saying this
to you. If we didn't love you and we didn't
care how much we saw you, we wouldn't be bringing
this up. I'm bringing this up because I love you
and I want to be able to see you. And
I think when people when you set boundaries in a
loving way, when you say I want to see more

(01:12:27):
of you. I want to be able to continue to
see you. I'm not pushing you away, I'm pulling you close.
But the way to pull you close is to make
sure that we have a good time together.

Speaker 4 (01:12:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:12:37):
Yeah, And I find that sometimes and can be different
in every relationship, but often this, at least in the
people I know, the pressure often falls on the man
who feels like he's in between his mom and his
wife that in that kind of a setup, or at
least those are the ones that I'm aware of, and
I'm sure it has takes all sorts of forms, but
it's often quite a heavy pressure that I know a

(01:13:01):
lot of men feel, and they're like, I don't want
to let my mom down and I don't want to
let my wife down, and now I'm stuck in between
these two things, and it's almost like who do I choose?
And I feel like I have to choose a side.

Speaker 2 (01:13:12):
Right, But you're not choosing, You're actually choosing to bring
everyone together. You're saying, I want us all to be
able to be together, and so what I'm doing is
I'm making sure that we can spend more time together.

Speaker 4 (01:13:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:13:24):
That's great advice, and I really hope that reframe is
kind of you know, permeates one of the things I
imagine you see a lot in therapy as one partner
has forced the other partner to come there. Maybe in
couples therapy it's hard for two people to feel equally
as excited. Maybe if they're premarital that may be more equal,
but when it's reactive, it's definitely one saying we need
to go to therapy, and someone may feel forced. One

(01:13:46):
thing I've found that a lot of people say to
me is Jaed, I just can't get my partner to
open up, Like, whether it's in therapy, whether it's with me,
I'm asking them, I'm talking to them. I'm just like,
I just want to know what you feel like, even
with the question you said earlier of like, hey, I
have a dream to get married, what's your take on it?
And they'll be like I don't know, or they'll they'll
go quiet when it's like, hey, we need to go

(01:14:07):
talk to your parents about this because they're getting really
involved and they just go quiet. They don't know what
to say, and they constantly feel that these their partner
doesn't have the capacity to open up. And I find
this especially with young couples where they're just like, my
partner doesn't have an emotional vocabulary, like they don't have
the ability. How have you encouraged people in those scenarios

(01:14:28):
to be able to open up or help their partners
open up or create a safe space when a lot
of people don't have that skill and that ability to
actually even know what they're feeling and thinking, Yeah, you have.

Speaker 2 (01:14:40):
To create the space for that person to feel comfortable
opening up. So often people who can't open up or
have a hard time with it, they were not given
the space before, so when they opened up, someone would say, oh, no,
you don't feel that way, right.

Speaker 3 (01:14:55):
So when they were.

Speaker 2 (01:14:56):
Growing up, they'd say, you know, I'm upset about this
or I'm sad about this, and the parent would say, no,
don't be sad, let's go get ice cream, right, So
there was no space for the sadness. Or I'm really
angry about this. Oh, you're overreacting. You're so sensitive, So
they don't tell someone that they're angry about something. Or
I'm really worried about this. Oh, don't worry, it'll all

(01:15:17):
work out, or what do you mean you're worried about that?
Why are you always so worried about everything, so they
never felt like they had a space for their feelings
to be received and held. We talk about in therapy
the concept of feeling felt. What does it mean to
feel felt? And I love that expression because I think
that when you want someone to open up, they want
to feel felt. They want to know that you're going

(01:15:38):
to receive whatever they have to offer in a compassionate
way and in a way that feels connecting. So when
you tell someone tell me what you're feeling, open up,
that feels like so much pressure as opposed to just
you know, being with them. So maybe you start with
something like, hey, I'm feeling really this about this. You know,

(01:16:01):
what was that like for you? And they might say
it was fine because they don't know did you have
a good time? You know, did it make you sad
when this happened? It made me sad, but maybe you
didn't feel that way, you know, just just helping them
to have the vocabulary. There's this thing called a feelings wheel,
and a lot of people only learned like with the

(01:16:22):
colors the primary colors, right, so red, yellow, blue, right,
And then if you mix red and yellow you get orange,
and there's more nuance and if you put more yellow,
it becomes more yellowy orange, right, And so people only
know like happy, sad, mad, but they don't know like
I felt frustrated, I felt scared, I felt vulnerable, I
felt anxious. But where did you feel the anxiety? Well,

(01:16:45):
I felt it in my belly. I felt it in
my chest right, So there's so much nuance. And for
people who don't open up, they often only have those
three primary emotions, and then they don't really know how
to describe what they're feeling. So you can mirror that
for them in that when you talk about your feelings,
like I was really afraid of that and I was

(01:17:06):
really angry, but actually, underneath the anger with my friend,
I was feeling hurt and I realized I was feeling
really hurt by her behavior and it seemed like I
was angry, but I'm feeling really neglected. And so you know,
did you ever feel that way? Have you ever felt
you know, we whatever it is, but it just like
it just becomes part of the air.

Speaker 3 (01:17:25):
It's not like, sit down, face me and tell me
how you're feeling. Open up to me.

Speaker 2 (01:17:30):
That feels like so much pressure, but it just like
it's in the air and they've never lived in that
environment before, you have to remember. So it's just this
is a new planet that they've landed on, and here's
it's like a new Let's say it's a new city,
and in this city, we speak a different language, and
we speak in the language of emotion, and they're going
to start to pick up the language bit by bit,
but they're not going to be fluent right out. So

(01:17:51):
don't say, speak French to me. It's like, oh, here's
this new language. You'll pick up a few words here
and there.

Speaker 1 (01:17:57):
That's so good. That's such a great visual and analogy.
Like if I turn up in a different city or
a different country and someone just expected me to know
how to speak that language, I would feel so much pressure.
And actually we've all experienced that. We're like, I don't
even want to try and say a sentence. I feel
I'm going to sound so stupid. It's that comfortability, and
that could take a while. This is my last question
I want to ask you today, Laurie.

Speaker 4 (01:18:19):
How long.

Speaker 1 (01:18:22):
Not abuse? Not something is extremely that? How long can
you tolerate disrespect, confusion and distance from your partner before
you feel this is enough?

Speaker 4 (01:18:36):
I can't do it anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:18:38):
I feel like every relationship goes through phases and periods
of distance, of disconnect, of disagreements. It's normal, it's going
to happen across a long period of time. But when
does an individual say, you know what, I can't do
this anymore, I can't keep tolerating this. What have you
found that makes people feel strongly about leaning in that

(01:19:00):
direction versus I can I'm in it some more.

Speaker 2 (01:19:02):
Yeah, Well, first of all, there's a study that shows
that if you think of your relationship like a bank
account and you want to have lots of goodwill in there,
let's say it's an account of good will, and you
don't want to take a lot of withdrawals. So when
we talk about disrespect, so you need five positive interactions
for everyone negative interaction or you're going to be operating

(01:19:26):
in deficit spending and it won't work. But we're talking
about maybe the confusion or somebody had a bad moment
but they repaired it. Those kinds of things. Disrespect is
so corrosive in a relationship. So if someone does it
the first time, like the cement during you say hey
that you don't tell them you are so disrespectful that

(01:19:49):
was so mean. You say, I felt really disrespected by that.
Can you tell me what you actually meant?

Speaker 4 (01:19:55):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:19:55):
And then me say, oh, I'm sorry I said it
that way. I should not have said it that way.
Here's what I meant, and it came off completely different,
and I will make sure that doesn't happen anymore. That's
the response you want, right, And here's what I was thinking,
and I need to work on that. If someone says
that wasn't you know, if you said I felt disrespected

(01:20:15):
and they said, well, it wasn't disrespectful or I didn't
intend for it to be, who say, Okay, you didn't
intend for it to be, but it felt disrespectful to me,
and let me explain more about why. And the person
still is like, well, I didn't mean it, okay, but
here's how it landed on me. That person doesn't seem
like they have a lot of flexibility. The number one
trait after emotional stability that predicts the success of two

(01:20:37):
people having a good relationship is flexibility. You cannot have
a good relationship with neuroticism, rigidity, lack of self awareness.
So if this person can't respond to you and they're
still being disrespectful, I would not wait.

Speaker 3 (01:20:52):
The question is are you being.

Speaker 2 (01:20:54):
Clear about what disrespect is? Because again then we get
to you know, someone said something that maybe was not disrespectful,
but because of your history, you hear something as being disrespectful.
You know they might have said like, oh, I don't
know if that job is worthy of you, and you

(01:21:14):
hear that is are you saying that like I have
a bad job, and you're saying no, I think your
worth is higher than your job. Right, So that person
was actually being very respectful of you and saying the
opposite of what you thought. So you have to really
be clear about can I hear this person clearly? But
if this person is critical of you, and sometimes the
way they frame it is, oh, I was just kidding.

(01:21:35):
You can't take a joke that is so abusive, so
it's not funny. Criticism is not a funny way of
making a joke. And if you have to put someone
down to be funny, then that's probably not someone you
want to be in a relationship with.

Speaker 1 (01:21:51):
Laurie, thank you so much for coming and sharing your wealth,
wisdom and depth of insight today without community, I want
to thank everyone who's been listening and watching for your
amazing question Please keep sending them through so that we
can keep getting Larry back. I think you've helped identify
so many root issues today. I feel like we've really
got to a place of talking about some of the
deepest aspects of where we go wrong at the same

(01:22:13):
time as talking about a lot of the day to
day challenges that we seem to hear about. And I
really hope that everyone who's listening and watching, I hope
this helps you in your love life to find deeper connections,
to find more meaningful relationships, and ultimately maintain a natural, healthy,
truly nourishing relationship with a partner. And wishing you all

(01:22:35):
the best in your love life.

Speaker 4 (01:22:36):
So thank you so much again, Larie for being here.

Speaker 2 (01:22:38):
Yeah, and thank you so much for having me, And
thank you to your audience for submitting so many great questions.

Speaker 4 (01:22:42):
Yeah, thanks Larry.

Speaker 1 (01:22:44):
Hey everyone, if you love that conversation, go and check
out my episode with the world's leading therapist, Lurie Gottlieb,
where she answers the biggest questions that people ask in
therapy when it comes to love, relationships, heartbreak, and data.
If you're trying to figure out that space right now.
You won't want to miss this conversation.

Speaker 2 (01:23:05):
If it's a romantic relationship, hold hands. It's really hard
to argue. It actually calms your nervous systems. Just hold
hands as you're having the conversation. It's so lovely.

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